Two school systems. Does it cost more?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

Right now my oldest daughter is in the Catholic system, not on my choice but my wifes. I don't care as long as she gets a good education.
My first problem came in grade one when she came home one day and said "Daddy do you know why my eyes are brown?" I said because mine and my wifes are brown so that made hers brown, I did not want to get deep into genetics cause she was 6. She then says "nope, it is because God made them that way." I then said no it is because of the genes in your body that were created by Mom and Dad. She then said that God made everything and she is the way she is because of him. She even had handouts that said this.
Now I am not a believer in God and religion but I agreed that I would never say anything bad about God or religion to my kids cause I want them to come to their own decisions, but this made me very close to saying that this school is crap and the stuff that they are teaching my kid is crap. I was quite mad but I never let her know.
I am just waiting to see how they are going to talk their way out of this later in Bio class. After saying that God created everything and everyone, how it is genetics that affects everything.

Dude I think you need to chill out on this one.
Kids ask questions all the time that people deem the answers to which are too complex for a 6 year old and they can still figure it out when the get older.

When your daughter first asked where she came from did you say "From your mommy's tummy"

Or did you go into explicit detail about a drunken night and a lack of foresight regarding birth control (just saying that for comic effect I'm not implying your daughter was an accident)

Trust me, neither your daughter or her teachers will have any problem reconciling this when she gets old enough for bio class (unless you live in Kentucky).

[guzzy]

Originally Posted by ok, ok,....I get it

I am actually not trying to do anything.....you said if we were at war you would go.

In the broad global context it can be argued that what is happening in Afghanistan is very much threatening Canada. Allowing an evil like the Taliban to be in power would be the same as turning our back on Europe in the WW 2....not acceptable....or ignoring ignoring much or what happened in the former Yugoslavia. At what point does it affect Canada?

Why does it matter so much to you if I go to war or not?

The talibans are not threatening my existence or freedom to the level Hitler did. Until that changes I will continue to stay in Calgary with my wife and kid and my 6 figure income.

I just finished saying I support the war in Afghanistan and I am not ignoring anything.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Sparks

I understand what you're saying - evolution could have been God's plan, and so on. But some angry athiests might argue that religion is incompatible with science/rationality because it teaches that belief (in anything) without any evidence is not only acceptable, but more noble. That's obviously a tough thing to make jive with the scientific method, and teaching both at the same time might be a bit confusing.

Dude, I didn't say that and neither did any of my science teachers.
I'm my experience, and as I've said before, Religion DID not enter the science class room.

We were taught exactly the same curriculum as anyone else and there was never any mention of God's plan.

Science was taught on it's on, under it's own merits, and without any sort of qualifications from or about God.

[ok, ok,....I get it]

Originally Posted by guzzy

Why does it matter so much to you if I go to war or not?

The talibans are not threatening my existence or freedom to the level Hitler did. Until that changes I will continue to stay in Calgary with my wife and kid and my 6 figure income.

I just finished saying I support the war in Afghanistan and I am not ignoring anything.

I could care less.

The Taliban and what they represent are as much or more of a threat than the Germans were when Canada declared war. Were we really that tight with Poland?

Enjoy your six figure salary, I enjoy mine.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by guzzy

It's not what I have done but what I haven't done. I would never ask the country to change because of my beliefs. I believe that those that come here and try to change the way we have been doing things for over 100 years can all go home. If you don't like it...leave. Don't change the country for those who come here and don't agree with the way we run OUR country. They came here to change their lives for the better. Why are they trying to change our lives because they don't believe in the way we do things?

Thats a pretty narrow comment. Firstly we don't run things like we did 100 years ago, we've changed a lot since then and we will continue to change.

Countries change and do things differently because people start to view things like womens rights differently as we 'grow as a country.'

I'm curious, you stated earlier this country was founded on Christian principles, etc.. Since people like to say this without any real understanding on what that exactly means, could you cite/explain examples of what principles those were that founded our country, and how they are still 'christian values' today.

