First batch of anti-science education bills surface in Oklahoma

[josephpalazzo]

"Teach the controversy" is once again dressed up as "academic freedom."

The first state bills of the year that would interfere with science education have appeared in Oklahoma. There, both the House and Senate have seen bills that would prevent school officials and administrators from disciplining any teachers who introduce spurious information to science classes.


These bills have a long history, dating back to around the time when teaching intelligent design was determined to be an unconstitutional imposition of religion. A recent study showed that you could take the text of the bills and build an evolutionary tree that traces their modifications over the last decade. The latest two fit the patterns nicely.


The one introduced in the Oklahoma House is more traditional. Billed as a "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act" (because freedom!), it spells out a whole host of areas of science its author doesn't like:


"The Legislature further finds that the teaching of some scientific concepts including but not limited to premises in the areas of biology, chemistry, meteorology, bioethics, and physics can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on some subjects such as, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

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The bill responds to that uncertainty by ensuring educators can just teach whatever they want as long as they think it's science, and nobody can discipline them. Students, meanwhile, cannot be penalized if they "subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories." And the author makes sure to point out that none of this has anything to do with religion, just in case a casual reader ended up confused by its similarity to earlier bills with overtly religious motivations.
Some of said bills have the same author as this one: State Representative Sally Kern, a Republican. This is apparently her fourth try at an academic freedom act; previous attempts have passed the Oklahoma House before dying in the Senate education committee.
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http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/this-years-first-batch-of-anti-science-education-bills-surface-in-oklahoma/

[Baruch]

Oklahoma is trying to catch up to Texas, after the big psycho textbook re-write in Texas a few years back.

[drunkenshoe]

joseph you are a science teacher. Doesn't really matter, but which level? What do you think about the honesty of using the 'academic freedom' and it is supposed application to teaching and students.

Because as someone who has wasted spent a decade in academic research in a completely different field, I am just going to say, it is bullshit, because 'academic freedom' only stands for the researcher in reality. And it is a very complicated problem that is much more than controversial subjects related to religion.

If you try to apply it to teaching natural science to a kid in high school, you are just trying to weasel your way out for any kind of propaganda.

Wiki says:

In the United States, for example, according to the widely recognized "1940 Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure" of the American Association of University Professors, teachers should be careful to avoid controversial matter that is unrelated to the subject. When they speak or write in public, they are free to express their opinions without fear from institutional censorship or discipline, but they should show restraint and clearly indicate that they are not speaking for their institution.[1] Academic tenure protects academic freedom by ensuring that teachers can be fired only for causes such as gross professional incompetence or behavior that evokes condemnation from the academic community itself.[2]

So what defiines the unrelated matreial here, be it controversial or not?A teacher is responsible to answer the questions of students.  If a student asks a specific question about human evolution in a biology class, it is immediately relevant and related. Anything a student asks after or during a lesson is immediately relevant and related.

So the academic freedom rhetoric has a big crack in practice to begin with which can work for the good or the bad depending on the teacher.

[josephpalazzo]

joseph you are a science teacher. Doesn't really matter, but which level? What do you think about the honesty of using the 'academic freedom' and it is supposed application to teaching and students.

Because as someone who has wasted spent a decade in academic research in a completely different field, I am just going to say, it is bullshit, because 'academic freedom' only stands for the researcher in reality. And it is a very complicated problem that is much more than controversial subjects related to religion.

If you try to apply it to teaching natural science to a kid in high school, you are just trying to weasel your way out for any kind of propaganda.

Wiki says:

So what defiines the unrelated matreial here, be it controversial or not?A teacher is responsible to answer the questions of students.  If a student asks a specific question about human evolution in a biology class, it is immediately relevant and related. Anything a student asks after or during a lesson is immediately relevant and related.

So the academic freedom rhetoric has a big crack in practice to begin with which can work for the good or the bad depending on the teacher.

