Newark Star-Ledger | Ken Thorbourne :
“Junior Matthew LaClair, 16, said history teacher David Paszkiewicz, who is also a Baptist preacher in town, spent the first week of class lecturing students more about heaven and hell than the colonies and the Constitution. LaClair said Paszkiewicz told students that if they didn't accept Jesus, 'you belong in hell.' He also dismissed as unscientific the theories of evolution and the 'Big Bang.'”
OK, this story has nothing to do with Texas, but I had to read it twice to make sure of that. It sounds like something out of Texas, maybe even the kind of teaching the Texas State Board of Education might want to promote. After all, our Governor, Rick Perry, attended a church service the Sunday before the recent election at which the minister damned non-Christians straight to hell. Later, Governor Perry admitted that this is his own belief as well. And the Republican Party platform pledges the party to "to exert its influence to ... dispel the 'myth' of the separation of church and state."
So, I'm not really surprised that such teaching occurs in our public schools, even New Jersey. I'm not even surprised that this Baptist minister/teacher at first denied proselytizing in class. The news here is that the student had the voice recordings to back up the complaint. Until then, this was just another case of the students' word against the teacher's. Without such strong evidence, teachers deserve some benefit of the doubt in most cases like that.
The bad news here is the likelihood that many more such cases are not brought to light. The good news here is that advances in technology (cheap voice recorders, camera phones, etc.) mean that it's becoming harder to suppress wrongdoing. Sadly, one likely outcome of a story like this will be crackdowns on students carrying electronic devices to class. :-(
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