Slashdot Mirror
Parent Questions Mandatory High School Chemistry
Ollabelle writes "David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., has two sons, ages 7 and 15. He has previously written about how schools fail students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Now he turns his attention to mandated curriculum in public schools, and argues that his sons shouldn't be forced to take any science class."
From the article: "There’s a concept in economics called 'opportunity costs,' which you may not have learned about because you were taking chemistry instead of economics. Opportunity costs are the sacrifices we make when we choose one alternative over another. ... When you force my son to take chemistry (and several other subjects, this is not only about chemistry), you are not allowing him that same time to take a public speaking course, which he could be really good at, or music, or political science, or creative writing, or HTML coding for websites."
My kid sucks at chemistry and, like all pussy-ass parents today, I don't have the heart to tell him that he's not incredible at everything (and don't want to risk him finding out by taking a class where he doesn't get an automatic "A").
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Now I don’t begrudge chemistry, which has brought forth many of the great inventions of our time, from the pain killer I took an hour ago to the diet soda I’m sipping on now (I’m actually sipping on Scotch. In fact, my very own mother, who if I am lucky will never lay eyes on this article, is a chemist, and believes that chemistry is the most noble of human pursuits and doesn’t understand how I, a former philosophy major, was able to eke out a living.
And if you wouldn't have wasted your time on that public speaking course and instead used that opportunity cost to take a class in a Lisp language like Scheme you'd understand why your failure to close that left parenthesis is driving me bat shit insane right now.
My work here is dung.
This guy is acting like as if his son will be forced to take chemistry all his life. There are some basic classes everyone takes and then as kids progress through school the curriculum becomes more and more flexible. Now if he is super interested in other classes I am sure he can point his kids towards simpler startup classes in coursera etc that might help. May be some thing is available for public speaking also. Or he has the option of homeschooling his kid.
But that's what college is for. And if he's in any average school he'll have the chance for a few electives in his later high school years.
It seems like that article is nothing more than a soapbox to declare that his kid is special and precious. So your kid doesn't like chemistry and would rather take a class that's much harder, like public speaking. Fuck off.
Chemistry class isn't just about chemistry. It also teaches critical thinking and problem solving skills. Having to balance chemical reactions, though it may be useless to 95% of people in the real world, is one example of a skill that improves one's thinking ability when they learn it.
I also feel it's essential for people to know the basics on how the world works. High school chemistry isn't exactly hard.
He is insulting the education (and probably passion) of his own mother. He should simply shut up.
Besides, ADHD is overdiagnosed. He probably just has a spoiled kid that never learned to sit still for half a minute.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
... help their kids with Chemistry classes ;-)
...not elementary, middle, and high school curricula.
You may just have to accept that your kids are going to suck at things.
Think of all the money you'll save from buying your own "Congratulations on 10th place!" ribbons.
Loading...
Before jumping to some assumption that he is a bible thumping moron (I made the same assumption at first), you should read the article. He doing make very valid points. He actually says he would like to replace full classes on topics like chemistry with several survey classes that expose students to many subjects before they choose the ones they are interested in. This sounds like a great idea. I was a physics major in college, and even I found my high school Physics class hardly useful at all. Not nearly enough depth to gain useful knowledge, and those who will never use it weren't paying attention anyway.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Is this a troll? How can anyone advocate for decreasing their child's knowledge? There were certainly subjects that I wasn't good at, but even those classes taught me a few things that I wouldn't have otherwise known.
Where I grew up in Canada, chemistry was NOT required in high school, and that is still the case. A common "science" course in grade 10 was required, and at least one of either physics, chem or bio in grades 11 and 12.
If you actually wanted to get into any post-secondary science or engineering program though, you pretty much needed high school chem.
Sounds fantastic.. want this kind of granularity, homeschool the kids for a year or so yourself, then have them rejoin the public school to finish up Junior and Senior year. Present it as a compromise with the school folks. They might just go for it! NEXT!
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
K-12 is for BASICS. College is for options...
Student need to be exposed to all sorts of topics so they can find out what they like and are good at. His kid might be good at public speaking but might have a passion for chemistry. Chemistry is also a good life skill, how else would you be able to read the ingredients on the cereal box?
college has lot's of forced classes and lot's of them are use less and can add up to 1-2 years in school to learn skills that can be done in 1-2 years.
All art, theology, history, etc. majors should be required a minor in the sciences. All hard science majors should be required a minor in the arts, history, etc.
When I attended Revelle College, this was their policy. It was a pita as you had more work to graduate, but I have drawn on my well rounded education many times, not just in my career, but generally in my life.
This father is trying to short-change his children, and if successful, many other children as well.
While science is important, I have to agree with the fellow's overall point. In my high school there were a lot of mandatory, pointless classes which nobody wanted, but everyone had to take in order to graduate. This meant that many of us couldn't take classes we wanted because ,while they were technically offered, we didn't have any free slots in our schedules after the board mandated courses filled the schedule.
'Science and Technology Studies' (STS) is a much better option for most people than an actual physical science course. STS involves studying how science works (or at least is supposed to work). Henry Bauer made an excellent case for this a long time ago.
I fully support the "students should be allowed to choose more subjects that specifically interest and fit them" part of his argument. I, a nuclear scientist, would even go so far as to say no, most students shouldn't have to take high school chemistry. I would completely support replacing 3-4 high school science classes in various subjects with one very strong, well designed course on the scientific method; that would be a wonderful step towards having students learn the philosophy that might stay with them the rest of their lives instead of reciting formulas and tables they'll forget a week after finals. But to just say "take out science" is a terrible idea.
Maybe he needs to consider the lost opportunity cost of not taking a chemistry class when it's available to his children in school. How many people have a full-blown, school-level chemistry lab with cool chemicals and tools to work with in their homes (with hoods and acids that can eat your face off)? How much will it cost to do it in college, with textbook and lab costs along with tuition?
you can skip Chem when I can skip PE.
Sometimes you have to do stuff you don't have any interest in.
I can see where he is coming from here. I high school I did not want to take chemistry either. And my counselor even thought that for me to complete my 2 science class requirement that I would need to take it. Instead, I took physics which still met the requirement. This almost perplexed my counselor since she thought that chemistry was required to get into the physics class and that pretty much everyone else took the path from chemistry to physics.
The point I am trying to make here is that I can agree to some extent since I didn't want to take chemistry either, but in my case I still took another science class to meet the requirement. And for the love of god, is taking two science classes really too much to ask of someone over the span of 4 years? Certainly some schools will be different, but sheesh.
Its in societies best interests that people have at least a basic understanding of as many subject areas as possible. Chemistry is such a subject area. Basic knowledge of chemistry can save a persons life, or save the lives of others (and can be readily extended to science as a whole). Unfortunately this must mean that the students have to suffer a little, but guess what: we all have to suffer a little so that everybody can get a long with eachother AND help eachother.
He states very bluntly that his 15 year old son "will not be a scientist". How does he know that?
Putting superfluous apostrophes in the word "lots" suggests your experience of college is rather less than you claim.
He's right. Frankly there should be more freedom in the curriculum especially with english. I think it's essential to take the basic english courses and be exposed to literature but not on the scale we currently do. How many people go to college after highschool? how many people actually write papers for a living? None of those prepared me for working in IT. Chemistry, Math and other Sciences did. I wish I could have taken 4 years of chemistry, math and used 2 years of my required english for business and communication courses.
He makes a good point, but I'd go the other way. Trash the required english and require more science classes to promote critical thinking, fact checking, and reduce stupidity.
I'm 40 now and I can't think of a single thing from chemistry I've ever used. I can't even remember anything from the class.
Then again as a counterpoint I've never really used electronics, which I had 4 years of in high school, but I swear I think back to that class frequently when problem solving, from "split-halving" a problem to logic gates to make flowcharts and so on. Probably more than any class I had, electronics really taught me how to break down a problem and put together a solution.
I get the idea of a "core curriculum" to expose students to things, but I remain unsure as to whether things are currently makes much sense. I took chemistry, which went fairly into depth, but at the cost of not taking physics (chemistry satisfied the requirement). I'd rather have had a class which touched on each of these subjects for perhaps a quarter to half a year, spread out over two years, than a full year of chemistry, with the option to take a more in-depth science course for years three and four.
But I have to say, nothing I learned in chemistry stuck or was useful like electronics was.
I love history but I think it is taught poorly -- that's an area ripe for consolidation and fixing...social studies and English in general.
The summary here is saying the exact opposite of the article. He's saying the kid shouldn't be forced into Chemistry if he can survey OTHER science classes... Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
From the summary:
"... argues that his sons shouldn't be forced to take ANY science class."
From the article:
"Maybe kids can survey several science classes over the course of a year or two, and explore various options"
While basic understanding and comprehension can be quite varied, our knowledge which determines our intelligence is based entirely on learning 'things'. The average person who thinks they "forget everything" about an introductory class is kidding themselves. I only took an introduction to Chemistry and I couldn't tell you off the top of my head half of the conversions I learned, but that doesn't make the information any less available. I remember information about relating different types of matter, universal constants in reactions. Definitions of basic words like exothermic, endothermic, etc. and most importantly I learned. Sure the material may not have been my particular forte, but making yourself work at something shows what you can accomplish and allows you to think differently whether you realise it or not. If more Language (by this I mean native language spoken) classes were enforced as well perhaps we wouldn't live in such an illiterate, made-up acronym world.
As a country we need to decide what the point of education is, and what is required and what is not. HINT: It's not just about learning job skills. Ok, nowadays it is, but it shouldn't be. I know that's not quite what he's getting at, but it somewhat feels like it.
How can we move on as a country if everyone has just a narrow field of knowledge? If they can make a nice website, but fall victim to every marketing scam? Or fears dihydrogen monoxide? Or can't see the logical fallacies of politicians? Or falls apart when the cash register goes down and can't add or subtract numbers? An educated populace is a good thing, even if some courses must be forced down their throats.
BTW, kids go to school for 13 years (plus college). In high school, I took public speaking and economics, in addition to 4 years of science and math. And 3 years of music and 3 of a foreign language. And I'm nowhere near what other student's took. What's your child's excuse?
There are private schools for the people that want to go against the grain of normalcy. Clearly the article/interview writer has mixed too much bleach into his vinegar; these words are poisonous to education.
There is a really simple answer to this problem. If you don't like the educational priorities selected by those who determine them in school curricula, teach your children yourself. While you still might have to meet these criteria, the amount of actual time spent doing so would be at your discretion.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Even a preacher needs a basic background in chemistry to speak publically.
Politicians are going to need even more backround.
You can't have "the miracle of the bread and fishes" if you don't understand that normally mass out == mass in.
So to be a public speaker he needs a basic high school education which includes basic sciences.
Mandatory chemistry education is really terrible, because then we get far too many chemists and not enough milliners. See, that's why hats fell out of fashion when we stopped teaching kids how to make them in school back in the forties. I demand we stop favoring hard sciences and begin mandatory "crap I understand well enough to help my child with their homework" instead.
How do they work? Yes your child and every other child in the school system is required to take a certain number of classes to graduate from high school. There are other optional classes which one can take whenever they want. THESE ARE WHERE YOUR CHILD CHOOSES PROGRAMMING or PUBLIC SPEAKING COURSES. FFS, if you're really desperate about getting him out of chemistry, make him take it during the summer when it's easy. Then he can take cake classes during the school year with the additional elective credit that opens up.
Don't require the students to take any science or math courses so that they can buy into all of the crackpot, useless crap that is published in the name of science!
The guy must be an idiot.
You have a lot of choice what college or university you go to though. Even within a single university, different programs can have drastic different requirements. If you don't like that an intro quantum mechanics course is required for English majors, then don't be an English major at Caltech. Heck, if you just want straight basic skills in one area, why bother with a four year degree and just go into one of many programs that teach those skills directly?
It was high school chemistry, particularly organic, that really got me to where I am today. Had I not been required to take at least one introductory class, I don't think I would have had the pragmatism at that age to sign up on my own. I also had to study Shakespeare, which I can't really say has contributed to my career, but it's made me a more well-rounded person. Being educated doesn't only mean being scholarly, it also means being open-minded.
Maybe's he meant it as he typed it, lot is.
there are several subjects that a person NEEDS to handle life.
math: to at least the lower levels of algebra
Geometry : regular solids and such minimum
Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry and a basic grounding in Organic Chemistry
Physics: Basic grounding here so you know things like NOT to try and argue with a semi when you are in a smart car
i think that covers most of the Science stuff (but suggest other bits as needed)
If you are really concerned that he is missing stuff like public speaking do the same thing that the Trophy Wife you keep chatting up does with her daughter to fix the lack of Ballet Courses in the public schools ARRANGE FOR THEM AFTER SCHOOL.
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2007/May/Articles/Teaching.aspx
(and btw you might want to have your son chat with said daughter also)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Genetics duh, with a dad like that, how can his sun become anything but a liberal arts major. Lets hope for the kids sake his mother cheated.
The reason for giving all kids a basic set of education is that you can't say at the age of 6 what a kid is going to be good at or wants to do, so you give a change to do a bit of everything and then they can narrow it down as they grow older, themselves by choosing how to continue their education and/or career.
The kid might indeed choose never ever to use chemistry again. And that will be his choice BE he was given the choice.
The simple way to test if subject A should be dropped is to ask if that means B could also be dropped. Those who heavily favor the soft sciences, well if chemistry should be dropped, then we also drop arts. Right?
No? Then we keep it as it is.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
not to mention use less and using numerics in a sentence.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
so how many people here complain about taking English or some literature course instead of more CompSci? why can't i read SciFi all day long?
Don't we already have enough great public speakers in our nation who have no substantial understanding of how the world works?
Great, your kid can take a public speaking class so he can talk about how his Dad didn't let him take any science so now has no idea how the world works.
Science teaches you how to think so you can do things like cure disease and feed 7 billion people instead of squatting in a cave making up magical things to worship.
college has lot's of forced classes and lot's of them are use less
It's "lots" and "useless" (as in "You might have missed lots of grammar lessons").
and can add up to 1-2 years in school to learn skills that can be done in 1-2 years.
Eh. What?
Don't you feel that things like classic literature enrich your life? Even if it doesn't directly translate to a career? Frankly, I'm glad that I had the ability to experience things that weren't on the job training. You have 12 (or 13) years of mandatory school in the U.S., and probably 34-40 years of working. I'm glad that the first 20 years of my life weren't completely dedicated to my career.
