The Myth of ADHD as a Mental Disease

Image courtesy of Psychology Today

A very bold statement, I know, but one I fully believe the evidence supports.  The diagnosis of children with ADHD is growing every year in America and Canada and similar beliefs are starting to infect the rest of the world (as most things coming from the US have a tendency to do).  You could argue this is because no one understood it before and so now we are more aware.  You could also argue, as I do, that it’s because it doesn’t really exist.  Biological explanations such as genetics or neurochemical imbalances are more the realm of pop psychology and drugs designed to adjust those balances are an unnecessary cost that does not permanently address the issue.  This goes for most groupings of behavioral patterns currently defined as mental disorders, not just ADHD.

The spread of the disease model of certain behavioral patterns also has negative effects on how children perceive themselves, on how much responsibility we take for effective change, and for an over-reliance on pharmaceuticals instead of addressing our problems.

Below I’ll show some convincing arguments as to why this is the case, but first a few caveats.  I’m not arguing that the behaviors generally described in the DSM IV are a myth, I’m saying that the conceptualization of these behaviors as a chronic, possibly incurable disease, is not correct.  I’m also not saying that pharmaceutical drugs don’t provide some positive results (especially short-term), I’m saying there are better options for long-term, positive results.

-  My first argument comes from experience.  Working in a domestic abuse shelter, every child there was diagnosed with ADHD, usually among a host of other mental disorders.  We referred to the box of pills each child had as their treasure box since there were so many different pills in each box to be taken at different times throughout the day.  Parents and teachers alike complained that these children couldn’t focus for long periods of time.  Yet, these same children that I was told could not focus in class or at home, would sit and read Harry Potter books for up 2 hours at a time.  They’d read the entire book within days of picking it up.  To me, that states that the lack of focus had far more to do with their interest in the subjects adults wanted them to focus on rather than a general lack of ability to focus.

-  Following from the above, it became very clear to me that environment is key.  It should come as no surprise to most of us that children growing up in troubled homes have a host of behavioral issues.  In the same respect, while I was working at a university daycare, we could almost always tell who the professors’ children were and who the students’ were.  The professors’ children were invariably better behaved and had a stronger background in things like the alphabet or shapes.  It was also not uncommon for some of the more difficult children to come from single-parent homes.  All of this really shows to me that environment has an overriding influence on how children behave.

-  Many mental disorders, or at least their manifestations, as defined in the US are culturally bound.  Take for example that anorexia was unheard of in Hong Kong before 1994, but, after foreign newspapers latched onto a story of a girl who died from not eating, cases started popping up all over the place.  Or the fact that mental disorders like koro only exist in some East Asian cultures.  Or how about the fact that schizophrenia is much more common in developed rather than developing nations and that schizophrenia is episodic and disappears over time in developing nations, while in the US schizophrenia is more likley to be non-episodic and lifelong.

Scientific America – Foreign Afflicions:  Mental Disorders across Country Borders

NY Times – The Americanization of Mental Illness

Academia.edu – Schizophrenia across Cultures

PBS – Culture and Schizophrenia

-  Mental States are not defined by genetics.  In pop psychology, the average person’s understanding of genetics is based on a simplistic Mendelian model learned in high school biology class.  However, genetics are far more complicated than what we looked at in the simple pea experiments in our high school text books.  Genes do not determine behavior.  Mutliple genes interact in very complex ways (for example, eye color is determined by at least 3 primary genes and several secondary ones), gene expression is not a guarantee, changes over time, and is affected by outside (environmental) influences.

Stanton Peele – Genetics Can’t Save Us

Genetic Influences on Human Behavior and Development

-  The current argument for ADHD as a mental disease states that it is a result of inherited neurochemical imbalances.  However, there are hundreds of neurochemicals in the brain and they are still largely poorly understood.

Furthermore, neurochemical balances are constantly changing.  We have different balances when happy, sad, mad, etc.  The idea that an “imbalance” is a permanent state is simply not correct.  Additionally, chemical balances do not determine behavior.  For example, when someone steals your favorite pencil, you may get angry.  However, how you deal with that anger will vary by individual.  Some people will yell, others may get physical, others will hold a grudge, and others will talk it out.  In fact, how we deal with that anger and to what level we allow it to be expressed are all controllable.  The same goes for focus or any other mental practice.

