The Demon-Haunted World_ Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan [165]
• Around 33 hours for fifth graders! In my opinion thats too much thats almost as many hours as a full job practically. So instead of homework we can be making money.
• When you put down how far behind we are in science and math, why don’t you try tell us this in a little nicer manner?... Have a little pride in your country and its capabilities.
• I think your facts were inconclusive and the evidence very flimsy. All in all, you raised a good point.
All in all, these students don’t think there’s much of a problem; and if there is, not much can be done about it. Many also complained that the lectures, classroom discussions and homework were ‘boring’. Especially for an MTV generation beset by attention deficit disorders in various degrees of severity, it is boring. But spending three or four grades practising once again the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions would bore anyone, and the tragedy is that, say, elementary probability theory is within reach of these students. Likewise for the forms of plants and animals presented without evolution; history presented as wars, dates and kings without the role of obedience to authority, greed, incompetence and ignorance; English without new words entering the language and old words disappearing; and chemistry without where the elements come from. The means of awakening these students are at hand and ignored. Since most school children emerge with only a tiny fraction of what they’ve been taught permanently engraved in their long-term memories, isn’t it essential to infect them with consumer-tested topics that aren’t boring... and a zest for learning?
Most adults who wrote thought there’s a substantial problem. I received letters from parents about inquisitive children willing to work hard, passionate about science but with no adequate community or school resources to satisfy their interests. Other letters told of parents who knew nothing about science sacrificing their own comfort so their children could have science books, microscopes, telescopes, computers or chemistry sets; of parents teaching their children that hard work will get them out of poverty; of a grandmother bringing tea to a student up late at night still doing homework; of peer pressure not to do well in school because ‘it makes the other kids look bad’.
Here’s a sampling - not an opinion poll, but representative commentary - of other responses by parents:
• Do parents understand that you can’t be a full human being if you’re ignorant? Are there books at home? How about a magnifying glass? Encyclopedia? Do they encourage children to learn?
• Parents have to teach patience and perseverance. The most important gift they can give their children is the ethos of hard work, but they can’t just talk about it. The kids who learn to work hard are the ones who see their parents work hard and never give up.
• My child is fascinated by science, but she doesn’t get any in school or on TV.
• My child is identified as gifted, but the school has no program for science enrichment. The guidance counselor told me to send her to a private school, but we can’t afford a private school.
• There’s enormous peer pressure; shy children don’t want to ‘stand out’ by doing well in science. When my daughter reached 13 and 14, her life-long interest in science seemed to disappear.
Parents also had much to say about teachers, and some of the comments by teachers echoed the parents. For example, people complained that teachers are trained how to teach but not what to teach: that a large number of physics and chemistry teachers have no degree in physics or chemistry and are ‘uncomfortable and incompetent’ in teaching science; that teachers themselves have too much science and maths anxiety; that they resist being asked questions, or they answer, ‘It’s in the book. Look it up.’ Some complained that the biology teacher was a ‘Creationist’; some complained that he wasn’t. Among other comments by or about teachers:
• We are breeding a collection of half-wits.
• It’s easier