[bobdsmith]

The teacher will avoid saying anything that can be construed as offence. Probably something like "that's a really good question, but its really not a question for science class, however I am happy to discuss it after class with you if you want"

That's what I picture.

[Just mythoughts]

I can only speak to the school district I live in. I taught my children to pay attention to the "methodology" of the science instruction and not start any debates.

A biology teacher was constrained about the "evolution" doctrine, and was apparent to my child that the teacher was not a full fledged believer. Abortion was discussed in the vain of "if you knew your child would have a specific disease" abortion was an option. Imagine that.

Interestingly my child is friends with a person with that specific disease. Thus the ideology of suggesting abortion a purposeful tool to prevent suffering thankfully failed miserably upon my child.

However the majority of the class when polled by hand raising did not indicate the majority had issues with aborting a medically flawed fetus.

Now what was very clear to my child was that evolution is what the book described, yet the instructor was conflicted in teaching the subject.

The suppose sterility of methodology given from the biology book did not and could not fill the void of real life question and answers.

The "set up", the introduction of the biology textbook is filled with "if, perhaps, possibly, probably, may have been, etc" and none of these words establish a confidence that what is being projected is proved or provable, rather a method how to think about the subject, more pointedly their own bodies.