The mandated courses hardly take up a student's entire schedule. I had plenty of time for all my mandated courses plus many electives, including most of the optional courses he listed (except poli-sci, boring!), and still had time to be a lab assistant for the chemistry teacher (yeah, I was that kid). What is this guy rabbiting on about and why should /. care about some idiot's blog?
I don't agree with all the mandated "gen-ed" courses at the university level but that's a whole different argument.
The money is for the people that play in the stock market, after all, why study anything else and just focus everyone education full to economy? Uh, and lawyers, specially IP related. Why to be part of the 99% if we could all be in the top 1%?
"Can't you just teach my kids how ta earn more shekels? Dey'll neva oin enough money wit dis chemistry nonsense!"
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
No obligatory Breaking Bad reference yet? Same on you all...
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
Right.
It's all OUR fault we make his kids take chemistry. It's all OUR fault his kids are failing chemistry.
When we listen to a loser talk about opportunity cost, it's eating up our time reading about the Earth sized planet near Alpha Centauri.
lol, people with economics degrees who think they can use 'economic theory' to generalize to non-economic things.
What a loser.
The proliferation of subjects in grade education is a recent phenomenon.
In a communist society, people are forced into a field where they excel regardless of whether they like it or not. Our general education system is designed to ensure every student is taught the same basic information; otherwise if we don't do that, then underprivileged students will claim they were denied the same education as those not deemed underprivileged.
General education is the same for everyone. If you think your son is not good a Chemistry, fine, that's not his area of forte, but what's wrong with private tutoring outside of the classroom to help fulfill you're son's strengths, or to help him in his weaknesses.
Frankly, this just sounds like a gripe to me.
Pull your kid from school, and home school him, then you can work with him on those subjects he's excelling at and those he sucks at.
Situation solved.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I'm 100% certain everything I know I learned in school.
Not.
Send them to a piano instructor, make them join the debate team, have them crack a book that isn't assigned reading. Have them code a smartphone app that manages their time.
If the kid is unsuccessful in life, the parents will blame it on the "system" and its lack of flexibility. If the kid succeeds, they'll say it was in spite of the required education.
Other than the obvious point of high school, which is to provide a prison-like environment for our children so we can all take a little break from them, he's truly missed the point of high school.
High school has nothing to do with what you are going to do in real life. Oh, it may seem that way in your last year, but in truth, all you really end up deciding at that stage what you might do in the grossest of terms.
No. High school is supposed to be about building mental abilities that will allow you to go out into the world and function as a reasonably useful person. What you learn is somewhat important, but learning how to learn and apply material effectively is what you are really there for.
Think of it this way. Athletes spend a lot of time on the practice field learning their sport. But they also spend a lot of time in the gym building muscle. If they didn't build those muscles up with time in the gym, they might understand their own sport, but they'd have a hard time succeeding at it because they didn't spend time building up the general muscle required to apply that knowledge.
Never once at a football game have I seen a quarterback call for the reverse arm curl play. But I doubt you'd get any arguments from a football player that time in the gym was time well spent. The same applies for academics. You may never need to know how to do trig, or compose a sonnet, but doing those things in high school helps build up mental muscle for later.
So yes. You do have to do things you suck at, because, not surprisingly, you get the most out of learning how to do things you suck at. As to who decides what you'll take, well, that's easy. Gather your facts that describe why you think a change should be made, put them together in a cohesive argument, write a paper that shows how your plan will provide positive change, and then present it to the folks who decide. (Of course, you might find this hard if you didn't take Math, Science, English and Social Studies in high school...)
Science is mostly all that thinking stuff, and that reason stuff and that logic stuff. Yuk! We need more people who can write position papers based on arbitrary nonsensical thinking. That 'ability to reason and make sound judgements' stuff is just a big fat waste of time.
Side note: I didn't take chemistry post secondary because I had a copy of a book called "The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics", and it listed over 700 pages of chemical names, and it looked like more rote memorization than I was willing to put up with. I studied Electronics Engineering and Computer Science instead, ...but that still didn't stop me from getting an A in grade 12 Chemistry (I only got a B+ in Grade 12 Biology, and a A- in grade 12 physics).
How does the parent know what the child will like?
Answer to both: they don't.
But if you do a smattering of the major sections of a well rounded education you may find that chemistry is interesting. Or home economics intriguing. But the child has to try it first and the parent cannot and should not interfere. It isn't THEIR life they're manipulating, so stop it.
Who do you think built the computers your kid is learning to write HTML on, or in all likelihood, doing his creative writing on?
Man I hate America these days.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Mr. Bernstein switches his stance after his sons are found in the bathroom sick and unconscious from the effects of combining bleach and ammonia. He is currently planning to donate large amounts of funds to the betterment of the schools science department.
More like 3rd or 4th grade.
I'm seriously tired of people actually listening to children, I was dumb as rocks into my mid-20s (hence my BA in History). Children are dumb, emotional and impulsive, they are the last people we should be listening to for advice on anything. ANYTHING.
I sucked at English, French, and struggled with public speaking, while I excelled in all the sciences and math. I still had to take the stuff I wasn't good at. I'm better off because I had to take them, because reading, writing, and speaking languages is essential, and the only way to get better is to work at it.
Science is important in the industrialized world, and learning about science (when taught properly) builds critical thinking skills. The basic information you learn in a chemistry class (or physics, or biology) also lays a foundation for studying other subjects that depend on them (e.g., medicine). Little Jimmy doesn't like important subject X? Deal with it. We don't go through life learning *ONLY* what we like. No science class at all? No way.
I don't like doing dishes or laundry. Can I skip those subjects too?
The only legitimate complaint I see in his comments is why chemistry is the only option that the school provides for fulfilling the science options. There should be more than that available, although I don't see why chemistry is a particular problem as a choice.
In other words, both sides need to stfu. The current system works fine.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
So, the really plain idea is: There are necessary minimum understandings children need to have in a highly technological society.
In every high school I've come in contact with (Dad was a teacher) there are "electives." There is nothing keeping you from choosing an Economics elective, or an Art Appreciation elective. The idea that all your courses, or at least the ones you don't like, should be elective is absurd.
What you're proposing would allow kids to come out of high school with "less" common understanding of the universe we live in. Can you really argue that would make the world a better place? It's one year, and it's the very basics of chemistry. And it will inform your child as to:
Why you don't pour cold water on hot glass objects.
Why your car fogs up on in the morning.
Why you take iodine pills when you think there is a chance of strontium-90 exposure.
Why plastics are strong and flexible.
Why you don't heat pure water in a glass in a microwave without an object for bubbles to form on.
Why metals conduct electricity and glass doesn't.
Why peanut butter will help get gum out of your hair.
They'll get these and myriad other little bits of "common sense" that are only common because we insist that chemistry be taught in schools. The same administrators who could not, in the scope of your few questions, properly characterize the entire teaching curriculum to your satisfaction would probably also fail to explain internal combustion engines to the point where you could build one. You may still be able to drive home.
OK, so go have him scrub out a toilet using both chlorine bleach and household ammonia together.
Then ask him if he'd still like to skip chemistry class.
Another one..
If you took chemistry in HS, you would know why that rack screw got stuck in your aluminum server rack and it wasn't because "those fucking dumb ass idiots that mounted this" put them in too tight.
Pull your kid, and find a private school that will teach what you want him to learn. Or home school him. Otherwise, STFU
Chemistry class: 39 minutes per day
Teaching a kid a variety of subjects so he will have something to talk about when he does take public speaking in college: 18 years
Cleaning up chemicals spilled by your ADD kid who wasn't paying attention: 6 minutes
Getting acquainted with the flow rate of the emergency eyewash station: 5 minutes
Teaching a kid that ignoring science can be hazardous to your health: Priceless
There are some things you will never find time for. For everything else, there are pretentious self-important jerks like David Bernstein.
Montgomery county is full of assholes who want their insane shit to be accommodated by the schools. To that I say, "suck it up" cause everyone ought to have exposure to STEM topics as part of a balanced K-8 education. Typical crap, to blame someone else for your problems.
Yes, I have my Troll costume on early, but I live in MoCo and this stuff burns me up because we get this junk all the time.
Seriously. This is news?
You should take classes in things your not good at. Then you will have at least some knowledge about the subject. (Subjects you are good at you will know about because you will willingly try to learn them.)
Besides, how do you know you're not good at chemistry if you don't take the class?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
There lies the problem. Another nonproductive member of society.
No good deed goes unpunished.
When you force my son to take subjects which which he doesn’t connect, you are not allowing them that same time to take a public speaking course, which he could be really good at, or music, or political science, or creative writing, or HTML coding for websites.
Turns out the whole argument is rather weakened by the editor's note stating that chemistry isn't specifically required, just a certain amount of science of which chem is one option.
I still find it hard to believe that there are so few elective hours available that the kid couldn't fulfill the science requirement and take music, political science, creative writing or programming. Maybe I'm really old and things are much different now, but I didn't miss out on the electives I wanted to take just because I took chemistry and physics. There was still time for band, foreign language, a political science course (required) and even programming.
But my son is not being exposed to chemistry, he’s spending a year of his life studying chemistry every day, which translates into a year of misery for him and our entire family, and paying for tutors who just get him through the course.
I think this is the real complaint: "The kid doesn't like chemistry and might not get an A. Therefore, he shouldn't have to take it."
I am not a crackpot.
The idea that everyone will be able to live their lives only doing things they like is a ridiculous offshoot of our silly self-esteem dogma. The central complaint here seems to be "my son just doesn't like certain stuff, so let him skip that".
Now, I'm all for ditching government schools, and leaving it up to the marketplace to pander to people who don't want to do hard things...we could have Easy(TM) Charter School, based on the idea that kids can skip whatever they want. But my bet is that the problem here isn't the school, and it isn't even the kid - it's the parent who mistakenly believes that their offspring is some special little snowflake, and needs to be acknowledged as such by the rest of the world.
+ public speaking and creative writing were part of English class :)
+ music class was a yearly requirement until 9th grade (high school)
+political science was a required class
-HTML coding for websites was not included, but it was the 80s
Learning basic science, among other 'required' subjects, gives every child the chance to decide if they want to persue that field of study. Why is he trying to restrict future children from having this opportunity?
When I went to school early grade science classes were more geared to developing a child's ability to focus and solve problems, not just the science.
If you are in a good school, such things as public speaking will be an elective when they reach high school.
kook time now, but I still think most ADHD diagnosis are a red herring. I think it's a learned behavior. I think It's caused by the modern day environment. Notice the rise of cell phones and other constant distractions about the time mass-ADHD arose. Cell phones too late to the party for you ? Then look at the tv remote...
... a time when general ignorance of things like chemistry, biology, physics, and geology permitted people to be suckered in to believing that the world was flat, the sun, moon and stars went around it, that it was around 6000 years old and created in six days by an Old Guy with a proclivity to go off on rants and wipe out entire populations with floods or fire and brimstone if he got pissed off (and nearly anything pissed him off).
Oh, wait, that's still true today for 46% of the population of the US, according to at least one horrific poll. And you want permission to add your own son to the list of the terminally ignorant... shame on you.
I have a son who has serious ADD as well -- so much so that he will likely never finish college (he's started it several times but his dysfunction is too severe to make it through, at least so far). It plagued him through high school. He sucked at science and math in high school. But he benefitted enormously from taking the courses -- even when he failed or did very poorly while passing. Even in failure or a low pass, he learned that the science is a consistent statement of knowledge and not casually to be rejected on the basis of faulty or non-existent or hearsay evidence (like the Book of Genesis). Even in failure or a low pass he learned enough chemistry to be able to appreciate the molecular description of the quotidian universe. Even in failure or a low pass he learned enough math and math concepts to be able to hand the math needed in the everyday world, enough to engage in conceptual reasoning and to use logic, geometry, visualization in argumentation.
With that said, every student is unique, and with some students (including all students with mild mental retardation as well as many with reasonable intelligence but serious learning disabilities) math/science requirements are indeed pissing into the wind. However, dealing with this isn't a matter of modifying the general curriculum -- it is a matter of accepting the fact that your kid is LD and needs a special curriculum, perhaps one with a specialized and limited treatment of science, which in fact is often available in schools now.
But enrollment in those courses stigmatizes and traumatizes the enrollee, marking them as relatively "dumb". So instead we should just dumb down the curriculum for everybody else to match...
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Frankly, kids are always going to be missing out on SOMETHING in high school -- we don't teach year round, and require multiple repetitions of courses that often do little to improve understanding (does anyone remember going over the years 1492 - 1945 three years in a row in history classes? I do) While I believe we should offer a wider variety of classes, I also believe the point of high school is to provide a well-rounded education that gives you the opportunity to specialize in anything in college. I believe the key issue here is not that required HS classes are bad but that we still falsely believe college to be a "choice" when in fact the majority of (well-paying) jobs now require you to have a BS/BA at least. This believe in college as choice leads parents to believe that their students should be allowed to specialize in HS so they can avoid going to college, when really it should be required (and therefore free, IMO)
We're getting smarter as a species every year, and it doesn't take less time to teach the new stuff we learn. If he's really mad about having his kid learn chemistry in HS, maybe he should look at how useless the majority of middle school courses are around here, and recognize that it's not just HS curriculums that need improving, but the entire US education system.
Any parent should know what their kids interests are and what their academic strengths and weaknesses are. My parents certainly did.
Why do you think otherwise? Are you a parent?
There are several states which do not require the teaching of science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_public_education_in_the_United_States
you are not allowing him that same time to take a public speaking course, which he could be really good at
Right, exactly. Because, see, K-12 education is not about having your kid do really well at things. It's about instilling a modicum of basic skills and understanding. This is why the kids who suck at math still have to take math, and the kids who suck at writing have to take English, et cetera. A public speaking class won't teach him anything about how the most powerful approach to discovering knowledge humanity has ever tried works, and a multi-science survey course will do so much less effectively than a single in-depth look at one science.
Not that he's likely to actually learn anything given your attitude, but, at least it's a better chance than if you were being allowed to make the decisions.
But the money this generates for the college, think of the union!
And how is he supposed to find out whether he's really good at chemistry or not if he doesn't...take chemistry?
High school gives you a broad overview so you enter adulthood with half a clue, so you can understand to some degree what the media, advertisers, etc. are telling you. After high school nothing prevents additional education, in fact, shouldn't education really be an ongoing process? If the author really sees high school as a last chance to learn something like 'public speaking', what a sad sad statement.
