"Parents battle over free Bibles for students in Frisco public schools"

[Strong Atheist]

IMAO, this stuff should be kept out of public schools. At the best, it is a security hazard (in more ways than one); at the worst, it can start ANOTHER competition (should satanists be allowed to pass out THEIR literature? You know it will be challenged...). Heck, our school system does not let anyone into the building unless they have been buzzed in by the office. Keep the propaganda at church...


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051609dnmetfriscobibleswffa_hp.bb185f4.html

[MineralMan]

1. I agree that religious books should not be distributed in

schools. However, if the Gideons are allowed to distribute their Bible, then every other religious organization should step up and insist that their literature be equally distributed. That would end the practice instantly.

The Bible-bangers would be in absolute shock if the Koran and the Baghavad-Gita were distributed alonside their Bible. They would do anything to prevent it.

So, the thing is easily settled. Let the Gideons put their Bibles out, and get every other religious organization to insist on equal space. How could that be argued against?

End of story.

[Strong Atheist]

2. Agreed. nt.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. The public schools will do just about anything to stop that kind of *dueling* messages

I tend to be for them since it adds to the discussion and makes things more lively. T-shirt wars are the best...gay pride, straight pride, scottish pride...that kind of thing

[MineralMan]

6. Yah, I like controversy, too, but there's little enough education

going on at school already, so maybe keeping it out of schools is a good idea.

As my 16-year-old second cousin -- once removed would write:

"i h8 that"

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. There is way too strong an orthodoxy mindset in public schools

My daughter challenged some bits of European history (the joy of having lived there) and you would have thought she called the teacher something nasty. My wife as an expert in that field rolled in on the dispute. The teacher was very defensive about how the approved curriculum was right and any other viewpoint was heresy. Department chair was little better. Unfortunately we saw it in the sciences as well as liberal arts.

What they cling to changes over time, but the mindset seems to remain the same.

[MineralMan]

12. That's a different issue, I think.

I'm talking about stuff that has no educational value at all, like distributing religious literature or wearing inflammatory clothing. That sort of thing.

I encourage people to challenge their teachers. I did that a lot back in the ancient days when I was in school. I spent a lot of time in the hallway en route to the principal's office for that, but was undeterred.

OTOH, I never (well, almost never) did things that were disruptive outside of the curriculum. I was taught to question almost everything. So, I did.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. I see them as part of a continum of increased strictures which in a few cases resembled facism

for our daughters. Some so called educators get really upset when you do not toe their line.

[MineralMan]

15. Well, you're certainly right, in some ways.

When it comes down to the individual...your daughters...for example, you're encouraging them in just the right way. Education has always been an individual exercize. Our schools are mediocre, and will probably so remain.

You encourage your daughters, and they learn. My parents encouraged me, and I learned...despite the lowest common denominator attitude of the schools, even back in the early 1960s when I attended.

It's always up to the parents and the individual student, it seems to me, in a school system which must take all comers and attempt to stuff them full of what passes for "knowledge." The most problematic and difficult to educate get the attention. Thus has it always been, more or less, except for those few teachers we can remember, who challenged us before turning back to attempt to educate the ignoranti. Then there were our parents, who encouraged and challenged and did what they could to teach us to self-educate.

Nothing much has changed out there. And keeping some sort of order is still important. The t-shirts with disruptive words on them and the racial stuff and the bullying still detract from the mission and must be coped with.

Good parents make good students, though, and will continue to do so.

[Jokerman]

3. Keep them off of school property.

"The Gideons once handed out their Bibles along a public sidewalk in Frisco, but after too many parent complaints to the police department and the school, the district decided to move things inside. School officials said it's the only way to control the situation."

How much you wanna bet that the "complaints" excuse is pure bull. They are inside because the school administration wanted them there.

The gideons show up at our schools from time to time but they have to stay outside of school property and it doesn't cause any problems.

They handed me one of their mini-bibles once. I took it like I didn't know what it was and immediately dropped it like it was hot. I left it there on the pavement and walked away shaking my hand as if I had been burnt.

[Strong Atheist]

4. "Keep them off school property" - that is what our school system

does...

[centristgrandpa]

7. him for Davis, what a joke....

At the rate R-No the terminator is closing schools, this should be a short live problem for them GOD thumpers...

[Strong Atheist]

8. Frisco, texas. nt.

[centristgrandpa]

9. my bad...

oops...still hate r-no....

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. Are there any Gideons in San Francisco? Its reallly not their kind of town

[MineralMan]

13. Oh...they're everywhere, they are.

Yes, indeed. And their Bible is the rather worthless Revised King James version, too. Bowdlerized, more like.

[Book Lover]

16. We let everyone into San Francisco, friend

free country and all... We're not as intolerant as so many would like to think.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. I never implied otherwise...my question is would any Gideons chose to live there

Regardless you really need to knock off the anti gun claptrap that emanates from there with some regularity