History is written by the Victors…

I’m excited to see this article because curriculum is the aspect of education that I’m most interested in. When I was in college, I worked in math education research and with an institute that create elementary math and science curriculum. Clearly, as evidenced by the arguments put forth in this Wall Street Journal article, it has the ability to have the greatest impact on students. I would like to develop a model of engaging teachers so that they have the greatest impact on the curriculum. I think you want to have standards, but you also want to give teachers the freedom to engage their students.

This clearly is a very controversial issue. I’m upset and surprised by how quickly and easily some of the people in the article conjure images of war. Words have impacts and I don’t think that is impressed on people enough; maybe that should be taught in school.

I think religious education is a very good thing but I think it should be done at church, after school. I also think teachers make great church leaders, specifically because of the tools they learn in their day job. But I think it’s kind of lazy that don’t want to teach religion after school and insist on incorporating it in their day jobs. I think religious schools and religious after school programs are great way for children to spend their time, to keep them out of trouble and keep them from settling roots in front of the TV. There is a huge opportunity there that I hope people are taking advantage of. But I think it doesn’t belong in schools.

I also think it’s ironic that some reviewers of the curriculum insisted on teaching in a public school that separation of church and state has biblical origins....

Science Unlearned

It came to me in a dream last night to start a blog about education in the news. Lo and behold the first article I see on Salon today is about Why America is Flunking Science. Science and math were my favorite subjects in school so my heart frowns whenever I see people reject the art and beauty of science.

This article doesn't actually talk about why we're failing science, as much as it elaborates on the culture around science and scientist. It argues on the one hand that movies and entertainment have boxed science into the realm of crazy villains and lonely nerds, and distorted it just enough that if someone by chance did want to be a crazy nerd, real science is much harder and more boring than it looked on the screen. On the other hand, we're not failing science--we're just cherry picking the science we want to trust, which most of the time is wrong.

I think that ideally, scientist and educators want to see science as a benevolent, neutral observer of nature. But in reality it is biased and controversial and used in morally ambiguous ways. Science has been manipulated for political and financial gain for centuries, and that also leads people to be suspicious. I think it's unfair to say it's up to the scientific community to dispel the myths and caricatures about science. It's up to all of us to open our eyes and level our heads. I think it would also help if teachers, even in introductory science courses, discussed the way science is applied to our life and our view of life and society. Students should be given the skills to come to unbiased conclusions and recognize biased uses of science. Just my 2 cents...

Bear with me. It's my first blog.