Mind you, that kind of attitude does pave the way for the fulfilment of Ayn Rand's vision of how things should be.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Science classes are not (or at least should not be) just about learning a particular field of science. They're about learning science in the general sense, learning how science works, and learning how to use reason and think critically in order to reduce the number of people running around who think the Earth is only 10,000 years old, prayer is a viable form of health-care, global warming is a scam perpetrated by terrible people who's real goal is to reduce pollution, and vaccines will give your kid autism. We absolutely need to be encouraging, and if necessary requiring, more students to take science courses so they too can learn to think for themselves, follow the evidence, draw rational conclusions and reject superstition and hysteria. Not every child is going to grow up to be a scientist, but every last one of them is going to make decisions in their lives the affect other people, and it would be nice if those decisions did not contribute to the rise of a theocratic state in America, the outbreak of a flu pandemic, or the suffocation of the planet beneath a blanket of carbon.
Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
You've basically said his point, but drew a different conclusion
What he's trying to say is that chemistry isn't the only way for a kid to learn those skills. For example, programming is good for learning logic, but so is a philosophy or a debate class. But, if a kid is stuck in a 'standardized' program that only allows him to take programming, then he may never know that he actually likes debate or philosophy. Perhaps the other classes would convey information in a way that he can better understand, or perhaps they could even lead to more. But, without the option to try them out, he'll never know.
Chemistry, the specific example used for a general case, isn't the only class which will teach critical thinking or problem solving and it is pure folly to believe so. It is also not the only course which examines the fundamentals of how the world works, and focusing solely on it will disallow study in other fundamental or interesting areas. But, that's how the curriculum is currently designed, and is continuing to advance in that direction. David is saying that's not the proper way to handle education.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
With the coming sustained contraction ("catabolic collapse" a la Greer) much of the world will go back to the dark ages, so why not start here?
There should be more classes on religion, wizardry and alchemy though.
Science, Shmience.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
to overcome their obstacles, or reconcile themselves to living their lives as parasites (which imo would include a significant portion of business hacks). There really are no other options.
In other words, some students ought to be able to major in a field earlier than ages 18-20. I'd call that a "duh".
Or become RMS. I think I'd rather live in a van down by the river.
I frankly don't want you son skilled at public speaking or politics if he doesn't have a firm foundation in science - way way too many of our worlds problems result from exactly this - Ignorant people speaking persuasively about things they are unqualified to make decisions or hold opinions on.
Hi -
Yes, finally a voice of reason! The traditional idea of a "well rounded" education for most people is long since obsolete in today's brutal global economy. How many people will ever (and I mean _ever_) need to use algebra in their day to day life?
My 20 year old daughter has been forced to take so many classes at great expense of time and money that she will never need. (I did too, by the way, but that was many years ago when the U.S. economy was better and most of us felt we would get good jobs somewhere sooner or later.)
TWR, Redondo Beach, California
...mandated curriculum in public schools...
If you go to school on the public's dime, the public has every right to tell you what classes you have to take. If the guy were arguing against government regulations on private schools I would be willing to entertain arguments about whether parents and educators should be choosing the curriculum without government interference. But he's talking about a public school.
Americans have two interests in forcing the child to study chemistry. The first is that we have a huge need for chemists and other people in STEM fields. Arts are nice, but long term strength and viability of country lie more in the ability to produce new technology.
The second is that people vote and serve on juries. Voters and jurists need to have a well-rounded education.
As for public speaking - who does that benefit other than the speaker? Sure its important to for people to be able to communicate, but once you get past basic competence public speaking become used more for persuasion than for information dissemination. How does it help society for advertisers and politicians to become even better liars? If the kid specializes in public speaking, how does it help society that he knows nothing but can talk about it extremely well?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
money and pay for your children's courses outside of the school. Pretty simple...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
So that your public speaking doesn't amount to "Would you like fries with that?"
My son is currently struggling with high school geometry. Does that mean he doesn't NEED to take it? No. He will get through it and will have learned things in the process. Will it change his life? Probably not. However, once he gets to college, he's going to have to take classes that he's not necessarily interested in OR good at. He has to learn how to take a difficult subject, read the material, listen to the lectures, obtain what he needs to know and apply it as necessary.
Mr. Bernstein is not doing his kids any favors by trying to spoon-feed them only the things they're good at or interested in. I'm glad he's in New Jersey, far from my kids and their educational system.
As much as I agree that everyone should have the opportunity at an education, I'm not convinced that everyone needs THE SAME education. So, I guess I agree, at least superficially, with the original article. I'm a bit surprised with chemistry being the demon here, as I would have expected advanced math classes as being more problematic and less applicable to the daily life of the masses than chemistry, but that's probably just my bias showing.
Now, having said that, I don't see any way to accommodate the educational needs of every child in the current system, for several reasons:
Unfortunately, designing an educational system that suits the needs of everyone, all the time, is really, really hard. I've thought for a while now that having a tree-based curriculum (i.e. everyone starts out with the same basics in elementary school, then branches in middle school, maybe along academic/vocational tech lines, etc.) but even that is most likely prejudicial in such a way that jumping class boundaries would get increasingly hard.
Then again, think of how hard it would be to even have this discussion if we hadn't all had to take classes in reading, writing, logic, etc.
And the parent has a choice which highschool their children attend. If you don't like the public schools, pony up for private and/or move. Or exercise your civic duty and run for the school board to advance your flexible agenda. There are options, but he'd prefer to complain.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Maybe the father is some kind of religious loony^Wzealot or similar. In which case, he should get ready to exuberantly congratulate his spawn for coming last in chemistry, with the words that "the last shall be first" or some such nonsense.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Public schooling (in the US at least) is not about learning to excel at any given subject. It's about receiving a so called broad based education. Higher education is little better. I had to take several humanities and social studies classes to receive an engineering degree.
http://xkcd.com/435/
in California 2 years of science are required in high school but 3.5 years of physical education are required. ya that explains a lot. complain about the worthless classes first plzkthx
After reading the following quote I had to stop.
"But my son is not going to be a scientist. The very thought of it makes me laugh. "
This guy makes me sick. He thinks his son is a moron and wants to stop him learning anything so he stays a moron.
But, once they've found that subject, they should be allowed to pursue it. If a kid wants to be an auto mechanic for the rest of his life, then let hem learn about that.
Exactly how many high school students have you actually met that knew what they wanted to do for the rest of their life at age 15? I guarantee you the answer is a pretty good approximation of zero when compared with the student population. Oh sure there are a few, but not many. I work with high school students as a coach and most of them simply aren't anywhere close to that focused. While I agree that there needs to be room for electives there also needs to be a substantial core curriculum, some of which may not be interesting to a given student. I don't really use calculus in my daily life but I'm glad I was required to take the class. I understand more about the world around me and I was forced to think about things that I might not have if given a choice.
Locking them into a 'standardized program' doesn't magically make them a successful adult or magically teach them the skills they need to know in order to be a member of society.
Nor does it obviously hurt their ability to become a productive member of society. Even with a customized curriculum most of what you learn in school will not play much of a role in your daily life. The most important things that are being taught are how to learn and how to work - not specific subjects. I have a degree in engineering but don't think for a moment that I was fully prepared for my current job the moment I finished school. It would not have mattered a bit how flexible or not my curriculum happened to be. The reason employers care about whether you have a college degree is that it tells them that you have at least some capacity to work. They don't assume for a minute that you are perfectly trained for whatever career you seek. Furthermore if a student really wants to pursue a special interest they are welcome to do so outside of school. Never confuse schooling with education.
For David Jew Bernstein, of course!
I doubt most high schools in the US even teach real science anymore...if they did, I would want my kid to learn it; otherwise...
We all like to do things the easy way. Everyone, smart people, dumb people, motivated and lazy people all like to do things that are easy. This is human nature. As adults in society it is doing things that are necessary, and not liked that makes you a functioning adult. You son doesn't want to take chemistry because he doesn't see an immediate benefit. And you don't understand the benefit of taking pure science courses.
I went to an exclusive public magnet school. It took only the top 10% of applicants based on test scores activities and GPA. We had very little choices in curriculum because this high school was strictly "college prep." Graduates 99% of my class went on to college, 100% got some sort of grant or scholarship money offered to them.
our curriculum:
4 years math : Algebra 1,2 Geometry 1,2 Algebra 3,4 Pre-Calculus 1,2 -- or AP Calculus
4 years science Physical science Lab, Biology, Chemistry, Physics
3 years of 1 foreign language: pick one Spanish, French, Arabic
4 years Honor's english
1 semester Econ
1 semester Civics
1 Year World History
1 Year American History
1 semester gym & 1 semester Health - or -1 year AJROTC
If your desire is for you child to be prepared for college and any major that they may choose then try at least following the minimum guidelines. If they wake up and decide that the job market is really unstable but those with a science degree see to be able to find a job, they may be upset to discover they they still have to take public speaking in almost 90% of librel arts universities across the country.
The question is - what are you preparing your son for, an english degree or the ability to feel qualified to study any subject at a university.
Everything else you learn in highschool is complete and utter bullshit. Does it matter if you can hit a fat kid with a dodgeball in PE when youre an adult? No. Does knowing about the boston tea party ever land you a job as an adult? No. Does it matter in your life if you can paint something in art class terribly? No. How exactly does highschool chemistry help you as an adult? It doesnt.
I didnt learn anything from highschool in a course I didnt enjoy. I learned everything out in the real world. Im 36, a nurse practioner, ex army ranger and I love my girlfriend. I owe NOTHING to us history, gym class, world history, art class, woodshop, etc. Even the classes like biology and chemistry which were required for my degree and license I still didnt learn squat from highschool because I learned it wen I was in college.
Bottom line is highschool classes should be up to the student to chose. Math and english are the ONLY things that students will need and use in their lives across the board. Everything else is just fluff. If a student is forced to take say chemistry they will take it and forget it if they have no interest in it, they will retain nothing useful but now if they had the ability to chose what they want another option might appeal to them more and they would have gotten a lot more from it or it might have been what starts them on a career path they enjoy. Highschool age they should be learning about things they enjoy to encourage them to learn, not stiffle them with a ton of useless crap they dont care about, will remember in 5 years or use in their adult lives.
His message is pretty much correct and I agree with him.
To be honest, I wish more people would homeschool their kids.
Case solved.
not particularly, but when I submitted this, I did sort of hope for a colorful reaction. I was not disappointed (other than I learning I need to polish up submitted summaries - Lamer did a better job).
Ibid.
Title was supposed to be "Economics Much Greater Than Chemistry"
See subject
One takes courses especially in high school not only to learn the course material but to learn how to learn. Science classed whether Chemistry, Physics, Biology, etc teach logical and analytical thinking skills worthwhile in any endeavor. Once you have mastered the ability to learn especially difficult subjects, any specific skill can be easily mastered.
My girlfriends father almost kill himself,wife and son because he did not have a basic understanding of chemistry.
He had industrial strength (acidic) drain clean that he got at work.
He poured this down the drain, when it failed to unclog the drain in seconds-minutes.
He followed up with some draino.
They opened ONE I repeat ONE window and non of them left the house, 2 hours later then went downstairs to the basement to sleep.
They said the house still smelled the next morning.
Like I said Chemistry should be Mandatory.
Why do parents abuse their kids like this?
Alright,
I can actually see a point to not taking Chemistry but a basic Biology course and Physics course should be required. You have to have a basic understanding of how the world works (scientifically).
Joshua D. Drake
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
High school chemistry was useless - and I LOVE science. Complete waste of a class time. Now, some science is good. But for things such as chemistry and high school physics, you should have like a half-semester or quarter semester course that exposes students to it, and then let then if they like it, they can study it in college.
Shoot, biology could probably be thrown into that as well. As interesting as it was, computing statistics in a genetic pool has never helped me in real life. Once again, expose students to it, give them an overview of it, but to waste an entire year and class period on it?
High school is to learn stuff that will help us in life and the real world, college is where you go into a course of study. Balancing chemistry equations has not helped me one iota in the real world. Knowing not to mix bleach and amonia has.
Now, if the high school wants to offer chemistry as an option, maybe for an advanced degree plan or as an AP college course, then that is one thing. I am all for that. Making all students take the course is pointless.
I've dropped this quote on /. before in a similar conversation, but it applies just as much if not MORE here:
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert A. Heinlein
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
... is upset because the cool kids at school got to do Chemistry while he was stuck learning how to add up columns of figures.
If you choose a nerdy and irrelevant subject like economics, you can't complain when other people get to do fun stuff instead.
Around here, our school system (atleast those bits which aim for students to get into higher education/highly specialized vocational education) has following mission:
Give every student basic knowledge covering as many topics as possible, while also letting the students (later on) pick 2-3 topics they want to study in more detail.
The idea is to have a broad foundation of general knowledge. That usually includes ancient greek or latin, modern languages, biology, chemistry, physics, social sciencies, economics, computer science, philosophy / ethics / religion, art and music. Usually there is more than one school available and they tend to emphasise things slightly differently.
After going through that (it usually requires 12-13 years) there is still plenty of time to specialize and/or vocational training.
I few people have tried to defend him after reading the article saying he was more rational than expected but I don't think he was, it was the the appearance of rationality. He makes the totally reasonable suggestion of a 2 year science class that covers everything but doesn't give any thought to what that class would look like, it'd be 1/3 biology, 1/3 chemistry, and 1/3 physics most likely. So his son would still have to suffer through Chemistry just slightly less of it.
The most damming quote IMO is this: "Maybe he will learn something in chemistry somewhere along the way. But he will lose out on so many other more important opportunities, and so will our society, which will have deprived itself of his full contribution."
seriously 1 chemistry class causes your son to not reach his full potential? If we did enact this guys idea of a short survey class then the child would decide what they wanted to take we'd end up with many thousands of kids taking nothing but pottery and study hall. If chemistry isn't mandatory why would anything else be like math, english, or history.
Sure this change might make his kid less miserable but it will harm a great many more children's educations much more than it would ever help his.
Also his whole I don't remember anything from when I took Chemistry in high school so no one else probably does either and hence it is useless. this is ridiculous.
High school science classes spend considerable time on measurement, conversions, scientific method, lab procedures, hypotheses, etc. That's the part that everyone needs. If the kid wants to give speeches instead of learn the scientific method, then by all means, go ahead and join 95% of the politicians out there who don't have anything meaningful to say because they never learned how to analyze or interpret anything. Is it really 95%? He'll have to understand some quantitative procedures to answer that intelligently.
