Slashdot Mirror
Science Fair Exhibits: Fair Game For Censorship
Jake_Man writes: "A rather intelligent young lady had her science fair project regarding racial preferences amongst adults and children yanked after being on display for an hour. Not only is this building tremendous confidence and self esteem in a young lady interested in the scientific field, it's just more of the "if we don't talk about it, it'll go away" mentality to which our nation's school children are subjected everyday. What a great way to help children learn to think for themselves ..."
I'd say that given the level of attention it got and the amount of discomfort it caused, her science project was a complete success. Indeed, I doubt she had imagined that it would be nearly as successful as it was.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
You are underestimating your conformity. Do you drive on the right side of the road? Why? Do you spit in people's faces? Why not? Do you wear clothes at work? At home? In the pool? Do you watch any television? If so, do you laugh at any of the same things as the laugh track? Do you speak English? When a friend experiences pain (death in the family, loss of job, etc) do you comfort him or her? When your child hangs out with kids who smoke and then decides to smoke when you tell him not to, is he thinking for himself--or conforming to a different "authority figure"?
Some of these things are innate to being human. Some are socially acquired. In any case they do not necessarily equate to "thinking for yourself". What the previous poster was saying was that, in order to function in a group, you have to be using the same protocol as the rest of the group. But as you hint (although not clearly) conformity and free-thinking are actually perpendicular. Person A may conform because that's the way they were raised. Person B may conform because they've analyzed the protocol and are just emulating it "on the outside". Real people are a combination of both.
Feel free to spout on about how non-conformist and free-thinking you are. The very fact that you want to communicate with us (and are succeeding) points out that you are less different than you think.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
It seems to me that the important lesson here is to parents:
YOU are responsible for the process of developing your child into a free, thinking adult. Forces outside your home will do their best to whittle your progeny down to a TV hypnotized semi-concious consumer-droid. If you want your child to grow up to be a free adult, the job is yours. May you succeed.
The harm to this child will depend on the support she receives from her parents. If she has been given a strong enough a world view to resist Barbie-and-Ken America (seems like she is off to a good start) then this will become an incident that will strengthen her.
See Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
IMHO, The child in question behaved quite responsibly, and with a maturity some adults could learn from. Like most of us, she sees that, whether it should or not, race does matter in today's society. Rather than trying to take sides, she conducted an experiment to quantify that phenomenon, and then presented her findings.
In response, the adults present removed a perfectly valid and useful science project from the fair.
As you state, children need discipline. That is, when a child does something irresponsible or wrong, they should be corrected. In this case, the child did something responsible and right. The exhibit was certainly controversial, but that does not make it wrong. It seems to me that they pulled the exhibit down because it was controversial. By doing so, they taught her that talking about race relations is wrong. They taught her, and all the other children there, that being controversial was wrong.
If we teach our children that being controversial is wrong, we raise stupid little sheep. And I, for one, refuse to raise mutton.
If the adults acted responsibly, they might point out the exhibit, and use it as a starting point for a discussion on race relations. This is certainly a topic worth discussing. For my money, understanding that we don't live in a colorblind society, understanding why, and understanding what we can do about it, is much more useful to an emerging adult than remembering which shape on the map represents Belgium.
Instead, they tried to further the illusion that we do live in a colorblind society. They taught the lesson "If you ignore the issue, maybe it will go away". I don't think any of us here are stupid enough to believe that.
--The basis of all love is respect
Based on this, The Boulder Valley school district web page is here. The public officials have all sorts of contact information, etc. Some even have email addresses.
Now remember that we would want intelligent discussion about this, so make sure that if you choose to communicate with them, to cite the original web page, and to use nice words. Personal attacks should be avoided, since most of these folks likely do not have a government issued flame retardant Web suit yet.
yes, the School has a web site as well, but it seems better that you send any comments to the Public officials, since it is part of their job description to occasionally be on the hot seat.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Officially, the school district condemns censorship. As the district decrees, students' constitutional freedoms include the right to free expression and free inquiry.
Later, the director of elementary education argued, "A science fair is not the way we choose to discuss race relations."
Freedom of expression applies only in an approved forum? I guess they amended the First Amendment...
This girl should be commended, She performed a real scientific experiment, she came up with a hypothosis and figured out an inovative way to test it. She then documented her findings.
It is my understanding that most Science fair experiments are rather dull and pointless.
She should get an "A".
