I started writing here because I spend all day working in silence and I get home and I want to talk and talk and talk and talk and poor Mr. Scientist, who has real humans for co-workers instead of slaves of Cthulu, he has to listen. Plus, I go on about the same things over and over to him, and I’m sure he’s tired of hearing in how many ways our tech cannot draw a straight line between two points, how my Old White Guy Advisor is a stereotyping stereotype, how hard science is and how hard science is for me and why didn’t my experiment work and I want to quit, every day, and Dow Chemical has an opening, do you want to move back to Virginia TOMORROW? How about next week?
I looked back at what I’ve written so far about my least favorite misconceptions and so on, and I realized that what I am not writing about, because it is so hard for me to let it out, is my anger.
I am furious that American schools don’t teach science to their kids, that your average eighteen-year-old can’t tell you where his liver is or what ATP is, that my fellow citizens are largely unable to evaluate the spurious pseudoscientific claims being made to them every day, and they are being duped, and they lack the tools to understand their own medical treatment- and there’s a lot of medical treatment nowadays- and they should know better. Why have our schools failed so wretchedly?
Related question: why can I teach in a private school, but not a public school, with a PhD?
[More later.]
That last question perplexes me and always has. Teaching shouldn't need to be a secret society closed to people who actually have skills and knowledge in subject areas!
ReplyDeleteThe science question vexes me terribly. Part of the problem, I think, is that few people have really figured out how to express key scientific concepts and facts to non-specialists. I wish there was more of an effort to create scientists who are comfortable communicating in the language of lay people, as well as making average Americans more comfortable with the specialized language of science!
ReplyDeleteATP is energy, right?!?! For cells? I was a bit of a bio nerd in high school. It's stuff that still interests me a lot. And I agree with you on the PhD thing...wtf?
ReplyDelete"I am furious that American schools don’t teach science to their kids, that your average eighteen-year-old can’t tell you where his liver is or what ATP is, that my fellow citizens are largely unable to evaluate the spurious pseudoscientific claims being made to them every day, and they are being duped, and they lack the tools to understand their own medical treatment- and there’s a lot of medical treatment nowadays- and they should know better. Why have our schools failed so wretchedly?"
ReplyDeleteYES!!! YES!!!
Sorry, I got a little heated there. let me just say that I really, really agree with you. A lot. It bothers me that many of my classmates (who all have previous B.S. degrees, most in science) didn't know where THEIR own liver was. And we're vet students!!!!
Sigh.
Songbird, what also really steams is how untrained most of my science teachers were (in public school)! Plus how private schools get a lot of the smart PhDs because they pay better. And don't even get me started on how underpaid teachers are.
ReplyDeletePhantom, I do think this is a huge problem. I try to make it my mission in life to spread science understanding, but there is NO selection for this! One more way grad school should train people, but doesn't.
NSLS, you're absolutely right on ATP! You know more than 90% of everyone else! Gaaah!
Jenevieve, I have to confess even I'm not *entirely* sure where my liver is. Somewhere in the back. :) But surely vets should have a better grasp of anatomy than biochemists!
I do like being right...sigh...
ReplyDelete