Democracies and Mutual Respect

Why not quit teaching evolution as fact? Its never been proven that man evolved from apes anyway. Why is it important to teach about homosexuality? That is best left to the families and their personal beliefs. Fossils are fine to teach. They exist. But advanced geology is best left to college professors. Most K-12 teachers don't have much clue about the science of geology and they really get in over their heads when they try to teach it. This all gets back to the respect issue. Stay away from teaching stuff that may insult or contradict the children and their parents. Stick with basic education.

Because as a trained scientist, I know that evolution is a scientific fact... proven by the evidence as much as the sun-centered solar system.

Because homosexuals are a part of our society and do have loving relationships and raise healthy kids. Teaching social studies without acknowledging this would be like refusing to acknowledge Jews or blacks.

Basic science education must teach basic science (which includes evolution).

Basic social studies education must teach the basics of our society.

I am sympathetic to your point of view, but ignoring basic truths about our society and knowledge is "ignorance"... not education.

Here we have the classic idealist view of okie in direct contrast with the more pragmatic (possibly postmodernistic) view of ebrown. Ebrwon, what would call your teaching philosophy? Did you study those? Do you remember them?

What kind of training and how much?

Bachelors in Science in Physics plus a bit more in Graduate school.

But the question is irrelevant. You don't need to accept my word (I am in the wrong field anyway).

Anyone who can read who has the ability to look at facts with any kind of objectivity will see that science considers evolution a resolved issue. The National Academies of Science says



The objections to evolution don't come from science, but from the religion.

This is the problem. It seems that the scientists should tell us what is known by science, and this is what we should teach students. Not teaching science (as performed by scientists) is not education.

The problem is how to teach what scientists know about science without offending religious sensibilities.

I don't think this is the place to argue evolution (this has been fully done in other places).

The intersting question related to this topic is how a science teacher, who understands that evolution is considered "resolved" and supported by overwhelming evidence, who balance both the needs of education (i.e. teaching science to kids) with religious sensibilities).

I don't accept "teaching the controversy" since the controversy doesn't really exist in the scientific community and probably doesn't have any place in a science classroom.

While I do agree with the theory of evolution,there still remains this question...

If man evolved from the apes,where is that "missing link" fossil?
Fossils have been found of early,more "ape like" hominids,and fossils have been found of early man,from Homo Habilis to modern man.

Now,where is the fossil evidence that bridges the gap from Australopithecus robustus,which was more apelike in character,to Homo Habilus,which was more human in character?

I want to relate a story from my time in the classroom. I never taught biology so evolution never came up. I did however teach a class in Astronomy.

The school where I taught was a suburban district in the North Shore (North of Boston) that drew from several upper-middle class towns. There was a small strong community of religous students who, based on the ideas they expressed, where consevative evangelicals.

I had a student come into my class who in the early days of the semester said something like :-- "Mr. Brown, I need to tell you that I don't believe in the big bang and think the Earth was created 10,000 years ago. Should I be in this class."

I think I handled this responsibly. I told him that I respected his beliefs, but that we would be learning about the Big Bang and evidence for the age of the Universe.

I also explained my philosophy. I am interested in the ideas and the evidence for science. He would need to learn the theory and be able to explain the evidence, but wouldn't have to believe anything he didn't want to.

This student did well in my class and left understanding the ideas of Quasars (which we use to measure the age of galaxies in millions of years) and the formation of the Solar System. He could explain the math and reasoning behind them very well and knew the history-- even though these ideas contradicted the beliefs he expressed in the beginning. I don't know how this affected his faith, but I hope it made it more rich (as challenges often do).

Incidentally in this same class was another student who honestly I didn't like nearly as much. She took in on herself to attack faith at every turn, saying early on when we were learning the "Big Bang" something like "this is why Christians are so stupid..." and "How can people believe in God" (I forget the exact words, but it made me upset).

I adamantly explained that science looks at evidence and things that can be measured, not at faith and that there was nothing that science could say about whether God exists or not.

