<p>Unless and until teaching science pays the same (or more) as doing science, the level of science education will suffer.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids are scientists, but both enjoy the knowledge acquired in HS science and then AP science classes and required science classes on college.</p>
<p>One has sequenced DNA numerous times and one really understands the principles of physics.</p>
<p>I took two semesters of genetics in college and found it very useful in my college teaching in ways I could never have imagined.</p>
<p>Furthermore, science is increasingly become a factor in political decisions: environmental issues, cloning, etc.</p>
<p>I think science literacy is important for everyone.</p>
<p>If the problem is poor teaching, that’s something that needs to be addressed in a different way.</p>
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<p>Weak argument. I could extrapolate that to just about every subject out there that a kid studies. Until math teachers make as much as wall street financiers or English teachers make as much as a novel writer… It doesn’t really hold. Teaching, in and of itself, is the passion not just the subject matter. What you don’t want is someone who really wanted to be in research or “doing science”, but didn’t manage to get into the field and has “fallen back” on teaching as a last resort. That’s not good for anyone.</p>
<p>Son’s AP Bio teacher was a college professor doing quite well for herself until her H got an endowed position at another college. Two kids later and what she missed most was teaching, not research. She was a passionate teacher who just happened to have science as her subject. And she really showed my kid just how much he could love the molecular level of life. She just loves to teach and does a great job.</p>
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<p>Yes, I know. When I was in college, there were courses nicknamed “Rocks for Jocks” and “Physics for Poets.” I don’t know what my son will be taking, but there are definitely some physical science courses geared towards non-science people. </p>
<p>Mostly, I’ve been playing devil’s advocate. I don’t seriously advocate removing science requirements from the high school curriculum, although I very much agree with the final paragraph of JHS’s post. And I do approve of the core curriculum at Chicago; I know that my son feels he’s benefited from it. If nothing else, he’s been required to read a number of authors he might never have chosen to read on his own (like, say, Adam Smith and Karl Marx).</p>
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<p>And you can just imagine how insulting that is for an All American athlete who happens to be majoring in molecular bio and biochemistry. :)</p>
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<p>This depends on locality. I have a master’s degree in polymer science, BS in chemistry, and 20 years of experience at a large chemical company. If I had spent the last twenty years teaching in our school district, I would be making more money than I do in industry.</p>
<p>D1 plans to teach chemistry. I think she’ll be good. I know she will work hard, and set high standards for her students. Maybe she’ll help raise the bar for science education :).</p>
<p>I definitely agree that we should have many more science classes available for students to take, but as for requiring students to take them, I disagree. I think students should have to take the 3 years of Physics, Biology, and Chemistry, just like they would take 3 years of Spanish, but it shouldn’t be required for them to take.</p>
<p>That way students would be able to choose what classes they want to focus on, whether they are taking more advanced science classes or Liberal Art ones.</p>
<p>I’m very thankful for taking Spanish even though I am more of a math and science person, because of how well it paid off knowing the language in Spain. That being said I would only take 3 years of it.</p>
<p>It would be great if there were advanced math and science classes available, especially in K-8 years. At least in my experience they were severely lacking in advanced math classes.</p>
<p>I doubt that allowing students to take more advanced classes would lead to poorer college performance as it seems students who are the ones who are inclined to take more difficult and advanced class perform at or above the level of most college students. I suppose students who are taking advanced classes who don’t have an interest or aptitude for them would suffer.</p>
<p>Students have to be strong readers to succeed in science classes (and every other class). Making teens take more science classes will not solve anything unless their reading skills are able to handle the reading material.</p>
<p>What I find interesting, if I read the article correctly, is that fewer kids who received a B or better went on to major in science in college. More kids taking science, more Bs and better, did not translate into more science majors.</p>
<p>idad:</p>
<p>while perhaps interesting, it’s not surprising at all. CPS did not mandate a hard science, but a soft science, i.e., enviro and/or earth, as the third course. Thus, students who were interested in science were likely already taking the triumvirate. Those just looking to graduate (with a B?) took science Lite, but which would not prepare them for science in college.</p>
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What on earth does “competency in English” have to do with taking four years of high school English courses?</p>
<p>Doing well in most high school courses has more to do with playing the game than understanding the material, which is why required courses are stupid. Taking the class does not necessarily have anything whatsoever to do with learning the material or becoming a more well-rounded person.</p>
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<p>I think you are completely wrong here; as it is impossbile for you to know what knowledge, you got duirng what subjest in high school, is your brain is now using to make thousands or millions of decision it needs to make.</p>
<p>Your brain is making decision based on your experiences through different exposures. </p>
<p>The only logical co-relation is that the more diverse exposure your brain has the better capabilities it will have to make decisions. </p>
<p>So anything new or different is always helpful and that is why having a more broad education is always more useful. Still if you want to work in one particular field you can learn a big deeper in it but that doesn’t mean you won’t get benefited by the breadth of the knowledge if you studies subject out of your field of interest.</p>
<p>Taking the study literally and reading many of the postings I’m left with a sense that the conclusion that one can reach is that “science illiteracy” is acceptable.</p>
<p>So in thinking about the many issues that dominate the news – global warming, medical care and modern drugs, obesity, nuclear energy, environmental issues affecting fishing, and on and on – how can a citizen have credible opinions, let alone influence decisions without science literacy?</p>
