****************

By ellemarz, February 9 at 6:30 pm
““They use Zinn and Takaki,
Turkel and Chomsky.  They do activism projects and
study the consequences of colonialism and empire. 
So, I truly hope one day you get the opportunity to
work with people like this instead of where you are.”“
*****************
Don’t sell your self short. It has been decades since I
experienced high school but if I had known of Zinn, Chomsky,
and others back then, I would have not been as ignorant as I
was for so long before I decided to ‘catch up on history and
social studies’. Angers me now as I think about and how texas
of recently, altered the text books to what they wanted the
kids to learn. So ‘way back when’ the artificial alteration of
history was happening and we were taught how wonderful
columbus was for ‘discovering’ america.

I hope you’re including Chalmers Johnson in with those others.

@ Surfnow:

It’s too bad that your experience with fellow
teachers has been so disappointing, but I’ve been
around a number of school districts in the PNW and
most educators out here are liberal/progressive
minded, intelligent, well-educated individuals. 
Typically, it’s the “ignorant masses” and Tea-Party
zealots who prevent teachers from actually educating
students.  I worked with a very dedicated science
teacher who always taught evolution and got no end of
flack from parents and school officials for refusing
to teach “creationism”. 

As a caveat, I see very few of anyone talk or discuss
the Vietnam War.  However, our social studies
teachers do not have textbooks (we are a poor school
and poor district) so they use the library and their
teacher-librarian (me).  They use Zinn and Takaki,
Turkel and Chomsky.  They do activism projects and
study the consequences of colonialism and empire. 
So, I truly hope one day you get the opportunity to
work with people like this instead of where you are.

Teach “creationism.” Save thy ass.

****************

By who’syourdebs, February 3 at 2:50 pm
“”“Never in a million years did I think the premise that evolution
is legitimate science would ever fall into question.”“”
****************

Not to deride you, I thought as much myself. But that is, if one
takes an objective view of studing the origins of religion, a basis
of religions with their esoteric and exoteric information which
helped people with certain knowledge to gain control over,
people in the same group, tribe, or other countries.

Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ teaches this also, to make things
appear as they really are not to gain the upper hand. Take it
further and joseph goebbels and the mainstream medias make
sense that: ‘if a lie is spoken enough, the people will believe it’.

It is just horribly sad that that remains true in this day . ‘The
mind is a wonderful thing to bend’. In fat too many people’s eyes
that is exactly right.

It’s almost as if we have to teach people two contradictory things at once and train people from childhood to be able to “think double”.  Admit the existence of the human brain with all its multiple capabilities, including both science and religion, and much more.  Admit that one capability involves knowledge—the learning of facts and experience- based realities, more or less incontrovertible.
  Admit that another capability involves beliefs, ideas not based on knowledge but upon feelings, intuitions, ancient inherited myths, moral/ethical teachings etc. Teach these as matters of choice.
  Teach that this dichotomy in the brain’s modus operandi is NOT an either/or static state , but a both/and living experience and a (perhaps) unlimited , certainly unknown, possible capacity to develop.
  Call one type of learning “reason.”  Call the other type of learning “spirit.”  Teach that assumption is an important part of both, but that “reason” depends upon evidence, validation, experiment, facts, proof, etc.  Teach that “spirituality” involves belief, desire to find ways to depend upon ideas that guide morality, spiritual yearning, confidence, and a personal relationship with the unprovable yet assumed, wonders presented by teaching religious history.
Teach that the brain is a complex organ, not simplifiable.
  Teach that people are (should be) free to participate with equal freedom in either or both fields of mental activity, and/but that there should be no demand to conform against personal choice to either one or the other, except for a minimum degree of mutual agreement extablished by necessary laws.
Teach that people who differ should not scorn or be scorned. Teach tolerance.
  Probably impossible, superficial, irreconciliable etc.  Religion’s God is too small; Science’s future is too expansive! (Why did I try this?  My father was fighting this battle a hundred years ago!)

