The continual push to teach fairy tales in school is becoming quite exhausting. It’s been the same old song and dance for years upon years, with copious demands by parents, religious leaders, and even educators making the claim that Biblical creationism (the aforementioned fairy tale) should be taught in schools alongside hard, empirical science.
At the end of the day, doing so would be intellectually irresponsible. I mean, we want a solid education for our kids, yes?
It seems, however, that another skirmish in the ongoing saga of “batshit ideas vs. educational standards” has taken place in southern Wisconsin. A teacher, having returned to class following an absence, looked down at his lesson plan and found this note from the substitute.
“Stopped here! 19. When did the greatest mass extinction of all time happen?
*This is a theory! Evolution is a theory!
Please, consider showing Creation, also, so your students are exposed to both! Thank you! [Signature redacted]”
Interestingly, the substitute teacher claims to have stopped at question 19, but question 18 asked:
“18. Why is saying evolution is ‘just a theory’ misleading?”
One would think that would be the question on which the sub stopped, right?
The story of this “editorializing for Jesus” substitute teacher first broke on Reddit by user UncleCorley, who is assumed to be the teacher. After reporting the incident to school administration, he took a picture of the sub’s creationism plea and posted it into the /r/atheism forum. When asked by Reddit user Tsingi if he was able to explain his lesson plan to the substitute, UncleCorley responded:
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t. She left before I saw the note. I will have this class tomorrow, so I’ll be able to ask the students then what exactly she said to them. I hope she saved the proselytizing for the notes to me and didn’t try to ‘teach’ creationism to my students.”
Let’s hope she didn’t go on some ridiculous evangelical rant about a topic that’s as scientifically credible as the thetan. Education is sketchy enough already.