Linking the influence of environment over determinstic biological explanations, we can look at alcoholism rates in some Native American tribes vs. some East Asian Americans.  Interestingly enough, some members of both ethnic groups lack a certain enzyme that processes alcohol.  This is why they tend to get drunk quicker and get red in the face when drinking.  However, incidences of alcoholism in some Native American populations, especially on reservations, is much much higher than among East Asian-American groups.

The truest fact about the brain is that it is constantly changing.  As the neurologists say, it’s plastic.  What we learn, the way we learn, how we behave, all these things can change depending on our internal and external environment.  Schizophrenia is a well-researched example that proves the point.  Despite many Americans viewing it as a permanent illness, according to one study, 58% of schizophrenics had a full long-term recovery after treatment.

Ultimately, there is not a single piece of evidence that has been shown that can physically identify a brain with a mental disorder from one without.  That’s why the DSM classifies disorders by groups of behaviors, not medically testable criteria.

The Huffington Post – Are Addiction and Mental Illness Really Brain Diseases?

National Empowerment Center – Evidence that People Recover from Schizophrenia

Pseudoscience in Psych

-  My final argument is actually a counter argument.  Some of the greatest supporters of disease models are the diagnosed themselves.  It’s not uncommon for those with ADHD or Depression to site the drugs as a huge help in their life.  As I mentioned above, it’s not that psychiatric drugs can’t help individuals attain a place to more easily address their issues, it’s that we can come to rely on them without addressing the real problem or building the skills to change our mental states in the future.  Like in my example from the domestic abuse shelter, medicating the children will not address the problems occurring at home nor teach the child how to better deal with those issues in healthy ways.  People drink alcohol to forget about their problems, too; it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.  It’s easy enough to go through life using alcohol or other drugs to cope with difficult situations, but it doesn’t help actually solve the problem.  In the same way, drugs like Ritalin can help us focus, but they don’t help us develop the skills we need to do so on our own.

Additionally, there is very little evidence that current drugs prescribed for various mental disorders have any strong positive effects.  Stanton Peele points out that studies which use a psychoactive placebo indicate an average of 5% increase in positive behavioral outcomes vs. the actual drug.  That’s not much and it’s a pretty strong argument that mental outlook goes a long way to changing behavior.  As further evidence, there are a number of rigorously conducted studies that indicate positive results from cognitive behavioral therapies that didn’t use psychiatric drugs.

Psychology Today – Can Talk Therapy Help Persons with Schizophrenia

What’s really tough with all of this is that it puts the responsibility for children’s behavior on the main role models in their life, mostly the parents and teachers.  Taking responsibility for something we perceive as negative is never easy, but the truth is not always the easiest pill to swallow.  For adults (in cases like adult ADHD), it puts the responsibility on us and the loved ones in our life.

To summarize, I’m not denying that behaviors associated with ADHD or other disorders exist, but that they are simply behaviors or mental states that we can change with the help of those around us, just like any other behavior, emotion, or attitude.  Maybe in the future psychiatric drugs can help as one part of a treatment plan, but we currently don’t have enough evidence to support such use and it’s clear that traditional support and counseling can work better.  For children or anyone else to be healthy, contributing members of society, we need people who take responsibility for themselves and others, who can solve problems on their own, and who can develop the skills that will help them throughout their lives.

Now it’s your turn.  What do you think and what research do you have to support your opinions?

More Further Reading and References:

Prozac Nation – An Interview with Lawrence Kirmayer on Mental Illness across Cultures

Washington Post – Culture and Mental Illness

Science Daily – No Single Gene for Eye Color

Genetic Influences on Alcohol Drinking and Alcoholism

ADHD is  Myth with Professor Spillane

Joel Turtel – The Myth of ADHD

BBC – Louis Theroux Looks at America’s Prescription Culture

The Onion’s take on things

Five Challenges to Chinese Speakers Learning English

I’m happy to present a guest post by Lindsey  Wright.  Lindsey is fascinated with the potential of emerging educational technologies, particularly the online school, to transform the landscape of learning. She writes about web-based learning, electronic and mobile learning, and the possible future of education.  Contact her at lindswright82@gmail.com.