Ellemarz:
I’m also a teacher and most of my colleagues in social stuides are complete conservative morons. One actually tells his students things like ” we could have and should have won the Vietnam War but the press and protestors forced us to lose.” So I don’t know where you’re teaching but in my ten years experience I’ve seen very few tell it like it really is.

As a veteran teacher and teacher-librarian of 17+
years, I do not think that “blaming” the teachers
for their inconsistency really gets to the heart of
the problem.  Like so much of what people point out
as failures of education is not because teachers do
not wish to teach what they know.  They can’t. 
People think there is academic freedom within public
education, but there is little if any.  Teachers are
prevented from teaching subjects like evolution by
rabid parents who are willing to go before school
boards to fire teachers who do teach it.  I saw
another comment about social studies being watered
down.  Try talking to the Texas Textbook Massacre
Committee first.  Write your legislators and
Congressmen/women.  These are the people who set the
policies that make it difficult for good teachers to
teach what needs teaching.  Then, find out if your
local superintendent, school board, even principals
support evolution.  Most will speak a good line, but
the minute a crazed parent comes in screaming about
the end of the world if said teacher utters the word
“evolution”, that principal will backpedal like
nobody’s business.  I’ve been there, seen that.

So, until you get your facts about what the politics
of education truly are, please do not blame teachers
who work their collective asses off to teach kids
from ALL situations.  Teachers are doing what they
can to make this work on less than 50 cents per
student PER DAY.  And, the usually do an amazing job
considering all the flogging they get and funding
they don’t.

I hate to put the weight of the world on people like rollzone, but where is the evidence that the earth just “appeared” at the whim of some invisible man?

That doesn’t surprise me. Just like social studies teachers don’t tell the truth about the illegal,immoral, obscene wars of imperialism that the Empire conducts. And not just on secondary levels. Very few college professors speak the truth- can’t lose their jobs or their Korporate funding after all.

My high school senior class play many years ago was “Inherit the Wind”, and as a teenager I got to play Bertram Cates, the teacher who goes to jail for teaching evolution in a public school. The play/movie was based largely on the Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925. Never in a million years did I think the premise that evolution is legitimate science would ever fall into question. That was 1965. It’s over 45 years later, and creationism is alive and well, still many bible-thumpers to cherry-pick verses supporting their racist, sexist, and greed-driven philosophies, while passing over Jesus’s compassionate, inclusive, socialistic teachings. And they wonder why baby-boomers are getting depressed.

hello. undeniable scientific fact is easily acceptable.
with evolution, there are only components of acceptable
facts, such as adaptation of a species. pretending
human beings evolved from less sophisticated forms,
only because physical evidence decomposes at faster
rates, is as much a leap of scientific faith as
creationism. the facts do not fully support evolution,
or it would be completely accepted as definitive. when
there is an underlying instinct of doubt, dictating a theorem becomes unscientific.

****************

I agree, teenagers and young adults aren’t concerned with
evolution and really, they should not be required to attend
classes on the subject. Their evolution is the repacked and
hyped technology they have their face stuck in most of the day
and in their ear the rest of the day. Evolution of life and the
planet is ‘ho-hum’ BS with no significant value or use.

What they don’t realize it that everyday that goes by they get
closer to studying by experience, extinction.

So it’s far more likely that an invisible man in the sky farted life out of his ass 8 thousand years ago than a planet’s ecosystem developing life using the laws of physics and chemistry on a slow plod lasting nearly a billion years.

But then again, most americans believe in angels and ghosts and biblical creation. No wonder we are so easily manipulated by bullshit conservative propaganda.

No wonder america is slowly become an also-ran nation.

Cambrian Era? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

OK…..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian

Oh, and if you think we care about what “The Discovery Institute” has to say about the Cambrian Era (or anything else), don’t hold your breath…...........they’re nothing but a bunch of blow-hards.

How do the Darwinists explain the Cambrian Era?