By the way, I am also terribly disappointed in the number of people in Canada who do not accept evolution. In my opinion it should be 95% in both countries at the very minimum.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Just another indication that our schools are failing our children.
By the way, I am also terribly disappointed in the number of people in Canada who do not accept evolution. In my opinion it should be 95% in both countries at the very minimum.
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Unfortunately, there is a very strong evangelical/fundie "congregation" up here in the Great White North.....and we now have a Conservative Prime Minister who eschewed his moderate Protestant upbringing when he married his evangelical wife. Many western Conservative Members of Parliament are of the same ilk, and seem to feel that adopting many of the reichwing memes from south of the border is the way they'd like my own dear Canada to be.
ReplyDeleteAgree -- 95% believing in evolution would be a fine (though unattainable) goal
Sad, sad shit.
ReplyDeleteYet more fallout from the lack of separation of church and state and the political ambitions of those who pander to fundamentalists and nincompoops.
ReplyDeleteReligion has no place in deciding educational content or governmental policy. Proven scientific theory, however, sure the fuck should.
There's a lot of people in the US who need to drop their fear, superstition and irrational aversion to change. If people like this had their way throughout history we'd still think the world was flat and gold came from lead somehow. Or that Africa was a country. Or that prayer warriors are on their side...
Oh good lord, this is just all kinds of WRONG:
ReplyDeleteMeghan McCain: ‘Michele Bachmann Is The Thinking Man’s Sarah Palin’
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/meghan-mccain-michele-bachmann-is-the-thinking-mans-sarah-palin/
As a US ex-pat who is now a Canadian citizen, I imagine a lot of those that subscribe to creationism or ID in Canada are likely folks who moved from the US to Canada.
ReplyDeleteThen again, there are enough religious folks here in Canada that it's not outside the realm of possibility that this is simply evidence that stupidity knows no national boundaries. Perhaps I'm just letting my own anti-'dumb American' bias color my perspective.
Regardless, I can't believe we're still having this debate in the 21st century. *shakes head sadly*
Gryphen, it is not the school's fault. It is the school board's inability to stand against parental and community pressure to soft-pedal or avoid evolution education.
ReplyDeleteFirst problem is at the State Board of Education level that sets science guidelines for the public schools. Then, the local school boards will often tell teachers they have to modify those guidelines according to local parental input. Sigh.
I live in Kansas. You perhaps remember the periodic uproar every few years here after an election cycle. First, we have science-oriented State School Board members, then the evangelicals get busy and get their moronic naysayers voted in. Then, the science-oriented, sensible folks get busy again and get the morons voted off.
Right now, Science is in control, but there is no guarantee. We have an ultra-conservative Opus Dei converted Governor (Brownback - he of the "must scan all social media like Twitter for criticism of me"-infamy).
Most teachers, particularly science teachers want to teach evolution, want to take their students into the 21st century, but are not allowed to do so. Their jobs are at stake, and they do the best they can given the shackles on their classroom curricula.
You know my Great Grandparents must be rolling over in their graves on the dumbing down of America over the past 30 years. They were middle European peasant immigrants who fled Germany and Russia. My fraternal GG came here as a teenager, on his own, with nothing. He scraped himself an education and became an engineer and inventor, and eventually a millionaire. My paternal GGG became a master brewer and a small business owner of a few breweries in the upstate NY, NJ area.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these men came from nothing and they thought that education was paramount. I can't help but wonder if those exceptional men were alive today and took a look around whether they would encourage their GG-grandchildren to flee back to Europe!
This is pathetic and embarrassing. The anti-science freaks make me sick.
ReplyDeleteThe "dumbing down" of America is being achieved.
11:21..very nice post.
BTW...it's December now.
Where is Fred's book?
Come on, Gryphen, go ahead and tell us if it's not happening...we can take it, but we'll be disappointed.
My son is getting a Master's in Teaching right this very moment. Thankfully he will not be going into English, History or Science. Some of his fellow students went to open house at the schools where they are teaching assistants. You would be SHOCKED at how many people (almost always fathers) asking them if they were going to be teaching evolution (like it was the most disgusting thing ever).
ReplyDeleteEnglish teachers don't fare any better with the books. There are always parents whining about books. History, well that is now becoming a problem as well. When you want to revise what really happened with what you want it to be it just sets the stage for more problems.
Quite frankly I don't think my son will make it too long. His profs want him to get a PhD. I just think that with the school boards, the principals, parents & kids you would have to be made of bricks in order to stick with it.
Plus here in OH, teachers are talked about like they are scum of the earth. It is disgusting. I am sure in other states the teachers are also considered "problems" since the republican party wants to demolish a public education.