Five Challenges to Chinese Speakers Learning English

Learning English as a second language can be difficult for anyone. For the Chinese speaker attempting the task, it can seem daunting for reasons stemming not just from the structural and grammatical differences between the languages, but also in the way each is written. However, by identifying key areas that present the greatest barriers to fluency, an instructor teaching at either a traditional campus or an online school can reduce these challenges to manageable levels. The two most known are arguably verb tense and plurals, which will serve as a great starting point.

1) Verbs

In English, the verb serves not only as the source of action in a sentence, but also as a marker of time. This is not the case in Chinese where time is most often identified at the beginning of the sentence. Auxiliary, or helping verbs in English also serve to indicate if an action is still in progress, completed, or will continue until some future point that may or may not be named. This is a lot of information for one to three words to convey and can be daunting for someone not used to thinking of time in this way.

2) Plurality

Connected to verbs is the issue of plurality. Chinese uses numbers to specify quantity rather than endings or spelling changes to indicate multiplicity. If verbs weren’t complicated enough by action and time, having to add endings to them to facilitate agreement with the quantity of the sentence’s subject is likely to confuse even the best of students. Thankfully, number agreement has more to do with the flow of the language than it does anything else, which brings up the next point.

3) Intonations and Tonality

Chinese uses intonations and tonality to distinguish words, unlike English. Other than a few changes to vowel sounds for pronunciation, English reserves differences in tone to indicate types of sentences: questions, statements, imperatives, and so on. Beyond that, English relies on sound to provide rhythm and flow rather than meaning. This lack of emphasis on tones can be daunting as there seems to be fewer aural cues.

4) Cultural Differences

Another issue that may not seem inherent in learning English is cultural differences. While Chinese speakers rely on indirect communication and non-verbal cues, English speakers are taught to be direct. In part, this is as much a stylistic approach to transmitting message as it is a cultural reinforcement of interactions. A researched approach on these differences found that amongst other issues, that the highly prized conciseness that exemplifies business English for its economy and clarity can strike a native Chinese speaker as too informal.

5) Arrangement

Lastly, it can take a bit of getting used to the concept that words in English are arranged alphabetically whereas the system used in Chinese dictionaries varies by not only the number of radicals, but whether a book chooses to organize them by number of strokes or by some other system. This is exemplified in some directions to help English students at University of Albany – SUNY learning Chinese understand the differences in dictionaries. Using an English dictionary can seem daunting to students as most of the linguistic elements essentially involve the phonetic sounds rather than the symbolic or conceptual elements that define words written in Chinese. However, having students make the connection between the phonetic sound and arrangement of the alphabet can aid in the study of English as new words are committed to memory.

By keeping these five challenges in mind, it becomes easier to teach English to a native Chinese speaker. Focusing on the more difficult areas and being patient means that the instructor and the student can overcome these obstacles so fluency is possible with the least amount of stress for both.

A Shift in Perspective

As my working environment is quite different these days, my blog will be changing to reflect this. All my information and posts regarding English language teaching in Turkey will stay of course. However, the focus of the blog will move from teaching adults in Turkey to that of teaching children in China, primarily young learners as that is my school’s focus.

Hope you still enjoy reading

The Job Search

Well, I’m currently sitting in my hotel room in Shanghai getting ready for another day of training at my new school.

The job search that brought me here was a long and arduous one. This post will be more of a personal story format for those who are interested in the person behind the blog

As long time readers know, my previous school took a major turn for the worse due to some rather large financial issues the owner was having. It also meant I was spending 4 hours a day on public transport for much of the summer. Not fun. As I watched the quality of the school continue to stagnate and my ability to provoke change diminish, I knew it was time to leave.