I agree - not all kids should have to take Chemistry. In fact, I think there are some kids who should not have to take anything at all! They should be skip school entirely and be led directly to the fry station at McDonald's. Better for them - they don't have to be frustrated learning skills they will never use, and better for everyone else, who can save time & money trying to educate the little moron and boring all the other students in the process.
You say that High school classes "educate students much more deeply"
We are not residents of the same universe!
Parents certainly have a tendency to "know" what their children like. Just like they "know" what careers they should pursuit, what kind of spouse is right for them, how they should dress, how their kids would never do that..., etc.. Of course it's possible to find a set of parents that are actually in the loop with their kids, but it's more likely to find parents that have their own preferences and rosy colored glasses though which they understand their kids. That is, assuming they're even engaged in their kid's life in the first place.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
To prevent travesties like this.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The ability for a kid to 'choose their own path' or seek a trade school is a marginal topic and isn't what the article is discussing. But, in relation to 'college preparation' what exactly does that mean? A 'college' is very loosely defined, and there are a variety of ways to 'prepare' for one. A large state school might favor one type of application, Harvard certainly favors another, a technical college looks for other qualities, while a liberal arts school goes a completely different direction. Since there are so many different types of institutions and things one needs to learn, how does a standard and generic education over all of them? How can it even cover most? For example, that chemistry or automotive class might foreclose the option of a pursuit in the arts or entertainment. That situation will occur no matter how the curriculum is designed. However, limiting the variations of those foreclosures won't produce a group with a variety of interests and skills, it will produce a very narrowly focused group with all the same skills. That should not be the focus of high school. High school should focus on providing the skills students need to decide what they want to do, but that is such a vague and general concept that it has endless variations on how to fulfill it.
Is it better to have achieved a depth of knowledge and later realize that it wasn't needed instead of never knowing in the first place? Probably. Is there more than one way to attain that knowledge? Certainly. He's saying we should allow for other ways to obtain that depth of knowledge in public schools, and conversely that limiting the educational choices impedes success in other useful and enlightening areas.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Checking the current curriculum, and in grade 11 you need at least one of biology/chemistry/computer science/physics/general science.
So basically you need to take at least one hard science, but you have some choice as to what it is.
That's the tradeoff for going to a public school: the school curriculum is structured to supply functional citizens. The core curriculum provides the generally accepted knowledge set required for economic opportunity and success in modern society.
Of course, now is the time kids should be working their tails off learning, so if the author wants to provide enrichment for their children, they should, that's what parents are supposed to do. Or the author can home school them. Or start a non-profit alternative.
Tommy was a chemist,
But Tommy is no more.
Because what Tommy thought was H2O,
Turned out to be H2SO4.
And Philosophy Promotes?
Wait.. this is a false dilemma. Just because the conclusion is true (both sides need to stfu) does not make the argument valid.(or sound)
Thank You, please drive through.
Yup, let us have kids grow up without knowing basic chemistry, excellent idea. I mean, what possible relevance could it have to their later lives.
Who wants adults to be able to grasp the fact that there is a brand name for drugs and a chemical name, and 500mg of paracetamol is the same thing whether you get the generic one for a few cents or the $10 strip for Panadol/Crocin/Tylenol or whatever other fancy brand name it's known by and widely advertised on your country.
Why would we need our kids to see through bullshit marketing speak like 'all natural', 'chemical free', that bottled spring/mineral water isn't healthier than purified water.
Why would we ever want them to realize how homeopathy makes no fucking sense?
Why would we want them to understand how a soft drink with 50g of sugar is about four tablespoons of sugar, that if they get a double sized drink they get double the sugar, that sugar free drink actually have almost zero calories - it is amazing how many people tell me that 'less than one calorie' is just advertising bullshit.
Why on earth does anyone need a clue about what 'radiation' is, and why the banana you just ate was radioactive and why we sometimes go to a hospital willingly to get zapped by radiation?
Why would anyone need to have a basic idea of thermodynamics, to realize how perpetual motion machines are impossible, why nuclear fission doesn't generate CO2 while all fossil fuels do?
A basic idea of what biodegradable means and why plastics are not biodegradable?
To have a clue about what 'BPA free' means before telling everyone why they need to buy a $50 BPA free water bottle?
Just what we need, a population completely ignorant about basic science, yet brought up to believe that they have a right to form their own opinion on everything and their opinion is as good as anyone else.
Seriously, has this guy ever met someone who didn't have the chance to go to school, to learn basic mathematics, or even to read? Your kids actually have the chance to go to school, unlike half the kids in the world, and you feel they are learning too much?
And it's a stupid false dichotomy that if you learn basic science you won't have time to learn other stuff. Kids have plenty of time and I don't know one adult who doesn't regret not having learned more when they were young. Take a break form the XBox, the TV, or the trashy comics. I am not saying kids shouldn't have fun, but I haven't met many people who've grown up feeling they sohuld have spent more time watching Scooby Doo instead of learning to play a musical instrument.
Global warming, Co2 concentrations, Fracking the Earth with chemicals to get some natural gas, softeners in the plastic Cup. Oh no, chemistry for everyone has to do with creating an informed electorate that is able to make half way non-stupid ass, informed decisions with regard to the poisoning of the the planet. Ozone, who the fuck needs that? UHHHH, You do! Unless you like skin cancer. etc. etc. etc.
I used to agree 100% with this sentiment; I would have happily have dumped history and chemistry in favour of more maths or even computer courses (if my school had had them at the time). However, my opinion (and understanding) changed when I finally asked one of my teachers when I was in 5th form about compulsory courses in junior and senior school. He said what you learn in any given course is not necessarily what is important at this level of schooling; what is important is "learning how to learn", so that you can learn and problem solve at higher education and throughout life in general.
So while I sucked at history and chemistry, looking back I finally managed to put them into perspective. I just wish someone had explained the concept about "learning how to learn" at the start of each school year, because then the sucky courses wouldn't have been such a trial then.
For all the talk about "critical thinking skills" and so forth, there sure does seem to be a lot of circling of wagons and attacks on this guy based primarily upon an erroneous headline and summary.
I took Chemistry in HS. I wasn't all that good at it, but earned a B.
I took Econimics, Speaking, Debate, German, Computer Programming, electronics, music, physics, woman's studies, auto mechanics AND all the core classes in English, math (through Calc II), and government.
I didn't take advanced biology. It didn't interest me, economics was more interesting to me but I did take the 10th grade biology ... back when they could still teach evolution and not some crap theory like ID.
I didn't take Latin either, not my thing.
I wanted to learn about everything possible, so I did. It was my decision, NOT my parents. They wanted me to work hard, but the drive to learn was my own. They couldn't force it on me.
High school is where you learn the basics of how to read, write, and do some basic math. Really, that's all I would *expect* anyone to get out of high school. Everything else is an added bonus, and it's good to have options. In my high school, students were required to take science courses every year, but you had a choice. You could take "general science", biology, chemistry, physics, or computer science. If you did not have an interest in taking sciences, the "general science" course was provided to teach you some very basic principles from all of the subjects, without ever going into the depth that the other courses did. I did computer science and physics. For some reason chemistry was just WAY over my head, and being forced to take it back then may have totally turned me off of it forever. Ten years after graduating from high school, and 3 years after graduating from university with a BA in psychology, I went back to school and took a "high school equivalent" chemistry class. I then proceeded to take first year chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, microbiology, physiology, and physics. A couple of years later, I'm now typing this message from the library in medical school.
Outside of elementary school, kids should not be mandated to take any classes.
Kids who are good at math will take math courses, kids who are good at arts & humanities will take those courses. Kids who like science will take science courses.
We need to stop treating high-school like a people factory and allow kids to find their own path. High-school should be so much more like university than it is. Kids should have more spare time, teachers should have office hours, and most of all we need to stop teaching at the slowest pace possible, and use the extra time to help the kids who don't get it understand the core concepts, and give time to the faster kids to grow on their own. And if you live in the US, you need to start paying teachers a decent wage, requiring more qualifications, and attracting some real talent.
We also need to put a stop to criminal behavior in schools (physical assaults and harassment), and create an environment that's nurturing enough to allow kids to learn without the stress of being tormented by some cruel little shit.
I'm not saying that kids should be sheltered, but they should be free to grow without adult pressures and other kids holding them back.
It's not a cost, it's an investment.
even though we know what we are doing isn't working.
I remember when I was a kid being forced to sit through subjects that had no real world use, presented in the most boring, painfully slow pace possible and resenting every minute of it.
Once a student has the core basics I think we should let them choose their courses more in line with a "university" type system. Even if the child wanders aimlessly from one subject to another until they decide what direction they want to choose in life they will still be learning better.
They will learn better because they will actually be interested in the subject of study,which makes one more engaged and more importantly they will be learning how to learn. What questions to ask, how to ask them and how to find the answer is much more important them memorizing dates of battles that happened centuries ago. I always thought it was much more important to learn WHY the battles were fought, not exactly to the day when.
With the readily available supply of information available to us today via the intertubes, if I have an "Oh Crap! How do I do that.." moment I can find the answer pretty darn quick.
Our current system focuses too much on trying to make kids experts in just a couple of subjects and virtually ignorant on the rest. leaving them unprepared for life. Our day to day lives are completely different then they were 100 years ago and yet the core structure of our educational system has remained virtually unchanged since that time.
I think many kids would thrive in an educational atmosphere where they have the opportunity to choose what they want to study and then have the instructor/teacher monitor their progress and set goals.
Obviously it would have to be much more complicated than this but I believe it could be done and I would love to see the results of a trial program.
All though I am not a breeder so what the hell do I know. :)
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
No kid should ever take a class that's hard. Only classes that re-affirm their belief that everything is easy.
Well, at least in France: French president pushing homework ban as part of ed reforms...
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
Chemistry helps me understand how to mix my own Cocktails... How can that not be considered important?!?!?!
One does wonder if this is the same David Bernstein who teaches at GMU and is a libertarian commentator on the Volokh Conspiracy, or another.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste/BernsteinCV.html
Until it's too late. I didn't plan on going to university after high school. I still took biology, chemistry, calculus, linear algebra, etc. in high school. A few years after graduating, I decided to go into software engineering at university, which requires a first year in general engineering consisting of most of the above topics except biology. Had I not taken those courses(which btw I was bad at chemistry in both HS and uni), I would have probably not been accepted into university without taking some other courses.
Just because you don't think you'll need a certain course in HS, doesn't mean you won't be glad you took it later in life.
My personal experience:
In my Freshman year of HS, I took Honors Biology. In my Sophomore year, I took Honors Chemistry. In my Junior year I took AP Biology, which had a lecture and a lab and counted for more credits. Half way through my first semester of my senior year, I was called in by guidance to tell me that I didn't have enough science credit and that I would have to ditch my Journalism class, which I was actually interested in, and pick up either Physics or Earth Science (aka, Rocks for Jocks). I wasn't about to switch into a physics class taught by a PhD from Stanford with an undergrad from MIT who used to work at NASA Langley -- my friends in there, who were all also the AP/Honors/Gifted types said there was a wicked grading curve because his class was really hard. I would have been at a major disadvantage coming in.
Instead, I took Earth Science. I came in with a test on the first day, and the teacher said I wouldn't have to take it. I did anyway, and still got a 98% (the 2% I missed was the result of some argument about the coloring in of a graph, which was total BS). I ended up getting a 104% average in that class, but I didn't really get anything out of it that I hadn't already learned because I was interested on my own, although I had no plans of being a geologist ever. I would have gotten more out of being allowed to take the Journalism class to its completion, but the school said I couldn't, or I wouldn't be able to graduate, despite having already been accepted to every school I applied to, because god forbid I don't learn the difference between magma and lava, in my geologically inert east coast state.
Frankly, I don't think chemistry should be mandatory. I think a critical thinking class should be mandatory, but let's be honest -- not everyone is going to be a scientist or engineer. Not everyone is destined for college or will do well there. Most people will never grow up to be President. That just doesn't happen, and beyond the requisite skills in literacy and math which the average person will need to get on in society, there really isn't a whole lot to be gained by forcing someone destined for a degree in classical philology or whatever the kids are into these days, to study something they really don't want to and will more than likely never need in their adult life.
I think most teenagers have trouble knowing what their interests are, until they have a chance to try them. I can think of at least two classmates that thought science was boring until about halfway through a chemistry class. Did the exploding stuff help? Certainly. But up until that point, the students and their parents understood that they didn't like it.
so how many people here complain about taking English or some literature course instead of more CompSci?
I do, at least. I never understood the classical, all-emotions, literature, and I suspect it's how I think, and nothing can be done about it. Reading such writings is a waste of time for me. Why a 14 y/o boy should be reading about marital problems of much older people? Fsck it, I don't want to read about them even now.
There is literature that would be immensely appealing to young men. SciFi is of course one of best candidates, but one could think of many traditional fiction books that are written not for overly sensitive ladies. For some reason, though, books like those of Jules Verne were not part of the official reading list. But The Mysterious Island contains tons of technologies for boys to try out (as long as they are not trying synthesis of Nitroglycerine.) The book is light on emotions, and that is good because men are not supposed to be emotional creatures. The book is light on women as well (there are none) - and that is good because it removes distractions. It has plenty of challenges and plenty of solutions; every survivalist (or boy scout) should know at least a few. But, as I said, in my school days we were forced to read about some woman who was unhappily married to some man, and the entire story was supposed to happen 300 or 500 years ago. What can be more boring? To quote the classic,
But the reader [of the "Deerslayer" tale] dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
In some ways my dad was really clueless.
When he was growing up, he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and even had a backup plan if that didn't work. He blindly assumed that he knew that I would be interested in some sort of SCIENCE! since that is what he went into, and he couldn't comprehend that his first born child would be interested in anything else.
I was okay at science and math. Neither of them really interested me. College ended up being a disaster. I really sucked at math and science beyond the high school level, it just didn't interest me. Computers, art and polysci, now that was another matter. Sadly I didn't figure that out till after I wasn't welcome at a couple of colleges anymore.
And well, computer science was okay, but Unix administration was really cool. And it paid the bills. So now I dabble in art, writing and 'lesser skills' [sic dad] and have a wonderful time doing them.
Back to my comments about the article and this thread.