PS - If we ever hit 95% believing in evolution I would be beyond shocked. I don't think it will even happen in my kid's lifetime.
DebinOH
Holy shit! 40% of US'ns think this ole ball of rock is less than 10,000 years old? Wow.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is dear Americans, there have been many new mechanisms set up in your country to ensure that children are indoctrinated early. And that's the whole secret of keeping them within the fold for the rest of their lives. If they have swallowed all the bullshit by the time they are 10 years old, they will keep it forever. And so, as these new mechanisms are set up the number of true believers could actually increase! Yes, even though we are living in the 21st. century there is a good possibility of that number of religious kooks will become more.
ReplyDeleteWe must be more than just reactive to the problem. We must fight hard and be proactive and we must reach the children and instill doubts in the minds of those who have been led astray. We must because it's a form of child cruelty and child abuse to let them continue to believe religious lies. We must fight on the side of good to defeat the christian evil.
You must come out of the closets and be proud of your atheistic beliefs. If you don't then we have little chance of stopping it for another thousand years. You must disregard the notion that you are going to hurt christian feelings because it is the right thing to do because we as atheists are fighting on the right side against evil.
Face it, religion is keeping the masses ignorant everywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to get worse if the christo-fascists have their way:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/eagle-forum-contradicts-thomas-jefferson-constitutions-christianized-roots
The reason this is happening in this country, and has been for some time, is we have too many teachers of Chuck Heaths caliber - in other words - uninformed, fundamentalist, low IQ. The man was a SCIENCE teacher - yet his daughter, the illustrious uber stupid Sarah Palin believes humans walked with the dinosaurs, that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and the Bible is a literal document written by GOD. How can that shit happen - when your FATHER is a SCIENCE teacher!!!
ReplyDeleteThink about it - how many other students did he have the pleasure of dumbing down - just like his own children. Isn't Chuckie Jr also a TEACHER? Not such a mystery why it took Sarah Palin 5 or 6 colleges to get her degree - if she even did.
Multiply the Chuck Heaths exponentially across the US - throw in the increase in the fundie homeschooling curriculum, voila - watch other countries continue to outpace the US in academics, intellect, health, income, and on and on!
With the growing strength of the fundies/Teabaggin' ideology, low IQ mentality, and isolationist attitudes - there goes America, down the toilet!
What these fools don't realize is that as our inability to keep up with the rest of the world in pretty much every category increases - those other countries will soon become strong enough to also wage very successful war against us . . . and WIN!
I use that rationale because that seems to be the only thing they are proud of about being an American. If they're not careful about what they wish for - a return to the dark ages - the US will no longer be the military superpower they are so proud of. They don't care about Democracy, equality, a healthy, educated population, an educational system for all, none of that matters to them - just Military might and GUNS in every closet.
We are on the downhill slide to inferiority in every category that's meaningful!
And might I add - with the hold Mormonism has on the Boy Scouts (maybe Girl Scouts, too) think of the access this fundamentalist organization has to indoctrinate millions of young children into Creationist anti-science teaching.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of fundie Christian dogma and Creationism ala Heath/Palin (and the number of Churches in Wasilla, and presumably AK) - Alaska has the highest number of incidences of INCEST! With the Almighty Lord's presence all over the state of Alaska and such strong Christian family values you would think the opposite would be true . . . or is the correlation actually correct - the more the Bible thumpin' the higher the incest?
Reports from 2005 indicate that of a population of 32 1/2 million in Canada in 2004, between 19 to 30% of people identified as Atheist/Agnostic/Nonbeliever in God which accounts for a higher number in Canada of acceptance.
ReplyDeleteI know in Alberta there is a big American population, much to do with the oil and would suspect that adds to the higher number of non-accepting.
I try not to get too upset about polls: nobody asked me. The catch in this one is adding in the possibility of divine involvement. Most people, no matter what their specific religious background is, remain open to the possibility of divine involvement somewhere in the process. Even the Founding Fathers, who were mostly deists, thought that something diving started it all. Even Big Bang enthusiasts can not explain why it happened.
ReplyDeleteThe human race will be doomed by such as these.......
ReplyDeleteTeachers need to be put under pressure. Merit based grading for THEM. None of this hiring people that can't get a job elsewhere shiz.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the teachers unions SUCK
Oh good lord, this is just all kinds of WRONG:
ReplyDeleteMeghan McCain: ‘Michele Bachmann Is The Thinking Man’s Sarah Palin’
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/meghan-mccain-michele-bachmann-is-the-thinking-mans-sarah-palin/
11:01 AM
------------------
If tits were brains then Meghan McCain would have plenty, but unfortunately she is a dim bulb, just like her father and mother.