I had also been looking to get out of Turkey for quite a while and this seemed like as good a time as any. However, at about the same time as my school started having problems, I became aware of a couple very interesting opportunities in Istanbul. I got offered a position that sounded too good to be true at a prestigious K-12 school. Turned out, it was.

Unemployment remains very high in Turkey and employers often have little regard for their employees. I thought this school seemed different, but it was not. After being hired, I was promptly ignored for almost a month. I then received a couple cursory emails over the next two months. I was sick and tired of the unprofessionalism of most of the language schools in Turkey and decided that I would once again go abroad no matter what. Unsurprisingly, the K-12 school called me two days before classes were to start and asked me to come in the next day and start my job even though they had basically ignored me for the entire summer and sent me no information about the position. I refused and began my job search in earnest.

Typically when I look for a job in ELT I do some research on the Internet and then end up moving to the location to do in-person interviews. However, being married changed things drastically. Nothing was so easy. Also, because my wife is Turkish, her ability to remain in many countries for long periods of time was quite small. It was also unlikely she’d be able to find work as a chemical engineer.

This all meant that my criteria for a job were much more demanding than the previous searches. These criteria were 1) a job that would hire me legally (as we know, not so common in ELT). This would allow my wife to obtain a spousal visa and and would also allay any concerns about something going awry. 2) A salary that could comfortably support my family instead of just me as it was unlikely she could find a job. 3) A country that allowed my wife to work should she be able to find something.

As you can guess, the number of countries this left was quite small. Our only options were China, Japan, or Taiwan. Personally, I love Asia and was really looking for a job with young children again, so these locations were ideal for me in that regard as well. The Gulf States could also have been a possibility, but neither of us wanted to live there.

Finding a quality position from abroad was no easy task. The majority of advertisings online were from subpar schools that often offered very low salaries or were sketchy on getting me all the legal documents required. Most schools were quite a joke. I had schools hire me after receiving only my application without an interview, schools that told me outright I was overqualified, and schools that refused to take experience and qualifications into account when determining pay and benefits.

There was also the additional problem that we had missed the hiring season for many schools in Asia. As I had to complete a final TESOL certification course for a training outfit I was working for, I wasn’t available until mid-October.

I was spending hours a day online looking for jobs, emailing HR directors and DoSes, and doing interviews. I sometimes had 10 interviews a week. In the end, I had a lot of offers, but only 3 that I seriously considered. I chose a job managing a young children’s school in Shanghai and it’s only been a week, but I’m confident I made the right choice. The school is looking to be the most professional school I’ve ever worked in.

Due to the ridiculous bureacracy involved, it took about 2 and a half months from the date of hire to actually arrive in China, but we’re finally here.

So that’s where we are now. I’m on my 2nd of two weeks of training and then I officially take over my school next week. It’s quite big. I’ve got over 1000 students with ages ranging from 2-8 generally. I’ve got 28 teachers and a whole lot of supplementary personnel as well. It’s much bigger than my last school and will certainly be a challenging experience. I’ve been told I’ve inherited one of the most problematic schools in the company. We’ll have to see how true that is. Regardless, I’m sure I can change that though

So sorry for not writing for a couple weeks, but the craziness involved in the move and everything was simply too much. I should be blogging regularly again from this point on. As for the legal issues mentioned in the last post, they’ve largely been resolved.

Also, Twitter does not work in China and Google Reader rarely works as well. I got around it, but then that avenue was blocked within 2 days of using it. Looks like Internet censorship here is much stronger than in Turkey. I should be getting another work around soon so I can access those sites, but it might take a bit yet.

I hope everyone is well and any readers in China feel free to contact me

Iranian Students (Or Proof Native Speakers Aren’t Necessary)

Have you ever met an English speaking Iranian?  The ones I’ve met tend to have fantastic English.  I’ve had a number of Iranian students in my time here in Turkey and have a couple Iranian friends that I’ve met at conferences.  They all have absolutely amazing English.  The kicker is that they all learned English in Iran where there are almost no native speakers.  That’s right, they speak English really well even though none of them may have ever even met a native speaker before leaving Iran.

