"Teachers first, scientists second"

[Quintessence]

No mate. If you want to be rude and insulting - I'm not going to even bother reading the rest of your comment. I'm not on a soapbox, and don't need to listen to you at all.

Okay. You haven't been listening to what I've been saying in the first place, so this is just a continuation of the status quo. I concluded you're on a soapbox because you are spectacularly missing the point I'm trying to make and instead doing nothing but preach to the choir.

 

[Valjean]

What I find disturbing is how these students expected to get a job teaching a science they didn't believe in. Who would hire them? How would they even pass their first exam, much less earn a degree?

You wouldn't hire a flat-Earther to teach geology, or an aeronautics instructor who didn't believe in heavier than air flight.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So... basically you guys are saying that these poor prospective biology teachers (who are currently students themselves) shouldn't feel what they're feeling?

Pretty much. They are taking a position of teaching. This means teaching people who may have conflicting views. If you cannot stand firm in your convictions, step aside for someone who will, especially when that platform is the education of the future.

 

[Me Myself]

So... basically you guys are saying that these poor prospective biology teachers (who are currently students themselves) shouldn't feel what they're feeling?

Apologies, but that strikes me as pretty insensitive.

Also, it would remain to be seen how they actually handle the issue in practice. Based on the data, we simply don't know how this fear will actually impact their teaching. Self-report answers have some pretty strong limitations, guys.

That seems to be precisely what they are saying.

I ll assume they are similarly fearless in their jobs. Everyday, all the time. o.0

 

[Me Myself]

No. Pretending that there is anything controversial about evolution is unprofessional and stupid. It is not a delicate matter, it is established scientific fact and has been so for more than 150 years.

There IS something controversial about it and it IS a delicate matter in the US. Pretending there is not and its not is simply because it shouldnt be is naive and idealistic. It doesnt really work.

 

[Me Myself]

So how many of the Terminators speaking here are teachers themselves? and have you never had an uncomfortable day or subject at work?

 

[Quintessence]

Pretty much. They are taking a position of teaching. This means teaching people who may have conflicting views. If you cannot stand firm in your convictions, step aside for someone who will, especially when that platform is the education of the future.

On what basis do you claim that these few dozen prospective biology teachers can't stand firm on the material? That doesn't seem to be suggested by what little information we have about this study from the blog post.

Also, good luck populating classrooms with sufficient teachers with such criteria. I can see it now on the job description: "You are not allowed to feel nervous or anxious about your ability to manage classroom conflicts. Any anxiety and nervousness will be grounds for termination."

 

[Quintessence]

So how many of the Terminators speaking here are teachers themselves? and have you never had an uncomfortable day or subject at work?

Perhaps by some miracle.

Relying on pedagogy doesn't mean you don't teach the material. It means you do your damn job and consider that you need to approach controversial subjects differently. If you do it wrong, your students are going to put you on ignore and not listen. You need to disarm it, make it approachable And that is not easy to do. I mean, the purpose of teaching isn't simply to teach. It's to get students to learn. Ignoring that the controversy exists in the minds of your students is a recipe for disaster. The approaches I've seen from educators is to address the elephant in the room, put it in a cage, then move on with the instruction. Hell, one of my colleagues spends an entire lecture going over misconceptions about evolutionary theory (i.e., the "controversy") because in his 20+ years of experience, not doing that means failing to get students to successfully learn the content.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Also, good luck populating classrooms with sufficient teachers with such criteria. I can see it now on the job description: "You are not allowed to feel nervous or anxious about your ability to manage classroom conflicts. Any anxiety and nervousness will be grounds for termination."

It has nothing to do with nervousness or anxiety. It's taking a stand and firmly planting appropriate biology lessons into a biology curriculum, and realizing they have the support of the scientific community at large as well as higher courts who tend to favor science over mythos in a science class. If a student acts up, tell them there are in a biology class, where they will learn biology lessons. If they are disruptive, administer disciplinary action. Had fear held Darwin back, he never would have published Origin of Species. It took bold steps forward to get evolution worked into the American education system to the level it's at, and more bold steps are needed to get it to where it needs to be.

 

[Quintessence]

It has nothing to do with nervousness or anxiety. It's taking a stand and firmly planting appropriate biology lessons into a biology curriculum, and realizing they have the support of the scientific community at large as well as higher courts who tend to favor science over mythos in a science class. If a student acts up, tell them there are in a biology class, where they will learn biology lessons. If they are disruptive, administer disciplinary action. Had fear held Darwin back, he never would have published Origin of Species. It took bold steps forward to get evolution worked into the American education system to the level it's at, and more bold steps are needed to get it to where it needs to be.

Okay.

Again: on what basis do you claim that these few dozen prospective biology teachers can't stand firm on the material because they experience nervousness or anxiety about teaching material their students will find controversial?

I think an awful lot more is being read into these small snippets from the article than is actually there.

 

[Me Myself]

What I find disturbing is how these students expected to get a job teaching a science they didn't believe in. Who would hire them? How would they even pass their first exam, much less earn a degree?

You wouldn't hire a flat-Earther to teach geology, or an aeronautics instructor who didn't believe in heavier than air flight.

The study says they dont believe in evolution?

My understanding is that the study says they are nervious about teaching something that THEY KNOW a lot of people dont want to hear.

Again, I would love to hear from anyone here saying if they arte never nervous about the difficult parts of their jobs, specially your first times doing them.

 

[Me Myself]

Perhaps by some miracle.