12:53 PM - teachers like Chuck Heath exist because the school board and parents want that kind of guy around.
ReplyDeleteRemember, you don't have to have a high school diploma to run for and be elected to the school board at either a local level or to a State school board.
My husband taught in a rural district early in his career. One of the school board members attacked him in public for requiring the students to learn vocabulary words basic to the course of study. Imagine!
The rationale --- "My kid and the kids of this community don't need to learn fancy vocabulary. We don't want them moving away. All they need to know is what we know. I want you to stop trying to make them better than us."
No joke - this was stated at a school board meeting when my husband was present.
I cannot understand why any parent would not want their children to build a better life, to have the opportunity to be more.
We believe that each generation is a stepping stone for the next. We wanted our daughter to have opportunities that we didn't, just as our parents wanted the same for us.
Unfortunately, if parents elect and support or event threaten board members into lowering the threshold, there is nothing that the teachers can do.
People need to be active in their community so the moronic fundamentalists and morons generally do not take control.
You cannot just sit back and complain. You have to be more active than the morons or they win and will determine what happens to our schools and communities (and our country).
How does this happen?
ReplyDeletePeople like Michele Bachmann making statements like this reported by Crooks and Liars.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/bachmann-suggests-intelligent-design-scienti
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann says schools should teach children about evolution and intelligent design because "the best thing to do is to allow all scientific facts on the table."
Follow up answer is a double down.
A student from Bancroft, Iowa, who identified himself as a Catholic, explained to Bachmann that there was big difference between a "theory" like intelligence design and a "scientific theory" like evolution.
"The idea of creationism by an intelligent designer is not scientific," he said. "It is pseudo-science. There is no hard evidence that says that God created Earth. There is nothing like that. Whereas, we have physicists, chemists, biologists, many other people in the science field that say this is how the Earth was created, this is how the universe was created. ... How can you say that creationism can be taught in a public school where this would actually increase the combining of church and state?"
"I think what you are advocating for is censorship on the part of government," Bachmann replied. "I want all facts on the table.
I split my time between private schooling and public schools. I only ended up in public school because my father became sick and we ran out of funds for private schooling.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to say that the best education I had was in grades 1-8 in the private school, but it prepared me well enough to excel in the public school environment. Often times I knew a bit more than our teacher. It's a tough call, but if one has the means I'd recommend a good private institution over public any day.
@3:00pm: Just another example of Bat$hit Bachmann not being able to distinguish between FACT and belief. "I want all facts on the table" ????????
ReplyDeleteDisturbing and very sad. Quite a scatheing indictment on the state of education today, we need to keep good teachers, pay them more, and as parents, we need to get involved in our chidren's education.
ReplyDeleteWhen banking is considered a "noble" profession, and teaching is "just a job", our priorities are clearly messed up.
American exceptionalism, yup.
ReplyDeleteCan You Pass This 8th-Grade Final Exam From 1895?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.businessinsider.com/eighth-grade-final-exam-kansas-2011-12?op=1
Schools fail our children?
ReplyDeleteSo are they saying that the Alaska school system can fail an entire family? The governor's family?
I'm sorry but that is hard for me to believe a governor's family can blame the school system for every member of that family!
Or could it be the parents of an entire educationally failed family deserves a lot of credit for the failure of their children?
It is said that Track Palin never graduated high school. On top of that he interfered with the education and safety of other Alaska children by cutting their school bus brake lines. You think it would end there, but Track continued to interfere with the education of others by getting his girlfriend pregnant and she had to drop out of school.
Then there is Bristol Palin who missed a lot of school which they blamed on mono but funny thing is nobody has missed that much school due to mono! Then underage Bristol got pregnant in high school and again missed more school but thanks to her mother the governor, Bristol miraculously received her high school diploma.
Then there is Willow Palin, gang leader of the breaking and entering Colony Girls. The Alaska school system finally kicked Willow out of school for interfering with the education of others and was sent home to be home schooled. Somehow Willow ends up roaming the streets of Los Angeles and the highways of North America.
Now finally there is Piper Palin, another Palin who missed tremendous amount of school to travel with her mother the governor and vp candidate and miraculously Piper seems to advance to the next grade. It is sad during her mother's campaign that there were picture of Sarah Palin teaching Piper simple math that kids a couple of years younger has already mastered.
So I have come to the conclusion that schools may fail children but it takes unconcerned parents to fail an entire family and Sarah and Todd Palin needs to stand up and take blame for their part for the failure of their four children.