High school and college are two worlds apart. So I'm not going to elaborate on their differences, except to say in college, professors have more leeway. For instance, in high school, the teacher has little to say as to what is the curriculum which he or she has to teach. In college, the professor basically decides what will constitute the matter content of the courses he or she is teaching. So in a physics class, I basically decides what topics will be covered in a given semester. it would be totally inappropriate to talk about politics, for instance. Even a question that might pertain to something like evolution, I would deflect that and ask the student to refer such questions to his biology class professor. In my experience, it hardly ever came up because physics is already very challenging, and students are focus on the matter being taught at hand. But I surmise it would happen frequently in the social sciences where many issues are controversial. I'm not the right person to ask for that.

[drunkenshoe]

High school and college are two worlds apart. So I'm not going to elaborate on their differences, except to say in college, professors have more leeway.

Definitely.

For instance, in high school, the teacher has little to say as to what is the curriculum which he or she has to teach. In college, the professor basically decides what will constitute the matter content of the courses he or she is teaching. So in a physics class, I basically decides what topics will be covered in a given semester. it would be totally inappropriate to talk about politics, for instance. Even a question that might pertain to something like evolution, I would deflect that and ask the student to refer such questions to his biology class professor. In my experience, it hardly ever came up because physics is already very challenging, and students are focus on the matter being taught at hand. But I surmise it would happen frequently in the social sciences where many issues are controversial. I'm not the right person to ask for that.

I was asking in your field in general. But you are right, you just made me realise your level and your material is not very suitable.

I'm an art historian. I have teaching experience even if it is limited in offical aspect, it is not in practice. And keep in mind that I'm talking about a muslim country. Art history is inherently related to history of religions. Western history of art is not a course, it is a field and a whole department of its own -seperate from Byzantian-Islamic architecture and art studies- and students are required read religious material -old testemant/new testament. They cannot do without because without that there is no classic iconography, without classic iconography there is no history of Western art. This also goes for ancient Greek and Roman cultures, but of course Abrahamic religions are more relevant.

The university I was in is the biggest and oldest university in the country -state univ- and the students came from dramatically diffrent groups in the country. From Easten or South Eastern Anatolia, Black Sea region which are very conservative and religious to the secular, high class regions and big cities.

Now, imagine that you are showing fully naked sculpted male-female figures or a figure that is depicted as god to 18-20 year old kids, who is culturally and religiously completely alien to it. They are not just likely to percieve this as some sort of obscenity -oddly enough that is often not the case- but something more political that is imposed on them.

The thing is, any reaction you could have is easily evaporated and turned into something positive, if you take the responsibility as a teacher to explain that why they need to learn this, why this is a part of the curriculum and how they need it to build an eye to get in the art history of the world.

And the result is pretty surprising. Those students coming from religious and conservative backgrounds are more likely to accept that alien culture compared to the average secular students coming from cities. I have observed this for years.

A student that gives a primitive heated reaction about god being sculpted into stone in his first lesson, goes and starts to read about ancient roman politics and law by himself when you take the responsibility to deal with him in a different manner, instead of dismissing him with 'you are responsible from this, it is the offical curiculum, you don't have to follow class if you don't want it'.It's a wondrous feeling to make a change in a young person's limits of vision of the world. It's incredible to witness that. I have done/caused this myself and it wasn't even conscious at the beginning for some time. Funny thing is, it was just a result of me not being well adjusted and my hotheaded attitude in my youth. I was a kid too. I understood what was really happening years later.

In high school, among the ordinary ones I had one history and one biology teacher who actually gave a damn what we have learned. I attended a private school and the material we used was exported -we studied everything in English save Turkish Literature and historical classes. We didn't have a science class, we had seperate biology, physics, chemistry classes with different teachers. My chemistry teacher was an abusive bitch and although our parents didn't believe us they figured it out after she was fired. (Via different reason) Our physics teacher, well she was OK, but very passive. To my luck all my math teachers were jerks. And to this day I am still scared of math.

But just one of them! I was so mesmerised, I remember the day my biology teacher introduced us to Miller -Urey Experiment (E: sorry in 1992, not last grade) as if it was yesterday. I remember how she looked (she was pregnant) and talked and patiently spared the whole class for our astounded questions. Was it in the curriculum, I don't think so. Because I also remember perfectly that I looked it up couldn't find anything and run to my dad (high chemistry engineer) and him explaining it like a story in a level I can understand.