<p>I’m inclined to believe the study insofar as that the participants had difficulty absorbing the science. Whatever the reasons for that failure, deep conclusions about lowering the bar (which is abyssmally low already) on science education are unconvincing.</p>
<p>Agree with the posters who say one can’t know how life is affected by incompetency in the sciences. Donna, maybe your life would be better, but you can’t know that.</p>
<p>Exposure to broad based learning is critical.</p>
<p>No insult intended, Modadunn. Some of the other nicknames for so-called “gut” courses were much worse. Personally, I never saw any correlation at all in college between athletic skills and purported lack of interest in academics.</p>
<p>I’m obviously outnumbered here! And I don’t care enough about the issue for that to bother me; many of you make good points. But I do have to say that it’s a little presumptuous for anyone to think that they know what I did or didn’t get out of a particular course better than I do, and to say things like “it is impossible for you to know what knowledge, you got during what subject in high school, is your brain now using to make thousands or millions of decisions it needs to make.” I got <em>no</em> sustained knowledge from taking chemistry, and, as I said, forgot what little I bothered to learn immediately after finishing the course almost 40 years ago. Trust me. The only thing I really “learned” from that course was that I never wanted to take another science course for the rest of my life, and that the 80-year old instructor believed that activated charcoal tablets were essential to good health, and talked about little else. At least while I was awake. (And this was at one of the best private high schools in New York City, from which 50% of my class went to Ivy League schools. Speaking of lousy science instruction!)</p>
<p>And I haven’t taken another science course since then. (I satisfied my “science” distribution requirements in college by taking some anthropology and sociology courses. I think they’re stricter now!) But not knowing much about chemistry, and never having studied physics or taken math after 11th grade, doesn’t necessarily make me a scientific illiterate incapable of having an informed opinion on “global warming, medical care and modern drugs, obesity, nuclear energy,” etc., at least not compared to 90% of the population! Even if the only publication I regularly read that even peripherally touches on scientific issues (not counting the newspaper) is the Skeptical Inquirer.</p>
<p>A good statistics course would probably be more useful for understanding “global warming, medical care and modern drugs, obesity, nuclear energy, environmental issues affecting fishing, and on and on” than basic chem or physics. Most of the research in these areas is way beyond the level of a basic high school science course at an average public school, so all the informed reader need to is know how to interpret that research. Enter statistics.</p>
<p>I didn’t read through this thread so I don’t know if this has been mentioned or not, but I’ll say it anyway.</p>
<p>Schools have to keep graduation rates high or they get closed down, and some people are really dumb, or don’t care. The teachers and principals would lose their jobs. So when they raise class requirements, requiring harder classes to graduate from high school, they simply make those classes easier to compensate. People get worse because they are now being put into an easier class, and this goes on for a larger and larger portion of their high school career. AP classes compensate for this some, but then you have people who don’t really want, or belong in a college level class, but they didn’t want to be in what amounts to a remedial class, so you in effect reduce the quality of the AP classes (and I bet that’s why you see so many 3s and even lower on AP tests). </p>
<p>Vicious circle.</p>
<p>^ Good idea! A required probability and statistics course would also keep people from blowing money on lotteries. It makes me sick when the Powerball lottery gets real high and they show people on TV buying hundreds of tickets “to improve their chances”. Usually the people doing this look like they cannot afford to spend $10, let alone $100.</p>
<p>Not that I’m adverse to occasionally buying a ticket myself. But since I understand the magnitude of the odds against winning, I only spend $1. That $1 buys me an evening of dreaming about what the family will do if we win :).</p>
<p>quote: Unless and until teaching science pays the same (or more) as doing science, the level of science education will suffer. </p>
<p>Actually, there is some truth to this, imo. I’ll start my post with a disclosure that both my H and I are teachers, in the arts, public schools.</p>
<p>Teachers at colleges do not get the same pay regardless of what they teach. Faculty in engineering and the sciences, law and med schools (and the football coaches) all make much more $ than, say, the philosophy and history faculty. If it weren’t this way you wouldn’t have a science faculty. Engineering profs can’t watch their 21 yr old students graduate and start jobs making more than the profs. It’s supply and demand. (It’s also how much research $ a faculty member can attract.) If public schools would pay the advanced math teachers, the science teachers and other hard-to-staff positions more $, more gifted scientists etc would go into teaching. Unfortunately, in many schools the math and science teachers are terrible because they’re the only ones who showed up for the job opening, but in other subjects the districts can have their pick. People like me would end up making less $, but we’d end up with a better pool of teachers in the sciences. </p>
<p>The best teacher my D ever had was a science teacher–she won our state’s teacher of the year award that year. And her worst teachers have been the other science teachers, and some of the math teachers.</p>
<p>These are difficult subjects for many, and those who excel in them need incentives to share their enthusiasm with students.</p>
<p>The AP situation is really a joke at some schools. It’s true, many kids who have no interest get put into them because it makes the school rank higher. And it’s silly to call a class a “college” level course when the student never has a HS course in the subject. It’s absurd to take “AP” Chemistry without ever having taken high school chemistry. I see many people post on CC how their kid took “AP” everything, when they never had a HS level course. I don’t believe they are really getting a “college” course. I’d like to see the schools bring back challenging honors courses, and leave college courses for college.</p>
<p>Donna, I agree with you. There is no reason for a kid who has no plans to major in science to take chemistry…or for a kid with no plans for a liberal arts career to suffer through comparative literature. I’m a big believer in specialization and tracking.</p>