Well --- if we did mention (let alone study) all those things (ontological &
methodological naturalism) we would (& have been) lambasted for not having
enough formal training in those areas to do them justice (a legitimate concern).
Nobody would be more excited than I to spend days delving into this with my
students, and I do have some limited power to do just that in my classes. But
to do so displaces subject matter that is more explicitly tested and which my
students will be penalized for not knowing. I already struggle to squeeze a
year of physics into a typical high school year. So you are absolutely right
that our students are largely steeped in assumptions that most of them may never
realize or articulate, let alone question. I would like to think that my own
commentary and awareness of the issues (some of that coming from my
participation here with you all) "leaks" through to them enough to get them
thinking. But sadly enough, I doubt any of my students at present could tell
you what the issues about M.N. are, and whatever they think of I.D. they
probably got from their parents and would probably mimic (or in some cases rebel
against) whatever they've heard at home. It would be interesting to know what
kind of science course schedule and curriculum the ASA list participants would
subject a high schooler to if we could design it. Could we even arrive at
agreement among ourselves here about how PoS would be presented to our young
people? I think we all agree that it is important, but beyond that we may
widely divergent ways in how we present the actual content: e.g. Cameron being
eager to warn them of the evil dangers of M.N., myself being eager to help them
distinguish M.N. from O.N. & being critical of the claim that ordinary phenomena
= NO divine activity. and so forth... Or we could take the more objective
looking approach (probably filled with hidden '-isms' of its own) and pretend to
lay all these things on the table and tell the students: You choose! But at
the end of the day, we know we will promote one -ism over another, and that is
as it should be. We should just be open about it and honest when the choice
cannot be backed by the all-coveted empirical evidence.
--Merv
p.s. Moorad --I find it hard to believe that any school (American or not) would
be so arbitrary about their science courses as to arrange their sequence
alphabetically. I suppose anything is possible. We did teach 'physical
sciences' to 9th and biology to 10th at one time, so I guess we even got the
alphabetical order mixed up. They were switched for scheduling reasons if I
remember correctly. But more seriously, my mathematical rationale is still the
driving concern in my mind for physics. You are right that much of conceptual
physics can happen apart from math, but not very far apart. And without the
math, the conceptual understanding is severely constrained.
Quoting David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>:
> 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.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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 16:47:28 2009
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