And this is a school run by evil Pearson who controls all the textbooks, so that’s a bit of a comfort even as America’s educational standards slip down the tubes.
Deeply depressing that this email even has to be written.
Yeah, it is only a sensitive topic because bigots overreact.
And why are we coddling bigots again
Because they are in charge.
Well yeah, but not good enough, and we should be more vocal about it before our right to speech is eroded
Yeah it’s not a point for science if the science teacher has to apologize for teaching science
That doesn’t look like an apology for teaching science to me at all. I’m not sure how you’re interpreting it that way.
Looks like an apology to me.
‘Last Thursdayism’ is the key to ending the squabble on evolution vs creation.
Sure, Earth is a thousand years old or some shit; but you see, god is super sneaky, and made billions+ year long backstory for his fresh creation, so on day 1 the earth has topsoil, fossils, oil, critters in all stages of life including old cranky ones that still remember their childhood (which never took place, you see - that was pre-existence, but to the individual critter, pre and post creation of everything are indistinguishable.
Boom. Evolution is now compatible with creationism, we can stop bashing heads over that one now.
we understand this is a very sensitive topic
Ya wot m8?
Looks like a pretty bog-standard notice whenever evolution gets taught, at least in all my classes. Really shouldn’t have anything to do with religion vs atheism.
Not standard in the U.S. at all.
Must be a local or cultural thing then. Because it very much was standard everywhere I’ve been to school in the US, so much so that I actually notice when there isn’t a disclaimer. Bet we could draw an interesting map here that roughly mirrors the political and/ or religious distribution throughout the states.
May I ask which state, or at least which region, you’re talking about?
I mostly went to school in Colorado and California, but I think more important is I pretty much always went to school in conservatively rural towns of fairly liberal areas where the lines between politics or religion get kinda blurred with little pockets of extremism. Logically, those areas would probably have enough people squawking about science to warrant a message like this, but not enough to influence the broadly standardized curriculum.
I am in Indiana and it is technically an Indiana public school because the teachers are accredited here, but it is actually a national thing owned by Pearson. Basically an online charter school. But maybe they just send that out in Indiana?
It’s only a sensitive topic if you’re on that gamma bronze age peasant whineset
I’d like to see endosymbiosis covered. At this grade level they should have the structure of a cell down, and at least be able to define both chloroplasts and mitochondria. Mitochondrial evolution has continued within our cells and offers some of the strongest evidence, as well a form of evidence they are more likely to experience (23 and me, etc), in the form of genomic testing.
This is obviously a curriculum based on the historical way in which we established the theory of evolution, and while a traditional approach to science (to effectively teach it as historical anecdote), I don’t think it’s the most engaging. Students in this age range have their eyes roll like giant boulders off a cliff when confronted with the highly dynamic concepts of finches and peas. At the end of the day it’s the story of a dude who married his cousin and was fond of plant tropisms. Maybe more interesting when you are a bit more mature.
If you take it from the perspective of endosymbiosis, you get to tell a story of cells attacking or invading other cells, but how evolution didn’t stop there. And because evolution didn’t stop, that’s why and how we know everyone on the planet is related.
It’s probably a bit much for eight graders but I’ve also seen HIV being used as the central teaching element for evolution, about specifically how the virus evades the human immune response system by constantly evolving.
Just because there was some specific order white Europeans discovered some particular concept in, doesn’t make it necessarily the best way to teach a concept, nor is it a presentation of the strongest forms of evidence for that concept.
What’s neat is some US states and/or school districts strictly enforce the teacher’s right to pick the study materials, for better or for worse. Which is weird to think about because they don’t even pay them fairly.
Religion doesn’t necessarily need to disprove evolution, most religious people just do.
How long until this teacher ends up either behind bars or dangling from a branch?
Well it’s an online school, so it would be the former more likely than the latter, but who knows in Trump’s America?
