It’s too short to excerpt — so here’s the whole thing.
This week, teach your students:
1. To understand themselves as learners (a.k.a. metacognition)
2. That intelligence is not innate; effort matters
3. Compassion
4. The excitement of creating real things for real audiences
5. The joy of exercise, play, and healthy living
Another reminder that not all things that count can be counted.
The Elementary Educator carries interesting stuff. You may wish to check it out.
1 Comment | 
Education, Learning, Learning styles, Motivation, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Education, education standards, Learning, Teachers, Teaching | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Angst over the state of education never goes away:
Much more important is the way we seem to have turned away from the very idea of education that sustains a healthy, vibrant liberal democracy. As I write this I am conscious of how unfashionable it sounds. However, there has been a steady erosion of the notion that education can and should fuel our individual ability to think critically about the world as we find it – which requires knowledge and understanding of how the world has come to be. We are swamped with a language of targets, skills and 21st century ‘learning to learn’, but have forgotten what it is that distinguishes learning (a word that now seems to carry huge weight and always deemed a good thing in itself, when clearly it is not) from education. All worthwhile education is, in the end self-education, based on the student’s curiosity, their need to know and readiness to rise to the challenge of finding out. Indeed, offering challenge to young people is one way to motivate them – so different from today’s orthodoxy which says we should make learning accessible, bite-sized and achievable by all.
These guys write from England, however, and they write from the vantage point of teaching geography and having just published their book on how better to teach geography.
See their take on what geography teachers should be teaching about Haiti right now.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education blogs, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Education, geography, Haiti, History, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
How long will the madness persist?
Via Lenore Skenazy at Free-Range Kids comes word that MommaLou has a meeting to find out why her kid’s school wants the kids to spend recess time engaged in something other than recess.
Excuse me?
They aim to “change the perception of recess from free time away from learning to a valuable learning experience that will teach them and will help them cope in all social settings and environments. When children view recess as “free time” they have a tendency to act in a less responsible manner and push the limits of irresponsible behavior. In order to change the perception of recess, children must see that its content is respected and valued.”
The absolute best memories I have of my childhood consisted of me and my sister on the loose in our backyard making mud pies and playing “lost kids”. When I was in college studying early childhood education, I spent countless hours in classrooms learning about how kids learn. Kids learn through play. They just need the resources. The tools. And time.
Well, yeah, that’s what recess is all about, isn’t it?
Kids need recess to stay healthy, the studies show. Recess keeps them healthy. In my corporate consulting, we counseled managers to provide recess. Creativity and corporate problem solving experts, like Dr. Perry W. Buffington, recommend business people take a recess and get away from work for a while when things get tense, or when problem solvers get dense. In one session I watched with Buffington, one manager didn’t get it and kept coming up with all sorts of things to do to avoid taking a recess. Buffington finally spelled it out for him: Get away from the office; make sure that the activity is AWAY from the building . . .
Heck, do they have an “organizational health” survey at that school? The teachers need recess for the kids, too.
Recall these resources from my earlier post:
Nota bene: Even just a little movement works. It works for adults, too.
Resources:
PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 2 February 2009, pp. 431-436 (doi:10.1542/peds.2007-2825) (subscription required for full text), “School Recess and Group Classroom Behavior,” Romina M. Barros, MD, Ellen J. Silver, PhD and Ruth E. K. Stein, MD, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Rose F. Kennedy Center, Bronx, New York
OBJECTIVES. This study examines the amount of recess that children 8 to 9 years of age receive in the United States and compares the group classroom behavior of children receiving daily recess with that of children not receiving daily recess.
- See this year-old post at The Elementary Educator
- Post in agreement from the venerable Trust for Public Lands, one of the best and best respected non-profits in America
Also, be sure to see this post from Ms. Cornelius at A Shrewdness of Apes. If you’re having difficulty telling the difference between school and a prison — or if your school kid is having that difficulty, it’s time to act.
Via doxpop.com. See Andertoons.com, and buy it for your newsletter.
3 Comments | Cargo Cults, Classroom management, Education, Education quality, Health care, Public health, Rampant stupidity, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Classroom management, Education, health, Rampant stupidity, Recess, School | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Note to teachers: They hate you out there global warming denial land.