After that my father gave me a couple popular science books (my first was Feynman ' The Character of Physical Law' -Turkish- ) to read and in went down hill from there. I started to buy every book I can find and most important one was Hoimar Ditfurth of course. In a few years I started to read them in English, (imagine what that did to my English)  because it is like a benign virus that invades you, and you can't stop and more like eat the books than read them. I went to the star parties with astronomy clubs at the other side of the country. I influenced my friends in univ too. Buy/lend people books. They still mention it. 

Suddenly those serious 'boring' subjects I was afraid of all my childhood as a Literature class student in high school have become a Wonderland and me, Alice, JUST BEACUSE OF WHAT ONE TEACHER HAS DONE IN ONE CLASS. Fucking 45 mins. Changed everything.

So years later, I have just carried to that to the students in my reach, as much as my capacity goes, however unconsciously. It was done to me. I did to them. Monkey see, monkey do.

Most importantly, the process that started with one biology lesson at 16 -which I think was a good trauma of sorts- made me crazy about knowledge, learning and thinking about EVERY subject, made me very stubborn about learning something and seeing what is the nature and reality behind everything around me. Taught me to go all the way down to kill it, if I am curious about something.


This is a very difficult, complicated subject and it is unfortunately about the PERSONAL responsibility of the teacher in the end.

[josephpalazzo]

@ shoe

Thanks for the info.

Just one more comment, regarding your experience in a biology class. In high school, the curriculum is decided by the school board, or the depart of education, depending on the country. So it's more tempting for a teacher then to step out of the curriculum and do what she did - Miller -Urey Experiment in your case. AFAIC, I decide what topics, so stepping out of what I've already decided is unlikely. Although, I will make adjustments if I see time is running out - I might have to shorten certain things, or if the students don't do too well either in an exam or have difficulties in the followup courses, then I might put emphasis where I didn't in the previous semester, and so on. But yes, addressing your larger point, a teacher can make a difference, just like a book or a remarkable unexpected life experience.

[drunkenshoe]

@ shoe

Thanks for the info.

You are welcome. It's a bit long, but something very important for me. Had to write it.

Just one more comment, regarding your experience in a biology class. In high school, the curriculum is decided by the school board, or the depart of education, depending on the country. So it's more tempting for a teacher then to step out of the curriculum and do what she did - Miller -Urey Experiment in your case. AFAIC, I decide what topics, so stepping out of what I've already decided is unlikely. Although, I will make adjustments if I see time is running out - I might have to shorten certain things, or if the students don't do too well either in an exam or have difficulties in the followup courses, then I might put emphasis where I didn't in the previous semester, and so on. But yes, addressing your larger point, a teacher can make a difference, just like a book or a remarkable unexpected life experience.

I get it. But there is no risk with you -personally you- anyway. Not just because of your field, because you are a nonbeliever educator. 

I just thought that while a teacher could take such an initiative that would change students lives for the best, she can also do it to preach bullshit and as we all know, that type is more likely to intervene when it comes to 'correct' people.

My mother is a retired philosophy teacher. For a short time she had a compulsory duty in a religious high school (teaching western philosophy in an islamic shool, *snort) and one of the teacher made an official complaint about her -she challanged students a bit apparently, knowing her I guess it wasn't even something harsh though- to a high level offical who was a secular man and he dismissed it immediately without doing anything after telling her. (I was around 13 at that time, had no idea what was going on) That has upset her for years about what is to come to the country and she has been mostly right afterwards, while her colleagues and people in our cluueless community, even people in the family (middle class) always assured her that she was being a pessimist and thinking the worst. I guess they learned their lesson well now.  

[josephpalazzo]

I just thought that while a teacher could take such an initiative that would change students lives for the best, she can also do it to preach bullshit and as we all know, that type is more likely to intervene when it comes to 'correct' people.

Well that's the problem highlighted in the OP. Certain politicians in the US want to make some of that bullshit part of the curriculum in high school: aka as teaching the controversy. So along evolution, the teacher would now be required to teach Intelligent Design. Along the Big Bang theory, the Young-Earth theory, etc. Where does it stop? Do we now teach astrology along astronomy, alchemy along chemistry, palm reading along health education???  I might be exaggerating but if the right-wing religious politicians succeed, then all hell will break loose...