Parents need to help their children to figure out what the children will want to do, and not what the parents *think* the child should want to do. Just because you as the adult know what you like and dislike, that doesn't mean that your child will be the same, or even close.
Oh, and as a footnote, my younger sister is just as into SCIENCE! as my dad and they both get confused when my Mom and I talk about our latest geeky arts and crafts projects. At least mom understands that she needs to get dad to talk to me first when he breaks anything related to computers at their home.
but it doesn't and the teacher just has to teach real good ...
non discussion on a non issue to me
He's not saying that children should be kept from learning science. Nor is he saying that chemistry is the only way to learn the critical thinking and analytical skills used in science. What he's saying is that there are a variety of ways to learn those skills, and no single way will teach them. For example, mathematics teaches basic principles of formal logic and thinking. So does programming, philosophy, and debate. A student may learn the underlying fundamental logic better in once type of class than the other. However, if all students are channeled through the same class, it prevents those who would benefit from the alternate courses from taking them.
So, rather than trying to focus on a 'cookie cutter' approach to teach these skills to students, high schools should be open to the possibility of other teaching approaches. Maybe the student can learn about the logical approach of statistics from a statistics course. Maybe they understand it when applied to biology. It's impossible to say, and going for only one method isn't the correct solution.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Small towns in rural Mexico will not force children to go to school at all! Home schooling is great! ... and so is Boris Yeltsin. Seriously. He is good.
"Look if you don't learn this stuff your gonna look pretty stupid after the first couple of sentences."
Public speaking is all well and good, but may be having something to say should be a priority.
... more hyperactive, science-illiterate, helicopter-parented manchildren.
Exactly. Instead of actually doing something to get the curriculum changed, or just suck on it and tell his sons "yes, you have to take chemistry," he decided to get on his Internet soapbox.
He's no different from other whining parents, he just has a bigger soapbox.
When you read the article, you could replace chemistry with just about any other subject in the curriculum. Why should I waste time studying the writing of dead Englishmen? The intellectual musings of dead Greeks? Why should I waste time learning the dismal science, economics? The history civilizations that disappeared millennia ago? Why should I have to be stuck in a classroom for an entire year wasting time learning things that may at most help me with a Trivial Pursuit game years down the road when I could be studying things that would allow me to make a full contribution to society?
Nope. Classics are things which everyone would like to have read but nobody wants to read. Most of it is glorified crap that bored English professors coaxed hidden meanings and interpretations out of. I only enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch 22, most of the other books I was forced to read were terrible and almost ruined my love of reading. I really liked reading in grade school then began reading less and less as "classic literature" was forced down my throat and nearly ruined my appetite for reading all together.
Actually public speaking while probably very useful is the most dangerous of all the courses. Most likely politicians who decide to kill science and exploration are guys who took public speaking and not science.
Basic chemistry is pretty important if you want to cook, scuba dive, or understand a third of biology, and considering we are entering a materials science and nano/biotech revolution he will live through, a basic understanding is probably important. Otherwise, survey courses teaching a foundation in scientific thinking may be great.. but it seems this can be done in science class and still learn actual science not "how to talk about science". That said, many science courses and teachers are undoubtedly uninspired and dull..
Last day of school '74. Laughing GAS!!! Nuf Said.
When we're talking about a 15 year old child, the answer would generally be: you ask them.
I expected this to be about some creationist raving about science classes from the pit of hell. But he raises a good point. What are the relevant classes that high schools should be teaching today? Is chemistry one of them? Chemistry is relevant to me because I'm curious about amateur rocketry... but I've never used it in any of my jobs, and I have a hard time imagining what use most people would ever have for it.
You can tell the people who failed chemistry they are the ones using graphite to grese their props.
I thought most high schools offered a selection of science classes and you had to take x science classes to graduate.
My high school offered general science, biology, human biology, chemistry and physics. IIRC, you had to take two science classes during your 4 years of HS to graduate.
My high school was in rural Michigan and there were only 116 students in my graduating class, so it's not like it was a big or fancy school. Have things changed that much since 2000?
https://www.facebook.com/digitizeicm -- Show your support for the digitization of the Iron County Miner newspaper archiv
His children shouldn't be required to take any science.
But really I could give a fuck about his kids, and don't think school should be mandatory for them either.
Breaking Bad
If you want a real awesome chemistry class, check out Prof. McBride's Yale CHEM125 freshman organic chemistry.
What is so cool is that he really goes into the basics of what makes chemistry work, including the history of how chemists figured out there were atoms, what bonds were and how they held atoms together, what kind of atoms and how many of them where in materials, back before computers, x-ray diffraction, and scanning tunneling electron microscopes.
In England (and Wales) the system allows unusually early specialisation.
Towards the end of Year 9 (age 13-14), I elected not to study "modern" (~700CE to the present) history in the next two years. I knew that it would be mostly 20th century history (World Wars, Cold War etc), and at the time thought that was very dull. Instead, I took "Classical Civilisation", i.e. ancient history and literature. The ancient history was certainly interesting, and I certainly know more about the Odyssey than most people, but a few years later I thought it was a bit odd that I'd managed to go through school without any specific teaching about World War 2.
At the same time, I decided not to study any more art, music, Latin, German, "technology" or sport, and chose geography, French and extra science. My school required me to study English literature and religious studies, and all schools require the study of maths, science and English unless the child has very severe learning difficulties. (Note that there other schools may have other options, e.g. different languages, food, electronics, textiles...)
Towards the end of the year when I was 15-16, I specialised further, choosing only four subjects (as standard). I chose Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I'd have liked to study in more breadth, but at the time I thought I wanted to study Chemistry at university, so there wasn't much choice. There were some new choices, I remember I could choose economics or politics.
Most students in the rest of Europe continue to study a broader range of subjects until they leave school, which I think is a better system -- at university they didn't seem particularly disadvantaged by not knowing so much depth.
Classic literature is way overrated. Other than being able to know an answer while watching a game show it was useless. When I was little I wanted to read Asimov and Clarke and Heinlein and Bradbury, and I did. The stuff they forced me to read for english class was dreck by comparison. I hated them for making me read that crap just because somebody else thought it was good.
That's why we choose your core classes for you. Because you would choose a fundamentally pointless class like HTML coding instead of something valuable like chemistry.
I've made this mistake on at fewest three different occasions.
It's not the chemistry class Johnny had to take.
But it might be the sole semester of P.E. he took, instead of every semester.
Johnny just isn't a great student.
2 kids, both in rigorous STEM curriculum in magnet school. Chemistry thru Orgo in HS. National Science Fair projects. But shop, home ech, basketball, math, computers, etc too.
Older quit basketball saying he could be first team math team but only second team basketball when the timing made both impossible. Played summer league though and still does 20 years later.
Son one has a MSChemE and works in blood processing. Son two took a very different approach and is a Lawyer. But both benefited by being forced to work their butts off and learn lots of things from great teachers. High expectations never hurt.
I don't know how this would work with an ADHD kid but my impression from visiting lots of schools over a 15 year career refereeing was that most kids would benefit if mommy and daddy expected more and their schools did too.
It used to turn me on to see kids walking down the halls holding hands (yea, normal hormones) discussing Plato between classes and then I'd visit the bathroom and find it spotless. Respect for learning and for the place that made it possible...imagine that. Thanks TJ.
Yeah, that's the mood.
I made Hamburger Bombs in College. (Sodium Peroxide looks *just like salt*) and does funny things to dining hall cheeseburgers. Runner up: putting "Sugar" on the cheerios. Bronze: Dry Ice fun.
Now I'm sure all of that stuff would earn a warning or expulsion.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
why can't i read SciFi all day long?
I'll bite. Why can't I? What makes english literature any better than science fiction literature?
We took economics. We also pay attention to the world. For instance, we see public speakers all the time who make absurdly stupid statements regarding scientific fact (as in: getting it blatantly wrong) because they don't have a basic understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. These courses in High School aren't meant to be doctorate programs. They aren't significant time investments. They're meant to provide a basic understanding of what we know about our world, to provide well rounded basic knowledge to people.
What happens, though, when a person finds something they're really good at or they enjoy immensely, is that they do it. A lot. Outside of class. If someone truly enjoys public speaking, they will be doing it more outside of class than inside of class. Learning more facts and becoming smarter WRT to the world around them is not going to inhibit this. If they're fascinated by political science, they're going to be on wikipedia, at the library, or even talking to local municipal leaders if the parent is capable of supporting their child enough to that end (here: you are the bottleneck, not your child's chemistry course). If they enjoy creative writing, they're probably going to be writing. Look at Harry Potter. What do you think mixing ingredients into a pot and getting some magical result correlates to in the real world? Chemistry. If you've learned even basic Chemistry, it feels like magic. There's a good motivator for creative writing, being inspired and in awe of something, even if you don't care to learn how it works to every detail. And HTML coding (it's not coding, it's a markup language, it's more like writing).. it's the same thing. Students specialize outside of school. If they are talented enough, they can even stop there, but being more well-rounded never hurts a person. It's a few courses in High School, before most even become lucid to the world around them. It's a background, not a lifetime investment.
The fact is brain works differently from person to person. Some might be able to understand math and chemistry easily while others will have a hard time which causes stress and frustration. I was pretty bad at math in High School but years later around 28 I was able to do algebra through physics in 1 month with ease, no issues. It could be that for some people it might take time for the brain to fully develop and for it to be able to process mathematics and science, just guessing. You can study all you want in high school, if your brain can't process the math it simply means your brain can't process the math yet. Remember, Math and Science came from different individuals with different brain schemas. But i also remember being tired all the time in high school, very very freaking tired, even during running and playing hoops I just felt like dropping dead to the ground. Probably hormones.
Classic literature may not be your cup of tea, but do you agree with the overall point? At what age should school become just "training for specific job role"?
I know what type of school your kids want. It's called German educational system. German's have 3 types of High School and all kids fits in one of those 3 High Schools. How in the world does kids across the Nation focus for 50 plus minutes for each class? It's better to down size the 50/55 minute for each class into 30 minutes for each class thus adding classes like economics, political science, sociology, trigonometry, anthropology, etc. Kids learn best when the class room time is reduced. And all those textbooks should reduce the volume by 50% so that the textbooks is designed for the fall season and the kids get new books for the spring season. In my English class I was forced to participate to read from the podium. I had to read my creative writing to the class every day. And from my other English class, I had to provide a current event topic from the podium every Friday,(Who, What, When Where, Why, and How). Creative writing is normally offered in English class(s) and most schools has a music program. Get a college/university course catalog and some of those classes should be taught to students before graduating from High School. I think kids would be able to focus and learn a lot more if there was 8 to 12 classes per week and class time was reduced to 30 minutes per class. Look at how kids watch TV, they watch TV from morning to evening and they remember the details of every movie that they watch that day.
Studying chemistry will develop his sons' thinking skills - so I can understand why he might feel threatened.
Chemistry, Math and Physics is not just about learning the subject matter. It has to do with several other things;
1. Critical thinking. How to break concepts down into manageable pieces and examine how they fit together. How to look at each part and see where the flaws are.
2. Cause and effect. How simple steps can lead to something completely different that started with.
3. Unexpected consequences. How a small error in steps can lead to something completely different.
4. Curiosity. How understanding how thing works can be fun. How more knowledge can role around in your head and become very interesting ideas. It show the importance of asking "how" and "why".
5.Doing the hard things. Life is not easy and sometimes one has to do hard things to reach a goal. I doubt there is anyone who has made it through life doing only the things they are good at.
6. The ability to learn in a structured way about physical things.
Maybe he will learn something in chemistry somewhere along the way. But he will lose out on so many other more important opportunities, and so will our society, which will have deprived itself of his full contribution.
He may forget the facts and figures but the underlying aspects will stay with him forever.
Note that the same thing works with if you replace "a Lisp language like Scheme" with "English." Unbalanced parentheses drove me crazy in English before I learned my first Lisp.
is gonna be pissed..
In my AP Chemistry class in High School, one wistful afternoon late in the year one of my classmates asked, "How do Drano bombs work?"
After a quick explanation of what a Drano bomb was, the teacher turned around, wrote the replacement reaction for the aluminum and sodium in solution...
No doubt he would be in jail facing terrorism charges today.
Things must of changed since the 80's, because, in my public school high schools (I went to 3), I got to pick my classes. Sure, I was required to take so many credits in math, english, etc., but I got to choose which classes. Never took a chemistry class, never had to. Got my science requirements via other classes.
I could of taken chemistry, or a writing class, or a speech class, but I choose to take computer & typing classes. And any class where i had access to a computer. Which oddly enough, back then, wasn't the science department. Besides the computer room, the only other class that had computers was the typing class.
I got what I wanted out of school, but I didn't get what I really needed. Maybe choice when you are wet behind the ears and don't really know what the world has to offer isn't the best way to go.
Be seeing you...
However, the contrast between the simpler trivium and more difficult quadrivium gave rise to the word "trivial"
See, this is the kind of thing those poor kids will never learn because--according to their father--they'll be too busy learning something useless like chemistry and won't be able to fit other concepts into their brains.
I'd mod you up if I had the points.
There are a lot of things in life that you can't do without a basic understanding of chemistry/science. The first thing that comes to mind is cooking. You can't follow a simple recipe without mathematics and science. You can't understand how to combine ingredients without chemistry. If you don't understand things like the boiling point of water or why oil and water don't mix it makes it very hard to feed yourself. Sure, you could exist on Ramen noodles and microwaved burritos but with the obesity problem in America that's not a good idea.
My son is hyperactive by design. He attends the only elementary school in South Carolin that has a curriculum wide focus on engineering. He loves science and even won a young engineer award last year. He also enjoys things like art and music and he has a lot of fun in the kitchen with me.
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
A lot of the comments here speak to the ignorance of the author David Bernstein, but let's take a different approach for a moment.
The sad and simple reason this guy's boy has to go to Chemistry is the same as why children are forced into education at all.
It is because some people somewhere justified their actions with: "Because, I said so", and the majority of people let them and go along to get along.
Mod parent up. Especially the "economics" part of Home-Ec. Yes, the sciences and arts are important in an education, but so are things like managing a household budget, basic nutrition, cooking (healthy and inexpensive food), simple home repair, etc.
No wonder we have a population in debt when we don't even teach our kids how to manage *life*.
Queue the 'But it's the parents' job - don't tell me how to raise my kids!' responses. You know what? You are right. We should be teaching our own kids... but we (categorically) are not.
You stereotypers are all the same...
