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Teachers Back Away From Evolution In Class
RedEaredSlider writes "A study (abstract) from Penn State shows that a lot of teachers — some 60 percent — are reluctant to teach evolutionary theory in the classroom either because they fear controversy or they just aren't comfortable with the material (as not every biology teacher was a science major). It shows the importance, the authors say, of training teachers well before they step into the class."
Unsurprisingly, the summary is wrong. 28% actively teach evolution as if it is a correct theory, 60% teach both evolution and ID and do not make claims as to their validity. The last 12% actually only teach creationism. All of this survey was done with biology highschool teachers.
It's really only in the US I think. Nobody in Europe will contest (except the occasional, marginal and fortunately exceptionally rare nutjob) the teaching of evolution. Maybe it's because Public Schools are actually good in Europe, and many countries are officially agnostic, so it's a moot point ; whereas in the US there are much more private schools that have to tread carefully not to alienate their customers.. err.. student's parents?
If even the teachers aren't educated enough to understand this - what hope is there for the rest.
That's not what TFA really says. TFS is somewhat misleading. Teachers aren't unprepared, they're uncomfortable. And while it doesn't say exactly why they're uncomfortable, I'd wager they're more afraid of one set of parents than the other.
I am not a crackpot.
When chicken embryos first start to develop they have teeth buds along their jaw lines and the beginnings of multi segmented tails. As they develop their DNA tells the developing embryo to absorb them. Much like human embryo's absorb our own embryonic gill slits. Now if you turn off the genes that control this absorption instruction you get chicken embryos that develop long multi segmented dinosaur tails and meat eating dinosaur teeth complete with the serrated inside edge.
And a few news sites discussing this:
Some of the people involved:
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
If true, a more accurate summary would be, "Teachers Embrace Evolution in the Class."
Asimov's essay "The relativity of wrong" should be required reading... It puts some perspective on 'truth' and 'wrong'. Religious people love to point out small errors in the theory of evolution and claim that all must be wrong, that's an inherent property of blind faith (you either believe the whole thing no matter how ridiculous or you have to abandon your whole faith, it's an all-or-nothing game). The scientific way that Asimov illustrates has degrees of 'wrongness', but a steadily improving model that gets closer and closer to the truth.
As far as I know, Christians wanted to stop evolution being taught in schools in the 1920s. But after the Scopes Monkey Trial public opinion changed and people turned against laws preventing the teaching of evolution. And evolution was being taught in more and more schools.
So what changed the trend of evolution being taught in more schools? What shifted public opinion against evolution being taught in schools? It was backlash against Atheists.
No, there is no backlash. These so-called New Atheists really don't exist. If they did, where would you find them? Do they picket out the front of churches like the Christians picket abortion clinics and movies that they don't like? Do they stack the church boards so they can change the church policy like the Christians stack school boards?
No, it was the establishment of the Intelligent Design movement that changed everything. Once the states were told by the supreme court that they could not ban evolution from being taught in schools for religious reasons because that was against the constitution, the anti-evolution crowd began to re-invent their movement as a secular one. After trying out some terms like Scientific Creationism (which didn't work in court because it still had the name creationism), they eventually went with Intelligent Design.
This is purely a religious movement hiding their real beliefs for legal reasons. These people who had successfully made laws to ban evolution in the past never stopped working towards their goals. It was not some mythical anti-atheist backlash that brought this controversy back. It was the tireless efforts of a group of people who were not going to let the US constitution stop them from forcing their beliefs on others.
A recent program on PBS (I think) that discussed the The State of Tennessee v. Scopes in 1925 where a teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution. It was said after the trial (teacher was found guilty and fined $100), schools across the country continued to teach biblical creation. After the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, evolution was brought into school curriculum because, "we are behind the Soviets in teaching science."
As science is taking a backseat to sales, marketing, and religious dogma, I can see how evolution will be removed from school curriculum. But then those godless commie's in other countries will churn out more engineers and scientists while we bitch and moan.
mfwright@batnet.com
In Europe, this ain't even an issue. Evolution isn't taught in school, it is fact. School explains the fact same as school explains gravity. You have to be educated that gravity exists, just how it actually works.
That evolution is even up for debate shows a LOT about the USA. There shouldn't even be a debate. You don't debate facts. And if you claim evolution is not a fact... happy beard in the sky day.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't believe anyone was claiming destitution. The point of the original posts above was to state that, apart from the political/cultural issues, there is a financial disincentive for science teachers to keep teaching. My mistake was not being clear about this--that I voiced support for the previous posts would seem to indicate I agreed with their arguments for financial motivations, however.
On a personal note: My wife earned 22K as a new teacher in her first job. Average starting salary for a new professor like me--33K. Needless to say, we both bailed on teaching. I realize one data point does not make a statistic. Nationwide, teachers tend to burn out or make the same decision at around 5 years in. This actually is another disturbing trend in education. We can't seem to keep teachers. Why would that be, if their benefits and vacation time are irrationally good or high, per your argument?
Part of this may be in part due to most teachers working under a 9 month contract with little economic opportunity for the other 3 months. Yes--you can score papers for testing companies thanks to NCLB/RTTT or get a minimum wage job, but does that really make up for the lost potential? Teacher attrition rates would seem to indicate that it is not so.
On your other point that teacher benefits are much greater than those of professionals in other occupations, I would have to agree if this were 20-30 years ago. When I was growing up, we never had to worry about going to the doctor and my parents seem to have done fine for retirement. That said, the current state of affairs is not as nice. In one of my wife's teaching positions, her school had to bargain for healthcare and benefits individually rather than as a state collective (as in other states). In a small school with some aging teachers this didn't work out so well. We had minimal coverage and just hoped not to get sick or need a doctor. As far as retirement goes, I think you'll see that there are two outcomes that seem to have demonstrated themselves over the last 10-15 years. They are: 1) the privatization of teacher pensions/retirement options--subject to the same crash as any other occupation so no real incentive there, and 2) the reduction in or state de-funding of pension/retirement plans due to other budgetary needs/issues.
Claiming that teachers receive disproportionate benefits and vacation time is does not seem to hold true. Otherwise, I should think you would see a trend toward a much higher teacher retention rate as well as a boom in the number of students of teacher preparation programs. Having worked in a university in a state which produced a surplus of teachers, as well as working closely with departments of education, I can tell you from experience that neither one of these are occurring.