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Actually, you can acheive statistical significance with such a small sample. Using the limited data available from This AP wire version of the story:
She dressed up a white Barbie and black Barbie in two different colored dresses. She asked 15 adults at her father's workplace which doll was prettier.
She then switched the dresses and asked 15 more adults. The doll wearing the lavender dress -- regardless of the doll's skin color -- was deemed prettiest by both groups.
Then, When she asked fifth-graders at Mesa Elementary, all 15 in one class picked the white doll. In the second class, after the dresses were switched, nine of the 15 students picked the white doll.
So, we know the following:
# of people (of 15) picking the White Doll
---------White+Lavender---Black+Lavender---Tot
Young...|..9 or 15......|....9 or 15.....|..24
Old.....|..8 to 15......|....1 to 7......|..??
Now, let's make some assumptions:
First, let's assume that Lavender is actually prettier, and that the 6 students that chose the black doll did so when she was wearing lavender. That means that we have:
# of people (of 15) picking the White Doll
---------White+Lavender---Black+Lavender---Tot
Young...|......15.......|.......9........|..24
This indicates a statistically significant main effect for doll color. A two sided chi-square (corrected with Fisher's exact test to accomodate cells with expected values less than 5) is significant p=.015.
Testing for a main effect for the adults and an age x doll+dress interaction would require knowing the cell values for adults, which are not reported.
What this means is something else entirely. According to the AP article, her conclusion was I discovered that most grown-ups liked the lavender dress on the black or white Barbie. On the other hand, kids mostly liked the white Barbie. Only six kids liked the black Barbie. Which is really just a statement of the results.
This could mean:
- that the kids are racist
- that adults are racist, but are able to supress racist feelings when they are in a study
- that adults really like lavender
- that black barbies are less common and therefore less preferred
- that black barbies are simply white barbies in a different color and look odd, as would a white person who's skin was dyed black.
- that she presented the dolls in a fashion that would encourage the kids to choose the white one, but would encourage adults to choose the lavender dress. (People have a tendency to choose the alternative on the right)
- Something else
Regardless, this doesn't speak to the issue of appropriateness. Personally, if I were a teacher, I'd use this as a golden opportunity to discuss prejudice and the importance of treating people as individuals.if this were "Science" in the adult world, it would also be a controversial study. Not because it's wrong to ask people about preferences, but because there's not enough detail in the study to understand *why*
Those are excellent questions for someone reviewing or judging her project. Perhaps you're right that sociology experiments at an elementary school should be held to a higher standard than typical kid stuff with tadpoles or rock collections. But the decision still should be based on scientific merit. Call over the blue ribbon panel and ask them to find flaws in her reasoning.
Science should be judged on its science, not on administrative policy.
No wonder they yanked it, there's no reason to have a high-level race dialogue among second graders.
Do you have kids? My five year-old (kindergarten) asks me questions about race all the time.
"Dad, why do only black people work at McDonald's?"
"Son, that's not true. That's just because the McDonald's we go to, there's more black people that live around there." (and we drove to another area of town to show him that all types of people work in fast-food.
"Dad, why do only black people sing rap music?"
So I proceeded (with great hesitation) to show up a picture of Eminem.
I read somewhere that the average five year old asks 200 questions a day. I'm not about to stifle his inquisitive or critical thinking. For example, we've been reading the old Narnia books, and he asks me what "slaves" are. And I explained that many years ago, it was okay to actually own people, and how wrong that thinking was.
I think it's enlightening and refreshing and I'm glad I can treat him like a little person, instead of a mindless drone. (And in case anyone is wondering, his biological father is African-American, and his biological mother is white). One way I can contribute to social change is by educating the young, and wait for the old people to die off.
Well, the First Amendment doesn't neccessarily apply to an 8 year old. You don't get Rights until you can accept the Responsibilities that come attached to them.
Unfortunatly, our criminal justice system has shown that you have those 'responsibilities' from about age 10 on, with their insistance on prosecuting mere children as adults. If a 12 year old can be sentanced to spend the next 20 years of his life in prison, he better damn well get the Bill of Rights.
.sig: Now legally binding!
project than I and my classmates used to do back then. I did a volcano that didn't explode because somehow I thought that any old liquid could replace vinegar. The girl right next to me did one on the planets. Well all the planets except for Jupiter that is. "Oh crap. That's ok," she said to me, "I'll just try to cover up the place where it's supposed to be when the judges come around."