Some of my students come to study English in Turkey with the express purpose of studying under a native and are often shocked to learn that the upper-int classes they are put into would be considered intermediate at best back in Iran.

I often ask how this is possible. According to the Iranians, the reasons are that they take intensive classes with 4 hours of English with little break and constant speaking opportunities integrated with other skills and knowledge.  However, I would love to go and see for myself how these classes work.  Unfortunately, going to Iran could jeopardize my wife’s chances of moving to the US with me, so, unless I get a Turkish passport, it won’t be happening anytime soon .

Has anyone been to Iran or does anyone living there have descriptions of the classes and methods?  Why do you think the English is so good (or am I getting a false impression for some reason)?  Does anyone have other experiences of countries that have superb English educations?  I’ve heard Romania is really good too.  The Scandinavian countries and Denmark have great English but I think that’s mainly due to classes held in English and especially the lack of dubbing on TV.

Most importantly, what does this say about the prominence of the native speaker?

Just as an aside, I would also like to add that Iranian students are wonderful to have in the class.  They often bring really interesting opinions into the class and are very vocal about discussing controversial issues.  They really tend to liven up the classroom.

More Negative Impacts of Course Books

Having moved from a position a year or so ago where I was more open to course books, I’ve come to be quite strongly opposed to most of them these days.  The reason for this is not that I think they necessarily reflect ineffective teaching, but that overall course books have a very negative impact on the field of ELT itself.

Actually, course books are simply a result of previous ideas and assumptions about learning.  They are no more than a product of what I would consider to be unfavorable beliefs about teaching.  However, they now perpetuate those beliefs and, in my opinion, often represent an obstacle to change.  As many course book advocates point out, they are simply a reality in most classrooms.  Well, therein lies the problem if you ask me.

So, without further ado, here are some more reasons course books have a negative impact on ELT overall:

For Teachers

-  Promote a linear view of language learning

-  Promote an over-reliance on grammar

-  Force teachers to teach material without learner or teacher input

-  Reduces need for critical analysis of material and reflection

-  Restriction on flexibility and creativity as schools often want teachers to stick to the book

-  Books can come to be relied on too much and become a crutch rather than an aid

-  The teacher is forced to artificially manufacture interest rather than have it arise out of the students

For Students

-  Students assume completing pages = learning

-  Creates an obsession with grammar

-  Their needs, desires, and interests fall by the wayside because the book drives the course

-  Over-reliance on bite-sized communication, listening, reading, etc.

-   Besides finishing the last page, there is little sense of accomplishment or anything concrete to take home (as would be the case with project-based learning)

-  Cost

-  Loss of autonomy or having input into their own learning

-  Lack of engagement or interest in the material

-  Course books are for teaching, not learning.  Very little can actually be learned from a course book on its own.

For schools

-  The godawful assumption that the course book teaches the course not a teacher.  So many schools assume they can simply throw a teacher into a class, hand them a book, and say go regardless of the teacher’s ability and experience

-  Far too many schools adopt a course book as a rigid curriculum

-  Local culture is lost in the one-size-fits-all nature of course books

-  Progress becomes about number of pages done, not what was learned

-  Schools don’t offer development as following the book is thought to be enough

Any more you can think of?

Related Posts:

Negative Impact of Course Books Part 1

To Use or Not Use Course Books

Is Using Course Books Really a Bad Thing?

Bare Feet = No Course Book

Some Course Books Removing Negotiation & Choice

Scheduling in Course Book Abuse

Visas, They Are A-changin (in Turkey)

An FYI to all foreign teachers in Turkey, there have(ot?)  been some changes to the tourist visa situation and a whole lot of confusion to go along with it.

In July the Turkish government decided to change their tourist visa policy without warning.  This, of course, angered a lot of governments and Turkey repealed the changes quickly thereafter.

The visas originally issued in July stated that an individual could only enter turkey for 3 months out of every 6.  Notice, even then, this policy was ONLY going into effect for individuals with this visa.  If your visa didn’t have this writing on it, it wasn’t an issue.  Even if you recently received this visa, it is most likely due to the fact that they are using up old stickers or that no one bothered to tell the border guards what’s going on.

