This morning on breakfast-news TV* there was discussion of the ethics class issue, between a representative from the NSW Council of Churches and another fellow whose affiliation I didn't catch but I presume to be representing the St. James Centre - the group that designed the syllabus for the ethics class trial.
*(this was on ABC2 - the ABC is basically a government-owned but editorially independent national broadcaster - their breakfast news and current affairs coverage is substantially more serious than on the commercial networks, which tend to be more like the US network-style breakfast programs - a glossy entertainment magazine of celebrities, diets and other ephemera)
Well, the guy from the Council of Churches was pretty upset that the government was going to go ahead and implement the recommendations, but his central objection was telling. He stated that the biggest problem was that the students *currently* getting religious instruction ("scripture class") *would have the option to take the ethics class*.
That's right - he was objecting primarily to parents having the choice, if their child was currently going to religious classes. But he didn't actually explain why the choice was bad.
Why is this? Well, the problem was he couldn't raise a serious objection to the kids not currently in religious classes having the choice of attending the ethics class instead of doing nothing (though he did attack the content of the syllabus also) - the interviewer asked him specifically what objection he could raise to then having the choice. So he was only left with the fact that the kids not already sitting out the various forms of available religious instruction would be able to choose to opt for ethics classes as well. [The church lobbhy have even argued at one point that the kids in religious classes would miss out on instruction in ethics (!) ... oops. Er, no, we didn't mean to say we don't teach that.]
This choice is a problem for the churches. While about 20% of Australians list no religion on the census, many of the ones in NSW still have their children attend school religious classes for a variety of reasons. There is also an even larger group that do have a nominal religion and list it on the census (i.e. they list whatever religion ran the religious class they attended themselves when they were children, which would have been the church one of their parents actually attended at some point) - these "nominally religious" people do send their kids to religious instruction - but many of them would choose not to if there was a serious alternative.
Provided sufficient volunteers can be found to run the ethics classes, this could easily halve the attendance at religious instruction (it's what they feared before the trial began, and it's what actually happened).
Hardly anyone actually goes to church any more (to my recollection, something like 10% of Australians attend church more than twice a year, other than weddings and funerals - and most weddings and funerals aren't even held in churches any more). Apart from that core, the rest of the kids are "up for grabs", and they know parents will vote with their feet.
Sundary school is largely a wasteland. The religious classes are, for many, the only place the churches have to get their hooks in... so they're hanging on for dear life to the one really solid free shot at impressionable minds they've got - an advantage they've had entrenched in legislation for 150 years now. The legislation won't change, but for the first time there will be an alternative to religious instruction for those who opt out of religious class, and many, many more are going to take that option.
They're afraid (and they made that quite clear) that free choice will mean an even more rapid demise than they're experiencing now. And they're doing whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen.
Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Science literacy in Australia and the US
A survey (pdf) commissioned by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies of Australian science literacy has somewhat mixed results.
(Update: See also an ABC News (Australia) report on it here. )
The report on the survey, which was conducted just over a week ago by Auspoll, seems show some disturbing results, though others are mildly encouraging.
For example, 30% of Australians think humans and dinosaurs coexisted, and 39% don't realize it takes a year for the Earth to orbit the Sun. On the other hand, I found that 13% of people knew that 3% of the world's water was fresh surprisingly high.
The survey replicates a survey conducted in 2009 by Harris Interactive for the California Academy of Sciences. The press release (which contains all the information I can find online) only describes a brief subset of the results, but I have compared everything I have information on.
Steve Novella commented on the US survey last year; his questions and criticisms would apply to both surveys.
Summary of the results of the Australian poll (correct answers underlined):
One highly amusing outcome of this survey is that even though only 71% of people think "evolution is currently occurring", 77% think that "humans are influencing the evolution of other species". Presumably at least six percent of people think humans are affecting evolution while isn't happening. The cognitive dissonance must be astounding.
Here's the corresponding information I was able to pull out of the Calacademy press release:
- 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
- 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time
- 47% of adults can approximate (within 5%) the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.
- 15% of respondents answered this question with the exactly correct answer of 70%
- Less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet's water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%).
- Science eduction: Essential or Very Important to the US economy: 77%
The Calacademy press release didn't mention the evolution questions, but we can do a comparison with another Harris Interactive poll (pdf) which suggests that rates of "do not believe in evolution" and "not sure" in Question 5 above are about half of the equivalent rates in the US, roughly consistent with other figures I have seen.