Watt’s Up denizens ramble in a state of confusion about how the planet can be warming while local records fall in cold weather. [Note to Anthony Watts: Have you explained to your readers that seasons are not governed by CO2 levels, but instead by the tilt of the Earth?]
How to clear up the confusion? Blame it on the teachers. No kidding. Here’s the comment from “r”:
r (08:12:32) : [about 62 comments down]
Forget the main stream media. The real roots of this movement, strangely enough, are in grade school and collage teachers.
College teachers are out of touch with the real world. They live in the insulated bubble of academia. They go to school for so long, all they know is school. They never get any experience in the real world of any industry. Therefore, they preach the socialist agenda because it sounds good on paper. The young people they teach do not protest because they don’t know any better yet. Their parents continue to give money to these colleges because they have no idea what their children are actually learning.
Grade school teachers despite having increased course work on classroom management are not required to take many classes in science. They cannot teach science because they don’t understand it themselves. Global warming was introduced to my children through Scholastic Magazine given out at school. The magazine is used as part of the curriculum. The teachers never questioned it. The children were frightened by it and peer pressure keeps anyone from dissenting. The parents are learning about global warming from their children as in 1984.
In fact it is harder for me to protest the fraud of global warming at my own school than it is to protest in the media. I run the risk of alienating myself and my children at school.
If anybody would like to send my schools a note telling them to stop teaching the global warming fraud with reasons why, I would be grateful.
Here are the principal’s emails: Vince.DiGrandi@WappingersSchools.org
Tom.Stella@wappingersschools.orgPerhaps I can do the same for someone else.
Thanks in advance.
Here’s what I recommend: Send an e-mail to the two people listed above, and congratulate them for offering real science to their students. Tell them you’ve heard that there is a national campaign to stop them from teaching good science, and that you support them and hope the campaign fails.
Anyone who lies to his kids about science, about the environmental issues we face, about life in general, will indeed alienate themselves from their children, if the children are lucky. “r” wishes his kids to be taught voodoo science. Shame on him.
I wonder what “r” thinks of his own teachers.
5 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Education, Global warming, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Teachers, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Climate change, Cost of Green, Education, Global warming, Green Politics, Politics, Science, Teachers, Voodoo science, War on Education, What's Up With That, WUWT | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so.'”
Do we stand as witnesses to the end of newspapers in America?
It’s been a grand history. Newspapering gave us great leaders like Benjamin Franklin. Newspapering gave us wars, like the Spanish-American War. Newspapering gave us Charlie Brown, Ann Landers, the Yellow Kid, Jim Murray, Red Smith, Thomas Nast (and Santa Claus), the Federalist Papers, and coupons to save money on laundry soap.
It’s been a curious history, too. An 1897 editorial vouching for Santa Claus rates as the most popular editorial of all time, according to the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
The man who saved Christmas, at least for Virginia O'Hanlon: Francis Pharcellus Church - Newseum image
In autumn, 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon of 115 West 59th Street in New York, wrote to the New York Sun with this simple question:
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”
In the age of Yellow Journalism, the fiercely competitive Sun‘s editors turned the letter to Francis Pharcellus. He responded to little Virginia on September 21, 1897:
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
Church’s brother, William Conant Church, owned and published the newspaper. Both had followed their father into the news business. They co-founded The Army-Navy Journal in 1863, and went on to a series of journalistic collaborations. Francis was 58 years old when he answered Virginia’s letter. (He died at age 67, in 1906.)
The New York Sun held down the conservative corner in New York journalism at the time, versus the New York Times and the New York Herald-Tribune. But it also had an interesting history, to a blogger intrigued by hoaxes. In 1835 the paper published a series of six newspaper stories falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, a well-known astronomer, claiming to describe a civilization on the Moon — the Great Moon Hoax. The discovery was credited to a new, very powerful telescope.
In 1844 the paper published a hoax written by Edgar Allen Poe, the Balloon Hoax. Under a pseudonym, Poe wrote that a gas balloon had crossed the Atlantic in three days.
The Sun also featured outstanding reporting. A 1947 and 1948 series about crime on the docks of New York City won a Pulitzer Prize for writer Malcolm Johnson. That series inspired Elia Kazan’s 1954 movie On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb.
The New York Sun ceased publication in 1950.
