The Worldview Issues that Influence Curriculum Decisions in Public Education

As Josh McDowell said in preface to book by David Noebel and Chuck Edwards (2002), â€Å"We are now living in not just a post-Christian culture, but an anti-Christian culture† (p. 2). This statement can be applied to the curriculum decisions in modern public school as well. â€Å"The educational system in the West has progressively replaced the biblical foundation with belief in evolution as ‘truth’. Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Worldview Issues that Influence Curriculum Decisions in Public Education specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This system trains the leaders—teachers, judges, media operators, politicians, etc. These leaders then set the social agenda, which gradually becomes written into law† (Manthei, 1998, p. 26). Every person has its own worldview. It is formed through education, certain set of beliefs and attitudes to life. The purpose of Biblical worldview is t o live in harmony with the world and society. The prime goal of education is to guide future adults and prepare them for life (Van Brumelen, 2002, p. 41). The application of Biblical worldview in education can help greatly in achieving this goal and create friendly and positive learning environment. Curriculum based on the Biblical worldview takes the seven virtues that should guide everyone’s life as its basics. Such a worldview not only creates a â€Å"comprehensive framework of basic convictions about life† (Van Brumelen, 2002, p. 58), it also helps building a â€Å"people-centered† curriculum. The aim of such curriculum is to explain students the purpose of human beings, how to fight against evil and work for restoration. It also aims at motivating students to support each other and not to lose hope in future, restore friendship, love and justice. It regulates the flow of curriculum in a way to promote cooperation and mutual aid among students, develop stu dent’s responsibility, courage, patience, self-control and other values. Thus, a Biblical worldview influences on curriculum in a way to assist the achievement of school’s primary tasks: maximize human potential, develop necessary skills and nurture respect for others. One of the most important roles in developing curriculum belongs to teacher, â€Å"Teacher is one who controls curriculum in class† (Van Brumelen, 2002, p. 56). Many responsibilities lie on his/her shoulders. However, before planning a curriculum, teacher should evaluate himself/herself. Does he/she have necessary traits of character? What is he/she going to teach? How he/she is going to teach? Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More According to Van Brumelen (2002), the teacher who is going to make a Biblically oriented curriculum should remember that everything has purpose and effect; one should practice sanctity of human life and not give preferences to any student and, at the same time, take every student as an individual because as Shelby Steel said, â€Å"whenever you give someone a preference, you discriminate against someone else†. To teach values and create friendly and supportive environment during the lesson is also one of the most important tasks of every teacher. A Biblical worldview has one more important impact on curriculum. It requires from teacher a definite approach to the choice of literature and course books. As curriculum material cannot be neutral, teacher should understand a philosophical position of a certain source of information. Some textbooks can contain errors and wrong facts, some books use irrelevant photographs, experiments and incorrect scientific facts. Many books give an incorrect insight into the material. All these things should be considered and corrected by a teacher. There is a number of worldview issues that influence on curriculum d ecisions in public schools. These issues are related to Biblical worldview that presupposes building a curriculum based on virtues that promotes positive environment in class and help students live in harmony with society. Reference List Manthei, D. (1998). Two worldviews in conflict: Evolution is absolutely opposed to the Bible. Creation. 20 (4), 26–27 Noebel, D., Edwards, C., (2002). Thinking like a Christian: understanding and living a biblical worldview. Nashville: BH Publishing Company.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Worldview Issues that Influence Curriculum Decisions in Public Education specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Van Brummelen, H. (2002). Steppingstones to curriculum: a biblical path (second edition). Colorado: Colorado Springs. This essay on The Worldview Issues that Influence Curriculum Decisions in Public Education was written and submitted by user Remy Larsen to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

The Types of Parallel Universes

The Types of Parallel Universes Physicists talk about parallel universes, but its not always clear what they mean. Do they mean alternate histories of our own universe, like those often shown in science fiction, or whole other universes with no real connection to ours? Physicists use the phrase parallel universes to discuss diverse concepts, and it can sometimes get a little confusing. For example, some physicists believe strongly in the idea of a multiverse for cosmological purposes, but dont actually believe in the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics. It is important to realize that parallel universes are not actually a theory within physics, but rather a conclusion that comes out of various theories within physics. There are a variety of reasons for believing in multiple universes as a physical reality, mostly having to do with the fact that we have absolutely no reason to suppose that our observable universe is all that there is.   There are two basic breakdowns of parallel universes that might be helpful to consider. The first was presented in 2003 by Max Tegmark and the second was presented by Brian Greene in his book The Hidden Reality. Tegmarks Classifications In 2003, MIT physicist Max Tegmark explored the idea of parallel universes in a paper published in a collection titled  Science and Ultimate Reality. In the paper,  Tegmark breaks the different types of parallel universes allowed by physics into four different levels: Level 1: Regions Beyond Cosmic Horizon: The universe is essentially infinitely big and contains matter at roughly the same distribution as we see it throughout the universe. Matter can combine in only so many different configurations. Given an infinite amount of space, it stands to reason there exists another portion of the universe in which an exact duplicate of our world exists.Level 2: Other Post-Inflation Bubbles: Separate universes spring up like bubbles of spacetime undergoing its own form of expansion, under the rules dictated by inflation theory. The laws of physics in these universes could be very different from our own.Level 3: The Many Worlds of Quantum Physics: According to this approach to quantum physics, events unfold in every single possible way, just in different universes. Science fiction alternate history stories utilize this sort of a parallel universe model, so its the most well-known outside of physics.Level 4: Other Mathematical Structures: This type of paralle l universes is sort of a catch-all for other mathematical structures which we can conceive of, but which we dont observe as physical realities in our universe. The Level 4 parallel universes are ones which are governed by different equations from those that govern our universe. Unlike Level 2 universes, its not just different manifestations of the same fundamental rules, but entirely different sets of rules. Greenes Classifications Brian Greenes system of classifications from his 2011 book, The Hidden Reality, is a more granular approach than Tegmarks. Below are Greenes classes of parallel universes, but weve also added the Tegmark Level that they fall under:   Quilted Multiverse (Level 1): Space is infinite, therefore somewhere there are regions of space that will exactly mimic our own region of space. There is another world out there somewhere in which everything is unfolding exactly as it unfolds on Earth.Inflationary Multiverse (Level 1 2): Inflationary theory in cosmology predicts an expansive universe filled with bubble universes, of which our universe is just one.Brane Multiverse (Level 2): String theory leaves open the possibility that our universe is on just one 3-dimensional brane, while other branes ​of any number of dimensions could have whole other universes on them.Cyclic Multiverse (Level 1): One possible result from string theory is that branes could collide with each other, resulting in universe-spawning big bangs that not only created our universe but possibly other ones.Landscape Multiverse (Level 1 4): String theory leaves open a lot of different fundamental properties of the universe which, combined with the in flationary multiverse, means there could be many bubble universes out there which have fundamentally different physical laws than the universe we inhabit. Quantum Multiverse (Level 3): This is essentially the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics; anything that can happen does... in some universe.Holographic Multiverse (Level 4): According to the holographic principle, there is a physically-equivalent parallel universe that would exist on a distant bounding surface (the edge of the universe), in which everything about our universe is precisely mirrored.Simulated Multiverse (Level 4): Technology will possibly advance to the point where computers could simulate each and every detail of the universe, thus creating a simulated multiverse whose reality is nearly as complex as our own.Ultimate Multiverse (Level 4): In the most extreme version of looking at parallel universes, every single theory which could possibly exist would have to exist in some form somewhere.