---
---
I'm just an ordinary man with nothing to lose.
i think school can really be what you make of it. i had a lot of teachers who didn't go the distance to make learning come alive for their students, but i also saw that all my fellow classmates didn't care at all about learning. what are these teachers supposed to do?
i also had several teachers who, once i showed them that i wasn't just another warm body in a seat, really opened up to me and taught me far more about the world than i could've imagined at the time. even now, _many_ years later, i'm still thankful for how they helped when they did. but i _know_ for a fact that they weren't like this to everyone... because most people just didn't care.
didn't any of you people ever show any initiative in school yourselves? maybe it wouldn't have been such a robot factory kind of place for you, too. maybe you didn't know everything already.
The director of elementary education argued, "A science fair is not the way we choose to discuss race relations."
If a scientific forum isn't the place to discuss race relations, then what is? A riot? A lynch mob? If a young girl can't take a mature, scientific look at a major problem in our society, then how on earth is it supposed to be discussed? Please, oh please, can someone who agrees with this school director explain to me what is a more appropriate forum to discuss the issue than a (somewhat) scientific study? Sheesh...
---
...is thinking that our school system wants kids to think for themselves.
The majority of our schools are designed to produce people who:
In other words, they are designed to produce factory workers. No joke.
In all my science fairs I was never allowed to just go off, do something, and have nobody look at it until it made it to the science fair floor. Surely some teacher must have been told "I plan to study racial bias in children" and had the option to say "Go ahead." Where is the commentary from that teacher? I refuse to believe that it got all the way to the science fair before somebody suddenly decided that it was in the best interest of the children to remove it.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
...because you aren't thinking very logically. Let's say, for the sake of argument that you are right, schools intend to produce children meeting those characteristics. Let's further assume that they succeed. How does that rule out children thinking for themselves?
For instance, I consistently show up on time and am relatively organized. I have no discipline problems in my recent history (legal, work, etc). My wife doubly so. Yet both of us routinely hold opinions differing from that of the majority. Neither of us is a factory worker.
Good discipline and free thought are not opposites. Nominal "free-thinking radicals" can be just as conformist, within their subgroup, as a military academy.
PS: Note what I did NOT say: "Good discipline causes free thought."
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
When I was in the seventh grade, my teacher asked us to do a persuasive paper on Flag-burning and the constitution. She told us that her husband had been in vietnam and that she was very passionate about the flag so if any of us wrote a paper that upheld flag burning as free expression, we would be given an F. I thought she was challenging us, so I wrote just such a paper. I recieved an F. The horrible thing was that not only was she interested in censoring flag burning, she was wished to censor those who disagreed. Censorship in schools is common. This little girl is by no means alone. What a terrible lesson to teach children.
I wonder if the young Miss Thielen had been a black girl whether the teachers would have been so hasty to pull her project...?
The original posters point was that school is designed to produce mindless drones who follow orders and never think.
:-)
IronChef pretends that the message really was that we should raise a generation of criminals, and proceeds to argue against crime, instead of the actual point of the original post.
The most amusing part is when he tells us to "Think, dammit", while arguing vehemently agains teaching kids to think for themselves
It's got me curious -- her hypothesis is on whether white people will prefer the white barbie, but the article only breaks it up as adults versus children. I'd be very interested to know if she asked both white and black children, and if so, whether black children preferred the black barbie regardless of dress. Wouldn't that demonstrate racial preference from both directions? Why must we always assume that racism equals white people not liking black people?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I live in boulder and have judged other elementary science fairs there. I saw the project before it was removed (although I wasn't a judge at mesa). This was hands down the best science fair project I've seen in a long time (at that level).
hypothesis was clear and testable
methodology was clear, simple, and tested the hypothesis
data was well tabulated and presented
conclusion was valid and didn't overreach
topic was relevant and current
It could have used a larger sample size, but it blew away all the chemical volcanoes
Is it a significant enough statistical universe to generalize ?? Hardly. Does it show early trends ?? Certainly does. So her data could use a few thousand more points. . .if she was a collegiate-level researcher.
For an 8-year-old, this is outstanding performance. This kid shows promise, and already thinks "outside the box". . .
In elementary school, I did a science experiment involving taste. I made 100 mini-muffins, divided into combinations of artificial flavors and colors. For example, the red muffins might be blueberry flavor and the yellow muffins might be chocolate (or whatever). I asked people to eat them and tell me what flavor they tasted. I had dozens of test subjects and they ALL guessed the wrong, "obvious" flavor (red = cherry, blue = blueberry) except my friend Michael. kids are st00pid.
cpeterso
Censorship is not an effective means of dismantling a meme. It's short sighted, and in many cases can only fan the flames. Censorship removes an idea from debate, as the author of the article has noted.