While the government has repealed the changes for now, they’ll most likely be implemented at some point in the non-too far future.  If you have received one of these visas, you CAN leave and come back on it just like in the past.

However, I have heard several accounts of foreigners being hassled at the border now about their reasons for popping out and coming back in right away or for having several consecutive tourist visas.

It is strongly recommended that you work only for schools that offer to get you your residency permit (ikamet tezkeresi)  This needs to be done at the foreigner eminyet in your city of residence.  In Istanbul, you must get a number online, which can be gotten here (click on E-Randevu in the upper left corner).  Rules and conditions for acquiring this permit change from city to city, so have someone find out what you need before you go in. Generally, you will need a good excuse written in Turkish (like you are interested in archaeology and help out on excavations), a couple thousand US in a Turkish bank account, and about 1000 lira to pay for the visa.  And just remember, this is Turkey so they will change the rules on you, spring new requirements on you at the moment of arrival, and just generally make it as difficult as possible for no foreseeable reason.

Also, be forewarned that residency visas are not a guarantee that you won’t have problems.  You are still working illegally unless you have a work visa, which takes so ridiculously long to get and costs so much money, few schools are willing to get them for you.  And you cannot get them without official employer sponsorship.

While Istanbul is still pretty free regarding renewing these visas, when I worked in the izbe that is Izmit, I was grilled for over an hour by the emniyet commandant on, of all things, being a Christian (notice I’m not Christian and all my documentation in Turkey makes that fact clear).  Actual questions I was asked were “Are you secretly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity?” “Are you trying to create divisions in Turkey to weaken it so America can take it over?” “Are you a member of the CIA sent to subvert Turkey and help overthrow the government?”  Other foreigners were having similar problems when trying to renew.  Ahh, the perks of living in a place where conspiracy theories are considered every day reality.

In addition to these fun problems, the current situation has created a panic and, as of October 13th, 2010, everyone is now trying to get a residency visa.  This means that the emniyet in Istanbul is booked solid for the next 3 months and there aren’t even any numbers left to take.  If you were lucky enough to get a number, you must carry the printed piece of paper around with you at all times and that WILL act as your legal permit to stay in the country until you can actually get in.  If you are one of the unfortunate souls who was not able to get a number, you’ll simply have to leave and come back on a tourist visa.  That or you better know someone in politics.  Torpil goes a long way here.

All in all, I think the visa changes are a good idea as it’s rather silly to have a policy where you can basically live here as a permanent tourist.  It’s going to hurt a lot of shady schools as well, which can only be a good thing.  On the other hand, getting residency and work visas are by far some of the hardest things to do in Turkey and the entire process is an absolute mess.  Streamlining will take a miracle.  Inshallah, it’ll happen.  Good luck out there.

If anyone has additional, reliable information out there, it would be much appreciated.

Turkish Students Learning Not to Trust

One of my biggest grievances living in Turkey is the observation that nobody seems to trust anybody else.  For this reason it’s very hard to meet people outside of established social networks and friendships tend to be very shallow unless huge amounts of time and effort are put into breaking down barriers.  One of the biggest reliefs of traveling outside of Turkey is often the renewed ability to simply walk up to people and be open (here it’s important to note there is a chasm of difference between attitudes towards strangers who are visiting Turkey and those actually living here).  Sadly, living here often develops high levels of distrust.

As this has always been an observation I’ve found to be quite accurate, I was very interested to come across an actual study that said the same thing, specifically in the context of Turkish education.  The post and link to the study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) can be found here at Istanbul Notes.

The study sites that the degree of interpersonal trust ranges from 16-12% in upper levels of education and that distrust actually increases as education increases.  Living here, it’s something I do not find surprising at all, but it is an incredibly worrying statistic.

It’s clear from this cultural context that building trust in your classroom is probably one of the single most important things you can do.  Ideas to accomplish this can be found linked at the bottom of this page.

