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Tag: Megan Henry

LifeWise Academy Takes Students to Visit Ken Ham’s Monument to Ignorance

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— Megan Henry, used with permission from Ohio Capital Journal

At least nearly a dozen LifeWise Academy Ohio programs have taken public school students on field trips to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in Kentucky, which claims humans lived alongside dinosaurs and the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

LifeWise Academy is a controversial Hilliard-based religious instruction program for public school students on “religious release time,” that operates in 34 states and plans to enroll nearly 100,000 students this school year, according to its website.

It will also be in almost half of Ohio’s public school districts this school year.

LifeWise Academy programs in Adams County, Holgate Schools (Henry County), Continental Schools (Putnam County), Antwerp Schools (Paulding County), Wayne Trace Schools (Paulding County), Paulding Schools (Paulding County), Central Local (Defiance County), Van Wert (Van Wert County), and Tinora (part of Northeastern Schools in Defiance County) have all taken field trips to the Ark Encounter this year, in 2024 or 2023, according to Facebook posts from those LifeWise programs. [Central Local is our local school district and we have grandchildren who attend Northeastern Schools]

Pandora-Gilboa’s LifeWise Academy Program (Putnam County) has visited the Creation Museum every year from 2021-2025 and Upper Arlington’s LifeWise Program (Franklin County) visited the museum in 2023, according to Facebook posts from those LifeWise programs. 

The Creation Museum promotes young Earth creationism, the belief that God created the universe and everything in it in six 24-hour days 6,000 years ago. 

This comes from a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 where God created the universe. 

The museum in Petersburg, Kentucky depicts humans and dinosaurs living together and characterizes the Earth as approximately 6,000 years old. 

“LifeWise teaches Bible lessons, plain and simple,” Christine Czernejewski, a spokesperson for LifeWise, said in an email. “As such, kids are taught what Genesis 1 actually says — that God created all things and that He created them over the course of 6 different days.” [I bet that children aren’t taught about the divine council or the multiple deities mentioned in Genesis 1-3.]

Scientists have determined Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. 

“The science (at the Creation Museum), it’s just appalling,” said Daniel Phelps, a retired geologist based in Kentucky.

“They depict dinosaurs and humans as living together. They have many, multiple attacks on the standard view of science, especially things like geology and biology and paleontology. … They misinterpret a lot of the human fossil record, and the Art Park especially has a display that disputes climate science.” [Thanks for speaking the truth, Daniel.]

LifeWise Academy is a non-denominational Christian program [see Letter to the Editor: Lifewise Academy Hides Its Evangelical Beliefs By Saying They Are Non-Denominational] that teaches the Bible to public school students during the school day at a special release time.

“We tend to teach the Bible kind of as it teaches,” said LifeWise Founder and CEO Joel Penton. “We do talk through the six days of creation as outlined in Genesis 1. However, developing a systematic theology of young Earth versus old Earth, we leave that to local churches.” [Most, and I mean MOST, Evangelicals are young earth creationists.]

In January, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a law passed by Republican lawmakers that mandates public school districts create a policy allowing students release time for religious instruction.

It concerns Phelps that LifeWise programs are taking students to the museum and the ark. 

“I would like to call this educational malpractice,” Phelps said. “It simply is not science, and the students are being misled. They’re basically learning to distrust science and follow an extremely fringe version of Christianity.” [Yep.]

A 2019 Gallup poll showed that 40% of U.S. adults believe in creationism, the belief that God created humans in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years.  [actually it it almost 7 in 10 when you add theistic evolution to the equation]

“Most Christians don’t accept the fundamentalist version of creationism,” Phelps said. “… It’s also going to hurt kids that want to have a future studying science and are going to learn all these things that just simply are not true.”

The Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter are both operated by Answers in Genesis, a fundamentalist Christian apologetics organization that promotes young Earth creationism. 

The Creation Museum opened in 2007 and the Ark Encounter, 510-foot wooden ship intended as a replica of the biblical Noah’s Ark, opened in 2016. 

LifeWise said all field trips require parental permission. 