We would like to have EDUCATED Citizens not trained drones. Chem helps when someone tells you they can convert lead to gold.
It helps when you decide to clear your own drain, and think better of using vinegar instead of water with drano.
Many of the courses do similar things. Who knows, maybe the kid gets to see a subject that dad has kept them away from. Maybe, the kid will discover his true calling. We should give kids more options to learn Trades in HS. Not all are college material or want that debt before working.
Our drop out problem is partly due to sending kids to classes they do not want or need.
The Dad has a point, but it should be presented by someone sharper than him.
What about those parents/students that want chemistry? So now you're offering public speaking AND chemistry AND drama AND stagecraft AND drafting AND computer science AND... AND... AND... And where does the money come from to find appropriately skilled teachers and equipment? What happens to courses that have low enrollment? How do you supply the space and scheduling to cover all the whims of a diverse population? What if those alternative courses don't equate to more successful students?
I think the main thing is that we have to ensure that our children are taught HOW TO LEARN! They need to be taught critical thinking. They need to learn process and at the same time learn about how intuition can be part of the process. They need to be taught to explore and experiment. They need to be taught to take risks, but calculated ones. That's really what school should be about is setting them up for making their own choices in College and the rest of their life.
The other thing I think about is that while I didn't see much use for Algebra or Geometry or quite a few of my other classes, what I'm finding out much later is that YES I do need those things. Why? Because I have kids that need DO see a use for those subjects and they need help with their homework. So it's good that I got that experience and I can go out and get refreshed and be of some use to my children so that they can go on to choose what they want to do in life, versus what I've pigeonholed them to do.
One thing that I see today is that our schools are just too large. They've consolidated in an effort to control costs at the cost of making things harder to manage and reducing that sense of community. The other thing that I thing our schools fail at is finding a way to interweave subject matter. For example, why shouldn't Science and English go hand in hand. Why couldn't the Science teacher ask the students to do a creative writing assignment about Chemistry or Biology and it be a joint grade between English and Science classes. It would show that the student had a mastery of both subjects and at the same time it would allow them to leverage the one that they were most interested in to get through the one they were less interested in (i.e. my daughter who loves English and hates Chemistry.) If the classes were shortened and interwoven the students would be more engaged and use the time more effectively. The other consideration might be to define some trial period to use the first few weeks to assess where the students are, which style of learning might be best for the individual student, which interleaving might work best for them, and then adjust their schedule to the set of classes and teachers that work best for that student (within some reasonable balance of class size and costs)
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Seriously, eveyone complains about the declining quality of eduction. But when was US education at it's peak, had lots of funding, and had everyone interested in seeing how well everyone was doing? During the cold war! Especially with science and math education. There was a fear that the Soviets were doing well in science and the US was falling behind. Yes there was an economic boom in the 50s and 60s, but there was also fear of having an uneducated population.
Today it seems like being uneducated is something people are proud of. We've replaced the Soviets and the Chinese as the enemy that we had to compete against with terrorists, and no one worries about being less educated than terrorists.
Kids need to learn basic scientific literacy. "There are things called atoms." "There are things called elements." Maybe somewhat more in depth than that, but not much. The amount of detail we attempt to teach in high school chemistry classes (or, at leas, the one I took) is altogether irrelevant for students who aren't going to pursue further study in a hard science. So while I think the author's son should have to take some sort of "chemistry primer" class (at some level, possibly junior high), I don't think he should be forced to study chemistry at the level of detail that's currently required.
,,,at least in the STEM areas.
I went to a Vo-Tech HS in the '80s, and majored in electronics. That required 4 years of science and 4 years of math, where other majors (and state HS diploma requirements at the time) only required 3 of each. For science, we got General science freshman year, followed the next 3 years by Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Math was Algebra I, followed by Algebra II, Geometry, and Calculus I.
The areas that we got less exposure to than general HS students were electives like art, music etc., no foreign languages, and no study hall periods. That time was used for the technical classes...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
everyone should be required to take a basic course in everything >.
People have known the Earth wasn't flat for a long, long time. (The Earth casts a shadow on the moon sometime.)
I just find it amusing that while trying to make fun of their alleged ignorance, you got that huge detail wrong.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Diverse classes are hard to implement. Both from supply and demand. Take a school that has teachers teaching 6 class periods.
Most teachers are only certified in one subject, occasionally 2. It costs them money to get training and certification in other subjects. So generally they only get certification in areas they can be sure to find employment. And focus on taking classes on the key areas in that subject that will get them hired. Unique training might be cool, but doesn't help most teachers. So they stick to the plain vanilla that they can be sure will be used in their careers.
Now take a school that has teachers teaching 6 class periods. How many periods of these diverse classes can a teacher teach? If it's not 6, they need to have at least 2 certifications. And if they do, that style of teaching sucks. My wife is a teacher and teaches 2 sets of curriculum. It's double the planning. Maybe an extra 10-20 hours a week for no additional pay. So few teachers are willing to teach two subjects and few schools are willing to dedicate a teacher to a minor subject.
If a school is very large AND the subject is popular enough to fill an entire class, preferably 6 classes AND you have a teacher with the right training, then diverse classes can be offered.
In general, that doesn't happen.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Science teaches critical thinking, understanding data, and doing things with your hands. Science isn't a natural way to think, it takes training. It teaches you how do deconstruct and learn.
Everything that person goes on to do benefits from science. Weather it's public speaking, Art, or anything, really. It's also one of the things most children will never get exposed to in the home.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
ing.
Economy does seem obvious, at least at a personal level (budget), but also a bit more advanced so people understand compound interest (the most powerful force in the universe !)
Advertising, so people don't get brainwashed that easy.
Social media. In my time it was "any email will always end up in the worst possible person's inbox" (and actually, a mail in which I very politely shot down a colleague got read aloud to him by the Big Boss I sent it to... at least it was polite "You're saying my progs are shit" ? "I didn't say shit. But you did capture the gist of my meaning" ^^)
Ethics, philosophy, and religion.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I'm a parent, and I get where he's coming from... my wife was terrible in chemistry, barely passed, learned virtually nothing, and has never in her life needed that knowledge (directly at least). A strong argument could be made that she would have been better served taking a class of her choosing. I get it, it's not a ridiculous point of view.
However, here's the problem: a public education's purpose, one of the big ones at least, is to ensure that everyone who graduates is on more or less equal footing in terms of what they were exposed to. That's the way it SHOULD work: you get a baseline education through high school, graduate, THEN you get to pick and choose what you really want to learn in-depth.
Now, I had some choices my last two years of high school and I certainly see nothing wrong with that... and, if this father had been making the argument that the current curriculum simply isn't diverse enough then I think there would be almost no debate at all! It's CLEAR we aren't giving our kids a strong and broad enough base of education in this country. But the notion that simply because he thinks they should be learning something else aside from what's in the curriculum, no, I get his point but I don't agree with it. The curriculum needing to be better isn't the same as picking and choosing individual pieces you don't like (I realize he said this isn't about chemistry specifically, but at the point you're deciding for yourself what to learn you're unleveling the playing field, and that should explicitly be against the notion of a public education).
I say through 11th grade you're in a common, set series of classes that everyone must take. In 12th grade you can pick some number of your own classes (half? all of them? up for debate)... the idea being that you then choose different classes that may help you decide what to do with the rest of your life (and maybe you could argue this should start in 11th grade... again, debatable, but doesn't change the basic point). But up until that time you have to keep everything even for all.
I hated English Literature in school, I just didn't get it. But I persevered with it and passed the exam with a decent grade. Nowadays I love literature and I can appreciate it thanks to the lessons I learned in school. I may not have understood them at the time, but I do now.
Nothing is ever wasted.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
In high school, I took Latin. I didn't particularly care for it, I didn't think I was particularly good at it. Obviously, it is not directly useful as languages go. Come college, I was required to take a language. I really did not want to take a language, but I ended up taking German (as a philosophy major, I was recommended German). I didn't really care, I just wanted to get it out of the way. It turns out I had one of the greatest professors I could ever imagine. He opened up my eyes to teaching, brought it alive, and I ended up living in Germany for a year! All because of something I had to take. Sometimes it is the people you meet along the way that change your life, not just the subject matter. "Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it." -- the Buddha
I think having less kids exposed to at least one STEM subject at school is a bad idea and what kid doesn't like blowing stuff up :-) id suggest buying him or her rocket boys by Homer Hickam
How much the multiple years of math did I utilize? Algebra2, Calculus, etc....never used ANY OF IT in real life.
Would have been far better of with some basic HTML and comp sci. But wasn't really available. But the truth of the matter, is that America's curriculum is FORGETTABLE
That's right. How many can remember the exact dates of all those wars. 1776 the Revolutionary War...what year did it end? War of 1812 - oh that one was easy. Which century did the Spanish-American war take place? Chemistry...wait, now we don't want kids doing that sort of stuff. In fact we don't even want them to know how to blow up stuff as an adult. Reading really bad books written centuries ago. Seriously, I'd take Heinlein's "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" as a more formulative and conceptually challenging book than pretty much anything I was forced to read. And did I REALLY have to read the Tell Tale Heart 4 times between 6th-12th grade?
Instead of reacting, and exclaiming that this is ludicrous. (And I'm not saying I support the guy.) Let's consider it. Would an personal economics course that focused on interest, loans, amoritization, etc, etc. Real life, usable info. Stuff that woul show why one should choose a Roth vs a typical IRA. Why a 15 year mortgage can save you a hundred thousand dollars.
Perhaps a curriculum focused more on relevant issues, and focused more on the ability to learn and self-teach. With Google, Internet, Khan Academy....the access to knowledge is accessible. The "Learning Method" is what must be taught.
In the past there was a concept of graduating a person with a limited diploma. There is a serious reason for issuing a diploma in that it serves as a certificate of certain abilities or at least the potential to acquire needed knowledge.
For example my school district now requires cleaning staff to have a high school diploma. That diploma provides just a bit of assurance that a school custodian won't get certain bad notions about mixing chemicals or ignoring sanitation issues and it also demonstrates one further thing and that is that as a teenager the person was stable enough not to drop out or be expelled from schools. Maybe such rules and requirements only shave 1% of horrid incidents out of school systems but that 1% can be pretty ugly. Like most tools and rules it does have some negatives attached. But would you feel better if your school janitor was required to take biology, chemistry and some basic sciences?
Oddly as far as school employees molesting students the teachers seem to get caught up in that a lot more than custodians and tradespeople working in the schools.
I'm a widower now, but I used to save money by making cleaning products for my first wife out of bleach and ammonia.
on you tube ranting that no one knows how magnets work?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
While HTML is handy and so is some economics they aren't even in the same ballpark as chemistry.
High school chemistry is currently taught as preparation for college chemistry. It's probably more efficient to make a mandatory high school chemistry course a mostly lab based introduction to simple chemical processes and processes related to chemistry that are useful in daily life and require the much smaller subset that are going on to college chemistry to make due with learning the same material taught in high school chemistry now when it is taught in college.
For example, you can go quite far into measurement, dilution, filtration and extraction, desiccants, distillation, chemical batteries, oxidation, and basic acid/base extractions without more than a cursory understanding of what is going on under the hood and you certainly don't need to even see a chemical equation in learning that.
Most of that is covered in high school chemistry now but the classes are so heavily based in theory that students can't recognize the opportunities to use that information that are all around them. This is true of many subjects in school.
Isn't mathematics a science? I'm pretty sure your son will lose a lot of opportunities later in life if he can't count past the number of fingers he has.
The real problem is that uneducated people get to vote too, but they might not understand the pros and cons of what they are voting for. A good, well rounded, basic education is required for a democracy to be successful in the long term. This certainly should include some mandatory science classes.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
which he could be really good at
If he is really good at a subject, why take a course on it to begin with? The entire purpose of education is to make someone "really good" at a subject, is it not?
One of the oft-repeated problems with the education system in the United States is the push for "higher education for all" that ends up harming both schools and students alike. If you want your precious child to be learning how to design websites, take said child out of high school and put him into a vocational/technical school.
The classical education provided by high school is still quite valuable in this day and age, but not for everyone. Our cultural disdain for vo-tech and the related push for a "one size fits all" secondary education helps nobody.
When there is a state test that gives brownie points (and $) to the school district based on any of those classes, the district will offer them overnight. Granted, they still won't teach anything useful (same as the other exiting subjects) .. but at least you'll have a choice of which test to learn how to take.
What makes shows like the Simpsons and Family Guy funny are all the cultural references. 90% of the material in those shows are references to other works.
If you are not familiar with the material being referenced, then you don't get the joke - or the point being made.
The same is true in literature. If you are not familiar with the English literary canon, then you will miss all the references to it from later derivitive works - from all genres. Science Fiction makes reference to classical literature all the time. Somtimes explicitly (Inferno) but more often times, obliquely.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The author says science courses shouldn't be mandated because his son will never be a scientist. I wonder if his son will be a professional athlete?
It's called a general level of Knowledge. You may argue with me all you want, but it is clear from a myriad of sources that Americans suffer a sever lack of general knowledge among various subjects. I shudder to think what type of people you will produce should your 'education' system be eroded any further
That's why your son is taking three sequences of science. High School Curriculums are designed to prepare students for College. As such Science and Math courses are tops on the list for admission into college. Especially if your child wishes to pursue an degree in science, math or engineering. Taking three sciences classes total in 4 years of high school in no way deprives your child from taking public speaking, economics, basket weaving or whatever else you would want your child to take. Given the fact that people are science illiterate, it could be argued, students need more science education, not less. But you argument is extremely disingenuous: Why are you forcing my son...this is the education you signed up for. But as a parent you can change that - which is odd that in your research you did not know you as a parent can effect the courses being taught your child. So I suppose the larger questions is: why are you wasting our time on trivial non-sense?
When I was in school, chemistry was not a requirement. It was an elective you could take.
To be honest, I don't see why it's a requirement either. It should certainly be available for those who wish to take it (I did), but forcing everyone to take it and pinning your ability to graduate on passing it just doesn't sound beneficial to everyone but those who will be aiming for jobs related to chemistry.
I think traditional schooling gives you a good well rounded education (or, it's supposed to, at least), but the higher level courses like chemistry, calculus, etc, should remain electives. You should be able to pick more fields you're interested in studying further to further prep yourself for college life. I don't know about having things like HTML courses specifically, but choice should definitely be offered more. Being able to cut the stuff you will never use (within reason) definitely sounds like a better solution than forcing it on everyone regardless of their future endeavors.
