Question for the Scientistshere...

[Solomwi]

You're trying to hold a conversation, do math, and drive 80 mph with your kid in the car all at the same time? What a terrible parent.

You forgot the part where I take my eyes off the road to bang my head against the steering wheel.

[rah]

On the self esteem aspect.

When my daughter was in middle school she made the honor roll and I attended the awards ceremony. I was looking at the list of recipients and was curious. I counted and it added up to about 120 kids. So I asked my daughter later how many kids were in her grade and she said oh around 130. While my wife is trying to explain that kids are more competitive now and work harder in school, I'm looking around the room thinking these kids don't look that smart and them my daughter started to explain that the there was a multiplier for the kids in remedial classes so it was easier for them to make the honor roll.

The wussification of america continues.
and don't get me going on participation trophies. My daughter had a box of them, and when she was cleaning up to head off to college and I asked if I could throw them out, she said sure but grabbed one and said it was the only one she had gotten for winning. At least she hadn't been fooled.

[SpencerH]

So, what the **** are hte answers to these questions?

And yes, I consider that this thread going off topic is par for the course. Just make it entertaining...

What should the purpose of science education be for the majority of school children?

To give them a basic understanding of the world.

Why do some young people leave school with a 'gross and damaging confusion' of science?

They're too stupid. Actually this applies to most people to varying degrees not just "some young people". In addition, despite the 'lip-service' paid to enticing scientists into teaching, scientists dont teach science. As a result, most science 'teachers' have no more understanding of true science than the children they are supposedly instructing. [/QUOTE]

Why is science regarded as 'too demading' and to be lacking in 'relevance or excitement'?

See above.

[Krill]

To give them a basic understanding of the world.

Fair enough

They're too stupid. Actually this applies to most people to varying degrees not just "some young people". In addition, despite the 'lip-service' paid to enticing scientists into teaching, scientists dont teach science. As a result, most science 'teachers' have no more understanding of true science than the children they are supposedly instructing.

**** you very much :wiglaf:

See above.

ditto.

[SpencerH]

You asked. I answered.

[Combat Ingrid]

participation trophies

[EPW]

participation sucks. It only helps the dumb talkative types.

[snoopy369]

What should the purpose of science education be for the majority of school children?

Teaching them the basic fundamentals of how the world works, how their bodies work, etc., so that they understand well enough to get through life. You need to understand the basics of electricity for example in order to know that you have to turn off the power before reaching into the oven and grabbing a broken lightbulb out of the socket. You need to know the basics of anatomy to understand how to deal with certain pains/injuries, of yourself or your children. You need to understand some of chemistry to know not to mix bleach with ammonia cleaners. Etc.
That is 'basic' science. Beyond that, enough science should be offered that children who find it interesting can determine effectively if a career in science is for them.

Why do some young people leave school with a 'gross and damaging confusion' of science?

Because science is taught as something to be memorized, not something to be understood. Memorizing the entire periodic table is a ****ing waste of time for 99.9% of students of chemistry, and boring on top of it. Science is overly focused on memorizing (at ALL levels, up to and including PhD programs from what I've seen) and at the grammar/high school level is inadequately focused on actually experiencing science and furthering the understanding of WHY processes work as they do.

Why is science regarded as 'too demading' and to be lacking in 'relevance or excitement'?

See Q2. Teach kids practical science first and theoretical science only as needed to explain the practical science. Labs and hands-on demonstrations should be the majority of basic high school science, not occasional elements of it. My chemistry teacher for example made gunpowder on the first day of class... not a single bored student there that day

[Jon Miller]

Most physics programs don't make you memorize anything

JM

[snoopy369]

Physics is certainly the science I know the least about the further academic pursuits of. You don't have to memorize Bosons/Muons/etc. and various constants?

[Jon Miller]

Nope.

The closest to memorization is for the physics GRE/qualifiers, and for those you just work problems for a couple of days (or a couple of weeks depending on how well prepared you are/smart you are/etc). It isn't memorizing, it is to know the problems really well (you don't want to take 4 hours to solve one problem, etc). But those things are just to get into graduate school...

JM

[Krill]

Snoop, if you don't learn the concepts, or the rules, there is no way anyone ever exceeds a very basic level of understanding anyway. At least in chemistry or biology.

[duke o' york]

Maybe we need sciencerap or something to catch peoples attention.

Why dumb it down so that it no longer appeals to those who might have found it interesting but didn't know enough about it?

If you really want ****wits filling the lab then feel free to write a science rap, although given the lingual abilities of most scientists it probably wouldn't rhyme, and be about four lines long, with the rest a series of footnotes explaining that some of the points asserted weren't technically proven as yet, and the rest giving references to those who made the discoveries. Actually, this sounds awesome.
Hawking and Dawkins almost rhyme, yeah? Let's get rapping.

[Ben Kenobi]

Most of the ones I had were all about whether you could interpret the problem. They would let us take in cheat sheets that had all our constants and equations on them.

The purpose of science education for the majority of children is to grow up with enough scientific knowledge that they won't fall for every idiotic conspiracy theory that rolls down the pike, so they'll keep getting their kids vaccinated and stop buying Hummers and stop voting down stem cell research

IOW, they'll fall for our crap and not the other guy's crap. Great argument for intelligent design in science classes, btw.

What should the purpose of science education be for the majority of school children?

To instill a method of problem-solving through the scientific method.

Why do some young people leave school with a 'gross and damaging confusion' of science?

Most are taught by rote, writing down the words of the gods of science.

Why is science regarded as 'too demading' and to be lacking in 'relevance or excitement'?

Because for most people, the things they learn in science have absolutely squat to do with their real life. What most people don't realise is how science shapes the workforce, which incidentally is something they are not going to be taught.

[Jon Miller]

Intelligent design isn't science. It is philosophy.

JM