Before you jump all over me, I do not mean every teacher; I'm singling out biology teachers on this one after a new survey reported on in the New York Times showing that the one thing that many biology teachers avoid talking about is the most important subject in all of biology! Full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?_r=1&hpw
Only 28% of the surveyed teachers "follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution..." What's more, about 13% of those surveyed admitted to teaching creationism, a non-scientific religious viewpoint. This leaves around 60% who do neither, choosing to avoid controversy in a manner of ways.
All I can say is that this, while not coming as a shock, is shameful nonetheless. Can you imagine a similar lapse in our education system? Imagine the outcry if physics were taught without a mention of gravity? Or if astronomy was taught without mentioning the speed of light? These may seem ridiculous, but so is the teaching of biology without evolution! Without evolution to unify it, biology becomes nothing more than a series of interesting facts, easily forgettable and hardly worth knowing in the first place. Add evolution in and everything comes together.
Do I specifically blame the teachers themselves? No, not unless they are among the 13% teaching a lie and wasting valuable class time in doing so. There is immense pressure, especially in rural areas where creationist sentiment is the strongest, not to mention the awful "e" word, lest offended students talk to even more offended parents. Then, let the witch hunt begin! For the most part it seems that, were biology teachers to actually teach what the science says, administrators would not back them up but would rather let them swing in the wind.
Make no mistake though, this is an educational disaster much in need of a remedy. The article mentions at least one idea, of making courses in evolution mandatory for biology teachers. But this ignores the problem of lack of support in the classroom, and I'm at a loss as to how to remedy it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?_r=1&hpw
Only 28% of the surveyed teachers "follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution..." What's more, about 13% of those surveyed admitted to teaching creationism, a non-scientific religious viewpoint. This leaves around 60% who do neither, choosing to avoid controversy in a manner of ways.
All I can say is that this, while not coming as a shock, is shameful nonetheless. Can you imagine a similar lapse in our education system? Imagine the outcry if physics were taught without a mention of gravity? Or if astronomy was taught without mentioning the speed of light? These may seem ridiculous, but so is the teaching of biology without evolution! Without evolution to unify it, biology becomes nothing more than a series of interesting facts, easily forgettable and hardly worth knowing in the first place. Add evolution in and everything comes together.
Do I specifically blame the teachers themselves? No, not unless they are among the 13% teaching a lie and wasting valuable class time in doing so. There is immense pressure, especially in rural areas where creationist sentiment is the strongest, not to mention the awful "e" word, lest offended students talk to even more offended parents. Then, let the witch hunt begin! For the most part it seems that, were biology teachers to actually teach what the science says, administrators would not back them up but would rather let them swing in the wind.
Make no mistake though, this is an educational disaster much in need of a remedy. The article mentions at least one idea, of making courses in evolution mandatory for biology teachers. But this ignores the problem of lack of support in the classroom, and I'm at a loss as to how to remedy it.
I would be interested to compare what they teach to the curriculums the schools designed. Were they digressing or not? It's an important piece of information that was seemingly ignored in the survey.
ReplyDeleteMy gorge rises.
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