I'm really glad I got to take sciences instead of public speaking, or freaking writing.
"Hello, I want my kids to be complete idiots with no chance for growth".
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Johnny was a chemist's son/ But Johnny is no more/ What he thought was H20/ Was H2SO4
Wow. More preaching that ignorance is good. This summer it was math, now it's chemistry, what's next, logic? (Oh, wait).
You blithering fool. Knowledge is the key to an edge in any area, and the more knowledge the better.
If we ignore for a moment the particulars of the case, it does raise an interesting question:
Why is it that chemistry (for example) is on the mandatory curricular and creative writing and music (for example) are not?
In other words: what is, or rather - what should be, the criteria for inclusion or exclusion of subjects in the mandatory curriculum?
Disclaimer:
When I went to highschool (a long time ago, in a country far far away), all my subjects were compulsory.
When you force my son to take chemistry (and several other subjects, this is not only about chemistry), you are not allowing him that same time to take a public speaking course, which he could be really good at, or music, or political science, or creative writing, or HTML coding for websites
And how do you know your son isn't a chemistry god if he doesn't take it at least for one year? When I was in high school, I had a ton of free electives I could have taken (and did) *and* I graduated a semester early. He could likely take all the above in addition to the required classes if he wants.
Seems this guy wants to just complain and he wants to short change his children by enrolling them in just enough classes to barely graduate. Unless of course, his children are/have failed so many classes that they don't have the spare class time to spare. In that case, I would have to say that his judgement on how to properly school children is the worst place to look.
No wonder we have a population in debt when we don't even teach our kids how to manage *life*.
I must've had enlightened history teaching, because I was never once required to memorize any dates with just one exception: July 4, 1776.
Exactly! The -236 year anniversary of the Higgs discovery!
"There’s a concept in economics called 'opportunity costs,' which you may not have learned about because you were taking chemistry instead of economics. Opportunity costs are the sacrifices we make when we choose one alternative over another. ... "
When you chose to send your sons to a public school where the cost of tuition is spread over all the taxpayers, even those who do not have children, you ran right into one of those 'opportunity costs' you are talking about. You had alternative choices: home schooling, private tutors, forming a charter school with like minded parents.
Making the choice that you made resulted in some sacrifices over the control of the course of study your sons follow in school. Reality, and 'opportunity costs' are a bitch dude!
The article even says that the parent was mis-informed that chemistry was required. A little due dilligence on his part, and his son could have taken a different scince class. Whoosh! There goes another opportunity cost. Choosing to be more involved in your child's education would have given you the opportunity to learn more about required classes and avoided this whole issue. By making the choice you did (not being as involved as you could have) the sacrifices of opportunity costs came back and bit you again.
Of course, it always has to be someone else's fault.
What a douche.
I'm ADD (was ADHD as child) and a computer scientist... I find this moron highly offensive.
Ah yes, classic literature. Got some of that in high school or college. The reason why my books are programming, non-calculus math, electronics, or else board and card games. Absolutely zero classic literature, I threw away all the books from college.
Abort the Idiocracy while we still can.
I second you on this one. It is why I rarely took any CS classes--the material is so easy to learn. Why? Because people invented the whole field, for the most part, and people designed it so it makes sense.
Physics and math are much harder to learn.... There, in many cases, you are not dealing with something invented by a human mind. A lot of physics (like quantum mechanics) just doesn't really make sense.
--PM
This guy should be getting his kids The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, which is a book from 1960s which was banned because it was considered too dangerous, which is now only available as an ebook on the intertubes (it isn't available for sale anywhere, the original publisher took it off the shelves for liability reasons, but it can still be found at various places if you google for it). Although it's quite out-of-date on some of the topics it covers, it's still my favorite lab Chemistry book in the entire World !!
And of course, this isn't a book that should be given to kids without parental supervision, there is actually a very good reason this book was taken off the shelves and no, it's not because some kid blew himself up with it, which may have happened as well (without parental supervision), it's actually much weirder than that. The book was taken off the shelves because some thirteen years old successfully replicated the experiments by Marie Curie detailed in the book.
Now that I've made my recommendation, which I didn't want to get lost in my very long diatribe, here comes my long diatribe which tries to partially answer some of his better points.
Even some of my smartest friends seem to be oddly loyal to the Committee of Ten. They are not able to imagine a universe in which my son does not take chemistry his sophomore year in high school. Seriously guys, dig deep, and you may find some powers of imagination left over from all those years of industrialized schooling and, well, schooling.
Do we really have to dig that hard to imagine a world without Chemistry education? We really don't.
I still find that most people are ignorant about Chemistry (and even Physics and Biology), not that I'm very good at any of those subjects either (I've just been fortunate enough not to be born in a country that ignored Science education), but just to give you an example, my mother doesn't have an education in Chemistry (it wasn't offered during her time, especially for her gender). Had she received a basic education in that subject when she was younger, she would have probably seen through half the medical quackery that she's getting into from the internet. Right now, she's getting convinced left and right, and there is really so much I can do to dissuade her that the people she's listening to are not legitimate medical professionals.
And yes, a Chemistry education would have helped, at least a little bit. Some of those internet quacks do rely on the language of Chemistry that they've cut and pasted from various places, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense on the whole in the context of what they're saying.
Right now, the only education on Chemistry/Physics most of our mainstream population is getting, is through TV dramas and television news. And to a father who doesn't really remember chemistry (even thought he was good at it), he may not see much harm in shows like "Numb3rs", in fact, he's probably glad that such a show (now cancelled) was trying to educate the public about Math, Physics, and even Chemistry at times, while still staying interesting to watch, but he probably didn't even notice the purposeful omissions of real science in favor of increasing the drama to keep the show interesting. Nor does he have much of an idea how misleading that show is going to be to our society, because of what they mis-portrayed on it.
And ultimately, that's the real problem here, we need the citizens in our country (the younger generation at least), to be conversant in Chemistry (and other sciences), so they can help make good personal decisions about their own health, nutrition, and environment, and make good policy decisions about our society, because on the whole that knowledge is certainly not coming from our television or our parents (barring a very few exceptions).
It's a major component of having an informed citizenry, who can make educated decisions about public policy.
If more people understood basic statistics and risk, some basic chemistry, and Newtonian physics, we could have intelligent discussions about
subjects like nuclear power, hydraulic fracturing, antibiotic abuse, GMO's, climate change, etc. without whipsawing between the
two extreme positions selected by the media to maximize the vitriol.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
"There’s a concept in economics called 'opportunity costs,' which you may not have learned about because you were taking chemistry instead of economics"
To which I reply: there is a concept in chemistry known as the 2nd law of thermodynamics which you may not have learned about because you were taking economics instead of chemistry, which tells you that in a world of finite resources, economic growth cannot continue up and to the right forever.
Perhaps there is more overlap between the dismal science and the hard sciences than you think.
We were forced to take Ethnic Studies (White Guilt Programming 101).
I don't understand this concept.
I was forced to take 4 years of English and Physical Education classes during my Secondary Education, so I didn't have time in my schedule for Economics, Statistics, Music, Art, Advanced Math or Science.
They can learn all else in extracurricular or after-school activities... no chem will produce kids that don't believe in evolution... they'll be like... whattt??? chemicals react?? DNA is made of chemicals??? We're all basically chemistry???
HTML coding ... facepalm...
Actually, High School may SUPPOSED to be about something else. . . but what it's *really* about, is industrial indoctrination. Classification and separation of the incoming labor force into pools. Not necessarily by good equitable evaluation methods, but you get the point.
This guy resents that, and I get where he's coming from.
There's a certain set of students who are headed for business school. A certain set headed for law school. A certain set headed for medical school. A certain set headed for engineering. And a certain set headed for "liberal arts". The rest are headed for work in retail (or what-have-you). This is determined by the outcome, really near the end of primary - but it is solidified during secondary.
For some kids - this is determined at birth, by the fact of their very wealthy, connected parents. Why should they go to school at all? Harumph! their peers are going to require that their gladhanding yes-men have ACTUAL credentials, that have meaning. What ever is this world coming to?
You don't want public education for your children?
Teach them yourself at home.
You don't have the time for that? Pay someone to do that for you.
You don't have the money for that?
Well, duh.
(Neither did my parents)
You need to have a base level of education in a society where people elect the decision makers. While I believe voting should be universal, I believe we have a DUTY to at least attempt to educate future voters in the basics of Science and the Humanities.
Not doing this in the most powerful country in the world could easily lead to the destruction of everything -- by raising a generation of ignorant people who put one of their own in charge who make destructive and uninformed policies which will affect us all. You can already see this in the glorification of willful ignorance that's so prevalent today.
Someone who has never taken chemistry or physics will do things like try to roll down windows on airplanes, be easily persuaded to deny scientific results inconvenient to a moneyed few, and support obviously destructive policies without having even a smidgen of understanding about their consequences until it's too late.
(I might be a science geek, but I think having a fundamental grasp of why Western Civilization is the way it is, what brought it here, what common failure of societies are, etc. are just as important. We have 12 years of mandatory education -- let's continue to put it to good use!)
considering that there are people in this country who think that dihydrogen monoxide (http://www.netreach.net/~rjones/no_dhmo.html) is a toxic chemical that needs to be regulated and that carbon dioxide (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAaDVOd2sRQ) is an all natural substance that is desirable to have around, i think a semester or two of chemistry may be a pretty good idea.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Canada kimberlites:
Greenland kimberlites: and
African Karoo missing lava sills here and here
Also... I forgot to mention that we really do see a huge scatter in the data for the age of the moon rocks: here .
And yes, that last guy is a creation scientist. I don't happen to agree with his conclusions, but I agree with his methods a lot faster than with those of a lot of proponents of "standard" conclusions. I happen to think that our real science, as you might call it, is driven by those who -- while disagreeing with the creation scientists -- still listen to them, especially when they say "you have an inconsistency here" or "I disagree with your statistics there", etc.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Not knowing chemistry can kill you. (Like, you mix chlorine bleach and drain cleaner and die from chlorine fumes -- among many other scenarios.)
Not knowing public speaking, or music, or political science, or creative writing, or HTML is far less likely to be fatal. Moreover, it's a lot easier to teach yourself the latter than the former, at least without getting put on some DHS watch list (although political science and public speaking might be iffy there too). School chem labs generally beat what you can do at home.
Mind, my dad gave me my first chemistry set for my seventh birthday.
-- Alastair
...my kid in Year 9 (that's 8th grade to Americans) is taking chemistry. And biology. And physics. Next year? Oh yes, more chemistry, more biology, and more physics. And the year after as well.
But hey, I support this father's desire to prepare his kid for different career paths. After all, if my kid's "EdExcel Triple Science" path to the GCSEs leads to inventing something, founding a company and being a bazillionaire by age 25, I'm sure the company will need an HTML coder.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
If someone is incapable of grasping chemistry at the level taught in public schools, I'd be rather surprised to find that he or she was capable of grasping any other useful knowledge or skill. Most of us who took (and mastered) that level of chemistry did not go on to become chemists. We took (and mastered) it to become well-rounded adults who could make some sense of the fine print on an OTC medicine bottle. I would be delighted if the average American politician (who is adept at public speaking) would learn a little more about chemistry. And physics. And economics. And ethics. And mathematics. And biology. And geology. And archeology. And history. And art. And music. And logic. And sociology. And linguistics. And philosophy. And engineering. And ...
When I was in High School (graduated 2003), we were required to have at least 2 years of science but, we were allowed to choose our science classes (Biology, Physics, or Chemistry). I knew that I had certain...issues back then and probably shouldn't be allowed near dangerous chemicals so I took one year of Biology followed by two of Physics (I liked it quite a bit after my first year and so I took a second one as an elective). I had enough layman's knowledge to cause enough trouble so, I really didn't want to add any actual education to that. Now that I'm almost a decade removed from that situation and have spoken with some of my fellow graduates, I've discovered that I was probably correct in keeping myself away. Those fun experiments where you learn about exothermic reactions would have just sounded like detonators to me back then.
... therefore I never wasted time learning about ethics, laws or pain management. I propose his idea is dumb and we use his organs for experiments.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Hey, while were at it why don't we day away with the other pesky classes, like English, computer science, math, and anything else that is an important part of the modern world. Who really needs to know what dihydrogen monoxide is anyway.
... he picked a bad one to single out. I am still in high school for another little while, and last year I took Chemistry. While I may not have enjoyed it all too much, I realized its importance. Chemistry is the basis of nearly every science; biology, geology, astronomy, archaeology, even psychology... the list goes on. Why would you want to deny to your son the basic understanding of life and the world around us?
I just want to point out that economics, as a whole, is not a science, in any sense of the term. It is the arbitrary projection of ideas upon the outside world, which seems rather like religion. I think that economists need more chemistry classes
a class like political science would be the last thing to replace a science course with. Americans are already dumb and opinionated enough as it is; for god's sake, don't let the curriculum reinforce that in following generations.
Accidental moderation.
I am always a little bit sceptic when parents want their kids to do things "which they are really good at". Usual that transates to "i fed my kid the stuff i am good at and which i understand so long the kid is really good at it, in contrast to other stuff which i dont know about and where i must, for polishing my self-esteem, find a rationalizatoon of reducing the teachers authority".
No, whatever he may think. Having been teached a broad selection of stuff before you are 18 is the most important thing. Nothing reduces the choice more than not being teached the basic stuff in all directions *before* entereing university. I am grateful for every subject i had in school, even if i sucked at it, or especially then, if it had a significant content.
As a parent of a child like the one the complainent descibes having i understand both his and the counter voices arguments. To the compainent, hey buddy i know the feeling. Make sure the know that you tried. There is no beating reality you are doing the best that you can. To the counters, you are wrong. I know tat you are advocating for children that you feel are being sold short. That s comendable, but you are wrong. My child will never develope past arithmatic. I know rhis because no child with my sons impairments has ever underrstold algebra. I love my son with all my heart but he could use a class on manners or saving money far more than he would on any abstract subject, ever.
> David Bernstein
His names show he is jewish, but chemistry is a german science. A few decades ago, one couldn't be a chemist without first learning the german language, as all journals and books worth their salt were published in german. BTW, the supremacy of english language is quite recent in many sciences.) What's more, all modern chemical processes come from german scientists and companies, like Bayer, IG Farben, etc.
