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I teach Principles of Biology 2 at a regional university in Texas, and one of my major units is evolutionary biology. I don't interact with parents, of course, but my students do sometimes have objections of their own. I handle this in two ways:
- I explain that I am not trained as a religious scholar, so I don't have the expertise to speak about religious explanations for the origins of life. I would not presume to teach something when I don't have expertise. I am trained as a scientist, and my class is a science class, so I teach students how science understands life. To learn about how their faith understands life, they should speak to their faith leader because that person is the expert on that topic.
- I frame our evolutionary biology unit as, 'Here is how a biologist explains...'. When I ask students questions, I ask them, 'Tell me how an evolutionary biologist would say that...'. This way, I am not asking anyone to violate their spiritual beliefs to get a good grade in my class; they don't have to tell me they agree with it, they just have to be able to tell me what a scientist would say. If a student objects, I tell them that they can take a class in anthropology and learn about another culture and thereby become a more educated person, but that does not mean they have to adopt the beliefs and practices of that culture. In a similar way, they can learn about evolutionary theory and become more educated in biology.
The other thing that helps is to explain misconceptions up front. Most students believe that evolution says humans 'came from' chimpanzees, which of course is not accurate. They seem to be more comfortable with the idea that we share ancestry with modern chimpanzees but have our own, separate history.
Good luck! It's a difficult topic, but it's incredibly important for students to understand.
Ann
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