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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."
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
My parents did this to me when I was a kid because the teachers convinced them I would be unable to learn math, chem, etc due to an alleged learning disability. It took me years after high school to get caught up on 10 years of missed math courses. I still hate them for it...
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, and instructed us to calculate the change in enthalpy for the reaction (this actually lined up remarkably well with the curriculum). It was very instructional.