History Teacher is Proselytizing

[BeHereNow]

Seventil replied to my post.

I quoted a news story:

Here is the rest of the story:
a schoolteacher, Stephen Williams of Mountain View, California, was passing out supplementary literature along with copies of the Declaration of Independence. As evidenced in Case Number C 04 4946 Williams vs. Vidmar, the supplementary materials included:
• A letter from George W. Bush proclaiming the National Day of Prayer - e.g. - "Prayer is an opportunity to praise God for His mighty works, His gift of freedom, His mercy, and His boundless love...According to Scripture, 'the Lord is near to all who call upon Him...He also will hear their cry, and save them.'"
• A two page list of Religious Clauses in State Constitutions - e.g. - Georgia - Article VI (1977) "The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county...and they shall be of the Protestant religion..."
• A list of quotes titled "What Great Leaders Have Said About the Bible" - e.g. - George Washington...It is impossible to rightly govern the world without the Bible. and Jesus Christ...It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
• Excerpts from George Washington's Prayer Journal - e.g. - Sunday Evening O most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful and loving father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt...
• Excerpts from John Adams' Diary - e.g. - The Christian religion is above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity, let the blackguard Paine say what he will; it is resignation to God, it is goodness itself to man.
• A fact sheet titled, "Currency & Coins - History of 'In God We Trust'" –

BeHereNow comments: Clearly the teacher was promoting Protestant Christianity. This is inappropriate.

seventil replies: The teacher was promiting protestant Christianity?
And for the science teacher that says Darwin believed in evolution?

Evolution is a scientific theory.
In the History of Christianity every time the church has locked horns with science or its predecessors, it has been wrong and lost. I challenge you to name one time The Church had it right and science had it wrong. Surely you are aware of the church’s history on these matters and there should be no need to list all of them.
In Biblical times some of the most important human discoveries that ever occurred, yet are never mentioned in the Bible.
If the Bible has a stake in science, why does it never mention such things as control of fire, invention of the wheel, use and discovery of tools?
Why are the natural science references so vague. So vague that over the centuries the church has slowly changed its interpretation of the Old Testment to conform to science. Always in the beginning the church cries heresy, but in the end concedes.

Or for the history teacher who said the egyptian pharoahs believed in Ra?

This is taught as history, not spiritual truth. This teacher presented Christianity as spiritual truth. No history teacher presents Ra as spiritual truth. Can't you see the difference?

And the archaeologist who teaches that the old kings of Greece worshipped their Greek Gods? And the Norse theirs? And the Romans theirs?

Mythology, history, not spiritual truth!

But since when did mentioning the beliefs of our past leaders have anything to do with religious converting?

This is proselytizing, clear and simple. Not simply for Christianity, but for Protestantism. Only certain Christians are worthy to hold public office. You don’t think this is proselytizing?

Please explain, because I'm baffled at your logic here.

I’m the one that is baffled. We need to discuss this.

It can be considered a Christian nation, because the majority of the people believe in Christianity.

Agreed. I liked your phrase “can be consider”. This has a much different meaning that “it is a”.
I will accept your statement if you will accept mine:
“And it can equally be considered a Deist nation because the founding fathers were primarily Deists.”
If I need to prove this to you I will. Other here have done it better than I can, but I will not shy away from a challenge.

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A special thanks to hannahjoy for pointing out a major spelling error which I was able to correct.

[BeHereNow]

It is clear you disagree with me, but I sure don’t understand why.

BHN: We should be able to agree the teacher was circulating, and endorsing propaganda.
Propaganda is meant to sway opinion, to convince another line of thought is superior.

AS: Nope can't agree because he isn't reread your own definition and then reread what the man actually did

I certainly didn’t offer a definition of propaganda.

I did mention the intended purpose of propaganda, but this is certainly not a definition. It would be as if I mentioned “tractor” and said “it is meant to do field work around a farm”. This is true, but hardly a definition, as you have no idea what the thing looks like or how it operates. You wouldn’t be able to identify one if you saw it, unless you already know what one looks like.

I thought we had a common understanding about the meaning of propaganda. It appears I was mistaken.
We need to get that cleared before I can understand your objections.

I am defending my position, so it should speeds things up if we use your definition of propaganda. I don’t expect a problem, but one never knows. We really need to know how the word works in this particular event, so let me get things started.

Now you might agree that the material was propaganda, but believe that the teacher did not use it for its intended purpose (to sway opinion, to convince another line of thought is superior).

Or you may say that this material was not capable of being propaganda because it lacked certain key elements. If this is true I am interested in knowing what these key elements are, as they may be in to other documents he circulated.
What types of things must you see in propaganda that you did not see here?

You might also say the material itself might be propaganda in some instances, but not in other instances. In other words, the use determines if some documents are propaganda or not. This might get complicated. I would wonder what it is about the use that makes otherwise innocuous material, propaganda. If I examined the use of the documents, what types of things would I be looking for to make a determination?

I would think one of these three would describe your position, but let me know if I missed something.

[Andrew Sutton]

bhn I thought we had a common understanding about the meaning of propaganda. It appears I was mistaken.
We need to get that cleared before I can understand your objections.

I am defending my position, so it should speeds things up if we use your definition of propaganda. I don’t expect a problem, but one never knows.

