re: #190 katemaclaren

I think you are brave and Charles most likely respects that, too.

There’s no especial courage involved in regurgitating talking points which get scrawled out every doggone day around here, and in LGF-bashing threads across the Internet.

What I think, just sayin’, is that for many there is a great fear of what’s happening to education in this country—and science education in particular. I feel the same way. My first degree is in Biology and Chemistry, and now teach English, so see the problem a little differently. First, by the time kids are in high school, they’re not going to believe any of the creationist hard core stuff because they’ve got a world of information out there. Because of my own experience as a college teacher, I see the problem as not teaching children science when they can actually learn it as fluently as a second language—between ages 5 and 12. The educational system is nothing but chaos—there is no systematic curricula, no learning outcomes that force students to stretch and think. We’ve been dumbing down (everybody can be a winner and anyone can be president) so long

All this stuff you mention won’t be solved by giving master’s degrees to Christian madrassa graduates. They will on the contrary make the curricula MORE dumbed down and MORE chaotic.

that a genuine reform movement is needed to exam the notion of devising a national curriculum that is demanding and that also allows for those less able to leave the system with dignity and training in a skill that is useful in getting a job. No one in the educational field is willing to admit that the field isn’t level at all—and the more we try, the worse the outcome if we want smart, motivated critical thinkers.

I’m confused. Are we to have multitier educations which leave some fit for vocational work, and others fit for critical thinkers? Or are we to create a system where everyone is to be a critical thinker?

I’m fine with multitier education, by the way. But I think some form of science education is necessary, shorn of sectarian bias.

And again, giving the nod to people like the author of post#138 to devise our educational policy won’t help ANY educational system worth its name.