Being determines consciousness. Educators abuse this fact. They try to determine their pupils' lifelong beliefs and values. I was told that I knew that matrimony was a sacrament. Children of American Fundamentalists are told that evolution is a myth.
Young people need to learn that:
each person is born at a particular time and place and in a particular social context;
people with different starting points necessarily have very different beliefs;
anyone could have been taken at birth to be brought up as a Muslim in Pakistan, as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, as a Maoist in China etc;
each of us needs to learn for him or herself;
learning includes understanding alternative points of view.
My mother, an Irish Catholic, did not even understand Anglicanism. Educators need to encourage learning, not propagate beliefs.
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