[GSlob]

"Not in the public school system. No way they're gonna teach religion."
A class I was talking about [history of culture and of religion] is impossible at dumbed-down level of contemporary US public schools even if all the official strictures disappeared by a magic wand. To teach it seriously would require a type of a student who used to make it to the high school [public high school!] in the United States about 100 years ago - IQ 110+ and a rather serious culture background. Nowadays most of such students "get demagnetized" along the way. It might be possible at the college level, though.

[metmom]

I see what you're saying. I agree. What I saw of the basic academic skills of the incoming freshmen when I went back to finish my degree almost 20 years ago was almost beyond belief. Since I was a "non-traditional" student (read: adult-31 years old) I was close in age to my profs and became friends with some of them and boy did I hear a lot. The education system is failing our kids in a serious way. I got a forward from a friend a while ago and it was entitled "Could you have passed the 8th grade ...in 1895?" It's taken from an original test from a school in Kansas. I doubt I could have passed it even after graduating from college because reasoning skills just aren't taught anymore. It wasn't just facts, it was why's. You had to think.