Relying on pedagogy doesn't mean you don't teach the material. It means you do your damn job and consider that you need to approach controversial subjects differently. If you do it wrong, your students are going to put you on ignore and not listen. You need to disarm it, make it approachable And that is not easy to do. I mean, the purpose of teaching isn't simply to teach. It's to get students to learn. Ignoring that the controversy exists in the minds of your students is a recipe for disaster. The approaches I've seen from educators is to address the elephant in the room, put it in a cage, then move on with the instruction. Hell, one of my colleagues spends an entire lecture going over misconceptions about evolutionary theory (i.e., the "controversy") because in his 20+ years of experience, not doing that means failing to get students to successfully learn the content.

EXACTLY

A lot of people here are all "What ? nervious? No, if their students dont believe in evolution and resist they are ignorant and you should not care about them and just continue spating facts!"

I am really glad none of em are teachers if that is truly their approach, cause it sounds like they could be replaced by a youtube video on the subject.

 

[Quintessence]

Again, I would love to hear from anyone here saying if they arte never nervous about the difficult parts of their jobs, specially your first times doing them.

Oh gawds.

First time I knew I was going to be giving a lecture to a big room of college students? I went to find the classroom to sit in it for a while to acclimate. The damned room had stadium seating. As I stood there at the front, I thought about them all looking down at me.

I got over it.

 

[Bunyip]

There IS something controversial about it and it IS a delicate matter in the US. Pretending there is not and its not is simply because it shouldnt be is naive and idealistic. It doesnt really work.

The controversy is political, not scientific. The controversy should be taught in the context of religion and politics, not science. More importantly, that there is a controversy must not effect the science curriculum.

Given that the fraud here was exposed some years ago, children should be given a class exploring why something that was established to be a deliberate attempt to subvert the US education system is STILL being promoted. They need to understand why a fraud is still being perpetuated years after it was exposed.

 

[Skwim]

I don't find it even remotely "sad" that these prospective biology teachers are nervous about dealing with "controversy" in the classroom, or that they feel comfortable relying on what they learned for sound pedagogy.

It's more than that. From the article:

" . . .many were “concerned about their ability to navigate controversy initiated by a student, parent, administrator, or other members of the community.”

It's also dealing with the negativity from outside the classroom. Would you look forward to dealing with outsiders who don't like what you're teaching and may well insist that you stop?

I find that to be a perfectly normal, human response to dealing with conflict.

So because it's normal it can't be sad? That's a rather crass attitude.

 

[Skwim]

Yes, it does. These teachers are not just teachers but biology teachers. They need to just get over it and do the responsible thing and teach students how evolution is scientific fact, and leave creationism out of it.

The only "proper way" to deal with the "issue" is to teach science and not religious mythos. If a student insists, the only appropriate thing to do is to teach that student so they understand why creationism does not hold up as a science theory and how evolution has a mountain of evidence to support and how this evidence works to support it. If the "issue" is handled properly and is successful the teach will have the students shedding their fairytale believes and replacing them with scientific knowledge.

The solution was laid out very neatly in post 4 by Orbit.

". . .there are pedagogical ways to avoid religious conflict when teaching evolution. One is simply to lay out that there are 3 epistemologies: religious, philosophical, and scientific, and to say in this class we are using the scientific epistemology. You're not denying their beliefs, you're saying "we're taking the scientific point of view in this class".

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Again, I would love to hear from anyone here saying if they arte never nervous about the difficult parts of their jobs, specially your first times doing them.

I am not. I've even gave a presentation at a symposium (that was watched by some of the higher ups and more prestigious faculty on campus) that included images of Muhammad, and because it was relevant to the topic (this particular point being the differences between pre-9/11 when nobody cared and post-9/11 when people became afraid) I was not worried, scared, nervous, and I had no anxiety about it even though I know there are many Muslims at school, many of them who are from the Middle East. My presentation was even one of the finalists for best presentation, despite the fact that showing images of Muhammad is a very controversial issue.

 

[Skwim]

The study says they dont believe in evolution?

My understanding is that the study says they are nervious about teaching something that THEY KNOW a lot of people dont want to hear.

Again, I would love to hear from anyone here saying if they arte never nervous about the difficult parts of their jobs, specially your first times doing them.

From the OP article

"All the students were training to be biology teachers; many were not comfortable with the theory of evolution . . . ."

Not uncomfortable teaching it, but uncomfortable with evolution itself, which I take as having serious doubts about it. Would these make good biology teachers? Not in my book.​

 

[Bunyip]

What I find disturbing is how these students expected to get a job teaching a science they didn't believe in. Who would hire them? How would they even pass their first exam, much less earn a degree?

You wouldn't hire a flat-Earther to teach geology, or an aeronautics instructor who didn't believe in heavier than air flight.

Exactly. If they are 'nervous' about teaching evolution it is because they are politically or religiously opposed to it and thus should not be in a position to teach it.

 

[Quintessence]

It's also dealing with the negativity from outside the classroom. Would you look forward to dealing with outsiders who don't like what you're teaching and may well insist that you stop?

Fair enough. I don't mean to suggest that the general situation isn't unfortunate, because it is. But I think being excessively judgmental of prospective biology teachers is counterproductive. Bunyip's post below is a perfect example of this.

So because it's normal it can't be sad? That's a rather crass attitude.

If that's the judgement you wish to pass, so be it. But you know, if I let myself be sad about normal things all the time, I'd be clinically depressed. No thanks. I'll stick to just considering it unfortunate.

If they are 'nervous' about teaching evolution it is because they are politically or religiously opposed to it...

LOGIC FAIL: conclusion does not follow from premise.
EVIDENCE FAIL: conclusion is not supported by the evidence in the study, which, from what little information we have, doesn't explore the reasons for a prospective biology teacher's reticence.

But hey, if it's secretly your goal to feed into the YEC agenda by alienating and demonizing your allies, mission accomplished!