For all of its history, the Sun and the Churches are most remembered for that defense of belief in Santa Claus.
Virginia O’Hanlon grew up, graduated from Hunter College, got a masters at Columbia, and earned a Ph.D. from Fordham. She taught in the New York City Public School system, from which she retired in 1959. She died in 1971.
Birth of tradition
Columbia University was Church’s alma mater, as well as O’Hanlon’s. Her letter and his response get a reading each year at the Yule Log Ceremony at Columbia College, along with the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Animated, live-acting, and other television productions have been mounted in 1974, 1991, and 2009.
Is there a Santa Claus? Did Church write a credible defense? The text of the letter and answer, below the fold.
4 Comments | Education, History, Hoaxes, Holidays, Journalism, Museums, Newspapers, Teachers | Tagged: Christmas, Editorials, Education, History, Holidays, Journalism, New York Sun, Newspapers, Santa Claus, Teachers, Yes Virginia | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter likes charter schools, and often enough writes about them and his frustration that public schools and their teachers won’t roll over and play dead while charter schools steal money from them (my characterization, not Alter’s).
At Public School Insights, Claus von Zastrow suggested that maybe pundits like Alter ought to be subject to having their pay docked when they screw up, too. Then he went further, and specifically criticized a recent Alter column, point for point.
A few comments down, who should show up to make his case, but Jonathan Alter.
Go watch, and learn. Among other things, the discussion is much more civil than we usually see on blogs. It’s a lesson for Christians and creationists especially.
It’s not much of a conflict of interest, but I have dealt with Alter before, in his previous job at The New Republic (back when it was not so much a bastion of neo-conservatism). Alter did a major profile of Sen. Orrin Hatch. Alter strove not to be flattering, and the biggest problem was the Vint Lawrence illustration, showing Hatch draped in the American flag as a cloak. As I recall from those now-dusty decades, the profile wasn’t exactly correlated with the illustration on any issue. Over the years, Alter’s been closer to correct more often than he’s been wrong, in my view — his views on charter schools being in that area where I think he errs.
Public schools have never suffered from a surplus of money. Charter school advocates should not be allowed to steal income from public schools directly. To shore up GM, we don’t allow GM to take a share of profit from Ford for every GM car sold. Nor do we allow Ford to take a share of GM’s income. Competition in education is a foolish pursuit most often, but we don’t need a competitive model that bleeds education on either end, as Alter’s advocacy favors.
In hard economic terms, free market, gloves-off, bare-fisted capitalistic competition has never been shown to work in education. I never could figure out Milton Friedman’s advocacy for such competition since there is no case ever to be made that competition makes better schools, nor that privately-run schools work better for educating an entire nation than public schools. I think all relevant evidence runs the other way.
Pay for performance, but links for free:
12 Comments | Charter schools, Economics, Education, Teacher Pay, Teachers | Tagged: Charter schools, Economics, Education, Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, Pay-for-performance, Teacher Pay, Teachers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I used to love math tests. And math homework. When I knew the stuff, I’d start hearing Bach in my head and get into a rhythm of solving the problems (though I didn’t know it was Bach until much later — “Aha! That’s the math solving music!”).
But eventually my brain ossified, before I got calculus into it. I believe (this is belief, not science) that at some point rather early in life our brains lose the ability to pick up new math ideas. If you don’t have most of the stuff you need already in there, you won’t get it. I frittered my math ability away in the library and traveling with the debate squad, not knowing that I’d never be able to get it back. In my dual degree program, I ran into that wall where I had five years worth of credits, but was still a year away from the biology degree with a tiny handful of core courses for which calculus was a prerequisite. Worse, I was close to completing a third major.
And I’d failed at calculus four times.
So I graduated instead, didn’t go to grad school in biology.
Earlier this last evening I sat with a couple of new teachers in math at a parents’ night function for seniors. They commiserated over trying to make math relevant for students. One said he couldn’t figure out how history teachers survive at all with no mass of problems to solve at the end of each chapter (that was refreshing).
It’s a constant problem.
