How come they don’t have science education programmes like this over here?

Tom recommended a great TedTalk. So did Jeff. My turn (actually, my wife’s).

Ken Robinson on education. Amazing.

Over lunch, Bob and I disagreed on several aspects of the English language and its origins.

According to Bob, English

1. has fewer irregular verbs than ‘typical’ languages (and is generally more regular)
2. is predominantly influenced by Latin and Greek

I disagree with both of those notions (English is more irregular and predominantly influenced by its Germanic roots) and am recording the disagreement here before we each run off to Wikipedia to find out the real story.

My lovely wife sent me this:

Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?

Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?

Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~leonghw/Courses/cattywampus.html

I wish I had had a teacher like that!

By an odd coincidence, I gave Dylan the lecture last night about how teachers are often wrong and you need to think critically about what they are telling you. Sometimes they make mistakes.
Sometimes you just heard them wrong. Either way, critical thinking helps you see through them.

Affect or effect quiz?

Hey! No looking at my answers before you take the quiz!

Why? you may ask. Because Jazz’s teacher was feeling insecure about whether she had chosen the correct spelling on her report card (she had). I wanted to explain the difference or suggest a litmus test, but I couldn’t. Which made me feel insecure. But now I don’t

Why now? you may also ask. Because I just came across the words trivalent and ditransitive and they reminded me of my conversation with Jazz’s teacher. Hey! Do the quiz before you read my hints! D’oh! Too late!

What is Parentism?

Many traditionalists have become concerned about the growing influence of the so-called New Parentists. This militant group believes that most Christmas presents are purchased and given to children by parents or other family members.

What is External Delivery?

From the Commicast of the Delivery Institute,

External delivery refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of older kids, teachers, and other adults who seek evidence of external sources of Christmas presents. The theory of external delivery holds that certain features of how Christmas presents are delivered each year are best explained by an external source, not an internal source such as your parents.

Is External Delivery the same as Santa Clausism?

No. The theory of external delivery is only concerned with empirically testing whether Christmas presents are delivered by an external agent, or an internal agent such as your parents. Santa Clausism typically starts with the premise that Santa Claus is delivering presents, and then seeks to fit the evidence to that theory. The theory of external delivery has developed strictly from objective interpretations of the empirical evidence.

Join the campaign to Teach the Controversy now!

There are many reasons to adopt this “teach the controversy” approach.

First, constitutional law permits it. In the controlling Edwards v. Aguillard case, the Supreme Court ruled that it is permissible to teach students about both alternative scientific theories of origins and scientific criticism of prevailing theories.

Second, federal education policy calls for it. The authoritative report language accompanying the No Child Left Behind act states that “where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of views that exist.” 

The BBC is awesome.

This is the kind of programme that only the BBC can make and is likely to cause me to say something that will merit the response “Why don’t you go back to your own country then?”. To which I might reply “Maybe my new country can learn something from the old one so I don’t need to”.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

I hope it’s a part of a series and I can find the rest. It raises the question “Why am I suddenly all atheist in America when, before, I was just someone who didn’t believe in God?”. Good question!

Seed Magazine has just announced the winners of a competition that invited contestants to answer the question:

 What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st Century?

One of the winning essays, Camelot is only a model, praised the ability to know how to use models and when to discard them.

Understanding that our scientific knowledge is “only” a model is the key to true scientific literacy. Knowing this tells us that our science has built-in limitations, but that it does resemble reality in very fundamental ways. More importantly, that understanding gives us permission to use our models when they are useful—and permission to discard them when they no longer meet our needs.

How do you teach that in middle school?

The New York Times picked up the torch that Richard and I were carrying on Friday:

Some experts on science education also point to the typical sequence of high school science instruction: biology, chemistry and then physics. It would make more sense in reverse, these people say, because the principles of physics underlie chemistry, which is crucial for an understanding of biology.

Perhaps the leading champion of this “physics first” approach is Leon M. Lederman, a particle physicist, Nobel laureate and former director of Fermilab whose focus lately has been on improving science and math education. He said the current biology-chemistry-physics sequence dates from the late 19th century, when “we didn’t know enough” and biology was considered a “descriptive” subject.

In fact, Dr. Lederman said, “biology is the most complicated of all subjects, and it is based on chemistry and physics.” And, he added, “there is nothing in chemistry, no fact of chemistry or process of chemistry that if you ask ‘Why does this happen?’ you don’t go back to physics.”

It’s interesting that biology was chosen as first because it is “descriptive” (and therefore, presumably, easier). Maybe that’s why they do Earth Sciences first at Bret Harte? Maybe it makes it more interesting for people who don’t like science?

Anyway, Richard and I are firmly in the physics first camp. You can’t understand the others properly without it and - for a kids who wants to know how things work - it’s by far the most interesting.

When I was at grammar school, I used to rank the subjects according to how ‘like maths‘ they were.

We were taught chemistry, physics and biology as separate subjects and, while I enjoyed all the sciences, I enjoyed physics the most because it was more mathematical. Chemistry had less maths and biology, at that level, hardly any at all. In my 11 year old mind, physics was pretty much just applied maths and therefore fun.

In geography, we covered such topics as map reading, how rocks are formed and weather but I never thought of it as science because science was something I enjoyed and I didn’t enjoy geography. Geography had a little bit of counting, measuring and charting but less maths than the sciences. History had no maths at all and I hated it.

At Dylan’s school, they have a single subject called science and they cover such topics as map reading, how rocks are formed and weather. Dylan hates it. In 7th grade he’ll do life science but he already knows he’ll hate it because he hates science. It’s like they want to avoid exposing kids to the hard sciences until it’s too late. Until they have formed an opinion one way or the other.

I have this theory that the people who design school curricula don’t really like science or maths but they know it’s important to the economy and that not enough people are following science careers. The remedy? Make the science in schools appealing to people who don’t like science!

I wonder if they stop to consider the effect it has on people who actually like science? If a kid likes science would making it less science-y make him like it more or less?

I know the answer for me and I know the answer for Dylan. Maths good. Science good. The more the better.