Chronology | Current Month | Current Thread | Current Date |
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] | [Date Index] [Thread Index] | [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] | [Date Prev] [Date Next] |
Some teachers wonder why the students don't exhibit much in the
way of critical thinking. Gaaack! I can tell you why. They've
been taught, over and over again, that in school, critical thinking
will just get you into trouble.
It is sometimes argued that the history is important, because
it provides a lesson about the /process/ of doing science. Alas,
the textbook version of history is so oversimplified as to grossly
understate how hard it is to do real science. As such it is a
disservice to students, and an insult to all scientists -- past,
present, and future.
If people on this list want to learn the history, I encourage that.
Specifically, I encourage people to learn the *real* history. Read
Kuhn's book, and then go read some of the old-time papers. You will
discover that the old-time scientists were amazingly clever about
some things, and also amazingly confused about some things.
I beseech you to keep the history out of the introductory course.
The intro course should keep things simple, but the real history
is not simple. Delving into the real history would be utterly
impossible due to time constraints, and would be bad pedagogy
even if you had unlimited time. If you're not going to teach the
real history, teaching false history is worse than nothing.
There is no law that says pedagogy must recapitulate phylogeny.