Already this year, we\u2019ve seen a lot of evil: suicide bombings, the attacks in Paris, religious persecution, Boko Haram and ISIS. These have all outraged the world \u2014 and rightly so. But here\u2019s a question worth pondering: Will our kids be able to recognize evil when they see it? Do they even believe in moral facts?<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s the question one educator asked recently in The New York Times after making a surprising discovery about what his child was learning in school.<\/p>\n
Justin McBrayer, an associate professor of ethics at Fort Lewis College, says he couldn\u2019t figure out why the high school graduates showing up in his classroom had no concept of moral truth. The overwhelming majority of freshmen, he says, \u201cview[ed] moral claims as mere opinions that are not true,\u201d or are true only in a relative sense.<\/p>\n
McBrayer was puzzled about this until he visited a school open house with his second-grade son. It was there that he encountered a pair of signs hanging prominently in the classroom. The first read, \u201cFact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.\u201d The next one said, \u201cOpinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Startled by this oversimplification, McBrayer was sure it must be a fluke. So he went home and Googled \u201cfact vs. opinion.\u201d And sure enough, he found lesson plans from educators around the country that alarmed him.<\/p>\n
\u201c … students are taught that claims are either facts or opinions,\u201d McBrayer writes. \u201cThey are given quizzes in which they must sort out claims into one camp or the other but not both.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem with this, he explains, is that many claims don\u2019t fit nicely into either category. Many claims are both facts and opinions, because opinions, of course, can be true or false. And he decided to test whether his son understood this.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that George Washington was the first president,\u201d he said to him. \u201cIs that a fact or an opinion?\u201d And the second-grader\u2019s blank expression when the statement didn\u2019t fit his categories, McBrayer writes, said it all.<\/p>\n
But it gets even worse. A little digging reveals that public schools today teach, as a matter of course, that all value claims are opinions, not facts. One grade-school worksheet, for example, categorized the statements \u201ccopying homework is wrong,\u201d \u201ccursing in school is inappropriate,\u201d and \u201call men are created equal,\u201d as opinions \u2014 not facts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is repeated ad nauseum ,\u201d McBrayer writes. \u201c[A]ny claim with good or right or wrong, etc. is not a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if value statements are always opinions, why should anyone believe them? For that matter, why should kids believe a teacher who tells them that hitting is wrong? Or a college ethics professor who tells them murder is wrong?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a problem that\u2019s not restricted to second-grade classrooms. As Jamie Condliff writes at Gizmodo, researchers at Google have reportedly pioneered a new algorithm that ranks Web pages by how well their claims stack up against a library of established so-called \u201cfacts.\u201d That library, known as Google\u2019s \u201cKnowledge Vault,\u201d is programmed to sort claims into facts and opinions \u2014 just like McBrayer\u2019s son.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf web pages contain information that contradicts the Vault,\u201d writes Condliff, \u201cthey slide down in the ranking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike Common Core standards, Google\u2019s system hasn\u2019t been implemented yet. But if it is, our world\u2019s most sought after source of information will be silencing dissent on controversial topics, like origins, climate change, and sexuality.<\/p>\n
Now we need to know all of this not so we can panic, but so that we can counteract the false dichotomy so many of our kids are learning. There are moral facts.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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