Category: Teachers/Educators

How To Tell Your Family You Are An Atheist

Posted on by John MacDonald

New article from TIME:

  • Studies from the Pew Research Center have highlighted a “rapidly growing” group dubbed the “nones,” because they don’t identify with a religion. Largely made up of young people who were raised in a faith but later left it, the “nones” are changing how religion is seen in the U.S. And while not every single “none” is an atheist, it’s clear that the younger generations are disregarding religion at rates never seen before, and that more Americans than ever are going to have to inform their families that they don’t share their faith. With a stigma against atheists that often paints us as Satan worshipers or even worse, that task can be daunting for some non-believers.

See full article here: https://time.com/6128721/tell-your-family-you-are-an-atheist/

Girls Protesting The Hijab

Posted on by John MacDonald

On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances, due to police brutality according to witnesses.

The Guidance Patrol, the morality police of Iran’s Law Enforcement Command, arrested Amini for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. Eyewitnesses, including women who were detained with Amini, said she was severely beaten. These assertions, in addition to leaked medical scans,led independent observers to believe Amini had had a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke.

Amini’s death resulted in a series of large-scale protests across the country which garnered international attention, including a statement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, putting a focus on violence against women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Wiki)

Is It Important To Be Able To Explain Your Thinking?

Posted on by John MacDonald

You know, for instance, in math, you should be able to explain your thinking. So, it’s not enough to “know” 3X2=6, but you need to illustrate it, perhaps with manipulatives: you make groups of three with blocks, select two of those groups, and you get six total things.

Is it a problem that this child preacher can quote the bible but can’t explain what it means in his own words?

It’s amazing how often people can have a lot of knowledge/information about a topic without being wise about the topic. The ancient Greeks said philosophy is the love of wisdom.

Grooming Minds: Indoctrination vs Argumentation

Posted on by John MacDonald
  • “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” (Aristotle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO6Yw5WiUYI
Has this above child been brainwashed into conservative fundamentalist Christianity?

Is difference between this above child and the more mild cases of religious upbringing of children we see  one of degree, or of kind.  Picture a child who is not vocal like this one, but holds similar or more mild conservative Christian views.

Here is a helpful analogy video on religious child grooming: inundating a child with just one kind of religion, excluding others and secularism:

How do the thought experiment analogies in the video above help us see religious upbringing in a different light?

BONUS: Thinking about logic and humor – have you ever noticed the connection between logical errors and humor?  Picture a reductio ad absurdum: a method of proving the falsity of a premise by showing that its logical consequence is absurd or contradictory. So: “The Earth cannot be flat; otherwise, we would find people falling off the edge.”  That people are not falling off the edge makes Flat Earth proponents false/wrong, seem silly, which is to say hilarious!  Question: Is the video of the conservative Christian preacher child above in the first video (i) not something we should care about, (ii) horrific, (iii) hilarious, or (iv) profoundly true?

Talking to Kids About Morality Without God

Posted on by John MacDonald

One thing you sometimes hear is that without God there could be no objective morality (the oughts), because if moral rules/principles don’t get their authority from God, where could their authority come from?

Of course, this way of thinking is wrong. Children from a very young age understand what being a “friend” means without God having anything to do with the knowledge. So, kids can extrapolate from this understanding of friendship principles like “you’re being a better friend if you play the game your friend wants to play than if you selfishly demand to play your favorite game” or “you are being a bad friend if you steal your friend’s toy car.”

Another important point here is that the key elements of morality such as altruism are present widely in the animal kingdom, and so aren’t simply implanted in humans as the unique and special pinnacle of God’s creation. One article on this topic makes such points as:

  • “Since altruism, empathy, and gratitude all underpin moral behavior, finding them in our fellow mammals suggests that they run deep in our brain biology and did not come about because of moral reasoning or religion. In fact, probably the opposite is true—religion developed because of our innate capacities for caring.“

  • “[I]n our attempts to study our animal brethren and avoid anthropomorphizing them we sometimes miss their very real similarities to us. According to the scientists Morell interviews, birds are capable of complex communication, elephants have long memories and strong social networks, and dolphins will act altruistically. These scientists are convinced that many higher order cognitive abilities are not limited to humans, and that we only need look a bit further to discover them in animals.“

see: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/morality_animals

ARTICLE: Finding Morality in Animals
Two new books explore research on animals to better understand the roots of human morality and challenge human specialness.

Treat Your Kids Like the Little Philosophers They Are

Posted on by John MacDonald

Great new article suggesting to treat kids like philosophers:

https://time.com/6177632/parenting-kids-how-to-raise/

Here’s an excerpt:

I hope the kids continue to have those sorts of conversations. I want them to think deeply about the world, to ponder big ideas, like truth, justice, and God. But the research suggests that those conversations are likely to trail off as they age. Little kids (age 3-8) often raise philosophical questions on their own (“Why does the world exist?” “What is it like to be dead?” “Am I dreaming my entire life?”). They’re puzzled by the world—and they’re trying to puzzle it out.

But as they age, kids start to worry about what others think of them. They don’t want to seem silly or risk being wrong. And they notice that the adults in their lives don’t discuss questions like, “Why does the world exist?” or “Am I dreaming my entire life?” Over time, they lose some of their curiosity and courage as thinkers.

I think that’s a shame. The world could use more deep and discerning thinkers. We’re flooded with disinformation, and too many people are too easily duped by it. Our society values hot takes and tweets more than sustained thought.

The good news is: we can push back on that. If we support our kids’ philosophical adventures, they’re more likely to continue them. In fact, we can raise philosophers.

CHECK IT OUT!

Inquiry Questions and Metacognition

Posted on by John MacDonald

One of the most important goals of teaching is fostering “Metacognition,” making implicit student thinking processes explicit for the students. One approach to this is teaching Inquiry Questions. All student work is going to be an answer to questions, and so getting students to become aware of the questions they are answering helps to create cohesion and meaningfulness to their learning. Here are two examples:

(1) This essay is called “The Justified Lie By The Johannine Jesus In Its Greco-Roman-Jewish Context.” The Inquiry Questions it is answering are: (i) Does the Gospel of John portray Jesus as lying? (ii) If so, why would the writer portray such a thing? See: https://infidels.org/library/modern/john-macdonald-justified-lie/

(2) This essay is called “A Critique of the Penal Substitution Interpretation of the Cross of Christ.” The Inquiry Questions it is answering are: Our oldest faith statement of the cross is from the Corinthian creed/poetry Paul quotes that “Christ Died For Our Sins.” Does this mean Christ died (i) to pay our sin debt, or (ii) to make our hidden sin nature conspicuous to inspire transformation and repentance? See: https://infidels.org/library/modern/a-critique-of-the-penal-substitution-interpretation-of-the-cross-of-christ/

In the above cases, seeing how student writing not only has a specific form (eg recount, report, narrative, etc), but also has an unfolding thesis, theme, etc, and blossoms forth in the context of inquiry questions, students not only find greater purpose in their work, but also become better thinkers as their cognitive strategies and approaches go from implicit to explicit.