From an Essay on “How to Educate an Atheist” by Michael Martin
Michael Martin, now retired, received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard. Beginning in 1975 he was a philosophy professor at Boston University. In addition to over 100 articles, Martin has written several books including Atheism: A Philosophical Justification and a collection of short stories, The Big Domino in the Sky and Other Atheistic Tales. In this essay, available on the Internet at -- www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/martin1.html, Martin raises a number of questions, including how should atheistic education proceed? when should it start? who should be the educators? The following excerpt, on children’s education, has some useful insights for Humanist education:
Children's Education: Ideally it should start in early childhood. However, this is not absolutely necessary since we all know people who are well educated as atheists but had a religious upbringing. Still most atheistic parents have the desire to educate their children to be atheists and since they know this education will not occur in the public schools, they think in terms of home education. However, although this home education in being an atheist is certainly desirable, it must done in such a way that children don't rebel. Nothing should be forced or unpleasant or else atheist parents, to their dismay may find their children embracing evangelical Christianity.
Perhaps the best sort of home education for children should not seem like education at all: Let them simply pick up the attitudes and ways of thought of their atheistic parents from causal conversations and day-to-day living. This informal and unconscious education, of course, can be supplemented and improved upon in various ways by more formal and explicit methods. First children's books can used be to teach critical thinking. For example, in Joe Nickell's, The Magic Detectives (Prometheus Books) 30 actual cases of seemingly supernatural and paranormal phenomena are presented. At least two of the cases are directly relevant to religion: The Shroud of Turin and The Religious Healer, The Reverend Peter Popoff. The young reader is asked to provide solutions to the mysteries based on clues provided in the presentations and to compare his or her answers with those in the book that show how the mystery is solved in rational terms. Readers are told not to be discouraged if their answers differ from the ones in the book for they may have valuable ideas that are worth talking over with their science teachers. They are told that the important thing is to think critically. They are urged to try their hand at solving other mysteries they have heard of by doing research and are referred to sources listed at the end of the book.
There is no doubt that, if used well, Nickell's book can be a valuable aid in helping atheistic parents to teach children to be critical thinkers with respect to religion. However, parents will have to see that their children do not just read this book, but actually tried to solve the mysteries before looking up the answers. For example, each mystery could be discussed as a family project before the book's answer was read. In addition, the model of critical thinking provided by the solutions could be applied to other cases not found in the book and could thus become a habitual approach. The skeptical critical stance taken in the book could thus become part of a child's way of life.
Such books should aim to present the evidence and arguments for atheism and not present atheism as another dogma.
Another supplement to informal parental education may shock some. Children raised in atheistic homes should be exposed to religion in churches, on TV, in books etc., but initially only with the guidance of an atheistic parent who encourages the child to ask critical questions. For example, a family project might be to watch a TV preacher, see how many unsupported or dubious claims he or she makes, and consider what type of evidence, if any, could support or refute these claims. Needless to say, the spirit that should pervade this family project should be one of honest inquiry and openness, not mean spirited dismissal.
Parents should teach their children about brave and compassionate skeptics and rationalists of the past for the purpose of providing them with rationalistic role models. This might involve reading stories to their children about the lives and work of famous freethinkers and religious critics and discussing these books with their children.
As an illustration of a unified approach to atheistic education at home let me briefly describe the educational program a couple designed for their three school age children. Their goal was to educate their children to be critical thinkers. Raising them to become atheists was a by-product. Their children read The Magic Detectives and magazines like Zillions: For Kids from Consumer Reports. They did math and logic and watched TV programs such as "Bill Nye: The Science Guy."
Dinnertime topics of conversation were especially worthwhile. The family talked about the logical problems of time travel, the existence of homophobia in our society, Galileo's objections to Aristotle's notion that heavy bodies fall faster than light ones, and the National Day of Mourning commemorating the genocide of Native Americans. They critiqued popular books or TV programs that promote the public enjoyment of pseudologic and pseudoscience, such as the Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Arthur Conan Doyle and the Star Trek TV series by Gene Roddenberry.
Home education is not the only type of atheistic education for children, however. There is also the equivalent of an atheist Sunday school. Here instruction takes place in some atheistic or rationalistic center. One good example of this is the work done at the North Texas Church of Freethought by Tim and Deborah Gorski. This is a real church with community spirit, uplifting sermons, church socials, a singles group, and Sunday school -- except that there is no mention of God. Deborah Gorski is the church's Youth Education Director and runs two Sunday school classes -- one for children from infancy to 5 years old and another for children from 6 years to 14 years. She selects a factual or scientifically related topic for each Sunday School class. These range from evolution to meteorology to human anatomy. In her classes she teaches critical thinking skills as well as how to cope with the problems of being an atheist in a largely unsympathetic world. For example, one such problem is how atheistic boys should deal with being bullied by Christian boys. There is another such program at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY. Divided into sessions on moral education, critical thinking, and scientific knowledge about evolution, the program has been expanded and refined each time it has been given.
Another example of atheistic education for children outside the home is a humanist summer camp, called Camp Quest, run by the Free Inquiry Group Inc. of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Activities at the camp include standard fare such as arts and crafts, nature walks, and folk dancing and also workshops on ecology and astronomy that stress the meaning of secular humanism. The children are taught that there are no gods, devils, heaven or hell, that by careful thinking and the use of science we can understand our world and solve our problems, that we are all citizens of the same world and that people working together can make a better world.
