matching tracksuits

More creationism nonsense in the news. This time, yet another poll:

bq. In a finding that is

likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released Tuesday

found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public

schools.

bq. The poll found that 42 percent of respondents hold strict creationist views, agreeing that

“living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”

bq. In contrast, 48

percent said they believed that humans had evolved over time; but of those, 18 percent said that evolution was

“guided by a supreme being,” and 26 percent said that evolution occurred through natural selection. In all, 64

percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent

favored replacing evolution with creationism.

bq. The poll was conducted July 7-17 by the Pew Forum on

Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The questions about

evolution were asked of 2,000 people, and the margin of error is 2.5 percentage points.

(“Source”:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/238710_religion31.html)

Creationists will never get

through their head that creationism is, at best, a _philosophical_ theory, not a scientific one.

In the

end, though, I have no problem with teachers mentioning the idea of ID and asking students what they think of

it, _as long as it’s not called science_. What will it be called then? I don’t know. I don’t care, as long as

it doesn’t take too much time from the already overburdened curriculum.

What was most striking about

the poll was the data dealing with a simple question: Who should decide what’s taught?

bq. The poll

showed 41 percent of Americans want parents to have the primary say over how evolution is taught, compared with

28 percent who say teachers and scientists should decide and 21 percent who say school boards should. Asked

whether they believed creationism should be taught instead of evolution, 38 percent were in favor, and 49

percent were opposed.

Parents decide? In the end, I guess they do — they’re going to elect the officials

who will force this nonsense down the public’s throat. But should they have an active hand in deciding what’s

taught?

What would a nice response be for a science teacher? Mine would be along these lines:

bq. Great! Saves me some time. You’re going to do this _pro bono_, right? And while you’re at it, since

I didn’t study _any_ of this in college and am completely unqualified to teach it, why don’t you make out my

lesson plans for me? And write and grade the tests? Shoot, just come in and teach, and I’ll simply serve as a

pedagogical consultant. You do the work, I get the pay. Sounds great.

Maybe parents want to come in and

decide the entire curriculum and teach it as well? Teachers will just wander about the internet…

What to do about the looting in Katrina’s wake? On All Things Considered this afternoon there was a story about looters heading into a grocery store in full view of a police officer.

I’m sympathetic to that, and I’m not entirely sure I’d call that “looting.” After all, these people need food. One woman interviewed was crying, saying she’d always seen looting on television and clucked her tongue at the selfish barbarism. But now, what choice does she have?

Looting for survival is one thing. Looting for monetary gain?

Looting broke out in Biloxi and in New Orleans, in some cases in full view of police and National Guardsmen. On New Orleans’ Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, looters sloshed through hip-deep water and ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.

“The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked,” said Jackie Clarkson, a New Orleans councilwoman. “We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue.”

Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley said that in one case, a looter shot and wounded another looter. (Source)

What to do?

Shoot them.

That’s my initial response. If they’re willing to take advantage of people in such a situation, they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They are nothing but a drain on society, contributing nothing, only taking and abusing.

Of course being the bleeding heart that I am, those are just thoughts that rattling around for a little while until I come to my senses and realize that that’s just vengeful hate that in itself would accomplish nothing.

Still, there’s one thing you can say about such draconian measures: they work in the short term. I’ll bet it would cut down on the looting if they knew a head shot was the potential price.

But is that the kinder, gentler nation we really want?

Erin O’Connor at Critical Mass has a fascinating and yet disturbing post about a way of dealing with student profanity…by allowing it.

An English high school has decided to cope with the problem of student profanity by tolerating it. Beginning this fall, students will be allowed to curse at their teachers, just so long as they don’t say “f — k” more than five times during a lesson. Part of the new policy involves keeping a running tally on the blackboard of how many times the word “f — k” has been uttered during a given lesson–a practice that promises to distract students.

I for one would feel this as a complete abandonment on the part of the principal of any acknowledgment even of my authority as teacher.

The post is here.

A first-time experience and I keep quiet — that can’t have happened too very often. But the details about the events of yesterday, fascinating though they were, will remain distanced from any comments I might make here about it. The experience: I was a sub. First time.

In an effort to gain a face in the local school system, I am trying substitute teaching, and I got my first call yesterday morning.

“Substitute teaching.” That in itself seems to be an oxymoron. Teaching is a profession requiring such intimate knowledge — not the least of which, the kids’ names — that “substitute teacher” has all the ring of “substitute shrink.”

“Yes, I know you’d rather be talking to Dr. White, but he’s away on urgent business and his office asked me to come down and fill in for him. Now then, what seems to be the problem?”

It just doesn’t seem like it would work.

Yet at an orientation session for new substitute teachers last week, I and other new subs learned that “subbing isn’t the glorified babysitting it used to be” and that subs are expected to continue on instruction. In other words, be a substitute teacher and not just a substitute authority figure. I’m not sure it was ever anything else, but I do think that there was less expectation of what subs would accomplish in the classroom, say, twenty years ago.

The Day

I survived. Not only that, but I enjoyed it. It felt good to be in a classroom again. With the beginning of the school year here (and approaching in Poland — 1 September), it was difficult to keep from feeling a tinge of sadness at the thought of not teaching this year. The call Friday morning helped alleviate that.

Seven years of teaching has taught me one invaluable thing about the profession — take _nothing_ they do personally. Any silly, probing, “let’s-see-what- he-does-now” behavior is directed at my role, not my person. That realization will be key to being an effective sub.

I spent the afternoon with a group of seventh graders, the first time I’ve worked with that age group in many years.

Six weeks of my student teaching was in a seventh grade classroom, and those kids, according to my reckoning, have just finished college, so it’s been a while.

Seventh grade — an interesting age group, for they’re right on that border between “child” and “young adult,” beginning to realize that they’re not kids anymore but not quite sure how to handle that.