I So Did Not Miss Rhonda Storms
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party that wants less government, not more. Conservatives don't even agree with the *existence* of the Department of Education. Now they want to rewrite the science curriculum taught in our public schools?
Evolution and Creationism. Side by side. Storms has got to be kidding.
Except she's not.
A Florida education is already the laughing stock of the nation. (Second only to what - Kentucky?) We've got frisky teachers and incompetent superintendents. Why not fix our current problems and leave God to be discussed in philosophy, world religions, or, better yet, Christian schools.
Sen. Larcenia Bullard, a Democrat from Miami, said that in college she refused to answer a science exam question about evolution with the accepted Darwinian answer and instead copied down the creation story in Genesis, Chapter 1.
Great. And now she's in a leadership role deciding what my kids ought to learn?
I wouldn't want her or Rhonda doing my hair. Much less making educational decisions of any kind.
posted by kate @ 11:51 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Frisky teachers?
This from a recent St. Pete Times story, "You knew the question had to come, with three female teachers arrested for on charges of having sex with students in such short order.
"What's going on there?" the Today show asked this morning, to lead into a 2-1/2-minute story on the Tampa area's school sex scandal."
So ... since they're female teachers having sex with students, they're "frisky," and not "abusive?"
And there have been also recent cases (plural) of male teachers having sex with 14 year olds as well in recent reports. Seriously, I haven't seen an epidemic of teacher sex assaults like this ever.
Hillsborough/Pinellas/Pasco teachers are shaming their profession with this issue. It's amazing.
No doubt, you'd prefer to have children taught all about having extra-marital affairs and sex with vibrating rabbits to them learning about their religious and historical heritage. And you're entitled to that opinion, but you might like to know that your mindless anti-Christian hatred is showing again.
Ah, but never mind, you're probably engaged in something "frisky" yourself.....
Wow, anonymous needs to take lesson from his own bible and exhibit some "peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control."
Also, his/her argument makes no sense, like most conservative arguments.
Here's a fun political satire blog to take the edge off:
Adjust Yourself - McCain Plays AARP Card
Also, religious satire:
The Blog of Christ
learning about their religious and historical heritage
No one objects to that. The objection is to learning about it in a science class.
Although, I'm sort of coming around on this side by side approach. Let teachers teach both Creationism and Evolution. Creationism should take about a single class period to cover because you can only say, "God did it" so many times. More importantly, it provides a sterling example of the scientific method in action and how it operates in evolutionary theory and exposes creationism as pseudoscience at best. Not only are kids learning biology in the framework of evolution, they're also learning critical thinking skills, which is what a science class should be teaching and how to spot snake oil when someone tries to sell it to them.
Besides, peppering a quiz with a few questions on Creationism will help the slow kids out. They'll know they only have to find the answer nearest to, "And then a miracle occurred!" and they'll have the right answer. It'll build morale and dumb student confidence.
Why is it that libs are so totally terrified of anyone getting the opportunity to hear a point of view that is NOT the liberal line? ALWAYS looking to censor anyone who doesn't march in their formation. Very interesting.
Hey, maybe when we die we all find out that it was aliens who grew us like an ant farm experiment. ok, I'm not really an Art Bell kind of girl. Maybe some higher power started it all and cut evolution loose. Does it matter? We have a right to believe whatever and a responsiblity to not hurt anyone in the process.
I don't care what you believe, I just don't want it spread in public schools.
Religious instruction belongs in private religious schools.
You could talk about it in psychology classes, in order to try to understand why people want to force their fantasies on others or why there has to be a "big daddy in the sky" that gives them a "moral" code. They could call the lecture "Phallic fantasies".
Well, QJ, for once I disagree with you - Creationism might be a great idea for people who refuse to believe scientific facts, but I believe in reality it's teachings belong only in churches, religious schools, and the home. I like your "snake oil" idea, but should we really have snake oil in a govenment funded facility?
should we really have snake oil in a govenment funded facility
Sure, why not? Depending on how you read history textbooks in this country, it's already there.
I'm not suggesting it's the best solution, but clearly we're not working with the best solution at present and something needs to be done. It seems to me one of the biggest issues facing children, and really adults, is their inability to think critically about situations. No one's teaching them this, not their parents, certainly not society. Then we all act surprised and horrified when someone picks up a rifle and starts shooting in a school or when the economy plummets like a stone because borrowers thought it was a good idea to take out flexible rate mortgages on homes costing 20 times their annual salaries and the predatory lenders who gave out those mortgages only to immediately sell them on for profit.
Bad decision making is rampant in society and I would charge part of the reason for that is because schools are failing to teach comprehensive critical thinking skills. I'm not saying that teachers are bad or schools aren't doing their jobs, but that teaching tests like federal and state government encourage does not promote critical thinking.
With that said, part of the problem does lie in teaching methodology, particularly in the sciences. In very few other disciplines is the application of critical thinking and scientific method more pronounced and immediate than in biology. However, the method is taught as a rarefied approach only useful in a lab and critical thinking isn't required because the only scientific concepts taught are "safe". Science and it's associated skills and methods become boring because children aren't being taught to live a "Scientific life". I think this does a disservice to children that has impact far beyond their understanding of evolution and creation theory.
We're learning that parents who refuse to let their children get dirty raise children with poor immune systems that can't handle infections. In the same line, I'm starting to believe that Creation Science is the perfect inoculation against chicanery. Not because it's a valid scientific model but specifically because it isn't.
In order to teach kids how to properly use their rationality and the scientific method, you have to expose them to concepts that are falsifiable and let them work through the process. Only then will they begin to approach an understanding of the power of the concepts and how they can be directly applied to everyday life.
I do not trust our government and mass media.
Answers to many questions are given with documentary film - Zeitgeist.
Visit this blog http://zass.info and receive the information to reflection.
Post a Comment
<< Home