Removing debate is dangerous in a free society. In North America, our participation in any sort of public debate is minimal, and doubt is often frowned upon. Doubt in free-trade warrants the label of a protectionist. Doubting America's motives abroad (ie. Vietnam, Iraq, Chile etc.) is un-American. The very same for my own Canada as well.
My solution to racism and other bad ideas is to not censor them. The onus is on us to prove why they are bad ideas. Censorship is lazy, if we really feel strongly about an idea, then we should be prepared to discuss it, prove or disprove it.
There will always be idiots who feel like denying the holocaust, or putting blacks beneath asians on a bell curve. But let the unpopularity of their ideas shine. Let them feel free to make asses of themselves.
Furthermore, isolating a group of bad-ideas-supporters does not help to win them over. Censorship merely ignites them with more passion, convincing them that the government is against them, because of the Zionist conspiracy or some other nonsense.
So really, all censorship does is impede debate, which harms the good ideas and decent common narrative that a culture should have. It isolates instead of healing, it's a bad habit to get into (what if an unpopular idea, like democracy, or socialism, or whatever someday proves correct?)
The only real way to handle bad ideas is to challenge them with better ideas.
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
From the article:
I think I see what we're aiming for, here. What we want is to develop the Whiffle Life for children so that they grow up to be Whiffle Adults who are shocked and amazed when they burn their fingers on a stove, and then sue the stove manufacturer for not affixing a warning label to the stovetop.
You know what I think makes "students of color" uncomfortable? Calling them "students of color". Jeez, what the hell's wrong with calling 'em "students"? Crikey, I'm a "person of color", that color just happens to be "extremely pale".
That this child is 8 years old is irrelavant. This is a pretty sophisticated experiment for an 8-year-old, and she should be allowed to present it. Will it make the kids ask questions? Probably -- that's a GOOD thing. Will it make them uncomfortable? Not likely -- do these administrators remember being 8? 8 year olds aren't bothered by much. Witness them causing scenes in Wal-Mart or the grocery store.
Well, the First Amendment doesn't neccessarily apply to an 8 year old. You don't get Rights until you can accept the Responsibilities that come attached to them. The issue here is "should this project be tossed out" and to me, the answer is "no".
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
As a graduate of the Boulder Valley School District system, I wouldn't bet much that they do. Granted, I don't attend Mesa Elementary right now, but from what I've seen of BVSD free expression and free inquiry ARE supported and respected. No filters on the browsers when I was there, you can cuss in papers and keep it to a minimum in class, no books are banned.
In Boulder, there are always enough people with enough power to keep in the government in check. Oftentimes, the only option available is in fact to do the morally right thing, because if the Daily Camera doesn't let you know you screwed up then *some* organization certainly will.
It's funny that this kind of thing gets reported, I think, given that it's a relatively insignificant event. However, it does involve principles worth preserving and definitely falls under the heading of what those in the Denver area would call "only in Boulder."
Yes, we should never allow people to reach beyond what they can do. No one should ever strive to improve him- or herself, nor attempt to reach beyond a comfortable boundary of experience.
We can't have that. Who knows what might happen? God forbid! Someone might suggest that Newtonian physics are wrong! Someone might suggest that the Earth is not the center of the Universe.
Everyone should be muffled in a warm cocoon of simplicty.
Ignorance is bliss!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Boston has historically been one of the most racist cities in the US. Because it is a center of liberal thought, though, racism is swept under the carpet. Witness the busing debate of twenty-odd years ago.
The Boston sports teams are not immune to this. The Red Sox were the last baseball team to integrate. I believe the Bruins (hockey) had a black player before either the Red Sox or the Celtics (the Patriots weren't founded until 1960).
Probably the ultimate reason for the racism was the large Irish population in Boston. The Irish had a tendency to racism for the very simple reason that the blacks would compete with them for the same menial jobs (due to the bias of the Brahmins). When the Irish essentially took over the city in the early 20th-century they effectively did all they could to marginalize any black population.
Except this girl clearly was prepared to deal with this question, as her (apparently) well-presented project shows.
While I agree with you in principle, this is the wrong case for you to argue this point on. This is a simple matter of the school authorities being embarrassed by a child questioning their assumptions, and dealing with it in a stupid manner. Business as usual in our public schools.
--
--
E_NOSIG
At their site.
Best Slashdot Co