Slashdot Mirror
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."
If even the teachers aren't educated enough to understand this - what hope is there for the rest.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
How can one be a Biology teacher without having a major in at least one of the sciences? Sad. Schools ought to demote these persons to HomeEc or English, and hire some actual degreed science majors to do the teaching.
Maybe they can't do that because of Union rules.
Wow. It's pretty evident you don't understand what's happening in schools in America.
Having dated a couple teachers, let me explain to you how it works. If you're a teacher (and I'm talking grade school or high school) you get shit on. You don't get paid shit and your 'customer' treats you like shit. What's worse is that you cannot refuse your customer and it's your duty to make sure no child is left behind.
So let's say you get a degree in biology. Any lab job or anything else will pay much better right off the bat than a teaching position in grade or high school. Why anybody would get a degree in education is beyond me. Most teachers I think are psychology or sociology majors that, if they teach something like biology, have taken some specialized courses in teaching that material. Not actual high level biology coursework -- because they're not teaching that to students.
Your attempt to blame this on the unions amuses me. Public schools don't make money. That's not what they're there for. They're not some corporation or car manufacturer, they're a public utility that provides a human right to education. As such when a school is operating in the red, it would normally be really tempting to just cut teacher's wages. The unions are there to prevent crap like that from happening. Furthermore, they can't walk away from a customer so really bad interactions occur. And the unions are there to make sure that the teachers have the appropriate representation and responses. Schools don't compete with each other for the best students like a manufacturer competes for customers. The same can be said of hospitals and nursing unions. I don't know how a union would make sure that you can't teach Biology without being a Biology major.
The fact is that teachers have a really crappy job, they don't get paid much and that's why you don't see someone graduating with a Masters of Science in physics to go teach fourth graders science. Maybe you pay extra to send your kid to a magnate school or some private school where they guarantee that the teachers are such distinguished individuals but certainly not a public schools and until you're willing to pay a lot more in taxes to make those jobs desirable to such a graduate, I'd shut up.
My work here is dung.
It's ridiculous, but science is being bullied in our Western democracies...
There are fights about the greenhouse gas, about evolution, and several other topics... and if teachers say something about that, they are said to choose a side and teachers should be politically neutral.
That, of course, is ridiculous. If teachers can no longer teach science, because some theories (which have a lot of evidence) might undermine the political course set by our Great Leaders or because they might upset certain religious people (science always does that), then we might as well close our schools.
You call that "not so bleak"? When ~72% of teachers actually give sky-daddy-dunnit some credence in a science classroom? Holy shit.
+1. I find that terrifying. If we're teaching our kids that a scientific theory, which all about validating a logical chain of though based on observation, and which, by definition, must make valid predictions about the world around us, and a creation myth are the same, then we're screwed.
Don't get me wrong, I like creation myths; some are absolutely wonderful. And on that score, biblical creationism and ID come in at the lowest end of the creative scale; as creative writing I'd give them a C-.
Evolution works because it can make predictions about the gaps in our knowledge. It's called a "theory" because that's the tag scientists picked early on. We should not be teaching that a "scientific theory" and "something I made up while sitting on the crapper and reading the comics" have equal validity - even by omission.
The reason we have few competent teachers is simple: Education is one of the most poorly compensated professions in the USA and has generally atrocious working conditions. Education attracts many teachers, but most last less than 2 years on the job before switching professions. Very few competent people are willing to grind away their soul day-in, day-out for pennies. At the same time, the cost for a college degree and certification is skyrocketing. It just doesn't make economic sense to be a teacher.
The public has an incredibly patronizing attitude that teachers should accept miserable accept out of the goodness of their heart. That attitude worked back when women faced systematic artificial barriers in most other professions. In our grandparents generation, we were effectively subsidizing our education system by restricting opportunities for women. That was true in the 60s. It's not true now. Women are competing in every profession, and now education salaries must also compete.
Blaming the Unions is a popular game, but they are not the central problem. If schools seriously want the top college grads to go into education, then obviously they need to compete with other opportunities that top college grads are offered. But you can't offer people a starting salary of $33,227 and then bitch and moan when your top applicants are C students from state universities. The Unions are basically the only force keeping teacher salaries competitive. States with a heavily unionized teacher work-force are better compensated and, unsurprisingly, produce better results
I'm sure it exists, but I've never been able to find it; there's something that would really help: An up-to-date complete treatise of all the basic evidence that demonstrates the foundations of evolutionary theory.
You can't find it because it would be a massive encyclopedia. There are dozens of scientific journals devoted to evolutionary theory, churning out thousands of pages each year. But if you're looking for a basic summary, try a textbook on evolutionary theory -- there are a number of college-level textbooks (500-1000 pages long) on evolutionary theory that should give you what you want, as well as having a bibliography to track down more information.
Observations of microevolution in the lab, sequences of fossils and how they were dated and how we're certain that they're from the same lineage, numerous clear examples, multiple convergent lines of evidence (fossils vs. dna), etc. In science class, they don't teach this.
Of course not, anymore than they teach a complete history of Newtonian physics in high school or go into the methodology of meteorology or vulcanology before giving basic concepts of cloud formation or the dynamics of volcanoes. I agree that it would be good for middle school or high school students to see more scientific methodology that is critically evaluated, rather than just results. But evolutionary theory is not unique here -- you could ask the same for almost any topic presented in a science class.
They teach the end results of the science as though it were FACT, but it's NOT. It is a fact that it's a good theory, but the theory itself cannot be deemed fact.
It's all theory. What's an example of a "fact" to you? Are there scientific "facts"? Almost any collection of information that combines raw data in any way is an interpretation of that data. In essence, it is a "theory." Whether that theory is expressed in equations or collections of artifacts or accounts of historical events, they all require someone to put the data together, and in my view (and in the view of most scientists), no interpretation is ever final. Beyond raw data, there are no "facts" -- there are only "theories," so don't get hung up on terminology.
Evolutionary fact observed in the lab is true.
No, data we observe in the lab may support an interpretation consistent with evolutionary theory. For every such experiment observed in the lab, I'm sure some creationist or other scientist could come up with a different explanation that interprets the data in a different way, which might conflict with or complement evolutionary theory but not require it.
Evolutionary theory is a MODEL that we STRIVE to MAKE true and is the best model we currently have. If it were TRUE, we'd be done. No more to discover. Rather, it is a gradually improving approximation.
Again, one could say the same for EVERY area of science. Would you require physicists to summarize all the evidence for theories of mechanics, optics, electromagnetism, etc. before they present it as well? What about this atom theory, with electrons buzzing around? "Where's the EVIDENCE?" you say. We should teach students to think critically, but we can't introduce every idea of elementary science like this. Why is evolution special, except for political reasons, rather than scientific ones?