Then I ran into this story by Jennifer Ouellette at Cocktail Party Physics:
Students need to feel inspired, particularly when it comes to a difficult subject. While I was at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics last year as journalist in residence, I got to know UC-Santa Barbara mathematician Bisi Agboola, who generously shared his own story with me. Bisi was educated in the UK and failed most of his math classes through their equivalent of high school. “I found it dull, confusing and difficult.” As a child, he was determined to find a career where he wouldn’t need any math, finally announcing to his skeptical parents that he would be a woodcutter. He was crushed when they pointed out that he would need to measure the wood.
But one summer he encountered a Time-Life book on mathematics –- Mathematics by David Bergamini -– that offered “an account of the history of some of the main ideas of mathematics, from the Babylonians up until the 1960s, and it captured my imagination and made the subject come alive to me for the very first time.” It changed his mind about this seemingly dry subject. He realized there was beauty in it. He wound up teaching himself calculus, and told me he is convinced most physicists also do this. Today he is a PhD mathematician specializing in number theory, and exotic multidimensional topologies. Ironically, he still doesn’t much like basic arithmetic: “I find it boring.”
Jennifer is writing a book on calculus, how it’s real-life stuff. I hope it’s a great success. I hope it works. I hope some student is inspired to get calculus before her or his brain gets ossified.
More information:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Decrepit Old Fool.
Calculate how far you can send this message:
3 Comments | Books, College, Education, Learning, Mathematics, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Calculus, College, Education, Learning, Mathematics, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Good teachers constantly search for good ideas and effective ways to make learning fun, efficient and thorough. So the search for new material and new ideas is constant.
Same on the web. Where are the good blogs? Where are the useful blogs? (Many days readers here ask those questions repeatedly.)
You’re a teacher, parent, or administrator? Take a look at this open thread at Clay Burrell’s Beyond Teaching (“I hate schooliness. I love learning.”) Clay asked for recommendations on favorite blogs about 21st century teaching.
Isn’t it astounding how many new, good teacher blogs show up every year? I found a dozen new sources in a few minutes.
4 Comments | Brain learning, Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Learning, Teachers, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: Clay Burrell, Education, Education blogs, Learning, Teachers, Teaching, Teaching Blogs, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
School’s in. Most of the students are in class.
But where are their parents?
Education success often depends on the involvement of parents; a friend in Oregon alerted me to this opposite-editorial piece by Aki Mori, a teacher in Beaverton, Oregon. Notice the comments, too (do they just grow commenters stronger in Oregon?) and Mori’s getting into the discussion.
Inter alia, he wrote:
When I spent a high school year abroad in Japan in 1986, I found myself to be nothing but a minor leaguer trying to play in the big leagues when it came to math and science — a real blow to my pride since I’d always been a first-team all-star back home in the United States. On the other hand, not a single teacher in that highly competitive school left any impression on me in terms of his or her teaching skills.
I was equally underwhelmed last summer when I was among 50 teachers from around the world who were invited to Japan to visit Japanese schools and learn about their educational system. The shocking truth is, on the basis of pure teaching talent, American teachers are superior to those in Japan. Whereas Japanese teachers are by and large more knowledgeable and stronger generalists than American teachers, they do not possess key qualities that are essential for succeeding in the American classroom such as creativity, resourcefulness and compassion.
And,
In the famous story of the little Dutch boy, a child was able to save his country from disaster when he called upon others to help plug up leaks until sufficient repairs to the structure could be made. Our American system of education is leaking in many places — how serious you feel is the threat depends largely on your location along the dike. But it is clear to me that teachers and schools cannot fix the problem alone. For better or for worse, we will always end up exactly with the system of education that we as a society deserve. Perhaps in the future enough of us will work together to deserve better than what we have today.
Discuss (in comments).
3 Comments | Education, Parents, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Education, Parents, Teachers, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This sounds like fun, actually. I wonder if they offer Continuing Education Units?
Shouldn’t schools make sure all English teachers get to make this pilgrimage at least once every four years? Principals, are you listening?
Poets Forum Update:
New Events and More Participants Announced for 2009
Discounted passes available for a limited time at poets.org/poetsforumParticipants include Frank Bidart, Rita Dove, Lyn Hejinian,Edward Hirsch, Haryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Jean Valentine, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and many more.
The Academy of American Poets invites you to join us in New York City for the annual Poets Forum, a series of events exploring the landscape of contemporary poetry in America.
