This comment from JunkkMale originally appeared on Geoff Chambers’ Moderation in Moderation thread. I’ve moved it here, with the comments it attracted, because I think that this is the kind of problem that seriously needs talking about.
The government talks about the importance of individual actions in the fight against climate change, and it is up to each and every one of us whether we buy an electric car, put a solar panel on the roof, or cancel a weekend flight to Rome. Children do not usually have a choice about what they are taught.
This thread has strayed into many areas beyond the main topic, and I for one have enjoyed the quality of debate on display.
One topic I noted was how certain issues are being shared with our kids. To be honest, it was passing interest… until last night.
The subject of ‘who tells, controls’…. especially in terms of authority figures, was rather brought home to me last night.
My kids are revising currently for some serious exams that do count.
One brought in this book, which forms part of the curriculum: AQA GCSE Science Core Higher Ed. Graham Hill. Pub: Hodder Murray
He wanted some advice on a question. From a series including sections such as 3.3, entitled ‘How do humans affect the environment?’ and 3.5 ‘Global Warming’ (other aspects of global warming and the greenhouse effect also covered in Section 6.4, Air Pollution), and 3.6 ‘What can be done to reduce human impact on the environment?. Here it is, as posed, under 6.4, p113:
21. Which of the following three do you think will actually happen? Write a paragraph to explain your answer.
a) We’ll worry and blame ourselves for climate change for thousands of years.
b) Fossil fuels will run out and renewable energy will save us.
c) The oceans will evaporate as the Earth heats up and humans will die.
His face, when I opined that ‘none are very coherent, accurate, or suggest definite answers that are sensible, at least as posed’, was a heartbreaking picture. He just wanted… needed to provide the ‘right’ one as the system demands it to be one of them. Sighing at the ‘will happen’, I therefore attempted to assist based on the hope that the paragraph of explanation would be rewarded if well argued and having a basis in fact and scientific interpretation.Forget a), which is facile and shows a poor grasp of even basic climate science terminology, though maybe does reflect the ‘worry’ mindset being churned out in some quarters.
If you have to choose, choose b) as fossil fuels will run out. They are finite. As to whether ‘renewable’ energy ‘will’ ‘save’ us, that rather depends on how many of ‘us’ there are, and from what we are being ‘saved’. It seems, currently, optimistic to presume renewable sources can meet all current and projected energy demands.
As for c), well, yes, as the sun goes supernova in a few billion years. But humans may be in a different place by then.
THIS… is what they are being served????!
More touching still was his further plea to me NOT to get in touch with the school with my now serious reservations about the way this information was laid out and the questions posed… as he just wanted to pass the unit and not get in trouble.
If this is the state of education, at least in this area (I now wonder about history, etc), I am seriously troubled not only by the course structures, but the mindsets prevalent in our educational establishment.
Are there any teachers out there who would be prepared to comment? anonymously if necessary.
Brute #44
Agree 100%. That’s exactly what I do, teaching English in a small French University – get them to express themselves in English. Marking exams takes marginally longer, but the students are forced to show their competence in English, not their cunning in divining the right answer, as Alex notes. The French students complain it favours the Chinese students who learn stuff off by heart . And so it does. Learning by heart takes effort and time. Guessing the right answer from a limited selection of possibilities is handy for poker players and form-fillers.
I have seen the geographytoday website- there has been a hiatus as they waited for the new government to bring out a new curriculum, I believe. The website is dated 2010 and its content is apparently endorsed by the DoE and the RGS. What has been recommended before is mostly awful, sinking Maldives and disappearing glaciers and students must be able to recognise that the end of the world is nigh. John Shade will tell you more anon, I hope.
@Messenger,
This is one of many wrong aspects to this nonsense – it’s just so negative. Depressing. Pessimistic. Glass half empty.
Even good news is an omen that bad news is on the way.
These people get a secret thrill from opening their Grauniad on Saturday and reading about some new enviro- disaster – even if it only exists in a computer simulation.
It’s been called disasturbation.
I believe the reason for multiple choice questions are twofold. They save the teacher having to bother reading the answers as a perforated sheet can be used to identify the desired, as opposed to the correct, answer and it eliminates any original, and unwanted independent thought. Thank God my children finished their education before the age of, what amounts to political propaganda.
