We know that in New Zealand roughly one third of all graduates from state schools are functionally illiterate and innumerate. They cannot read supermarket shelf labels. Nor can they compare prices. We also know that on any given school day one tenth of pupils will be absent, without a conscientious reason. Truancy is systemic.

Recently we sought to interview potential candidates for a teaching position in our Christian school. These candidates were committed Christians; they were currently studying at a teacher training institution; they were zealous for their prospective careers–but they were unable to write a paragraph that was grammatically or syntactically correct. Apparently they had never learned through thirteen years of state schooling what a full-stop was, or how one was to begin a sentence. Yet, they had all graduated with “flying colours” from NCEA levels 11 through 13 in English! Sadly they were unemployable in our school.

These folk were part of another cohort of graduates from our state schools that are neither functionally illiterate nor innumerate–but they are   incompetent in even the rudiments of language and maths. This, of course, means that their ability to think, reason, encapsulate, describe, argue, and comprehend is severely curtailed. We guess that this cohort would represent another third of graduates from state schools.

Those who think that starting a new state funded programme (for example, Early Childhood Education), or shrinking classroom sizes, or raising teacher salaries, or introducing national testing will turn the tide are naive. They have not reckoned with the barrage of the secular forces arrayed against state schools.

Let’s name two of these secular forces. The first is statism–which arguably is the established religion of our day. By this we mean that for many the state or the government is the ultimate reality and force. Name any social, political, material, economic or cultural problem and within a nano-second the conversation will have become political–by which we mean that “the government needs to do something, or this, or that” will have been introduced into the conversation. Functionally our society looks to government as its god.

The spin-off effect upon state education is direct. The state’s “long term” solution to any problem is to attempt to use its schools to change human nature and action to solve society’s perceived problems. Government as redeemer translates into schools as agents of socialisation and state propaganda, not education. This is a weight which schools simply cannot bear. They both stop educating and fail miserably in socialisation.

The second secular force also has religious roots. When the West turned away from the Living God, philosophical scepticism was the inevitable long term outcome. Knowledge lost its point of integration and so fractured into thousands of pieces. Three hundred years of post-Enlightenment maturation has allowed scepticism to reap a prodigious harvest. Unbelief now understands that it can no longer talk about culture, but only multi-cultural reality. It can no longer speak of truth, but only of perspectives. Rather than knowledge, it is reduced to telling stories about the world. It can no longer speak intelligibly about mankind; rather, more “accurately” only an emerging life-form. Correspondence between what we think we know and the actual world is declared impossible. Truth is prejudice. Knowledge is opinion. Any claims for either beyond these is nothing more than adding ignorance and stubbornness and arrogance to the mix.

The end result of scepticism is pluralism. You can have as many truths as there are people or opinions. This drive to pluriformity is relentless. We have now been gravely informed by Stephen Hawking that we must no longer speak of a universe, but multiverses.

Scepticism means that education is impossible in the sense of a teacher imparting actual truth and knowledge to students. This is why state school systems are failing–and will continue to do so. In a philosophically sceptical world to attempt to teach someone can never rise beyond being an act of arrogant, presumptuous intellectual imperialism.

The only course–and this is now the current paradigm in education–is constructivism. This refers to education being made subservient to pedagogy, and a particular kind of pedagogy at that. It is a way of “teaching” where the “teacher” becomes merely a facilitator, enabling the pupil to construct their own meaning, truth, and perspectives. In this sceptical world-view–which now dominates the West–to impart knowledge is to impose and enslave; it is to do serious damage to the pupil. It impedes true enlightenment which is self-discovery and individual perspectival sovereignty. The only recourse of state education systems is to affirm everything, which is to deny nothing.

Above all, the child must be affirmed, rather than taught.

Making children feel good about themselves has been on of the main objectives of US schools during the past three decades. By the time they are seven or eight years of age, American children have internalised the prevailing psychobabble and can proclaim the importance of avoiding negative emotions and of high self-esteem. Yet this has had not perceptible impact on their school performance. Robert Whelan, ed, The Corruption of the Curriculum, (London: Civitas, 2007) p. 9

Maybe not, but the child will be well on the way to constructing their own private curriculum–and that is the whole point in a culture which is both democratic and Unbelieving. Scepticism can only mean self-discovery–whatever that might mean–not conformity to an authoritative Truth.

Western state schools cannot do aught, but fail.

Alex Standish, who has taught both in the UK and the US,  has provided a case study using geography as a subject to illustrate how scepticism has not only destroyed the subject, but has reduced it to incoherence. In his essay, “Geography Used to Be About Maps”, he shows how the modern UK curriculum now specifies that geography is about teaching students self-awareness.

[The curriculum's] emphasis upon the personal ethics of pupils is apparent in its specifications of content document: “Candidates should be encouraged to examine their own values as they analyse the values of others and to become aware of the power relations implicit in any situation and the conflicts and inequalities which may arise.” Whelan, ed., op cit., p. 34. Emphasis, ours.