This year’s Poets Forum includes new talks and discussions with an array of distinguished poets, readings, publication parties, and an expanded selection of literary walking tours, led by poets, through Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“In only three years, the Poets Forum has become the poetry event of the fall, as poets (and fans of poetry) of all aesthetics celebrate and learn about what they all have in a common: a desire to give life itself a shape through language.”
– Carl PhillipsPoets Forum Reading
Thursday, October 15
7 p.m.
Join us for an unforgettable evening as some of the most acclaimed poets of our day come together on one stage to read from their latest work. Featured readers include Frank Bidart, Rita Dove, Lyn Hejinian, Edward Hirsch, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, and Ellen Bryant Voigt.
The Times Center
242 West 41st StreetPoetry Walking Tours
Friday, October 16
10:30 a.m. & 2 p.m.
Take a trip down the same streets traversed by Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, E. E. Cummings, Langston Hughes, George Oppen, and countless other poets. Walking tours will explore the literary history of Brooklyn, Harlem, the Museum of Modern Art, the West Village, and SoHo. Tour guides include poets Anselm Berrigan, Jordan Davis, Bob Holman, Katy Lederer, Greg Pardlo, Tom Thompson, and Mónica de la Torre.
Meeting locations throughout New York City.
TOURS ARE RESERVED FOR ALL-EVENTS PASS HOLDERS ONLYNEW: Poets & Place Talk
Friday, October 16
2 p.m.
“Show Me Your Environment, and I Will Tell You Who You Are”: Place, Pathos, and the Problems of Identity
David Baker discusses the relationship between poets and their environment.
Philoctetes Center
247 East 82nd Street
Co-sponsored by the Philoctetes Center
RESERVED FOR ALL-EVENTS PASS HOLDERS ONLYPoets Awards Ceremony Friday, October 15 7 p.m. Celebrate contemporary poetry and recipients of the premier collection of awards for poetry in the United States. The night will include readings and presentations by Linda Gregg, Jennifer K. Sweeney, J. Michael Martinez, Harryette Mullen, James Richardson, Avi Sharon, Jean Valentine, and many others. A reception will follow.
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th Street
Co-sponsored by the New School Creative Writing ProgramPoets Forum Discussions Saturday, October 17 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. 6 Sessions Examine the issues central to contemporary poetry as we present a day of engaging and intimate conversations with some of the most renowned poets of our time, including Frank Bidart, Rita Dove, Lyn Hejinian, Edward Hirsch, Harryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Jean Valentine, Ellen Bryant Voigt and other special guests.
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th Street
Co-sponsored by The New School Creative Writing Program“This public forum on American Poetry is the first of its kind for our brave, wild world of poesy. We will leave no stone unturned to address all the voices and all the thoughts that beset, overwhelm, confuse, delight, and alarm us.”
– Gerald SternAmerican Poet Publication Party
Saturday, October 17
7 p.m.
Reading and reception for the new fall issue of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets. Noelle Kocot, Robert Polito, and Brian Teare will read from their work. Ico Art and Music Gallery
606 West 26th Street (at 11th Avenue)
Co-sponsored by the Ico GalleryTicket Information
All-Events Pass: $85 before Sept 15 / $110 after
Saturday-Only Tickets: $60
Students (with current ID): Student rates are available by by phone.
Contact: Jennifer Kronovet, (212) 274-0343, ext.10.Purchase tickets online at poets.org/poetsforum or by phone,(212) 274-0343, ext.10.
All times are subject to change. Contact Jennifer Kronovet at jkronovet@poets.org with further questions.
Academy of American Poets
584 Broadway, Suite 604
New York, NY 10012
212-274-0343
4 Comments | Creativity, Cultural Literacy, History, History and art, Literature, Poetry, Teachers, Teaching, Travel | Tagged: continuing education, Cultural Literacy, Historic Walks, History and art, Literature, Poetry, Teachers, Teaching, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Wired takes a different view of the California case in which an AP history teacher was found to have violated a student’s rights with comments about creationists — at least, different from the view I’ve articulated here. It’s worth a look — and it shows that this case needs to be evaluated more carefully and closely. Alexis Madrigal wrote at Wired’s website:
The teacher got into hot water because the creationism statement came outside the context of his AP European History class. In making the statement during a discussion of another teacher’s views on evolution, the court could not find any “legitimate secular purpose in [the] statement.”