Brute
We’ve got the same problem here in Switzerland of the “dumbing down” of secondary and high school graduates.
It is not so much a “union” problem here, as it is a problem of school boards who feel that brainwashing kids with socio-political garbage is more important than teaching them basic knowledge in science, math, language, literature and history, etc. plus (even more important) how to think for themselves. The second problem is that the level of education is set to fit for the least qualified, in a sort of warped attempt at achieving “social justice”. Advanced classes for more diligent or gifted pupils are shunned as being “elitist” rather than “socially just”.
Then there are the teachers themselves. Many are frustrated by this development, but others are part of the problem. They feel it is their right to influence (or brainwash) their pupils to have the same views on life as they do.
Global warming is a prime example of this garbage. A half-baked, uncorroborated hypothesis with strong socio-political undertones is being taught to children as scientific fact. No mention is made that this is just one hypothesis and that there are others, which are just as viable scientifically. So, while the pupils are learning this rubbish, they are missing out on real science education.
But back to the “who’s in charge here?” question. I agree fully with you when you write:
This is so for two reasons: a) the parents have the prime interest that their children receive a good education, which will enable them to become productive adults, and b) it is the parents who pay for this whole operation (as taxpayers) and therefore have the final say – not the politicians or teachers, who are both simply “public servants”, paid to carry out the wishes of the taxpaying parents – nothing more.
Max
My daughters came to this country (UK) after having started High School elsewhere in the world, where they received an excellent grounding in questioning everything that they were told. This made my task of furthering this quest when they were confronted with the absolutist greenie-ism of their further education in the UK.
I pointed them towards web-sites and blogs, both pro- and anti-climate change and left it to them to decide what they wanted to believe.
Both daughters very quickly came to their own decisions that global warming, and the purported attendant catastrophes, was a crock, of what I shall refrain from mentioning.
Matters came to a head when the Deputy Head Master of the Secondary School at which both daughters were attended, took me aside during a PTA-type meeting (long since given a more PC name) and asked me to stop my daughters from being so disruptive in their respective classes.
His only complaint was that my daughters did not BELIEVE in AGW. Their reasoned comments and their ability to cite supportive scientific texts was considered to be almost heretical and had to be stopped immediately.
I escorted the Deputy Head to a place where I could not be overheard and I gave him a short, sharp lesson, interspersed with the occasional expletive, in the necessity of abiding by the scientific process and ignoring any purported “consensus” amongst scientists as this did not exist. The Deputy Head retreated from me as if I was Satan personified!
Later the same evening my elder daughter’s Year Teacher approached me and apologised for the garbage that she was forced to teach. She knew it was wrong but in order to remain employed she had to teach it. With her co-operation I then taught my daughters how to pass their GCSEs without believing the crap they had to regurgitate.
Both girls are now safely ensconced in the Universities of their choice, where both are still subjected to what they know to be absolute rubbish but which they will quite happily spout forth in order to gain the qualifications which they seek.
I am content that they are able to differentiate between fact and dogma and that by using using their independence of mind and their knowledge of how they can now ‘game’ the system, they will obtain the pieces of paper which will enable them to further their respective careers.
The Universities are Oxford and Winchester.
Max,
You write “The State can put forth an offered curriculum, but ultimately it is the parent’s decision of what should be taught to their children.”
So if the parents are Creationists then the kids should be taught Creation “theory”? I don’t think so. Not, in publicly funded schools, or even in private schools that claim charitable status for tax purposes.
Stephen Brown,
It is unlikely that at school level your daughters would be in a position to find any flaws in the scientific case. But then that’s generally the case with Cliamte change deniers. They don’t understand the theory but they still disagree with it!
PeterM
You ask:
I personally do not believe that uncorroborated hypotheses, whether this is “dangerous AGW” or “creationism” should be taught as “science”.
There is enough real science out there for pupils to learn without getting into these sidetracks.
In many countries the constitution does not permit the teaching of “religion” in public schools. If “creationism” falls under the category of “religion”, then this is obviously not an option for parents to decide.
