The Demon-Haunted World_ Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan [167]
• Release schools from the stranglehold of the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], NBA [National Education Association], and others engaged in the breakdown of the discipline and competence in the schools.
• I’m afraid you have no understanding of the country in which you live. The people are incredibly ignorant and fearful. They will not tolerate listening to any [new] idea... Don’t you get it? The system survives only because it has an ignorant Godfearing population. There’s a reason lots of [educated people] are unemployed.
• I’m sometimes required to explain technological issues to Congressional staffers. Believe me, there’s a problem in science education in this country.
There is no single solution to the problem of illiteracy in science -or maths, history, English, geography, and many of the other skills which our society needs more of. The responsibilities are broadly shared - parents, the voting public, local school boards, the media, teachers, administrators, federal, state and logical governments, plus, of course, the students themselves. At every level teachers complain that the problem lies in earlier grades. And first-grade teachers can with justice despair of teaching children with learning deficits because of malnutrition, or no books in the home, or a culture of violence in which the leisure to think is unavailable.
I know very well from my own experience how much a child can benefit from parents who have a little learning and are able to pass it on. Even small improvements in the education, communication skills and passion for learning in one generation might work much larger improvements in the next. I think of this every time I hear a complaint that school and collegiate ‘standards’ are falling, or that a Bachelor’s degree doesn’t ‘mean’ what it once did.
Dorothy Rich, an innovative teacher from Yonkers, New York, believes that far more important than specific academic subjects is the honing of key skills which she lists as: ‘confidence, perseverance, caring, teamwork, common sense and problem-solving.’ To which I’d add sceptical thinking and an aptitude for wonder.
At the same time, children with special abilities and skills need to be nourished and encouraged. They are a national treasure. Challenging programmes for the ‘gifted’ are sometimes decried as ‘elitism’. Why aren’t intensive practice sessions for varsity football, baseball and basketball players and interschool competition deemed elitism? After all, only the most gifted athletes participate. There is a self-defeating double-standard at work here, nationwide.
The problems in public education in science and other subjects run so deep that it’s easy to despair and conclude that they can never be fixed. And yet, there are institutions hidden away in big cities and small towns that provide reason for hope, places that strike the spark, awaken slumbering curiosities and ignite the scientist that lives in all of us:
• The enormous metallic iron meteorite in front of you is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. Gingerly you reach out to touch it. It feels smooth and cold. The thought occurs to you that this is a piece of another world. How did it get to Earth? What happened in space to make it so beat up?
• The display shows maps of eighteenth-century London, and the spread of a horrifying cholera epidemic. People in one house got it from people in neighbouring houses. By running the wave of infection back, you can see where it started. It’s like being a detective. And when you pinpoint the origin you find it’s a place with open sewers. It occurs to you that there’s a life and death reason why modern cities have adequate sanitation. You think of all those cities and towns and villages in the world that don’t. You get to thinking maybe there’s a simpler, cheaper way to do it ...
• You’re crawling through a long, utterly black tunnel. There are sudden turns, ups and downs. You