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[Phys-L] Re: Florida gets an F in science



While Fordham has some good points, one must remember that they are
philosophically opposed to constructivism, and hands on pedagogy is
generally deprecated in favor of direct instruction. They are the darling
of political conservatives, but have ruffled the conservative feathers by
their support of evolution.

I would also like to know what sort of credentials the writer has in terms
of science education research. All too often these reports are written by
people who have been vocal about education, but have never read any of the
research.

Incidentally TX does have evolution in its standards, which is surprising in
light of Bush's comments about how he thinks ID should be taught. He has
also expressed negative opinions about evolution.

At present there seems to be a philosophical tie between religious or
political conservatives and direct instruction proponents. This was
abundantly clear when the dept of education buried its recommendations of
some interactive engagement curricula. I suppose this is a variety of you
must be moral and educated by doing what I tell you. It completely ignores
much of the research. The psychology research by Piaget shows that at the
same time that children are ready to develop formal operational reasoning,
there is also a parallel shift in moral reasoning. They shift from thou
shalt not morality to reciprocity as the guiding principle. There is also
abundant evidence that physical punishment leads to a morality based on not
getting caught.

One would presume that education should be based on reasoned research and
that this aspect should be independent of political philosophy. Actually
education in the US is based on political philosophy. In the previous
series of posts about library loans there was a comment in one of the
newpaper articles deprecating how a professor assigned a paper on why a
particular court justice should be impeached. If I were teaching the course
I would allow the students to first write the paper on why or why not. Then
I would ask them to write an equally persuasive paper on the reverse of the
first proposition. After all the most important thing for the students to
learn is thinking.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

The Fordham analysis concludes standards nationwide have not improved
since
the institute's last review in 2000. The same number of states earned A or
B
grades, while slightly more failed.
Among the shortcomings: Trying to teach too much; taking a hands-on
approach
to "absurd" levels; and watering down evolution "in response to religious
and
political pressures."
"A number of states have resisted this madness in their science standards
but
too many are fudging or obfuscating the entire basis on which biology
rests," says the report, which was chiefly authored by biologist Paul
Gross, former
head of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., and a
former
provost at the University of Virginia.
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