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Re: What would you do to combat this thinking?
Posted by Kevin on 5/05/08

    On 5/05/08, Bill of SC wrote:

    > The point is not global warming, I'm a believer, the point
    > is shoving one's beliefs down the throat of others. Especially
    > the captive audience of a classroom. Our job, as teachers, is
    > not to indoctrinate but to educate. We shouldn't ever get in a
    > pissing match with a ten year old; after all we are supposed to
    > be the adults. Liberal or conservative our answer to the child
    > should have been the same. "Not everyone believes that Global
    > Climate Change is caused by man, this might be a great project
    > for a research paper, or science fair." The reason our society
    > is becoming so polarized is that some try to interject politics
    > everywhere. Just my opinion.

    In a science class, it is important to get the science right, not
    to say "not everyone believes ...". Science isn't about what
    everyone believes, but about what models work best with the
    available data. There are both scientific and political questions
    around global warming, and it does help kids to separate the
    concepts. Treating the scientific issues as if they were the same
    as political opinions is not teaching science---it is political
    indoctrination!

    When someone lacks the tools to evaluate the models themselves (as
    essentially all the kids, politicians, and even science teachers do
    on issues such as global warming), then it becomes necessary to
    figure out who does have the skills and tools to evaluate the
    science properly, and get their judgments.

    Kids do need to learn how to check the quality of their sources, and
    school is about the only place they are likely to get even a
    suggestion that they do so.

     
     

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