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Skiatook, Oklahoma HS pulls 'World History' 'research paper' on 'How did the World Start?' after Osage family protests Christianity-skewed content

Offline4Better.

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There are implicit, theistic assumptions in other question as well. The first four essentially work backwards from Christian beliefs/doctrines.

Q1 uses "started" and Q2 uses "who started it". Both imply agency. If you were actually interested in getting a fair answer, the first question would use a neutral/passive voice, like "How old is the earth?" or "What is the age of the world?". Q2 would be omitted altogether. Q3 and Q4 both assume that evil is a thing that could or could not exist, rather than treating it as a conceptual and descriptive label.

Further, Q8 probably doesn't belong in a History curriculum. You could squeak it into Social Studies or something similar, but probably only under a comparative religion topic area.

Having once been a history teacher and tutor, there's no way these questions weren't ideologically motivated and intended to draw students into a particular set of answers. If I was attempting to be impartial and really wanted to include Christianity in the lesson, I'd reframe the questions like this:

1. What is a religion? In your answer, include examples of the world's largest religions and their main beliefs.
2. What are some Christian beliefs about the origin and age of the world? Compare and contrast those with the beliefs of other major religions.
3. What do Christian believe about morality? In your answer, outline Christian conceptions of God, Satan and stances on the existence of good and evil.
I do like how you would reframe the questions to make them less biased. You make great points, so maybe the teacher was a bit biased. If he reworded the questions, then there would probably be no complaints from the parent(s).
 
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Laodicean60

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I don't accept indoctrination in the school's right and left views. I need to hear Erich Richter's explanation of his lesson plan or the reasons for these topics. From what I see of the topics for their research paper, only one subject is to be written about so the students could easily avoid the God questions. The key is how he grades the papers, a student could write #9 and give their reason God isn't real.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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From what I see of the topics for their research paper, only one subject is to be written about so the students could easily avoid the God questions.
If it was a "pick one" question, then I would expect the prompt to say "Answer one of the following questions" rather than "Answer the following question," so I don't think that you can make a definitive pronouncement either way about the intent. However, the way that each of those questions are linked and follow from each other suggests that he wants all of them answered. Either way, he doesn't seem to have a good command of the English language.

Furthermore, only two of the individual questions can be related to World History ("How did the world start?" and "What is Christianity?"). Maybe "What is religion?" The rest are better suited to religion or philosophy classes.

Personally, I think it's a bit disingenuous to pretend that you don't know what he was trying to do here - it's blatantly obvious.
 
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Laodicean60

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If it was a "pick one" question, then I would expect the prompt to say "Answer one of the following questions" rather than "Answer the following question," so I don't think that you can make a definitive pronouncement either way about the intent.
All I could do was read the text and not jump to assumptions; "question" wasn't plural. Definitive, no that's why I need to hear the teacher. Took me one semester (maybe ADD or old) to write one research paper and if schools are making them write 10, it would be ridiculous and the papers' would be poor quilty. If it was me writing 10 papers, I'd be the plagiarizing king.
 
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essentialsaltes

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Offline4Better.

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Would you do so if (for example) a Sikh prayer was used in a civic meeting?
Ooh, is this a reference to that post I made about the Sikh prayer at the RNC over a month ago, and how I thought a Sikh prayer was not supposed to be there? I do apologize for that, and I am sorry for demonizing another's religion.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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All I could do was read the text and not jump to assumptions; "question" wasn't plural. Definitive, no that's why I need to hear the teacher. Took me one semester (maybe ADD or old) to write one research paper and if schools are making them write 10, it would be ridiculous and the papers' would be poor quilty. If it was me writing 10 papers, I'd be the plagiarizing king.
It could easily be one paper addressing all of those questions - they're related concepts.
 
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Larniavc

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I’m sure this is persecution against Christians somehow.
If students cannot be inculcated into Christianity during an English class lead by a football coach guilty of fraud how can it NOT be persecution?
 

Laodicean60

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It could easily be one paper addressing all of those questions - they're related concepts.
I still need to hear what the teacher says, a video would be better. If he grades neutral on content and is concerned with the APA formatting, but these are my assumptions.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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I still need to hear what the teacher says, a video would be better. If he grades neutral on content and is concerned with the APA formatting, but these are my assumptions.
In order to write this paper in a way that is not parroting a fundamentalist Christian worldview, a student would have to go well beyond the bounds of "world history." It would require an understanding of geology, chemistry, philosophy, ethics, comparative religions, and theology.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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That would also be true for a student answering in the 'right' 'Christian' way.
True - my point was that writing it from a fundamentalist Christian perspective would be comparatively simple. The student would just have to parrot what they learned in Sunday School.
 
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Bradskii

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In order to write this paper in a way that is not parroting a fundamentalist Christian worldview, a student would have to go well beyond the bounds of "world history." It would require an understanding of geology, chemistry, philosophy, ethics, comparative religions, and theology.
It's actually a lot of homework if they had to answer all ten. You could easily spend an hour on each just to put out a couple of hundred words.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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It's actually a lot of homework if they had to answer all ten. You could easily spend an hour on each just to put out a couple of hundred words.
That's the trouble with open-ended philosophical questions - each of those could be a book in its own right.
 
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