Thanks in advance.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Russic

lol, I legitimately thought you were serious. I couldn't even think of a response for a minute there.

After talking to a friend who taught a class on sex-ed in a catholic school it pretty much sealed the deal for me never letting my kids near one of those things. Sure you could educate them yourself, but I wouldn't even feel comfortable having them listen to some of that stuff. Kids would ask her about proper ways to apply a condom and she wasn't even allowed to tell them. That scares the hell out of me.

If kids were seriously asking that, then maybe the first thing they should teach them is how to read...

I doubt they were serious questions.. The kids were probably just trying to be smartasses.

[dobbles]

let me say, as an american, i very much enjoyed just reading this whole thread. it took a while, but i was bored enough to do it!

let me also say that these very same debates rage on down here every day. down here any religious schools are private. but since public schools get such a bad rap, everyone always tries to bring up vouchers and alternative schools. its really a much bigger issue, but people seem to think just because a school has a religious affiliation, that its better.

i must admit i was pretty amazed by the comments by guzzy. i think they are pretty inflammatory and unfortunately ill-informed in most instances. i find it funny that he thinks its stupid to respect a muslims right to wear a turban, but finds it offensive if we don't honor a christian's wish to have easter off of school? isn't that awfully hypocritical???

Here is something I need to go on a little bit of a limb on. but let me speak from my experience. down here in the good ole u.s., we have the bible thumpers always screaming about how america was founded as a christian nation. yet we really weren't. anyone who actually studies history can find there was a pretty small amount of people that came to america because of religious oppression. mostly people came here to get rich. i can only assume that the people that ended up north of the border were the same. i am not implying they were a bunch of atheist heathens, but that its not as romantic of past as we wish to believe. for americas independence a lot of the same innuendos exist. our founding as a country wasn't based on religious issues, it was about money. we didn't want to pay those taxes and revolted. not because king george made the colonists pray too much/little.

i just find it funny that we try to root so much in religion when it often has very little to do with why things happened. and then its funny to hear people talk about how things should stay the way they were, when they weren't always that way to begin with.

guzzy i guess if you really like to keep canada the way it was, shouldn't you be learning sioux or something?

i also do find it funny that you think hitler was more of a threat to canada than modern terrorists.

once again, i enjoyed seeing others point of views on this. thanks for all the insight into canadas educational system.

[ok, ok,....I get it]

i also do find it funny that you think hitler was more of a threat to canada than modern terrorists.

The US is a target of terrorism........no one would target Canada would they?

[dobbles]

to be totally honest, i am surprised they didn't try something major against you guys. they hit most of the countries that were sending troops in an effort to get them to bail. it worked in places like spain. so i guess you guys should feel lucky to be flying under the radar.

i am a pretty big pacifist in general but these people are crazy. i am just sad that my country chose to spend so much time fighting a false war instead of putting more effort into getting rid of the more dangerous folks.

sorry to derail things though! i will try not to take you guys off topic.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by dobbles

to be totally honest, i am surprised they didn't try something major against you guys. they hit most of the countries that were sending troops in an effort to get them to bail. it worked in places like spain. so i guess you guys should feel lucky to be flying under the radar.

i am a pretty big pacifist in general but these people are crazy. i am just sad that my country chose to spend so much time fighting a false war instead of putting more effort into getting rid of the more dangerous folks.

sorry to derail things though! i will try not to take you guys off topic.

Spain has geography working against it.

I wouldn't be surprised if something was tried on Canada and was thwarted. It's unlikely they would tell us.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by dobbles

to be totally honest, i am surprised they didn't try something major against you guys. they hit most of the countries that were sending troops in an effort to get them to bail. it worked in places like spain. so i guess you guys should feel lucky to be flying under the radar.

i am a pretty big pacifist in general but these people are crazy. i am just sad that my country chose to spend so much time fighting a false war instead of putting more effort into getting rid of the more dangerous folks.

