Bryce Hibbard is principal of Southern High School, which is a public school, and would probably have remained obscure (hi, Bryce) if he hadn’t appeared as a speaker at The Louisville Area Christian Educator Support (LACES) conference in 2013. Such conference participation is his own business, of course, but Hibbard made the rather novel point that teaching creationism in the school is perfectly legitimate. Hibbard told the other teachers at the conference that it is perfectly acceptable under Kentucky law to teach Biblical creationism in science classes, and even suggested future meetings with biology teachers to craft curricula. Imagine the expression on his face if he tried that argument in court.
But as Hibbard put it: “I taught biology for 20 years in this state and didn’t know that if evolution is part of the curriculum, that I could have been teaching creation.” Accordingly, “I thought I was sneaky if I had the kids … present it. So it was presented in my classroom by the kids, but I could have been doing it and didn’t know that.” When you hate truth, honesty doesn’t look much like a virtue anymore, does it? We will emphasize once again that this guy has actually for decades been teaching kids in public schools. He also told the crowd that they should be missionaries to students and plant the seed of Christ, since students who aren’t taken to church outside of school will otherwise “have no hope”. Said Hibbard: “At one point I was told, ‘You should be a youth minister,’ and someone said, ‘No, you’re in the greatest mission field there is, stay in the public school.’” Yes, it’s illegal, unconstitutional, and a violation of public trust and religious freedom, but religious freedom presumably means nothing more than freedom to worship Jesus the way Hibbard feels is appropriate.
Moreover, spending science classes giving Biblical lessons would not impede on the academic growth of his students, since creationism is “just another theory.” Said Hibbard: “A theory is a scientific understanding of what we know today. So evolution is a theory. Creation is a theory. Intelligent design is a theory. The theory of relativity is a theory. Yeah.” It’s admittedly an original spin on the “just a theory” gambit, but it doesn’t make Hibbard look particularly competent at the teaching job he is employed to do.
Diagnosis: Possibly the worst teacher your kids could ever be exposed to. Dangerous and repugnant.