welcome to the cultural revolution (aka what the FUCK is wrong with the florida legislature?)

This is so completely...what's the word...OTMFM. Teaching people how to think rather than what to think -- how to approach the world critically, how to recognize received wisdom and subject it to the same scrutiny as brand-new information, how to deal with "information" period, in all its forms.

For what it's worth, my mom's a middle-school science teacher at a small, mostly progressive private school, and she has one creationist student in her class this year. After some tactful discussions with the parents, sympathizing with their right to believe whatever they want, she told them their daughter was just going to have to deal with discussion of evolution because that was a core part of the subject matter. Mom even kind of pushed it with a multiple choice test in which students had to select the right definition of "evolution." The girl circled the right answer, and then wrote next to it in big letters, "STUPID!" But at least she got it right.

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/plannine/plannine7.jpg

"Y'see?! Y'see?! STUPID!"