Yes, geography used to be about maps. Now it is about self-examination. Scepticism’s fruit.

Standish goes on:

In post-structuralism, truth is replaced by truths and knowledge by knowledges. Thus, much of our present inherited knowledge is dismissed as only one perspective: that of a Western, white, male, middle-class elite. If knowledge can no longer be abstracted from the particular social context in which it arose, it cannot be separated from the prejudices or values of the individual who constructed it. Ibid., p.42

Scepticism has silenced the teacher. He dare not speak or teach, lest he impose his prejudices and values upon students. Rather, he must facilitate a student’s self-discovery of his own values and the values of his peers.

Every subject is being inundated by the sceptical tide. Even science. A UK recent report entitled, “Science Education in State Schools” produced, in part, to understand why science as a subject has declined in “popularity” in state schools called for a radical re-write of the science curriculum. The subject must be made explicitly to engage with the “enthusiasms and concerns” of students. Here is the clanger: “science education can only succeed when students believe that the science they are being taught is of personal worth to themselves.” (Whelan, op cit., p.120) Personalised curricula, self-discovery, values education, constructivism . . . scepticism.

“State education” is now an irrecoverable oxymoron.

Cross posted at: Contra Celsum

Part II. Plantinga’s Proposal: What should be taught in State Schools?
After drawing the above conclusion, Plantinga asks what should be taught regarding origins in state schools? He suggests two answers; the first is to teach nothing on matters of origins,

One answer is to say: in a pluralistic society like ours, there is no fair way to teach anything about origins; hence public schools ought not to teach anything on that subject. They should instead stick to subjects where there isn’t disagreement at the level of religious or comprehensive beliefs. This would be just a reflection of a more general difficulty in having public schools of our sort in a pluralistic society. Perhaps, when the citizens get together to found a system of education, what they discover is that there is too much diversity of opinion to make it feasible.[1]

The second, and perhaps more interesting answer, is to teach both evolution and creationism “conditionally,” Plantinga labels this as his “modest proposal.”[2] To explain this idea of teaching conditionally Plantinga introduces the technical notion of an epistemic base, “for each person P there is an epistemic base, EBP, with respect to which the probability or acceptability of proposed beliefs is to be evaluated.”[3] A person’s epistemic base contains at least four things. First it contains their “current beliefs;”[4] second, as “some beliefs are held more strongly than others,” it includes, “an index of degree of belief.”[5] Third, an epistemic base will include, “prescriptions as to how to conduct inquiry,” how to learn about world, revise beliefs, etc.[6] Fourth, it will include their comprehensive beliefs.[7] Plantinga emphasises that a persons epistemic base is not set in stone but revisable in light of argument.

Plantinga notes that science, as currently practiced, respects a procedure known as methodological naturalism, “the policy of avoiding hypotheses that mention or refer to God or special acts on the part of God, or other supernatural phenomena, or hypotheses whose only support is the Bible, or some other alleged divine revelation.”[8] While there is dispute over whether science should do this, as currently practised, science does involve commitment to methodological naturalism.[9] This means that science operates with a particular epistemic base; while the epistemic base of science will include things such as logic, mathematics, various common-sense beliefs, there will be certain beliefs that will not go into the epistemic base for science (EBS) at least as currently practised, “Among these would be the belief that there is such a person as God, that God has created the world, and that God has created certain forms of life specially–human beings, perhaps, or the original forms of life, or for that matter sparrows and horses.”[10]

Plantinga’s claim that evolution be taught conditionally then amounts to this: Evolution can be taught as the most probable theory relative to the current scientific epistemic base. This, he thinks, is uncontroversial and not likely to contradict anyone’s comprehensive beliefs; even a creationist, for example, can grant that, if one brackets various theological claims and operates on methodological naturalism then evolution is likely. What schools cannot do is teach that any particular epistemic base is the correct one to start from or that what follows from a particular epistemic base is true. Plantinga thinks that creationism could be taught in a similar conditional way in state schools.

Pennock’s Critique of Plantinga
Robert Pennock offers a critique of Plantinga’s position. Pennock contends that a rational person would not grant parents do not have the sort of prima facie rights Plantinga attributes to them. Instead, a rational person would advocate that evolution be taught as true and creationism or any other theological view be excluded from being taught in state schools.[11] He offers two arguments for this conclusion; the first is that,

we all know parents who are bigots or ideologues and others who are simply narrow-minded or ignorant. … A good education may be a child’s only window to a clear picture of the world and to an open future. To agree to a basic right would be to close that window. This would be a serious harm for the children of such parents.[12]

This is a bad argument; it is true that some parents are narrow minded. It is also true that some parents do not feed their children or neglect to clothe them or give them poor medical care; however, it would be grossly unjust to infer from this that no parent has even a prima facie right to clothe and feed their child or make medical decisions for them. Moreover, a parallel line of argument would entail that teachers, schools and governments cannot make education choices either. We are all familiar with teachers and government officials who are bigoted, corrupt and abuse their power. Taken consistently, Pennock’s views would entail that no one could make educational choices for children.

