The Great Texas Science Panic

I am totally with Myers. I teach English (at the college level), and the number one problem with my students' writing isn't that their grammar stinks (though it often does). It's that the students have never been asked to THINK. We're examining myth right now, and some students cannot move beyond expressing that a certain theme (love, envy, death) exists within a mythic system.

My answer? "Of course it does, but what is it DOING inside that mythic system? What is being said?"

I teach analysis in all of my classes now. I don't tell my students what to think, but ask questions, more and more and more, until their brains hurt from thinking. But they are so attuned to being given a list of vocabulary, being told what a poem "means" or what some word "symbolizes" and regurgitating that information on a test, that they can't think anymore.

I think the major problem is that most of the teachers have been taught in the same way, and they are replicating systems that simply don't work and are not conducive to critical thinking, analysis, and exploring our world with anything but dim eyes.

Great post. Very thought provoking!

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I had a science teacher in high school whose answer for everything, even the most basic questions, was "that's a God question". As in, only God would know the answer. Later we found out she had failed science in high school and spent every single morning in his class playing suckup for an hour, begging for extra credit to reach a passing grade… which at that time was 60 percent.

I had nearly perfect scores on my ACTs for reading & math… and barely in the 20s for science.

Science education in this country is BAD. I help with Girl Scouts and we discussed careers last Monday. Which two giant fields were completely ignored? Science & engineering. NONE of them had any concept whatsoever about either of these fields. When I tried to bring it up, the leader was confused and interrupted. The girls remain clueless. Well, all except for mine and the Korean girl whose dad is an engineer. *grinding my teeth* My husband is one of ten or so engineers in his department. Three of them are American citizens. The other seven are from all over the globe. There just aren't that many competent engineers here: it's financially worthwhile for the company to hire international ex-pats at a huge premium rather than Americans. HELLO. Pretty soon, what are we going to have to offer exactly, as a country? I could speculate but I would probably get called names on here again.

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You know, teaching science in kindergarten does seem hard to swallow BUT it's a good age to get kids excited about science. That's the age where they WANT to learn new things and it fascinates them. My kids are mesmerized seeing water turn into ice and vice versa and stuff like that.

So I think they kinda make a good point.

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I've looked at our local kindergarten curriculum recently (which everyone swears is so rigorous), and my husband and I were quite under impressed. I think it is a great time to introduce science.

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At least in Texas they seem to be talking about it. Here in my resort community, where people look at my techie husband like a space alien, no one seems to be able to bridge the info gap from making robots in middle school to "what am I going to be when I grow up?" I remember my friends and me loving science in first grade – doing experiments and questioning things felt so natural. I collected rocks, bugs and asking "why?" it would have been a great thing to bottle together – the teaching of it and what seemed to be going on in our brains Then the all girls school did their damnedest to trash it.

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@ Wendy & Mother: Where will we be as a country?

Chinese.

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I don't understand. Do they not do the whole volcano eruption thing in Kinder any more? They not only learn about volcanos but chemical rxns… or the milk plant tests? Or even caterpillars to butterflies? Not even the baloon static games? WTH do they teach in Kinder???

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I wish they had taught conceptually when I was a kid. I loved science but the calculations made me fear it at the same time.

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The lack of encouragement in schools in teaching science is something that I'm already seeing in my second grader. She's wonderfully curious, but this school really doesn't seem to do much science at all. She's not even allowed to pick up rocks outside because they're afraid kids might throw rocks. She loves collecting rocks, so this is a hard rule for her to follow.

We love playing with science at home though. The kids had a blast when we did the corn starch and water experiment. Very messy but not as hard to clean as I had feared.

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I would like to point out a fact I did not know until today's chemistry lesson:
Biology is on the Chemistry TAKS test. Our teacher is not happy.

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Calculations do not and have never scared me. But, far more people can calculate than can think critically and that's frightening as hell.

I'm favoring Myer's thinking. Truth is, kids come loving to learn, loving to work out complex thinking. You just gotta not squash it.

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Firstly, I am thrilled to have found your site. It's my new favorite. Secondly, of COURSE we should be teaching science to Kindergartners! Kids that age have such a deep and passionate curiosity about the world–they are BEGGING to be taught science! For example, the questions I have fielded from my 7-year-old since we started homeschooling in January include: "How did the first trees form? How does my body fight the flu? How does the flu shot work? What do anti-bodies look like? How come my tea won't stay hot? What is water made out of? How come we can go inside water?" Evolution, microbiology, thermodynamics, particle physics…they're already asking the questions. We just need to supply decent answers.

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It is shameful to see some of the things that are happening here. Both of my kids started learning about science in kindergarten.

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I've been having an ongoing dispute with my 8th grade daughter's science teacher most of the year. I have a degree in science, and I can't even figure out most of her instructions for assignments and projects.I can't tell is she knows her science because she is such a failure at communication.
I'm helping my daughter in this class (and so far we aren't getting a grade sufficient for our effort.)

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Here they're talking about cutting 15%-20% of teachers and all school nurses, just to keep the schools open.

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"Brian Green, at the end of “The Elegant Universe,” makes a plea for a change. He thinks science should be taught conceptually, instead of as calculation based courses. All the calculations turn kids off, and they miss the important concepts along the way. You can always look up a formula, but if you don’t get it, then no formula in the world is going to help."

It sure is a great idea. If I had learned this way instead of being forced to memorize meaningless calculations, I might have actually LIKED science and . . . maybe even math!

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The TAKS test is the worst thing in the world. They spend all year teaching to it, it drives me crazy. I will be happy to see them introducing science earlier and hope they step up their game in other subjects as well. I get very jealous of my friends who have their kids in private schools that don't have to deal with the nonsense that is TAKS.

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