One of the big problems is to stop calling this a war, or political ideology conflict..

Its ISLAM acting like ISLAM. Its a religious conflict, and we all know war solves those

You can't kill every single Muslim, so war is not going to be the solution. There was a 'pew poll' (or some other company in the US) that studied a large number of terrorist conflicts and how they resolved. None were ended by military actions, most of them ended with diplomacy and involving the moderates in the process which eventually alienated the more extreme elements of the terrorists.

But we avoid like the plague calling the war on terror what it truly is for a few reasons, fear of insulting Islam (you mean they can hate us more than they already do?) and our fear of offending religious people.

We're really getting off topic now though, sorry

[Thor]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Spain has geography working against it.

I wouldn't be surprised if something was tried on Canada and was thwarted. It's unlikely they would tell us.

There was that group of Muslims in Ontario who were arrested, had plotted an attack on Ottawa I believe.

[dobbles]

good points guys. i would offer my counter thoughts but don't want to derail more than i have.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

If kids were seriously asking that, then maybe the first thing they should teach them is how to read...

I doubt they were serious questions.. The kids were probably just trying to be smartasses.

Actually it's kind of an important thing. If you don't know to keep the air bubbles out you can get a break pretty easily. To top it off things like proper storage and the observing of expiration dates can be critical to making sure they are used effectively.

Even if they were being smart-asses, information such as that needs to be taught to kids imo. Half the time if somebody is asking a question to be a smart-ass, there are a handful of kids who are curious to hear the answer.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Thor

There was that group of Muslims in Ontario who were arrested, had plotted an attack on Ottawa I believe.

And from what I recall, those guys weren't al Qaeda operatives. They were just a bunch of nimrods.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

And from what I recall, those guys weren't al Qaeda operatives. They were just a bunch of nimrods.

True, but the war on terror isn't Al Qaeda vs the west, its Islam vs the west. They might be nimrods, but if they actually carried out an attack it becomes deadly serious.

They did put a lot of planning into the attack, fortunately they were not the brightest

[Superflyer]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Dude I think you need to chill out on this one.
Kids ask questions all the time that people deem the answers to which are too complex for a 6 year old and they can still figure it out when the get older.

When your daughter first asked where she came from did you say "From your mommy's tummy"

Or did you go into explicit detail about a drunken night and a lack of foresight regarding birth control (just saying that for comic effect I'm not implying your daughter was an accident)

Trust me, neither your daughter or her teachers will have any problem reconciling this when she gets old enough for bio class (unless you live in Kentucky).

It is not that I think this was over their heads and the teacher took the easy way out, it is that if you are in school you should get the correct answers. I mean she had a handout that said this so it is not something that was just said in passing to shut her up.
If a school does not want to teach why hair and eyes are a specific color then they should leave it alone until they are ready to teach the proper answers, that is what got me. Why not just waste the whole year teaching stuff that is wrong if they are just going to learn the proper way in a few years?

[GGG]

Well I think both the school boards in Calgary must suck compared to US schools. In the US No Child is Left Behind.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

It is not that I think this was over their heads and the teacher took the easy way out, it is that if you are in school you should get the correct answers. I mean she had a handout that said this so it is not something that was just said in passing to shut her up.
If a school does not want to teach why hair and eyes are a specific color then they should leave it alone until they are ready to teach the proper answers, that is what got me. Why not just waste the whole year teaching stuff that is wrong if they are just going to learn the proper way in a few years?

Well they do that alot....once i got into university science, the biggest thing i learnt was they "watered" down a lot of concepts in primary school...

[bcb]

Originally Posted by GGG

Well I think both the school boards in Calgary must suck compared to US schools. In the US No Child is Left Behind.

That's a joke, right?

But if it's not, tell me, would you rather your child educated in the Calgary Board of Education or the Chicago Board of Education?