Health Class for Jesus

9th December 2007

posted in Education, Religion, Society by themaiden |

A teacher in North Dakota ran a video in health class about “some kid who dies and writes a letter to his friend before he is sent to Hell bitching about how his friend didn’t expose him to Jesus before he died. The teacher’s reason? It was to show the dangers of drunk driving.”

CapoKT picked up the story and ran with it, focusing mostly on religiously blinded comments of some of the people responding to that article. It is a good read. I won’t steal the thunder.

I will say that CapoKT strikes me as being a wee bit too kind to that teacher: “I want to believe that the teacher’s actions weren’t due to wanton desires to proselytize, but that the person really is an idiot and didn’t watch the movie beforehand. Having stupid teachers is a statistical probability.” Well, maybe, but that video came from GodTube.com. You’d have to be very, very stupid to miss the connection to religion.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 8:22 am and is filed under Education, Religion, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On December 9th, 2007, the chaplain said:

I understand why the extremists of the Religious Right don’t see anything wrong with what this teacher did. What really infuriates me is the moderate and liberal Christians who don’t speak out. Don’t they realize that, if the RR has its way, their rights will be jeopardized too?

2 On December 9th, 2007, themaiden said:

chaplain,

Honestly, I don’t think they really realize it. It is all the same God, right? Christians wouldn’t kill Christians or anything. I mean, no Christian has ever died for heresy at the hands of another Christian. That just doesn’t happen.

3 On December 9th, 2007, ohwilleke said:

The fact that it was in health class is notable. Health is the closest the modern school curriculum comes to political education. The approved curriculum isn’t religious, but it is often taught by P.E. teachers or by specialist health teachers, in either case, the teachers in the school who are often least connected to academic values as opposed to mere indoctrination.

It isn’t surprising that someone with a zeal to teach the class that tries to convice kids not to have sex would also bring God into the discussion.

4 On December 9th, 2007, CapoKT said:

Thanks for the nod.

5 On December 10th, 2007, themaiden said:

ohwilleke,

I share your sentiments about health class instructors and I share your lack of surprise.

6 On February 8th, 2008, Evidence of The Resurrection said:

Our country started out with God in the education system. This teacher may have been out of place by today’s standards in her choice of subject matter for her health class. But overall I believe our education system goes overboard on trying to keep all mention of God out of the classroom. — Pat

7 On February 9th, 2008, themaiden said:

Pat (Evidence for the Resurrection),

In a lot of ways it is really pretty meaningless to base an argument on ‘what we used to do’. We used to do a lot of things that we no longer find conscionable.