Douglas Roberts wrote:
Clarification (I just asked my wife for details): the (verbal) directive to not teach evolution in Los Alamos High School science classes was issued three years ago. Some of the teachers chose to circumvent this directive by teaching from the historical perspective of Darwin's life. I can report on contrasting (but similar) situation where a friend was teaching Laser Science and Holography in a High School in Missouri a couple of years ago. It might not surprise us that in Missouri, a teacher would be told not to teach Evolution. This friend was not told not to teach evolution (it wasn't in his curricula anyway), but after many months of intriguing young minds with the wonders of science and technology, he managed to make some statement (I can't remember the particulars) that tied lots of what he'd said to them to the dirtiest of words - Evolution. After the reactions of most of his promising young science students made him aware that he'd stepped in something messy, he went to the principal to ask what the school policy was (assuming the worst). The principal simply said "You are on your own". The implied message was that the school would not interfere if he wanted to (needed to) go into such things, but that neither would they defend him against irate parents (and students) either. Being an easy-going but determined sort, he continued (carefully) with his class to engage them in all things scientific that he could and when he stumbled into the no-man's land of dogma, he let them blow off their dogmatic steam against Evolution and whatnot. I suspect he made some very serious headway into changing "hearts and minds" in that little Missouri town, simply by showing them how interesting Science could be but not needing to confront their dogma directly. I can just see him listening to them spout dogma back at him with a twinkle in his eye and then go back to whatever clever science experiment he was into, knowing they had to hear the inanity of their own line, without him saying a word against it. Los Alamos is a different story. My daughters both went through the LA school systems and I found the DARE (Drugs Are Really Expensive) program started when my oldest was in 6th grade every bit as offensive as banning Evolution from Science. My very strong-willed daughter came home one day chanting "I will think for myself, I WILL think for myself, I will THINK for myself... " and told me all about the DARE program that one of LA's finest had come to tell them about. She was really excited. They were all being offered a chance to "think for themselves!" with a vengeance, what could be better? They were going to have a club whose motto was "I think for myself!". There was even a subtext that part of thinking for themselves was reporting to the club-meister ( a police officer ) anyone they knew of using illegal drugs. I have my own reasons (beyond security clearances, etc) for rejecting the pop-drug-culture, but this was patently offensive and wrong. The schools (and police) were one step away from creating something like the "Brown Shirts" of Nazi Germany. Fortunately, I was able to laugh it off and steer my 12 year old back onto her old track of *thinking for herself* and once she realized they were pandering to that part of her ego and in fact were asking her to do anything but *think for herself*, she was free of their mesmerization. Unfortunately at least half of her peer group ate it up like Doug's proverbial dog-vomit and proudly. I don't know what their parents told them... but I suspect they either didn't want to "rock the boat" or they actually thought teaching children to "think for themselves" amounted to teaching them how to recite that line while goose-stepping through the halls in cadence. Sad for such an educated and presumably enlightened community. With that backdrop, it is only a small step (in my mind) to the same administration and teachers going along with "no Evolution teaching". I am as surprised as most of you that there was not an uprising over the "banning of Evolution" (even) at LAHS. I can see why Doug might have developed an acute sense of (what do we call paranoia when it is well founded?). Do we have others with children or teachers in the LAHS system here to report? I would expect at the very least, for the thespians to write a scathing satire about this and perform it every semester. Doug? Maybe you can get this started? I am not a big fan of public school systems in general, but like Democracy, find them a lesser of evils, and the LA schools systems having the blessing of a good budget and some very motivated and capable teachers. I'm even a lesser fan of elite (often religious) private schools either BTW, and home-schooling as it is often done today (usually for elitist and/or religious reasons) sucks even more! I just can't be pleased, can I? There is very little that my daughters learned in school that I didn't have the opportunity (as with the DARE program) to provide some perspective. Had they been raised in a time of "non-Evolution" we would have had long, often hilarious talks about it, I am sure. As we did around the DARE program and any number of other popular educational pecadillos. - Steve |
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