Romania's withdrawal of the theory of evolution from the school curriculum could be evidence of a growing conservative tendency in teaching. Evolution has been removed from the school curriculum in a move which, pressure groups argue, distorts children's understanding of how the world came into being.



...



The theory of the Origin of Species and the evolution of humans is no longer present in the compulsory curriculum, through a nationwide decision made under the previous Government in 2006. Before the change, Darwin's theory was taught to pupils aged 18 or 19 years old. This was also in the curriculum during the Communist period of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.



Information on natural selection, how fish turned into lizards and, more or less, a summary of the first 4.5 billion years of the world until man walked the earth is now optional.

At present, children are taught religious classes from ages seven to 18. This is mostly an Orthodox curriculum. They are also taught that to sleep in on Sunday mornings is bad because children should be going to church.



"It's not being taught about religion and what it means," said one headmistress. If a parent wants their child not to attend the classes, because they are, for example, Jewish, Muslim or agnostic, he or she has to draft a letter to the school. The child then sits in a library or the head teacher's office working on, say, maths or languages.



But there are new proposals to make all religious classes compulsory for the education system, regardless of the parents' wishes. All children who do not want to attend Religion classes would attend a Moral and Religious Education class. But there is no one qualified to teach Moral and Religious Education. Some teachers fear that the classes will, with minor additions, be the same Orthodox curriculum dictated by a religious studies teacher to a single Jew, Muslim or Humanist in a library or staff room.

brave

* aka barking madness.

A heroic commenter debunks this story. See here for the full scoop. Speaking personally I am slightly embarrassed I didn't figure this out on my own, and considerably amused that the Conservapeons haven't figured it out yet, either.For those who don't routinely follow the news from comparatively obscure eastern European nations, I have learned recently that Romania has decided to remove the teaching of evolution from its science curriculum:Those who have even a passing familiarity with science realize that this is an enormous step backwards. Those of us who are familiar with the "debate" between evolution and creationsim,* however, realize what the driving force behind the change is. Hint: it's not the educational interests of the children.So, to sum up, evolution has been removed entirely from the schools and biology instruction reduced. At the same time, however, students take classes in religion for eleven years and these classes may soon be mandatory. Brilliant. As you might guess, the usual crew of raving idiots are all sorts of excited by this development. Hell, you should see how they defend the mandatory religious education part. Perhaps with a few decades of this type of education, Romanians will start to think that this is a good depiction of evolutionary theory and its potential rebuttal:Welcome to aignorant new future.A heroic commenter debunks this story. See here for the full scoop. Speaking personally I am slightly embarrassed I didn't figure this out on my own, and considerably amused that the Conservapeons haven't figured it out yet, either.

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