Now, remember what those german companies did to people (e.g. nazi gas chambers with Zyklon-B pellets, the production of soap from the ashes of those killed and cremated in concentration camps, coal turned into artificial fuel to drive Tiger tanks that crushed free Europe, "Hitler's lard" or artificial marmelade production to feed german soldiers when agriculture ceased due to scorched earth tactic, etc.). Some 5.9 million jews and over a million gipsy were exterminated by nazi gas chemistry, for which crime a few german chemists hanged in Nurenberg.
I really cannot fault jewish people for hating chemistry after having been through all that! BTW, most surviving nazi chemists went to Syria in the late 1950s and helped them start industrial-scale manufacture of weaponized Sarin, Tabun and Soman poison gases for Scud missile warheads. That is why Israel still has not managed to crush the dictatorship of Syria, despite possessing 400 nukes and 650 top notch warplanes, as well as 1200 virtually invincible Merkava tanks.
The point of high-school (and to a lesser extent, college) is to learn a minimum amount about a large number of topics, so that you will have some idea how the world works. Using ADD as an excuse to skip an important topic seems wrong to me - especially since ADD is something that seems to only be a problem in recent times, and in first world countries.
I don't hear poor Indians complaining about ADD when they are trying to study to get a job at TCS or some other top company there. I never hear people here in Japan complain about ADD either.
If you let this kid skip chemistry due to ADD, some other kid skip Sex-Ed due to being mormon, and one more skip Gym Class due to being fat... then what's the point of having requirements at all? Sorry, but he should be made to take the class, and graded just like everyone else. Even if he only gets a C, it makes sense, since if he can't get an A in the class, he probably can't get an A in the real world either.
As for the whole opportunity cost thing, to some extent it is of course true, but you might say he should only ever have to take video game class or something then. He can take electives once his core classes are complete.
Oh, and stop whining.
- obviously I see the real solution - get rid of the public school system, all education should be handled as a business, that way everybody will be served properly and voluntarily and as inexpensive as possible and nobody will be forced into anything.
you are using a twisted sense of the word voluntarily here. sure, people who have money can voluntarily go to school under such a system, but people without will be left behind. of course, your extreme-right-wing ron paul system of fascist capitalism requires that; without a supply of people who can be enslaved with know knowledge of anything else, your system falls apart.
the real question though is why do you hate socio-economic mobility so much? while very little mobility exists in the united states currently, you are seeking to drive mobility straight to zero.
Dear Dad: science courses aren't just about the concrete content. They're also about learning the so-called "scientific method", doing experiments to see what happens and then discussing ways to explain the results. Studying how atoms are structured, how and why they connect, gives insights into many kinds of simple structures with complex side effects. Learning to balance chemical equations exercises math skills as well as teaching the use of explanatory logic.
Professional educators study teaching for a reason: there are many many angles to consider (true for both subject content and students individual differences). A great deal is learned in the process of teaching others, much of it can't be conveyed in words.
I can understand parents who object to mandatory education and slovenly teachers. And I despise curriculums rigged to serve some bone-headed purpose like standardized testing. But when it comes to the values served by caring professionals doing their best under trying and underpaid circumstances to maximize the benefits realized by students? Then parents need to SHUT THE FUCK UP. They wouldn't like it much if someone told them how to do the job they've invested years in either.
Most of what's wrong with education has nothing to do with the kids or the teachers. It's primarily the home environment that decides how well kids do, and the school environment that decides how well teachers do. Keep the parents and administrators out of the classrooms and leave the kids and teachers alone.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Basic atomic theory is one of the most important things we've discovered as a species, right behind "Scientific theory".
Both of those are covered, and practiced in Chemistry.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I remember taking chemistry in high school, and it was a breeze. When I got to college, because it was so easy, and I received an easy A, it was the one class at West Point that kicked my behind all the way through it until I ended up spending long nights avoiding more enjoyable pursuits and did nothing but study, even going to a tutor for the very first time (when I had always been the tutor). The point: Taking chemistry in high school is more an introduction to the science, no matter how many AP designations they attach to the class.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
My daughter has just started secondary school here in England and they combine chemistry, biology and physics into the dreaded 'Science''.
But they take History and split it into Classical Studies and History ??????
Oh, and in their Information Technology classes they are shown how to use Powerpoint.
As people embrace specialization, and the knowledge silos that come with it, no one is left with a broader comprehension of how the pieces fit together. In an infected system, a malignancy can easily spiral out of control with no one the wiser. Take global warming, for example. A basic knowledge of chemistry and the work of John Tyndall 150 years ago provides the most elementary demonstration of how human activities have to be contributing to environmental warming. Should we have economists steering our economy who have no understanding of the relationships between chemistry, our lives, our planet, our very existence?
Not only do they need to be forced to take Chemistry, but they should be forced to take Public Speaking, Political Science, Music, Creative Writing, HTML Coding, Metal Shop, and Modern Dance. How else does a kid figure out what they will do for the rest of their lives unless they are exposed to diverse subjects? Parents are in too much of a rut to decide what their children need experience in, and don't fool yourself, it's not the children who decide they don't need Chemistry.
We have educational boards that dermine standard curriculum for our children for a reason. Don't like it-go home school your kid. Don't rip apart everyone else's foundational education. Thanks.
Given that parent's are just as likely to eschew science for crap like creationism, they should have limited input into the curricula for schools. In a time of questioning anything fact or scienced-based, school boards needs to take a stand against seemingly growing ignorance. I question high school history, for example. I think in the US, it's doing terrible job. Americans have no idea about world history or the context of their own nation's creation not to mention the bed of lies traditional American history is based on. Should be make history elective? No, because flawed history is better than none.
I agree, let's trade Chemistry for Leadership and Critical Thinking - maybe in 35 years we will get some better candidates for president.
“Continuous expansion is a fundamental tenet of economics. Therefore one of the fundamentals of the universe itself. Because everything is economics. Physics is cosmic economics, biology is cellular economics, psychology is mental economics, and so on.” – Kim Stanley Robinson
I went to a religious high school. I was forced to take religion every year and eventually transferred to a non-religious school (when I was old enough to) because I needed to have more pre-requisites to get into my university program and the final year religion course was not a non credit course with a volunteer hours component (I lived in the country with no car but that is another story). I enjoyed some of my religion classes, but I had to stop taking art, a class I liked and excelled at. I've never really been back at art. Switching schools had the advantage of me taking Math classes with a teacher who actually liked Math (my previous teachers with almost exclusively physical education teachers forced to teach their minor, mathematics) and I went from a C student at my old school to As at the new school, earning top marks in the school in a national math contest, graduating with the highest average, and then going to university to attain a Mathematics degree. So there is something to be said for being flexible in courses. At university I had a plethora of electives that allowed me to take 18 courses in fields such as linguistics, psychology, literature, astronomy, philosophy, and neural networks. It was great. Some of my engineering friends had 2 electives and have what I believe are deficiencies in education - problems with critical thinking, broad understanding of human knowledge, etc. I feel like my core degree got me my job, my electives got me my life. Much of our society is following systems and job roles laid out at a time when we used to go outside to go to the bathroom. Feel free to shake it up a little, people.
At first I was shocked by parents talking about not pushing their kids to know difficult subject and thought it was a bad idea. I've changed my mind. PLEASE, let your kids off easy. I'll keep a fire under my kid and she can then smoke your kids for her entire adult life!!
Again, PLEASE go easy on your kids. They deserve better than to be forced to do ANYTHING they don't want to do. Oh, one more thing though.... Please vote for more cops and prisons.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
Make him watch Breaking Bad...
... and then BAN him from chemistry classes!
After all, why one needs to spend time with science with we have lot's of churches empty. Let's take those kids to church!
Perhaps if most of the yahoo climate change deniers out there had passed chemistry they would actually believe in what scientists say and not that scientist-brain surgeon (see Terri Schiavo) expert Sean Hannity. High Schools in general (yes there is BOCES) are not trade schools. We have enough boring, one dimensional people.
Dumping hydrochloric acid into a pool and then later swimming in it after it has lowered the pH gives one appreciation for Chemistry.
Yes, we don't have enough time in life to become expert in EVERYTHING. But school is not about becoming expert in ANYTHING, it is about learning with a liberal (in the academic sense meaning broad, not the political sense).
I would suggest math, chemistry, music, physics, history, economics, AND personal economics (how many kids know how to balance books whether checkbook or ATM cards, figure out what interest really means, and read a contract to tell someone is trying to screw them around?). English, public speaking, chess club, 2nd and 3rd languages, debate, science fair participants, and running track are all great too, but get kids to be mainly proficient at math, english (still the USAs most common language and legal language), reading (including reading literature), history and political science (sometimes known as 'citizenship').
If we all win, we develop a burning desire to learn throughout life, not just in school years.
Chemistry rocks but so does the entire world of learning!
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
Back in the '80s, the statistic was 10% of college students stay with their original declared major. I doubt this has changed much. K-12 needs to provide a well rounded education. But, humanity keeps adding to our collective body of knowledge. At some point, subjects previously considered optional need to be pushed down to the masses and made mandatory to be considered well rounded and prepared for life in the modern world. Remember that child in one ST:NG episode wailing to a parent that it didn't *want* to learn calculus? Basic chemistry is easy compared to calculus (until you start using calculus to describe concepts in chemistry - just remember to tell the students to study calculus as a pre-req). The specialization required to pursue an advanced, well paying career is found in college. In addition, we should probably bring back the concept of apprenticeship, but after high school, for those who wish to simply learn trade skills and earn a modest living. There are some DIY projects I'm happy to tackle myself, either for the challenge or expressly to save money, but there are times when you need a licensed electrician, plumber, barber/stylist, etc. to do the job right. Civilization requires a variety of skills and talents, but good citizens need a well rounded education of the basics to understand the world around them, which in today's world includes a fair amount of chemistry in everyday life. You do read product labels, right?
Strange concepts like legitimate rape making a woman's body somehow not get pregnant, 9000 year old earth, Vaccines causing autism, Autism Speaks and phony research. There's plenty more if people care to research it.
Some sort of rudimentary science training is critical. It's a little scary that the subject has even been brought up
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Not sure how it works now, but back in the days when I went to school you have to take a bit of everything at first before you start to specialise and do other things. Once you get past the early high school years 'science' class (which was general science and mix of bio-chem-phys) you end up in the years where the subjects are split up more and you get a choice of 'General Science' (for idiots who have no science aptitude), 'Physics', 'Biology', 'Chemistry', 'Earth Science (or Geology)', and some schools had a few more 'specialised' options. But, you also had to take English (Compulsory), and some Maths (which was split as well, so that the 'dumb' kids could do an easier maths). Plus, there was plenty of options ranging from Geography, Economics, Film & TV Studies, a number of languages (we had Italian at one school, French, Greek at another and Japanese, Indonesian, and a few others languages at my last High School), Home Economics (Cooking etc), Physical Education, General Studies, plus more, none of which were compulsory. But English was the only compulsory subject up until year 12 that was required (and that was in New South Wales), where as if I remained in South Australia nothing was compulsory in the final year and I was going to do two lots of Mathematics, and Physics, Geology and Chemistry in my final year. But, if you don't take some of these classes earlier on in High School you never know what you are good at. Should his son take Chemistry even though he is bad at it? Well, it if is early enough in High School, then yes, if it is his final year, then no.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can't learn every subject in school. What you learn are foundation subjects that either enable you to do a lot of things (language, maths), or illustrative subjects that teach you ways of learning and thinking and being (e.g. learning an art is very different from learning a language, which is different from learning chemistry).
Science classes teach you some of both; they are both necessary for a lifetime of learning.
Some of the most useful classes to take are those in areas where you do NOT have natural ability; they are like fixing the one wobbly leg on a table.
Why should my son waste time in Chemistry when he could be more productive in...
getting me a beer.
finding me a date.
working in the sweat shop I installed in the basement so he could learn basic economics, and make some cheap sweaters.
cleaning and polishing my car.
watching fox news
getting that new high score on Tetris
I would have really liked to get out of the shitty social studies classes and take more math and science instead, but apparently a high school education is supposed to provide you with a broad and well-balanced knowledge base. Now I'm grateful for that. There is a great value to taking classes that you do not excel at - even in classes that turn out to consist mostly of bullshit, because that will train you to recognize bullshit.
A foundation in scientific evidence is vital if you want to avoid falling for any number of scams that directly affect or even endanger your life. If the science curriculum were not mandatory, the Kent Hovinds and Ray Comforts and antivaxers and homeopaths of the world would find even more followers.
After graduating high school, you are free to specialize on any subject you want.
Public education is designed to keep nuclear labs stuffed with 0.001% of population who is capable of using math/physics/chemistry in daily job. Private education is to prove to that parents have money to avoid accidentally letting scam into the rich boys club. If classes were actually taught for the benefit of children, they would surely START with basic life skills like proper nutrition/balancing a checkbook/birth control and THEN provide generous resources for people with talent to develop it at any age.
After reading many of the posts...it's no wonder American education is so screwed up. We can't even get on the same page regarding what the PURPOSE is! Is it job training? Is it well-rounded education? Is it basics? Is it just babysitting while parents work? Is it a playground to discover the subject we love? Folks, you need to make up your mind! I can only do it ONE way.
As a H.S. world history teacher, I think many posters are a bit delusional about both students and schools. Our students don't learn much BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE. If I asked my students which course they wanted to take? It would be Cell Phones I, II, III, IV for 5 hours per day, with the first and last period dedicated to sleeping (mostly because they stay up all night goofing off). They would learn NOTHING. They would DO nothing. And they would come to every class late and leave early. Lunch would be an hour long with an option to hang around as long as they like (Magic players might not leave the lunch room at all).
I am not a video game. I am not a texting device. For these reasons, your children are bored. Maybe if parents took this stuff away and forced them to use their imaginations, they might come to class wishing to actually DO something, to learn something. I cannot overcome (in 49 minutes per class) what parents do to their kids for 6-8 hours every evening plus weekends and holidays! Nobody seems to connect this. Giving children an overabundance of entertainment, filling their every moment with oversaturation of pleasure, leaves me with NO ROOM to fill with academic wonder. But I still catch all the flak because li'l Johnny is "bored."
Schools are as fine as they ever were (we did build arguably the greatest civilization in history the "old, boring" way). It's our CULTURE that is broken. And until our culture gets its act together, both students and schools will continue to struggle.
To prevent things like this from happening:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/08/teenager-stomach-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail
Privacy is terrorism.