Thank you, Google

Ok, so I know that there are all sorts of scary elements to Google's impending world domination, but wow am I a huge fan of Google Scholar. I've been having a hard time finding more current articles about textbook politics, and it helped me unearth this gem: The Textbook as Discourse, which contained an article called "Textbook Content and Religious Fundamentalism". It outlines the modern history of textbook activism by right-wing Christians, as founded by Mel and Norma Gabler in Texas.

The article does an admirable job of examining their concerns. A variety of specific examples from different textbooks are given to illustrate the types of concerns held by the Gablers, all of which boiled down to essentially the same point: that textbooks should not promote a "humanist" view of the world, which rather than being the separation of church and state is actually the promotion of a different religious viewpoint. I find it ironic that all of the examples they give are ethical situations with open ended possibilities that students are asked to explore, which the Gablers and their activists claim leaves children vulnerable because their "moral values are not clearly defined". They claim this undermines the authority of the family in the moral education of the child. I can understand how people could have that need for control, but I see two major problems with it: 1) it doesn't acknowledge that at some point, every person needs to determine their own morals and beliefs, and that people need to be well equipped to make that individual determination, and 2) lots and lots of kids grow up in environments where they receive nothing in the way of moral education, and schools would be negligent if they provided no development of ethical reasoning skills.