It's like my head

A southern Manitoba elementary school has come under fire for allowing a Christian Bible program to be offered without following provincial rules.

St. François Xavier Community School had been offering Discovery Time, a series of Bible classes run by Child Evangelism Fellowship, without passing a bylaw to do so, which runs afoul of Manitoba’s Public Schools Act.

Drum is making a very stupid argument. Most Americans have trouble balancing a checkbook — ever witnessed a confused high school student try to make change at a fast-food restaurant — so what the heck do they need algebra for? Why even bother with basic arithmetic? Teach them how to use a calculator in first grade, bam-pow, math education is done.

How many Americans read a novel as adults? How many bother with magazines, even, short of looking at the pictures? You don’t even need to read to be able to navigate our highways — knowing symbols and names are enough. Teach kids the alphabet, show ‘em how to write their name and roughly recognize place names, and wham-bam-zowie, reading is done by second grade. Ship ‘em out into the workforce by third grade.

We’ll just let the eggheads take the advanced courses, like geometry and creative writing and literature.

Drum isn’t arguing anything that extreme, of course, but it’s a logical consequence of his reasoning: he doesn’t use biology, and he doesn’t think most Americans use much biology, therefore it’s a frippery that can be set aside.