Why this issue is even controversial has always been beyond me. And I was frankly pleased to see Kentucky act to ensure that its students learned about a common scholarly practice -- the use of BCE and CE instead of BC and CE by some scholars.

Unfortunately, the best educational practice -- teaching all sides of the issue -- has been unanimously repealed by the State Board of Education.

The state school board, with six new members, on Wednesday changed its answer on a history question that had turned into an emotional religious debate.

The reconfigured board, with six new appointments by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, reversed a decision two months earlier that would have taught students about a new way to describe historic dates traditionally identified as B.C. or A.D.

Those designations carry religious overtones because they stand for Before Christ, and Anno Domini — Latin for "in the year of the Lord."

The board's April 11 decision to adopt curriculum changes that included teaching the designations of B.C.E. for Before Common Era and C.E. or Common Era, had drawn criticism from some activist ministers and religious groups. Some conservative Christians complained the change was an attempt to sterilize a reference to Christ.

"It's part of a larger effort to expunge religious references in our culture," said Martin Cothran, a policy analyst at The Family Foundation, a conservative group based in Lexington. "I think it's not something that's coming from regular people. It's coming from certain other sectors of our society who think that we ought not to talk about religion in our public life."

Frankly, I view Mr. Cothran to be an utter jackass for making such a statement. It is about preparing students for college level work, where they will almost certainly be exposed to scholarly works which use the alternative dating system. Indeed, the areas in which the alternative designations are most likely to be found are scholarly works dealing with Biblical archaeology and scripture studies! Why? Out of respect for the many Jewish scholars (and small number of Muslim scholars) who work in those fields.

I teach the issue in my classroom within the first day or two of the beginning of the school year. I point out that multiple dating systems have existed throughout history and that some are used today. I note that the dating system we use in our society contains an affirmation of faith -- and that an alternative designation is sometimes used by scholars. I also note that the abbreviation may legitimately be rendered as either the "Chrisitan Era" or the "Common Etra", but that either alternative still revolves around the traditional rendering of the date of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. I then ask that they be consistent in their use of one or the other system -- and that my personal choice is the traditional BC/AD, but that either choice is 100% correct. I then move on -- usually to a quick review of longitude and latitude, having spent (at most) 15 minutes on the calendar issue.

This really is not a substantive issue -- I cannot understand the need for state-mandated ignorance of such a minor issue.

Posted by: Greg at 12:51 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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