High Schooler's Religious Objections End Teacher's Creative Essay Assignments

Yesterday's Everett, Washington Herald reports that a Lake Stevens, WA high school teacher is in trouble for assigning creative essays to his students. Gary McDonald asked his students to write an essay to compare "World on the Turtle's Back"-- an Iroquois creation myth -- with other creation stories and their own concepts of good and evil. He asked them to discuss how that story, and how the creation account in Genesis, reflect the four functions of myth. In a later assignment he asked students to write on how evil can exist if God is good and all-powerful. One of McDonald's 17-year old students complained that the assignments were offensive to her Christian beliefs. The complaint came one day after McDonald-- after being asked by one of his students-- told the class he was an atheist. McDonald's principal reprimanded him and told him to eliminate material he had added to standard assignments in the textbook. McDonald says he was trying to prepare students for the study of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," based on the Salem witch trials.