Propaganda according to the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language is "any systematic attempt to propagate or expand a system of beliefs or ideas esp. by appealing to emotions or other non-logic based arguments"

bhn
Or you may say that this material was not capable of being propaganda because it lacked certain key elements. If this is true I am interested in knowing what these key elements are, as they may be in to other documents he circulated.
What types of things must you see in propaganda that you did not see here?

specificly anything that would indicate that the teacher was attempting to say these beliefs are the ones you should accept rather than this is what was believed by these people

bhn
You might also say the material itself might be propaganda in some instances, but not in other instances. In other words, the use determines if some documents are propaganda or not. This might get complicated. I would wonder what it is about the use that makes otherwise innocuous material, propaganda. If I examined the use of the documents, what types of things would I be looking for to make a determination?

Again if they are included in an attempt to say you should believe this or this is an acceptable belief then it is propagana if it is only these people believed or professed to believe things then it is reasonable background for discussing there behavior . Simple in theory at least

look back at what the man handed out and show me where he made any attempt to say more than "This is what these people believed"
I would think one of these three would describe your position, but let me know if I missed something.[/quote]

[BeHereNow]

Your definition has three (and only three) elements, none of which require anyone to say anything, or present the material in any particular manner:
1) systematic attempt
2) expand a system of beliefs or ideas
3) esp. by appealing to emotions or other non-logic based arguments

1) The teacher’s actions were systematic in that there was a group of material assembled with one common theme. As it turns out (based on information below) he was extremely systematic, but this was not in my original post.

2) There is a system of beliefs in the United Stated that says everyone should be Christian, and one reason why is that the founding fathers and leaders of this country were (are) Christian.
Anyone who distributes a group of materials espousing this belief system is attempting to expand these ideas, whether intentional or unintended.

3) Assuming the first two are true, this accidental or intentional attempt to expand the ideas was an appeal by non-logical means because the information was not true. More specifically, it contained enough true information to give credibility to the false information. It also did not present any opposing viewpoints, something that logically one would want if making a decision about the veracity of certain material. It also only included persons who are generally considered “good” and influential.

As I explain how each point of your definition is met, I was not required to show that the teacher actually said anything.

As you are probably aware, propaganda is commonly distributed by aircraft, or other impersonal means such as the mail. No communication between purveyor and recipient.
Often propaganda is handed out on street corners or at rallies and demonstrations. No one says “I have information I want you to read to try to convince you of my beliefs”. To the contrary, they are not pushy, except to try to get it in someone’s hand so they will read it. They are successful in spreading propaganda if someone holds it and reads it. The receiver knows that the giver believes the information simply because they are taking the time and effort to distribute it. No one would think that someone handing out propaganda had no stake in the information.
When someone with power and authority distributes information, that information is assumed to represent the views of the giver. If someone is asked to distribute information that does not represent their views, they attempt to clarity this by casual comments such as “Here is some information the boss wants you to have”. This alerts the receiver that that the giver is a middle man, and may or may not agree with the material.

There is a motion to dismiss the court case which is interesting.
If you take the time to read it, you will see that the teacher very obviously was trying to espouse his orthodox Christian (his term) views. He repeatedly submitted lesson plans that were rejected by the principle because of their religious nature. Three would be rejected, one would be used without review and a parent complaint would result.

Here is a comment from a parent at the school:
Personnally, I am glad that the principal acted to protect our children from our resident evangelist. He is a sweet and sincere man, but I don't believe he realizes how his enthusiasm for his own brand of religion intimadates and belittles his students of different faiths, including different Christian faiths. I am steadfastly against giving our public schools the right to teach religion. That's my job. I take my children to the church of my choice each week, and we read the Bible at home. Comparative religion classes may be useful in junior and senior high school, but fifth graders are much too young to understand they can disagree with a teacher and stand up for themselves.

And other parents:
A number of parents complained about proselytization by Mr. Williams in his 5th grade class. The exact number of complaints is unknown to us, but we are aware of at least three parents who independently approached the principal. We are unable to pass judgment on the merits of these complaints.

When we have the full story, it is even more clear that the teacher was systematiclly, intentionally, using propaganda.

[LillSnopp]

Actually, Propaganda just means to promoting others of your own view (political, information, you name it)


For example, If media would tell people that Tellus is Round, this is propaganda.

Another example, if Adolf Hitler in one of his speeches, tells the people that Jews are similar to Dogs. This is also Propaganda.


It seems that ´Propaganda´ has mistakenly got the definition of a "incorrect information spreading", or just plain "evil things". This is not the case, it just means that someone spreads some correct/incorrect information for some reason. Thats it. Information spreading for a cause.


I should point out, that its a very narrow line between "Spreading of Education", and "Propaganda". On the other hand, as Andrew Sutton quoted "ny systematic attempt to propagate or expand a system of beliefs or ideas esp. by appealing to emotions or other non-logic based arguments", I never heard of this, and suspect it has been tweaked to get the general negative clang it has in the Western World, whiles in other cultures (Brazilian for example), it is almost a synonym to advertising.

the Negative view that exist today, has only come up because of our History of use amongst our Politicians (especially during the last decades).

[ST88]

Actually, Propaganda just means to promoting others of your own view (political, information, you name it)


For example, If media would tell people that Tellus is Round, this is propaganda.

I don't really want to get into a debate about the word "propaganda", but I think Lillsnopp's definition is missing the persuasion component. Telling the masses that the world is round isn't propaganda if that's all there is to it. If a shipping company tells you the world is round so it can gain your business to ship things around it, then that's propaganda. And, yes, in a modern context it has a pejorative connotation. This is largely because of the rhetoric involved in propaganda, however, and not because of a shift in the definition of the term. People use propaganda because it works. If cold, hard facts convinced people better than rhetoric, then the agenda-pushers would use cold, hard facts. But it doesn't, and they don't. It is therefore appropriate to suspect nefariousness when you recognize the techniques of propaganda. Advertising is just one example. Passing out religious leaflets within the context of a history class is another.