DON'T BLAME THE ALASKA SCHOOL SYSTEM FOR THE PALIN'S FAILURES.
It is really sad, all that unearned money that family scammed and nobody is ready or wants to continue school at the next level. The Palin children just want to settle on their mom's notoriety and not on their own personal accomplishments.
It seems that the job of Todd and Sarah is trying to keep their unmarried children from having children and they've failed twice and had scares with their third child.
How sad.
Sorry, Gryph, I usually agree with you. (I even thought the dog's butt was funny) But as a public school teacher (25 years) who has been annoyed, distressed and, most recently frightened by the direction that POLITICIANS and RELIGION have been sending public education, I resent your headline.
ReplyDeleteOur SCHOOLS are not failing our children, the special interests, lobbyists, disinterested/dysfunctional families and communities, and - most importantly - religious groups that dictate education policy are failing our children.
Schools have absolutely no recourse if the states mandate certain curriculum standards. Public schools in my area (rural PA), who, BTW teach evolution and are in the top 10% of the country (google "the nation's report card"), are now being attacked by a Governor who's election was bought and paid for CEOs of charter schools, cyber-schools, and the Catholic church.
MY state currently includes evolution in public school science curriculum. Once the educational changes embraced by our Governor are enacted, students in PA will have their private and religious education paid for by tax dollars. The private and religious schools will be able to teach any dogma - and PA tax dollars will pay for it. To paraphrase a line from "Evita" - we get the education we "deserve."
And, anon 1:59 - no group has been more vocal in the criticism of creationist education than the teacher unions.
All citizens in all states need to pay attention to what is being proposed - particularly by right leaning governments -about education. My thought: the right want the "masses" to be very undereducated in order to keep them under control.
ok, taking tinfoil hat off now!
1:59 - Are you a teacher?
ReplyDeleteHere is a question for you. Merit pay is all well and good but please tell me how a teacher who works in an inner city school could even compete with another teacher who works in a rich suburb? The inner city teacher has children who often don't get fed (hence the reason we are now feeding these children breakfast and lunch), children who don't have schedules or even go to bed at a reasonable time, rarely come from a two parent household, have parents themselves that did not graduate, many of the parents have drug/alcohol issues, and do not work. Not only that but the parents don't seem to care if their children excel or not.
This teacher already has the deck stacked against him/her. How could you ever expect them to have children who have scores that would offer them a chance for a merit raise? They can only do so much. Personally, it is AMAZING that any teacher would ever stay in these conditions. I suggest you walk in their footsteps before suggesting that these teachers get merit raises.
My son will have spent SIX years in college. He will have lost six years of income. Not only that but who paid for this education? He would make far more in the private sector.
And for the unions, if teachers did not have a union they could lose their jobs every time there is a new principal, etc. It is there to protect them. Sorry if you don't like that but spend all that time in school, lose all that money that you could have had while in school, and pay for six years of education then come back and bitch all you want.
Are there bad teachers - yes. However there are far better teachers than the bad. Keep it up and there will be no teachers. Why would they want all this grief?
DebinOH
“So I have come to the conclusion that schools may fail children but it takes unconcerned parents to fail an entire family and Sarah and Todd Palin needs to stand up and take blame for their part for the failure of their four children. “
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the Palins, the idiot daughter born to idiot parents gave birth to a son who walks around sucking on a pacifier.
Will the chain be broken, will Tripp be successful in school or will he have to count on grandma Sarah to pull some strings to get Tripp to the next grade like she had to do for her older kids?
Time will tell.
Can somebody explain to me how the child of an ex governor of a state gets kicked out of school? Not just a child of the quitter governor Sarah Palin, but her daughter? A female student has to be pretty disruptive to the school and to her fellow students to have to be kicked out and home schooled.
ReplyDeleteWillow must of been a terrible bad ass student to be ordered to home school.
This woman, Sarah Palin wanted to be the leader of the free world and she has four kids who cannot be educated like the other kids within her own state?
Something is not right in Wasilla, something is not right with the Palin kids, something is not right with Todd and Sarah.
Willow Palin must be one dumbass returd to get kicked out of school!
ReplyDeleteHer mother was the governor for Christ sake!
I can imagine trouble maker Track getting kicked out, but a female?
What does a female girl need to do to get kicked out?
My guess is Willow must have her mother's mean school girl mentality.
Fuck, I would hate to be married to her.
Those Alaskan boys better hope they don't impregnate Willow like her other relatives traditionally has done for years or they will be in a world of hurt like Levi is in for the next 14 something years.