She ended up dropping out of the class. Go figure.

I have always believed, and I brought this into my classroom, that science can only answer science questions.

Science questions are things that can be shown by making testable predictions, experiments and logic. Evolution is such a question: we test it by saying "if this is true, we should find these genes in common", or with our understanding we should find hominid fossils from this time in this place. This process has been performed for years by scientists in the field of evolution which is why they make such strong statements about it now.

Non-scientific questions, i.e. things that can't be tested or measured, will never be answered by science. The existance of God is clearly outside the realm of science.

The problem is when someones understanding of God contradicts the discoveries of science. I am not comfortable saying that the scientific facts are more important than understandings of faith-- faith is certainly more important in many families.

The problem is in a science classrom, science is more important (by definition) and in public school you can't teach one faith over another.

Anyway, I have talked to much (this is an important issue to me).

Okie, assume for this discussion I am right about evolution and the science establishment. How should science teachers who are sure about evolution and don't believe there is any real controversy be sensitive to students with religous beliefs in the constraints of a secular classroom.

Mystery, this is off topic (there are plenty of threads arguing evolution and if you don't think there are enough, you can always start another).

Here is a link, but let's discuss it elsewhere

Missing Link article

I received a personal message vis a vis my alleged role is destroying this thread. Hmmm.

So, allow me to proceed with caution.

Mele -- You write that you based your opinion on what you have read -- let me repeat, read -- not experienced on a first hand basis about today's campuses. What you read is colored by the author's opinion and your interpretation of what the author stated.

Fox -- You write that you were in college in the 1980s. That was a particularly apolitical time. If you look at the history of political engagement, not just in the US, but across time and cultures, periods of extreme political engagement are followed by periods of ennui. People simply stop caring and lost interest. We all need breaks.

Similarily, periods of pronounced liberal philosophy are followed by periods of dominant conservatism, in a regularly oscillating series of cycles.

Also, to whoever brought it up, when I wrote of a friend who worked at Harvard, I said worked, not taught. I try to use very precise language. There are several reasons why she chose to leave -- for a post at another university. One of those reasons is the growing conservatism of Harvard students. This makes her uncomfortable because she finds these kids less than trustworthy.

Okie -- If you think there should be more respect, why would you criticize anything like The Community of Caring which seeks to promote respect? Furthermore, many people actually think one of the roles of education is to promote morality . . . or proper behavior.

A few more statements.

ebrown -- this is quite off topic but is the baby you and were you really that cute? If not, the little one is a nice sight.

Respect in general:
I was in college from 1965 to 69. Let me clue thee in: during that time, despite being in Detroit, most the kids were fairly apolitical. Most were working class kids on scholarships and the first members of their families to attend college. Some were the first to finish high school. Very few were actually concerned with politics.

I was one of the lefties. It was a Catholic woman's college. One member of the faculty, who held a Ph.D. in sociology from Berkeley remarked to another student that I was one of the few students on campus she could identify with. I was flattered. She made this remark in a personal conversation with someone who sought me out to tell me.

Now, we had one militant pro-Vietnam War rightie who planned on career in public service and worked for the election of a conservative man as Senator. She knew her role then was just to be a "cute little girl who attracted attention," but she hoped to be able to serve her candidate when he reached the Senate. He never did.

This girl and I often discussed political issues. We were always polite. I even admired the cheong sam her soldier pen pal brought back from Asia as a gift for her. We were acquaintances, not friends, but we were warm and polite acquaintances.

I attended the Democratic Campaign Institute recently and, over breakfast, we discussed some late Republican leaders. I uttered a perception I had: that these were gentlemen. Gentlemen are absent from today's political scene and we have a nation riddled with suspicion.

I was a civil rights marcher and an anti-War demonostration veteran. When I went to the anti-Ashcroft demonstration in Boston two years ago, I told other women my age how frightened I was. Whether they were 'experienced' in protests or not, they said the same thing. The times have changed and they have become more scary.

Re: child abuse

When I was a child in the 1950s, there were two letters from the Archbishop read from the pulpit every year. One was on sparing the rod and spoiling the child.