However, Judge Selna found a second statement that Corbett made about creationism did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights, although it’s an equally pointed critique.
“Contrast that with creationists,” Corbett told his class. “They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
That statement was OK because it came in the context of a discussion of the history of ideas and religion. Thus, its primary purpose wasn’t just to express “affirmative disapproval” of religion, but rather to make the point that “generally accepted scientific principles do not logically lead to the theory of creationism.” One might expect that if creationism came up in the context of evolutionary biology, it would be similarly OK to say, “Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
The nuanced decision prompted the judge to append an afterword. Selna explains his thinking a basic right is at issue, namely, “to be free of a government that directly expresses approval of religion.” Just as the government shouldn’t promote religion, he writes, the government shouldn’t actively disapprove of religion either.
It seems to me, still, that the instructor was well within legal bounds. For example, we would not ask a biology instructor to pay deference to the Christian Science view that disease is caused by falling away from God (sin), and not by germs, and consequently that prayer is effective therapy. As a pragmatic matter, Christian Scientists don’t demand that everybody else bow to their view; but in a legal suit, the evidence of Pasteur’s work and subsequent work on how microbes cause disease would trump any claim that Pasteur was “not religiously neutral.”
We still await word on whether the district and teacher will appeal the decision.
2 Comments | Creationism, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Science, Separation of church and state, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: AP History, Creationism, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Separation of church and state, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Creationism is not taught at any major university, as science. It’s difficult to find creationism taught in any curriculum, including theology schools, because it’s not a part of the theology of most Christian sects. And yet, creationism continues to pose hurdles to good science education in almost every state (especially Texas).
The hard work of spreading creationism is long entrenched, and continuing, though largely out of the view of most observers of cultural and scientific trends.
For example, consider this blog by a guy who teaches creationism at Bryan College. It’s been discovered by supporters of science education — but what can anybody do about it? P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula noted the non-scientific contents of the stuff being taught. That’s not really enough.
We need to more aggressively promote good science teaching in public schools.
Here’s one thing we might do, as I noted in the comments at Pharyngula. We need to create institutions to aggressively promote good, powerful science teaching. Here is what I wrote there, essentially.
Notice that this is Bryan College that Todd Wood preaches at, the college set up to honor William Jennings Bryan, the creationist prosecutor from the Scopes trial. This is part of the evidence that scientists and other lovers of science and good education slept too long on some of these issues (“While Science Slept” might be a good essay somewhere).
Remember Scopes lost his case, and was fined; the overturning on appeal was due to a technical error in the fine, not due to other obviously major flaws in the law (which was signed and promoted by Gov. Austin Peay, who also has a college named after him). The law against teaching human evolution remained effective in Tennessee until after 1967, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Epperson v. Arkansas — which finally persuaded the Tennessee legislature to repeal the act.
Some people thought H. L. Mencken’s mocking judgment on the Scopes trial was final. Not creationists. While the rest of the world went on, fundamentalists developed a powerful, out-of-the-major-media network to spread and promote their ideas. Part of this network was the establishment of Bryan College, and to some degree, I think Austin Peay State University (though, as a state university with serious intentions on educating people, APSU is in the evolution camp in curricula).
Why is there no Clarence Darrow College? Why is there no John T. Scopes Institute for Teachers (say, at the University of Chicago, where Scopes went back for his advanced degree)?
Unless we get out there and fight in the trenches of education and religion and culture, evolution will continue to face silly opposition. Feynman warned us of the dangers of cargo cult science. (Honestly, though, Wood’s stuff looks like cargo cult cargo cultism, it’s so far removed from real science — doesn’t it?)
In the end it’s odd that a progressive-on-most-issues guy like Bryan would be memorialized by naming a college after him to preserve his most profound errors. It’s effective propaganda. I’d be willing to wager Bryan would have come around to evolution with the evidence stacked as it is now. His error was emotional and theological, I think. Education can prevent and correct such error. Bryan College doesn’t do that in evolution — something else needs to be done to fight what Bryan College does.
The John T. Scopes Institute for Teachers could run in the summer months, it should have a thousand teachers of science from primary and secondary education in every session, and it should emphasize the best methods for teaching the best science we have. We really need such an agency — or agencies — now. Our children lose interest in science between fourth grade and graduation, their achievement in science plunges in comparison to other nations.
