TEACHING CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS
TEACHING השקפה IN AN AP BIOLOGY CLASS ON THE TOPIC OF EVOLUTION.
I teach AP Biology, which is an exciting, rigorous course designed to align with a college level biology course. Most of the topics are straightforward or “parve” (from a religious standpoint- not necessarily a difficulty standpoint!) such as DNA, the Immune System, and Biochemistry. However, over I do spend a couple of weeks in the late winter teaching a unit on Evolution and Biodiversity.
While it would be easier for me to just skip it completely and avoid any issues, I am teaching it for the following reasons:
It’s required content for students to know if they are taking the AP or CLEP.
It’s content they should know so that they can be educated citizens of the world and “דע מה להשיב.”
I developed the lesson with the following consideration in mind: I need to be very careful to make sure that whatever I teach is in line with accepted מסורה of both the school and the parent body.
I met with the principal before teaching this unit, and also some Rabbanim. The Rabbanim disagreed, and did not come out with one equivocal viewpoint. The principal trusts that I will teach it the right way, and isn’t so familiar with the topic herself, so she leaves it in my hands. It’s a blessing since I appreciate the flexibility, but the burden of the decision of how to present the topic in a way that is in line with mesorah and is intellectually honest was in my hands.
Here’s how I presented it, based on my own research and discussions:
I started by addressed common misconceptions about evolution, including the main one that if you say that evolution might be true then you must be a כופר בעיקר. I said that is false. I then presented the following to them: GIVEN: We know that Hashem created and runs the world, and is מחדש the בריאה every single day.
So is evolution true or not?
Modern science says: “yes.”
Scientists are often wrong, or they only have discovered a part of the story.
It’s possible that this is how Hashem created the world, through evolution.
It’s possible that Hashem made it look like evolution is true, but really that’s not what happened. That leaves room for our בחירה.
It’s possible that scientists have been incorrectly analyzing the facts and the whole theory is wrong.
There is a lot here that we don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that understanding the facts of evolution does not have to be a contradiction to מעשה בראשית.
I then brought a small passage from R’ Hirsch where he explains his viewpoint.
I had the girls read בחברותא with a תפקיד הקריאה and then we discussed again together. I think this was helpful to the girls since they saw a major source (someone they had also been learning in חומש class!) that was familiar and trustworthy. I finished with the following idea:
Some scientists want to look at the facts of evolution and say that there must be no creator, חס ושלום.
We look at the same facts, but come to a different conclusion. להפך! The world is a wondrous place. There must be a Creator!
Hashem wants us to look at the world and see the facts. We see how understanding these facts testifies to the fact that there is a Creator, and the world is a complex, beautiful thing ! מה רבו מעשיך.
Please click on the button below to see the slides I presented to the class.
This is still a unit I am mulling over, even after teaching it. Did I present it in the right way? Is presenting multiple options too confusing for students? Is it better to present the idea in a clear-cut, less controversial way to avoid any confusion? On the other hand, they are advanced high school students - surely if anyone can handle it, it is they. Do I need to be rock-solid set in my own beliefs before sharing with the class? It is okay for a teacher to be still engrossed in these hashkafic issues herself?
Here are some supporting materials that I have used in developing this lesson:
From R’ S.R. Hirsch:
“This will never change, not even if the latest scientific notion that the genesis of all the multitudes of organic forms on earth can be traced back to one single, most primitive, primeval form of life should ever appear to be anything more than what it is today, a vague hypothesis still unsupported by fact. Even if this notion were ever to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world, Jewish thought, unlike the reasoning of the high priest of that notion, would nonetheless never summon us to revere a still extant representative of this primal form as the supposed ancestor of us all. Rather, Judaism in that case would call upon its adherents to give even greater reverence than ever before to the one, sole God Who, in His boundless creative wisdom and eternal omnipotence, needed to bring into existence no more than one single, amorphous nucleus and one single law of "adaptation and heredity" in order to bring forth, from what seemed chaos but was in fact a very definite order, the infinite variety of species we know today, each with its unique characteristics that sets it apart from all other creatures.” (Collected Writings, vol. 7 pp. 263-264)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-schools-largely-avoid-teaching-evolution-report/ Article discusses the fact that most Israeli schools are not teaching evolution. Based on comment in the article from the ministry of education, it seems they focus more on “species survival and genetic modifications and adaptations based on environmental factors.” I actually think that is a nice way of being intellectually honest about the facts, but not undercutting our religious beliefs (even though this quote was brought in a negative way in the article).
https://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/ijjer/pdf_7/7_5%20Israel%27s%20official%20policy.pdf Article by Haim Shaked at Bar Ilan reviews how this topic is taught in Israeli schools. He suggests that they should design and implement a curriculum for teaching it in a way that is scientifically honest and not in contradiction with ספר בראשית. I’d love to see it!
https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/local-educators-weigh-in-on-teaching-evolution-creationism/ Article quotes from Dr. Kalman Stein (head of Frisch) and how he has it taught in their school. I think it’s nice, and I’d love for our head of school to come out and say something, so it’s not “This is Mrs. Rosenbloom’s idea.” and rather, “This is our school’s stance.”
http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/english/education/evolution-1.htm I especially appreciate Dr. Joel Wolowelsky’s concluding statement, “lurking behind the would-be debate between Torah and evolution is either a shallow understanding of Torah or an unsophisticated appreciation of science - or both. Our students certainly deserve better.”