“LifeWise programs have taken field trips to museums, local parks, sporting events and area churches,” Czernejewski said. [Nice dodge. the focus is on trips to an explicitly Evangelical business that promotes science illiteracy.]

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Ohio Legislators Want to Make “Capitalism” a Required Subject for High School Students

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By Megan Henry, Used with Permission from Ohio Capital Journal

An Ohio bill adding capitalism to a high school financial literacy credit is one step closer to becoming law. 

The Ohio House passed Senate Bill 17 with a 66-26 vote during Wednesday’s session. Four Democrats voted for SB 17 — Bride Rose Sweeney, Dani Isaacsohn, Elliot Forhan, and Richard Dell’Aquila. Every senator voted for SB 17 except state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo. 

The Ohio Senate must agree to changes in the bill before it heads to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk for his signature. 

State Sen. Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, introduced the bill last year, which lays out 10 free market capitalism concepts that would be taught. 

“One of the most important ways to prepare (students) for a successful life ahead is to make sure that they understand how money works and how that system works,” Wilson said last year during his sponsor testimony. 

The current law requires the State Board of Education to adopt standards and curriculum for financial literacy instruction, but does not clarify what must be included in the standards or model curriculum. 

The ten concepts proposed under SB 17:

  1. Raw materials, labor, and capital are privately owned. 
  2. Individuals control their own ability to work and earn wages. 
  3. Private ownership of capital may take many forms, including via a family business, a publicly traded corporation, or a bank, among others. 
  4. Market prices are the only method to inform consumers and producers about the constantly changing information about the supply and demand of goods and services. 
  5. Both sellers and buyers seek to profit in a free market transaction, and profit earned can be consumed, saved, reinvested, or dispersed to shareholders. 
  6. Wealth creation involves asset value appreciation and depreciation, voluntary exchange of equity ownership, and open and closed markets. 
  7. The free market positively correlates with entrepreneurship and innovation.  
  8. The free market may involve externalities and market failures in which the cost of certain economic activities is borne by third parties. 
  9. The free market often accords with policies like legally protected property rights, legally enforceable contracts, patent protections, and the mitigation of externalities. 
  10. Free-market societies often embrace political and personal freedoms.

“It would be up to the teacher to decide how much time to use in their classroom as they’re adding these additional concepts,” state rep Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, said during Wednesday’s session. 

As a former teacher, state rep. Sean Patrick Brennan, D-Parma, has reservations about SB 17. 

“I can attest that it’s already a very daunting task to cover all the topics thoroughly in financial literacy,” Brennan said during Wednesday’s House session. “I’ve always believed in the foot-long, foot-deep model of teaching, rather than the mile-long, inch-deep model, where students are thrown a lot of material in a short amount of time, and not given sufficient time to master it and truly put it to use in their lives.”

Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro said he doesn’t think the “overall thrust of the bill” will make a major change. 

“As a high school social studies teacher myself, I always taught about capitalism and the differences between capitalism and socialism in the classes that I taught, whether it was in history or government or economics, so I don’t know that it’s going to really make too much of a difference,” he said. “Kids are already being taught those concepts.” 

The financial literacy class can be an elective or as a substitute for a half-unit of mathematics — something former teacher and state rep. Joe Miller, D-Amherst, is not a fan of.

“In Ohio, let’s teach students less math as we move into the advanced tech economy with Intel coming in,” he said during Wednesday’s House session.

Intel is coming to Licking County, but the Wall Street Journal recently reported the timeline to finish the $20 billion project has been delayed and won’t be ready until late 2026 or 2027. 

Ohio’s current law requires teachers to have a financial literacy license in order to teach financial literacy, unless they teach social studies, family and consumer sciences, and business education.

Under SB 17, math teachers would be able to teach financial literacy. 

The bill would allow high school students to meet their financial literacy requirements by taking Advanced Placement Microeconomics or Macroeconomics.

“I’ve known a lot of really bright AP students over the years,” Brennan said. “They’re incredible, but they have no idea the difference between a whole life life insurance policy and a term life insurance policy, or the various types of mortgage options available when one’s looking to buy a home.”

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.