Hope this has answered your question.
Max
PeterM
I could not help but notice that you were actually arrogant, pompous and pretentious enough to write to Stephen Brown:
How absurd for you, of all people, to write this!
I have been trying (on the NS thread) to get you to discuss the “science” behind your “dangerous AGW” hypothesis, but you refuse to do so.
As a result I am convinced, Peter, that I “understand the theory” (and its flaws) far better than you do, and that is why you are afraid to enter a discussion of the “science” with me.
Max
Stephen Brown
Hurrah for your daughters!
The world needs young adults who can think for themselves, who can rationally investigate scientific issues skeptically and can then draw their own conclusions. These may some day become the future “leaders”.
PeterM is totally off base in assuming that your daughters are not intelligent enough to do this.
The world does not need dumbed-down marionettes that have been brainwashed into believing and parroting some uncorroborated rubbish just because it happens to be “PC”. These unfortunate young adults will be doomed to become the future “followers” (and “losers”).
Max
Stephen Brown,
God Bless You!
Wonderful that you stood up to the Statist bullies!
You sir are a responsible citizen and an excellent father.
I wish that there were more parents like you.
Well for a start I didn’t say that the Stephen Brown’s daughters weren’t intelligent enough. It’s just simply, and undeniably, the case that school level science is nowhere near advanced enough to get near the answer. But, having said that, if they have good enough grades in Physics and Chemistry to be able to qualify for a uni course then that’s a good start. There’s probably still a few more years of study before they’ll really get to the right level though.
However, they’ll still need to start with an open mind. If Stephen Brown’s daughters, or anyone else, have got it into their heads that it’s all a scam and a politically inspired beat up used as a justification to raise taxes they may never change their opinion. They’ll be in the same position as the guy who I linked to a while ago, who came from a Christian fundamentalist family, who obtained a PhD in paleantology but nevertheless still believed that the Earth was less than 10,000 years old.
I’ve come to the opinion that belief systems can be compartmentalised and that different parts of the brain are involved in logical thinking to the more emotional types of thought such as politics and religion. Emotion, it seems, can often trump logic, regardless of the intrinsic intelligence of the persons concerned.
If my theory is correct, there is little sense in debating Evolution with Creationsists or AGW with those whose fundamentalist political beliefs lead them to dismiss any scientific findings which may challenge those beliefs.
Brute,
You say
“God Bless You! Wonderful that you stood up to the Statist bullies! You sir are a responsible citizen and an excellent father. I wish that there were more parents like you.”
I hope Geoff Brown doesn’t take this the wrong way but I’d just like to point out that what someone happens to write in a few on-line letters is nowhere near enough evidence to pass judgement, either way, on anyone’s suitabilities as a parent.
As I’ve explained before, parents shouldn’t consider their children to be their possessions, neither should they feel that they better qualified to educate them just by virtue of some biological link.
Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus etc aren’t born that way; they are, in the vast majority of cases, taught to be by their parents. If they weren’t brainwashed into being Muslims at an early age they would never, or hardly ever, choose to be in later life. It’s what Richard Dawkins calls a meme and then goes further than I probably would, in calling it a form of child abuse. You might think that the State is being heavy handed in refusing to compromise on scientific questions, but the alternative is to go back to the days when all children were educated separately according to their religion.
You are all missing the point, and the author missed a valuable opportunity to educate his child. He should have explained how you figure out what the politically correct answer is, and then given it. One of the great benefits of this kind of education is that it will immunize children to political correctness. Once they realize that the only issue is, telling them what they want to hear, they will acquire the freedom to think for themselves.
The lesson you have to get across is that passing the exam is unrelated to giving correct answers. Passing the exam is figuring out what they want to hear. Teach them to keep their thoughts to themselves. It is a lesson they will need all through life.
In my day, this was about religion. You rapidly learned to disguise the ability to think clearly, and you blandly and expressionlessly repeated the absurdities that religious belief imposed on you. And waited for the day when you could get out of school.
Now its about climate. So you lay out the party line on climate change, explain that this is what has to be said in public, preferably with a straight face because, you admit, it will often seem like extreme sarcasm, but no-one will notice. And in private you explain behind closed doors the absurdity of the whole thing.
