Printable version - In the News: What are Your Children Really Learning in School?

This item is available on the Apologetics Press Web site at: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/147 - it was originally published in Reason & Revelation, 1[1]:4-R

AP Content :: Reason & Revelation

In the News: What are Your Children Really Learning in School?

by Brad Harrub, Ph.D.

A series of recent studies by psychologist Margaret Evans shows that children not only are learning how to spell, add, and write in elementary school, but they also are learning organic evolution. The first study demonstrated that children in their middle elementary-school years (8-to 10-year-olds) were exclusively creationists, whereas the oldest children (10.5-to 12-year-olds) were almost exclusively evolutionists, with a smaller number being creationists (Evans, 2000). So at the time when most students are being introduced to the life sciences, they also are receiving a heavy dose of Darwinism. This battle over origins takes place around the time your child or grandchild enters the fifth grade, and for all practical purposes is over when he or she finishes the seventh grade—just a mere vapor of time. But the victor of the war ultimately will control your child or grandchild’s belief system for decades yet to come.

Additionally, Dr. Evans discovered that the emergence and distribution of beliefs about the “origin of species” is highly influenced by parents and school systems (Evans, 2001). During this study, children were asked questions such as “Did dinosaurs and people live on the Earth at the same time?” The study showed that 90% of students who had active parents with strong beliefs in the Creation and who attended schools that promoted similar beliefs would grow up believing that a supernatural Creator played a role in their existence. Children’s natural history and religious background predicted whether they eventually would believe in evolution.

Be proactive! Make sure that you do not wake up one morning and realize that this vapor of time has completley passed you by, only to discover that your son or daughter has been caught in the clutches of godless evolution—and has abandoned his or her faith.

REFERENCES

Evans, E. Margaret (2000), “The Emergence of Beliefs about the Origins of Species in School-Age Children,” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 46:19-52.

Evans, E. Margaret (2001), “Cognitive and Contextual Factors in the Emergence of Diverse Belief Systems: Creation versus Evolution,” Cognitive Psychology, 42:217-266.

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