Our economy suffers as a result.
Creationists have Bryan College to help them spread their versions of cargo cult science, with that mission specifically in mind. We can fight fire with fire, but we have to fight ignorance with education. And, my friends in science education, we are behind.
4 Comments | Cargo Cults, Creationism, Education, Education quality, Evolution, Higher education, Science, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Bryan College, Cargo Cults, Creationism, Curricula, Education, Evolution, Higher education, Science, science education, teacher training, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Do only cynics become teachers, or does teaching make one cynical?
Another teacher writes to the Bathtub complaining about printing progress reports on his computer at home — his district’s computer system is notoriously weird in remote access mode. Why is he printing the reports at home? “It’s been 11 months since we got a delivery of toner cartridges for teachers’ in-room printers, and we’re out of paper again.”
When do you think was the last time New York Mayor Bloomberg had to run the city budget on his home computer?
Is it really cynicism if it’s dead right?
5 Comments | Debunking, Economics, Education, Education spending, Rampant stupidity, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Economics, Education, Rampant stupidity, Teacher Pay, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
With this blog’s occasional focus on flag etiquette and my concern for faux patriotism, I’ve been getting barbs all day on a story out of Clark County, Nevada (home of Las Vegas).
It’s a threefer of hatred, slamming President Obama, teachers, and public schools, all at once. Plus it is rather disrespectful of the U.S. flag.
The Clark County School District calls the story “bogus!!” with the exclamation points clear. Spokesmen for the district complain they’ve been fielding calls all day, none with details. Their check of the district’s schools turns up nothing.
The claim is that an elementary school student wants to drop out of school after being “forced” to say the Pledge of Allegiance to a picture of President Barack Obama backed by several U.S. flags.
Bloggers fume. “The gall!”
Press spokesmen for the district say they encourage parents to call any principal of any school in the district with any complaint. A survey of principals finds none who knew of such a complaint.
None of the bloggers bothered to check the facts, it appears. The story so far checks out to be a hoax. No one can name the school, no one can name the kid, no one can corroborate the story.
U.S.. Nevada and Clark County flags fly at Moapa Valley High School in the Clark County School District, Nevada. Wikipedia image
Students in Clark County schools say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning as a usual practice. School officials were unsure whether this is done by state law, district ordinance, or tradition. Through much of the 20th century, it was common for schools to have a picture of the sitting president in every classroom. That tradition fell to budget cuts years ago.
What motivates people to invent such stories? What motivates bloggers to spread stories without bothering to make the simplest check to see whether the story is accurate? One of the things that screams “Hoax!” in this story is the complete inaction of the student and parent. Were they worked up about it, why didn’t they bother to complain?
Here’s the wall of shame, bloggers who got suckered and repeated the story without bothering to check it out (isn’t it odd that they all seem to know exactly what photo of Obama was used, and they show it on their blogs, but they don’t know where it was used? Isn’t it odd that they use a color photo while saying it was projected on an overhead projector, which would turn that photo into gray and white mush?):
I’ll wager that’s just the tip of a very mean-spirited iceberg of calumny.
Update, January 30 – More hate-filled spreading of the story:
Still the gullible fall, on February 1:
Nearly responsible skepticism:
I spoke again with David Roddy at the Clark County School District offices. He confirmed that as of late this afternoon (January 30) no one had stepped forward to identify the school where the event is alleged to have occurred, nor the name of anyone involved, nor any other fact that could be corroborated to vouch for the accuracy of the story.
See “7 Signs of Bogus History.” Notice any of these characteristics in this story’s allegations?
Update, September 5, 2009: No evidence of this event has ever been produced outside of the original two anonymous blog posts. My investigation found no such incident in any school in or around Las Vegas, nor anywhere else. Pure hoax.
Don’t let others be misled; spread the word:
34 Comments | Barack Obama, Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, Hoaxes, Pledge to the flag, President Obama, Teachers, Teaching, Urban Legend, War on Education | Tagged: Barack Obama, Bloggers, Flag etiquette, Hoaxes, Las Vegas, Pledge of Allegiance, Teachers, urban legends, US Flag | Permalink
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