My mother is a retired philosophy teacher. For a short time she had a compulsory duty in a religious high school (teaching western philosophy in an islamic shool, *snort) and an one of the teacher made an official complaint about her -she challanged students a bit apparently, knowing her I guess it wasn't even something harsh though- to a high level offical who was a secular man and he dismissed it immediately without doing anything after telling her. (I was around 13 at that time, had no idea what is going on) That has upset her for years about what is to come to the country and she has been mostly right afterwards, while her colleagues and people in our cluueless community, even people in the family (middle class) always assured her that she was being a pessimist and thinking the worst. I guess they learned their lesson well now.

Sadly, certain politicians want the US to emulate a similar course. Hope your mother  feels better even though one cannot take comfort when your dire predictions are unfolding before your very own eyes.

[drunkenshoe]

Well that's the problem highlighted in the OP. Certain politicians in the US want to make some of that bullshit part of the curriculum in high school: aka as teaching the controversy. So along evolution, the teacher would now be required to teach Intelligent Design. Along the Big Bang theory, the Young-Earth theory, etc. Where does it stop? Do we now teach astrology along astronomy, alchemy along chemistry, palm reading along health education???  I might be exaggerating but if the right-wing religious politicians succeed, then all hell will break loose...

Ah yes. I was thinking from the scale of my personal experience, but yes it goes up there. Yes, big problem.

You are not exaggerating though. It doesn't have to be in education officially, people already have a strong tendencies to embrace superstition in every culture. 

Sadly, certain politicians want the US to emulate a similar course.

Without a crippling economical crisis, that is far fetched for the US at the moment. That's how it starts in a serious level. Also, as I said for a few times before, the federal state is very powerful in your country. That's very important.

Hope your mother  feels better even though one cannot take comfort when your dire predictions are unfolding before your very own eyes.

Well, of course she is fine about that specific event happened 30 years ago, but she is like me -I mean I am like her- she usually worries about everyone on the planet vs religious-fascist bullshit. Fortunately, it is not in a pathological level like mine. My dad is like you guys, "Roar... kill it!" Testosterone. We always argue when it comes up.

[PickelledEggs]

Ooooooooooooooooooooo kla homa : where irr-ra-tion-ality prevails

Sent from my Nexus 6 using your mom.

[Baruch]

Shoe - I am glad that your mother, while teaching in a religious school, didn't get too much pushback.  That would be a very tricky situation without tenure (not that it is iron-clad if you do have tenure).  Here if a teacher steps out of line on anything, by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing ... the parents complain and the school board gets rid of the teacher.  And Little Johnny gets the wrong life lesson.  I don't think the US respects teachers at all, and have fantasies that the college teachers are pot smoking hippies.  The US has always been anti-intellectual in a way that GB would not be.

[drunkenshoe]

Shoe - I am glad that your mother, while teaching in a religious school, didn't get too much pushback.  That would be a very tricky situation without tenure (not that it is iron-clad if you do have tenure).  Here if a teacher steps out of line on anything, by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing ... the parents complain and the school board gets rid of the teacher.  And Little Johnny gets the wrong life lesson.  I don't think the US respects teachers at all, and have fantasies that the college teachers are pot smoking hippies.  The US has always been anti-intellectual in a way that GB would not be.

Yep, so am I. She had tenure though. That's actually how she got that duty. Teachers are under respected everywhere, Baruch. But at least for me she has always been an amazing teacher. Seriously, I got the best luck there. I have listened history of philosophy and world literature regularly for fairy tales all my childhood and up to late teens. She says I was the weird one listening all that for hours, but it was like a simple daily chore for her. Free classes at home without feeling that they are lessons.  Something I always felt guilty about compared to other children in the world. All I could do was dedicating to her a translation I made and I mentioned this only. She didn't know and was in tears when she saw in the book -I wasn't there unfortunately-  but I don't know what she really feels about how I turned out. She got a very difficult kid.   E: I am a bit emotional today, don't mind me.