This discussion seems to be conflagrating the terms political correctness with scientific correctness. But there is a difference.
It’s easy to poke fun at PC terms like ‘chairperson’, or ‘visually challenged’ for blind etc. Personally I don’t mind terms like deaf. I’m not sure what is wrong with that word.
However, there is a serious side to it all too. Do we really want to go back to talking about Coons, Niggers, Chinks, Yids, Sambos and Wogs? Dykes, Faggots and Queers? I personally wouldn’t. It’s fair enough to argue about where to draw the line but I wouldn’t think there would be too many people who would want it erased completely.
There’s a lot of conflating going on between all sorts of side issues; some relevant, some a lot less so. Which can of course lead to incendiary distractions.
Might I ask, again, if those who seek to argue against the overall views held by myself, and I think many here, what they think about the specific questions raised originally, in terms of science and umbrella agenda?
Junkkmale,
Yes I do think you are right and I should have conflated rather than conflagrated! However, I feel that the discussion is pretty much on topic.
Perhaps worth just mentioning, while I’m at it, that the only party line on AGW comes from those who dispute the science. There is no party line, as such, in favour of the idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That’s been known since the mid 19th century.
[I want this thread to stay focused on the issues raised in the header post, TonyN]
Precisely. I am well aware of the apposite remark, made above, about making my kids suffer for my views (though not, in my case, not on ‘support’, or not, for AGW but, now, doctrinaire, box-tick ‘teaching’ methodology).
Which appalls me. As a scientist and engineer by education, and a copywriter and designer by career, I have had a ball, and made a good living, by not just thinking outside the box, but also pondering why the box has always been that shape and if it could be improved.
Yes, there was ‘playing the game’ at every stage, but to paraphase C.J (Reggie Perrin’s boss: ‘I didn’t get where I am today by copying what got other folk where they were yesterday’.
That said, ironically, my boys’ game of choice on the iPod is Poker. I am currently cool on this as it is better than beheading aliens or surfing porn.
Forgive me, but unless I have misunderstood your reasoning, I can not accept that. Further, I do stumble, a lot, over folk who claim something ‘is’ because they believe it to be so. Especially if they then treat questioning or challenge as a poor excuse to deploy the word ‘denial’ equally inappropriately.
Again, I beg to differ. ‘Possessions’, no. But precious charges, bearers of a proud family line, vast investments in personal, community and national futures… yes.
I don’t feel better qualified to educate them, but now, by heavens, I feel better informed already to seek out and challenge those who would claim to be, and get paid well for it.
The paucity of logic on display by some here would see their kids happily send on a sleepover with Josef Fritzl because, well, he has a big family. And how the heck religions got into I have no idea. I am concerned about the quality of factual education and the extent of rounded discussion that goes with it.
If I may be presumed to be the one referred to, at least as quoted at the start of this thread, I am author of nothing.
I was a person asking a question, seeking input.
Hence I missed nothing and have gained, indeed am gaining much still.
Which is what I did, albeit initially in a cack-handed way. Which, I do trust, I corrected later. The boys now have a grasp of what it takes to pass, and what it means to think. That the two seem mutually exclusive as far as the education system is concerned, and its defenders, is… vexing.
Not big on the behind closed doors thing. It gets comfy there, until a black Zil draws up and there’s knock at the door.
I am now trying to figure out a way to honour my promise to my kids at their school, whilst rocking boats up the line.
tempterrain says:
October 25th, 2010 at 9:04 am
I feel that the discussion is pretty much on topic.
Great. So..
Thoughts? On these specific questions and what lies behind them to get to ‘which of the following three’ and ‘will happen’?
Stephen, Brown, #55:
It would be interesting to know what subjects your daughters are reading although, having mentioned which universities they are at, it would be quite understandable if you prefer not to reveal this.
One of my English granddaughters just finished a geography degree at UCL, where one of the professors is the head of the Science Museum and a prominent warmer. She said they never see the professors, and though the idea was “in the air” she never believed it, so I didn’t pursue the matter. My French son mentioned climate scepticism to his friends (science / engineering graduates like him) and they expressed surprised. None of them believed the official story on 9/11, but they’d never questioned AGW.