I could go into multiple essays on the reasons behind this, but I’d be more interested in hearing from the Turkish readers of this blog or from foreign teachers teaching here.  Why do you believe this is the case and what can be done to change the trend (at least in our classrooms)?

Related Posts:

Istanbul Notes:  Learning Not to Trust

Circle of Trust

Trust Falls

Human Knot

Tank Game

Christianity in the Classroom?

Alex-sensei recently posted about the value of teaching culture to advanced students (or any students really) and it got me thinking about the issue of culture in our classrooms again.

Teaching culture in our classrooms is inevitable.  We embody the cultures we came from in our thoughts and actions, so this is unavoidable.  In my last post I asked if religion in the classroom was appropriate and what form it should/could take.  Here’s another point to ponder.

Let’s take a look at some English phrases.

You wouldn’t know him from Adam. (Title from Guardian article)

And you know that peace can only be won
when we’ve blow ‘em all to kingdom come. (Country Joe – I’m Fixin to Die Rag)

It’s Not My Cross to Bear. – (Allman Brother’s song title)

The meek shall inherit the Earth. (Title of article on politics from The American Prospect)

Jesus Christ! (typical expletive)

David vs. Goliath to die with expansion (Title of article on basketball for Rivals.com)

God (refers to the name of the Christian god) vs. god (used when referring to a god other than Christianities)

Have you been saved? (typical question asked by missionaries near public transport or at your door )

The placement of California’s Good Samaritan statute has all but rendered it useless for the very population it should protect… (From an article at About.com)

He without sin shall cast the first stone so y’all look in the mirror, double check your appearance. (Jay-Z lyrics)

According to Mark 14:12, Jesus ate his last supper with all 12 disciples.

There are of course thousands of more examples.

If you aren’t familiar with Christian stories and beliefs, this type of language is very hard to understand.  Who is Adam? Where is kingdom come and why would you blow something to it?  What does bearing a cross have to do with guilt or sin?  Saved from what, scary people handing out pamphlets?

Regardless of the fact that English has become a global language spoken by individuals coming from both Christian and non-Christian cultures, the English language carries with it a lot of cultural baggage.  Without some basic cultural understanding – in this case about the religion and its accordant beliefs and attitudes – English becomes much harder to understand.

What about more complex issues like trying to understand why abortion is such a big deal in the US or what the big hullabaloo is all about over teaching evolution in schools?  Or how about our literature, TV, and films, many of which are riddled with Biblical themes and references.

There are also a lot of cultural attitudes wrapped up in the phrases we use.  It’s the same in Turkish.  How could I interpret Insallah without understanding the Islamic attitude to leaving things up to God?

Maybe our classrooms need some religion after all   What do you think?

Preachin’ & Teachin’

Raise your hand if you preach the word of the Lord in the classroom.  It’s ok, nobody can see you .

I am not an advocate of preaching in the classroom although it certainly does happen as this particular school’s website reminded me the other day.  I’ve also met a few teachers from church groups here in Turkey who come over and use English teaching more as a cover for proselytizing the Gospel than anything else (This issue was raised once before over at Six Things).

As for my take on this issue, I prefer the Gulen Movement‘s philosophy originating in Turkey.  Religion is not something that should be taught by the teacher but – if this is your thing – the teacher should behave in such a way that they model the beliefs of the religion and act as a role model for others to emulate.  According to the man himself, “For real believers, their conduct must suffice for telling about their faith to other people and convincing them..”

I don’t think there should be preaching about religion or any overt teaching of it.  Like the cultures we embody, it should be something that simply can be seen about us and for others to make their own judgments and opinions about.

Of course, there are numerous conspiracy theories related to the Gulen movement as well, so who knows   Check this article from Campus Watch in the US and some fun conspiracy theories from Gercekler Vadisi (in Turkish).

Haha, this post started off as something completely different, but I decided the topic was interesting enough to post on.  Being the  non-believer that  I am, it’s not much of an issue for me, but it’s something I’m really interested in.

What do you think about religion in the classroom?  Should it be taught at all or simply avoided?  How far is too far?  Is there much of a difference between teaching morals and values and teaching religious beliefs?