The second and more substantial argument is that accepting parental rights would “gut the curriculum of state schools.”[13]Pennock notes,

… there are thousands of special interests groups that would use such a right to prohibit the teaching of specific facts or even whole subjects they objected to. One does not have to look far to find parents who would object to teaching about racial equality, the facts of reproductive health, or that even that the earth is round. Only the utterly trivial could have a chance of escaping the gag of basic rights. No rational person would agree to such a policy.[14]

Pennock here suggests Plantinga’s position would prevent anything being taught at state schools and he takes this as a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that parents have the kind of rights Plantinga contends they do. Three points can be made in response to this.[15]

First, Pennock misconstrues Plantinga’s position. Plantinga’s view is that, “it is improper, unfair, to teach either creationism or evolution in the schools–that is so, at any rate for areas where a substantial proportion of the parents hold religious or comprehensive beliefs incompatible with either.” [Emphasis added][16] Consequently, it applies locally not globally. In a Native Indian reserve, for example, it would be unjust for state teaching of things that were contrary to the comprehensive beliefs of Native Indians.[17] It would not follow, however, that one could not teach these things in a school in New York, for example, where there are hardly any Native Indians who continue to believe these cultural practices.[18] Hence, the fact that almost everything is incompatible with someone’s comprehensive beliefs is irrelevant. Schools do not have to accommodate the views of everyone; they only need to accommodate the views in their area.

Second, Plantinga stresses that parental rights are prima facie rights not absolute rights; they can be overridden in certain circumstances. Interestingly Plantinga alludes to one such circumstance in the very paper Pennock critiques,

Of course a basic right is a prima facie right… The majority might also insist on teaching the denial of certain comprehensive views, Nazism, for example, in which case the fair thing to do would be to exclude the Nazis from the contract (and also exclude them from the tax liability).[19]

Here Plantinga considers the very examples Pennock raised; situations where a minority has bizarre or repugnant views which the majority feel compelled to warn their own children about and it is clear that in such situations one does not need to adopt a gag rule for all state schools. One simply establishes a state school based on the views of the majority in the area in question and grants the minority freedom to opt out of these schools and an exemption from education taxation.

Third, suppose that Pennock is correct and there is too much disagreement over comprehensive views to have a state school system and also respect the rights Plantinga attributes to parents, does it follow that we should not respect parental rights? Not at all, an alternative is to not have state schools; Plantinga notes, “Perhaps, when the citizens get together to found a system of education, what they discover is that there is too much diversity of opinion to make it feasible.”[20] An alternative could be to establish a network of private schools where parents could choose which school meets the needs of their children, basing their decisions in part on their comprehensive beliefs.[21] Some private schools could teach evolution and others could choose not to and parents could choose which ones to send their children to.

In other words, if it is true that it is impossible to have a centralised state education system and accord parents prima facie rights of the sort Plantinga suggests, then that is an argument against having a centralised state education system. It is not, as Pennock suggests, a compelling argument against parental rights.

Conclusion
I conclude then that Plantinga’s position is defensible. Regardless of whether evolution is true or empirically founded it is unjust to teach the children of parents who have theological objections to evolution that it is true. State schools which have a sizeable clientele who hold such views should teach it only conditionally or not at all. Alternatively, the government should allow these people to opt out of state education and grant them a tax rebate.

[1] Alvin Plantinga “Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal” in Robert Pennock Ed Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological and Scientific Perspectives (Cambridge, The MIT Press – Bradford Books, 2001) 787.
[2] Ibid 789.
[3] Ibid 787.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, 788.
[9] Alvin Plantinga “Methodological Naturalism?” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith49 (1997) 143-154; M Ruse “Methodological Naturalism Under Fire” South African Journal of Philosophy 24(1)(2005) 44-60.
[10] Plantinga “Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal” 788.
[11] Robert Pennock “Should Creationism Be Taught in Public Schools?” Science & Education 11(2) (2002) 111-133.
[12] Ibid 129.
[13] Ibid 128.
[14] Ibid 127.
[15] I am grateful to Alvin Plantinga for his helpful comments here.
[16] Plantinga “Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal” 786.
[17] Ibid 782.
[18] Alvin Plantinga suggested this example in correspondence
[19] Plantinga “Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal” 782.
[20] Ibid 787.
[21] Here again I am grateful to Alvin Plantinga for confirming this suggestion.