Could it be that the younger generation has heard so much exaggerated hype about the dangers of drugs and unprotected sex that they’ve stopped believing anything their parents say? Could CAGW be the passing phase of a particular middle-aged generation? We oldies are notoriously immune, but the younger generation also seems pretty unimpressed.
The whole business of “dumbing down” is so wide that discussion is liable to get bogged down in anecdotes and generalisations. I’d like to offer this suggestion, modestly entitled “Chambers’ Law”: Things sometimes really do get worse, so the universal belief of old farts like me that things are getting worse is sometimes true.
Looking at the AQA sample GCSE papers, the dumbing down is screamingly obvious. It’s happening in France, Britain, Switzerland and the USA, so it can’t be the fault of any one political system. It’s concurrent with the rise of TV, video games and Youtube, so the criticisms by cultural conservatives of modern media can’t be dismissed as reactionary crankery. It’s resisted by kids with literate cultivated parents, so the egalitarian tendencies of 150 years of universal education are being reversed; we’re going back to the system of an hereditary élite. Fine for those of us who care about our children’s education; not so good for society at large, which loses the talents of the undereducated.
I’d like to add that it’s not happening to my Chinese students. First generation offspring of China’s growing capitalist bourgeoisie, they are reaping all the psychological benefits of the outbreak of liberal capitalism, without (so far) demonstrating the negative effects. I imagine young 19th century Americans or 18th century Brits were like that. It’s a privilege to teach them.
geoffchambers
An excellent analysis.
Several years ago, my son attended US high school in a large city in Texas. He had originally had some problems with English, since his German was much better when he first came to the USA. But he struggled away and eventually became proficient. [In the process he learned how to curse in Spanish, since most of the other kids his in “remedial English” class were Latinos.]
At the time, they had so-called “magnet” schools with special classes for pupils who excelled, and he was given the opportunity to attend these. He did quite well and, at his graduation, I was surprised to learn that he was class salutatorian (2nd in his class scholastically). But the amazing thing (underscoring your observation on Asians) was that the class valedictorian was a 19-year old Vietnamese girl, who could not speak one word of English at age 10, when her parents, who did not have a higher education, first came to the USA). She gave a very modest speech (in perfect English), thanking the school and the country for having given her a chance. [She later became an ophthamologist.]
I do not know about this school, but in many places the “magnet” program has been disbanded for a more “PC” and supposedly more egalitarian emphasis on “equal opportunity”.
And this trend does, indeed, risk the reestablishment of a two-tier system, based on the affluence of the parents (rather than the ability of the pupils), with wealthier parents pulling their children out of public schools and putting them (together with other kids from rich families) into private schools.
A pity.
Max
PeterM
For my answer to the (silly) question you re-ask in your 68, se my post #2.
Answer (assuming the question was asked in a “science” class, rather than one on “theology”:
Max
PS How would you answer it, assuming you also had choice d)?
PeterM
Back to your “test” (68) and my answer (73).
I have concluded that it would be foolish to choose a), since we will undoubtedly not “worry and blame ourselves for climate change for thousands of years” – there will be many new “anthropocentric guilt fads” along the way, and I doubt seriously that a majority of humans will even “worry and blame ourselves for climate change” ten years from now, let alone “for thousands of years”.
We will probably switch to some alternate technology for both electrical power generation and transportation (“reneawble”?, “nuclear”?, something new we are not even aware of today?) long before “fossil fuels run out” (leaving them for lower volume, higher added-value use), so b) is a poor choice, as it is worded.
Answer c) is absurd as stated, unless one invokes either the ludicrous Hansen “runaway Venus effect” from “tipping points” caused by AGW or TonyN’s “Supernova” answer (but “humans”?)
For my “essay” on why I answered d), see my post #37 on the lack of empirical evidence to support the “dangerous AGW” hypothesis and, as a result, Hansen’s postulation (answer c). (In other words, there is no “climate problem from AGW” as postulated).
Did I pass the test, teacher?
Please comment.
Max
So that only leaves d), with the explanation for my reasoning.