Merv,
In public schools in the USA all these subjects have ontological naturalism
inculcated in them at all levels. But philosophy of science is never
taught, never mentioned. Yet it taints all the subjects you have listed.
Your assumptions about naturalism, in a Christian school, may differ from
what government schools assume. At no point is critical thinking applied
to these philosophical assumptions in either government schools or in
religious schools. The relationship between ontological naturalism and
methodological naturalism is never mentioned. The fact that a consensus or
lack of consensus about these subjects changes over time, and has changed
over time, is never mentioned. The impact of philosophy upon theology is
never mentioned. In the atmosphere of this silence students come to
believe there is a division between science and religion.
On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:02 AM, <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
> I'm teaching at a Christian school, but this course sequence should still
> be
> fairly typical, I believe in larger public schools.
>
> 9th grade: Biology
> 10th grade: Physical sciences (this would include geology, meteorology,
> chemistry, physics, some astronomy)
> 11th grade: chemistry
> 12th grade: physics
>
> Other electives are also available, though not every semester or year such
> as
> Human anatomy, zoology, or botany.
>
>
> It isn't that students can't take these courses out of sequence ---if the
> scheduling allowed for such a thing (& in our small school --it wouldn't)
> they
> could pile up all four science classes in one year if they wanted, but who
> would
> want to do that? So in a practical sense, moving one science class
> elsewhere
> means encouraging the re-scheduling for another for the obvious reason that
> we
> want sciences spread out over their high school years.
>
> gotta go --time for geometry class.
>
> --Merv
>
>
> Quoting Cameron Wybrow <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>:
>
> > Merv:
> >
> > I think I'm not understanding you.
> >
> > Are you saying that if the subject of evolution were moved up to a higher
> > grade, physics would have to be moved down to a lower grade to
> compensate?
> > That doesn't follow, unless I badly misunderstand your system.
> >
> > I wasn't speaking of moving an entire biology *course* to a higher grade,
> > but of moving *material* from a lower-grade biology course to a
> higher-grade
> >
> > biology course. For example, if biology in your school is studied in
> ninth
> > grade and eleventh grade, I was suggesting moving *the evolution unit*
> (the
> > two or three weeks spent studying evolution) from the ninth-grade course
> to
> > the eleventh grade course, and correspondingly moving something else
> (maybe
> > ecology, it doesn't matter, since it's only for illustrative purposes)
> down
> > from the eleventh grade course to the ninth grade course. If physics
> were
> > offered in, say, tenth grade and twelfth grade, it wouldn't be affected
> in
> > the slightest by the shuffling of material between biology courses. So
> I'm
> > missing your point.
> >
> > Or are you saying that biology is only offered *once* in all of high
> school,
> >
> > and physics is only offered *once* in all of high school? If that's the
> > case, American science education is in bad shape indeed.
> >
> > Please describe the system for me. Suppose I enter ninth grade in a
> typical
> >
> > American school -- use your school if you wish -- and I know right from
> the
> > start that I want to be a scientist or engineer, and I want to take
> *every*
> > science course available to me at *every* grade level. What would the
> > sequence be? What could I take in ninth grade? In tenth? In eleventh?
> In
> >
> > twelfth? How many could I get in total? (Leave out the math courses; I
> > just want to know about the science courses.)
> >
> > Please indicate also if you are talking about semestered courses (running
> > from Sept to Jan, or from Feb to June) or full-year courses (running from
> > Sept to June).
> >
> > Cameron.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <mrb22667@kansas.net>
> > To: "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
> > Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:28 PM
> > Subject: Re: [asa] YEC the default Christian belief? (was: (aliens)
> November
> >
> > Newsletter from Reasonable Faith)
> >
> >
> > > Quoting Cameron Wybrow <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>:
> > >
> > > That's an interesting proposal (to move biology to an 11th or 12th
> grade
> > > level.
> > > And maybe it would accomplish a "side-stepping" of controversy as you
> > > suggest.
> > > As a physical sciences teacher, though, I do enjoy the luxury of
> teaching
> > > physics as a senior level class when students have some algebra and
> > > trigonometry
> > > (and maybe even some calculus) under their belt. Teaching it earlier
> > > would
> > > seriously weaken the content. It would be interesting to hear if high
> > > school
> > > level life science teachers would or could teach biology more
> rigorously
> > > to a
> > > senior than they do to a sophomore.
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> > "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
> >
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Nov 19 12:57:55 2009
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