RELATED POSTS:
Evolution should not be taught in State Schools: A Defence of Plantinga Part I

Part I. The Argument against Teaching Evolution in State Schools
Arguably the most sophisticated argument against teaching evolution in state schools has been made by Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga begins by offering a couple of qualifications; first, Plantinga’s inquiry is limited to whether evolution should be taught in the state schools of countries that display significant pluralism and diversity of opinion.[1] This would include, not just Plantinga’s own country, the United States of America but also New Zealand. Second, Plantinga limits his inquiry to whether “evolution should be taught as the sober truth of the matter” [Emphasis mine][2] as opposed to “the best current scientific hypothesis, or what accords best or is most probable (epistemically probable) with respect to the appropriate scientific evidence base.”[3] Plantinga’s conclusion is that it is unjust to teach evolution in this way. His argument proceeds in three stages.

First Plantinga notes that American (and the same is true of New Zealand) society is “radically pluralistic; and here I am thinking in particular of the plurality of religious and quasi-religious views.”[4] Following John Rawls, he calls these religious and quasi-religious views “’comprehensive’ beliefs… deep ways of understanding ourselves and our world, other deep ways of interpreting ourselves and our world to ourselves.”[5]

Second, Plantinga suggests that with state schools, “It is as if we are all party to a sort of implicit contract: we recognize the need to train and educate our children, but don’t have the time or competence to do it individually. We therefore get together to hire teachers to help instruct and educate our children, and together we pay for this service by way of tax money.”[6] However, given that “[for] most citizens, these comprehensive beliefs are of enormous importance… some even thinking that one’s eternal welfare is tied up with accepting them, parents will typically want their children to be educated into what they take to be the true and correct comprehensive beliefs;”[7] This, however, raises an immediate question of fairness,

It would clearly be unfair, unjust, for the school, which we all support, to teach one set of religious beliefs as opposed to another–to teach that evangelical Christianity, for example, is the truth. This would be unfair to those citizens who are party to the contract and whose comprehensive beliefs–Judaism, naturalism, Islam, whatever–are incompatible with evangelical Christianity.[8]

From these points Plantinga argues that parents possess what he calls a basic right that, “each of the citizen’s party to the contract has the right to not have comprehensive beliefs taught to their children that contradict their own comprehensive beliefs.”[9] A basic right expresses a prima facie right not an absolute right; that is, it is a right which can be overridden by other considerations. Teaching evolution clearly violates a basic right; a significant proportion of people hold comprehensive religious views, views that contradict evolution. Hence, their rights are being violated if evolution is taught as true in state schools. It follows then, that in the absence of other considerations, teaching evolution in state schools is unjust.

The final step in Plantinga’s argument is to contend that, in the case of evolution, there are no other considerations that override this prima facie right. Commenting on a defence of the teaching of evolution made by Robert Pennock, Plantinga identifies two considerations made in favour of teaching evolution. The first is that evolutionary theory is true; the second is that it is an empirically supported theory, the best supported theory of origins in the biological sciences.

In response to the first consideration Plantinga notes that even if evolution is true, it does not follow that it is just to teach it as true in a pluralistic society.

Suppose Christianity is in fact true, as indeed I believe it is, would that mean that it is fair to teach it in public schools where most of the citizens, citizens who support those schools, are not Christians and reject Christian comprehensive beliefs? I should think not; that would clearly be unfair, and the fact that the system of beliefs in question is true would not override the unfairness.[10]

(PC) The right way to answer questions of empirical fact–for example questions about the origin of life, the age of the earth, whether human beings have evolved from earlier forms of life–is by way of science, or scientific method.[12]

Plantinga notes that PC is not an empirical or scientific claim; it is rather a claim of philosophy or epistemology. Second, PC is a claim that contradicts the comprehensive beliefs of many parents. Hence, to justify teaching evolution as true, as opposed to just the best scientific hypothesis, educators would have to go beyond the mere scientific empirical evidence and teach substantive philosophical views that contradict the comprehensive views of parents.[13]

Plantinga concludes that the considerations put forward to override the prima facie rights of parents do not override these rights, hence, “is that it is improper, unfair, to teach either creationism or evolution in the schools–that is so, at any rate for areas where a substantial proportion of the parents hold religious or comprehensive beliefs incompatible with either.”[14]

In my next post, Evolution should not be taught in State Schools: A Defence of Plantinga Part II, I will look at what should be taught in state schools and I’ll address Robert Pennock’s criticisms of the position.

[1] Alvin Plantinga “Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal” in Robert Pennock Ed Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological and Scientific Perspectives (Cambridge, The MIT Press – Bradford Books, 2001) 779.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid 780.
[5] Ibid; John Rawls Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993)
[6] Ibid, 781.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid, 780.
[10] Ibid, 784.
[11] Ibid, 779.
[12] Ibid, 786.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.

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Evolution should not be taught in State Schools: A Defence of Plantinga Part II