by Hamilton Richardson
Printed in The Montgomery Advertiser

March 24, 2010 - When a group of local area homeschooled students re-created the famous Scopes Monkey Trial last week at a Millbrook church, not only did they relive history, but they also learned about their faith.

About 30 students from Autauga and Elmore county homeschool organizations participated in the U.S. history exercise, which included the students dressing in garb from the early 1900s and using much more difficult language than they might normally use in everyday conversation.

"We were looking for activities we could use as living history events," said homeschool mom and teacher Lori Herring. "Our goal in teaching history is to encourage and allow the students to not only understand the time period they are studying, but to give them the framework to connect history to the world events of today."

Herring said that the students, in re-creating the trial of teacher John Thomas Scopes, read from the actual transcripts of the event.

"We wanted to use the actual words of the participants in the trial to give the students a true understanding of what the participants thought, not someone's opinion of what happened," she said. "Too often, we rely on someone else to interpret history for us, instead of going back to the original documents and reading it for ourselves."

Scopes, a teacher in Dayton, Tenn., was charged on May 5, 1925, with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in schools. He was tried in a case known as the Scopes Monkey Trial.

"The issues involved in the Scopes Monkey Trial are still issues in our culture today," Herring continued as she explained the importance of the issues presented at the trial. "We are still fighting this battle in our society and in the educational institutions. Darwinism is taught as fact instead of theory in many schools under the guise of academic freedom."

Jenny Dunn, who also homeschools her kids, said that the group has been studying the early 1900s and the beginning roots of progressivism.

"Part of that study includes the changing education system that started with school systems refusing to teach anything that contradicted the Bible," Dunn said. "Then the progressives challenged the anti-evolution statutes that resulted in this trial. Now this has progressed to today's schools that refuse to allow anything about the Bible to be taught."

Dunn said through this exercise, the students have learned how important it is to know how to defend their religion and also to understand the background of contrary points of view.

To read the rest of the article, go to:

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20103240302