Hitting kids today would be considered child abuse.

So would telling your daughter that girls don't go to college.

Okie writes: Why not quit teaching evolution as fact? Its never been proven that man evolved from apes anyway.

Do you know what scientists mean by theory? Change is a fact. Evolution is change.

Mysteryman wrote: If man evolved from the apes,where is that "missing link" fossil?
Fossils have been found of early,more "ape like" hominids,and fossils have been found of early man,from Homo Habilis to modern man.

Evolution does not progress in neat, orderly steps. There are no discreet steps in the fossil record. Years ago, I read that there are no chimp fossils. Interesting.

Not from the author of this thread!

The theory of evolution may be somewhat resolved as existing, yes, at least on a smaller scale, but to assert that man evolved from apes is I think still much less than 100% sure. Global warming is now taught as 100% sure by some of being man caused, but another example of just theory, and the subject is not well understood at all. I've seen many theories come and go. There are plenty of other things more practical and applicable to teach K-12 without going off on controversial, theoretical tangents in any detail. They can be touched on, but taught as absolute fact, I think it causes needless problems. It can easily be picked up in college. Same with homosexuality. Whats the point of trying to delve into such a controversial subject that brings in the factor of religious beliefs? Why offend people when it isn't necessary? And why teach stuff like this when many kids can't even balance their check book or even construct a decent sentence when they graduate from high school?

Hey, I'm all for teaching respect, honesty, and basic decency in school. I think it is unavoidable to teach morality whether you try or not, it will be enforced or not enforced by the schools. But at the same time, we hear constantly that we should not teach morality in the schools, that such should be taught at home. I've heard this repeated often in the past whenever a parent protests schools handing out condoms, teaching sex education in a manner they considered inappropriate, etc. I've repeatedly heard that the schools merely tell the kids what choices that they can make, and the parents and the children are the ones that are responsible for the choices.

So my question now is, "Which is it." Do the schools teach morality, and whose morality do they teach? If parents want the schools to teach abstinence, the teachers unions do not like that idea one bit. So yes, I am all for teaching morality and decency. Just let me say when something like this comes along as some catchy program like "Community of Caring," I need to see the details. A little red flag goes up and I am going to be on the lookout for a cute little program to indoctrinate our kids with socialistic ideas or something. I don't know, it may not be that at all, but I have a healthy skepticism and suspicion of the educational establishment these days.

To put it simply, we used to have respect in the schools without catchy programs. The teachers simply demanded and maintained it, with support from the principals, the local school board, and the parents. No NEA or Dept. of Education were needed.

Some change is a fact. Not all changes are fact. The theory of man evolving from apes is not established as an absolute fact. It is still just a theory. While some theories have proven to pan out as relevant, others prove to be only partially correct, and many scientific theories have been discarded, discredited, or seriously revised.

Schools where I'm from are or were trying to teach social responsibility. Respect, and no violence. There's also a sex education thing, it's not promoting abstinence or no abstinence, it's just giving kids information.

I think most parents educated and bright enough to care about their kids' education want their kids to be taught reading comprehension, writing skills, Math, Science, English, History, Geography, and the basics of how government is constructed and the principles involved. Responsible parents want teachers qualified, competent, and dedicated to teaching the basiss to kids.

The Theory of Evolution should of course be taught along with the scientific evidence that exists to support it. When a child objects from a position of faith, all the teacher has to say is there are many theories for the origins of the universe and how life has developed. The child does not have to believe the Theory of Evolution, but he does have to know it and pass a test about it.

That works every time it is tried.

Responsible parents do not want their child's classroom time taken up in lectures on religion, morality, ethics, politics, or ideology all of which are entirely subjective and would be colored by the teacher's personal opinion and perspective on these. The teacher who presumes to subject the child to such respects neither the child nor the parent. The teacher can insist on a standard of behavior and courtesy toward others in the classroom and teach these by example. All the rest of subjective stuff should be left up to the parents to teach.