Here's a graphic showing a comparison of the corresponding the percentage of correct answers from the two surveys on Questions 1-4 and the percentage rating science education as "essential" or "very important" for the national economy:
(Graphic generated in the free statistical package R)
Australia is outperforming the US (pretty handily on some questions), but that may not be saying a whole lot.
(Update: See also an ABC News (Australia) report on it here. )
The report on the survey, which was conducted just over a week ago by Auspoll, seems show some disturbing results, though others are mildly encouraging.
For example, 30% of Australians think humans and dinosaurs coexisted, and 39% don't realize it takes a year for the Earth to orbit the Sun. On the other hand, I found that 13% of people knew that 3% of the world's water was fresh surprisingly high.
The survey replicates a survey conducted in 2009 by Harris Interactive for the California Academy of Sciences. The press release (which contains all the information I can find online) only describes a brief subset of the results, but I have compared everything I have information on.
Steve Novella commented on the US survey last year; his questions and criticisms would apply to both surveys.
Summary of the results of the Australian poll (correct answers underlined):
Q1: How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun?
One Year: 61
One Day: 28
One Month: 2
One Week: 1
Not Sure: 8
Q2: Is the following statement true or false? The earliest humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs.
False: 70
True: 30
Not Sure: 0
Q3: What percentage of the Earth’s surface is covered by water?
0-25% : 0
26-50% : 2
51-60% : 4
61-69% : 9
70% : 41
71-80% : 33
81-100%: 6
Not Sure: 6
Q4: What percentage of the Earth’s water is fresh water?
0% 0
1% 5
2% 5
3% 13
4%-10% 23
11%-25% 19
26%-50% 9
51%-60% 3
61%-70% 1
71%-80% 0
81%-100% 0
Not sure 22
Q5: Do you think that evolution is occurring?
Yes, I think evolution is currently occurring: 71
No, I do not think evolution is currently occurring: 8
No, I do not believe in evolution: 10
Not Sure: 11
Q6: Do you think that humans are influencing the evolution of other species?
Yes, I think humans are influencing the evolution of other species: 77
No, I do not think humans are influencing the evolution of other species: 7
No, I do not believe in evolution: 9
Not Sure: 7
Q7: In your opinion, how important is science education to the Australian economy?
Absolutely essential: 42
Very important: 38
Somewhat important: 16
Not at all important: 2
Not Sure: 2
One highly amusing outcome of this survey is that even though only 71% of people think "evolution is currently occurring", 77% think that "humans are influencing the evolution of other species". Presumably at least six percent of people think humans are affecting evolution while isn't happening. The cognitive dissonance must be astounding.
Here's the corresponding information I was able to pull out of the Calacademy press release:
- 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
- 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time
- 47% of adults can approximate (within 5%) the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.
- 15% of respondents answered this question with the exactly correct answer of 70%
- Less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet's water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%).
- Science eduction: Essential or Very Important to the US economy: 77%
The Calacademy press release didn't mention the evolution questions, but we can do a comparison with another Harris Interactive poll (pdf) which suggests that rates of "do not believe in evolution" and "not sure" in Question 5 above are about half of the equivalent rates in the US, roughly consistent with other figures I have seen.
Here's a graphic showing a comparison of the corresponding the percentage of correct answers from the two surveys on Questions 1-4 and the percentage rating science education as "essential" or "very important" for the national economy:
(Graphic generated in the free statistical package R)
Australia is outperforming the US (pretty handily on some questions), but that may not be saying a whole lot.
Monday, July 19, 2010
The fruits of accomodationism?
PZ and Jerry Coyne have both discussed the PLOS paper on a survey of high school biology teachers in the US.
The graphic I want to discuss is here:
If we remove those who failed to express an opinion (the same in both surveys - 9%) we can do a "triangle plot" or Ternary plot, showing the three other percentages:
On this plot, moving up is "more creationism", moving (roughly) southwest is "more acceptance of evolution" and moving southeast is "more acceptance of ID".
We see that the general public (in blue) and the high school biology teachers (red) are not in the same place. We can't from this tell for sure whether it's the training of biology teachers and the materials and curricula that they have to work with that makes a difference or whether those who might become biology teachers are a priori different from the rest of the population, but numerous anecdotes (which attest to the fact that education does change people's opinions) suggest that training and the teacher's available teaching materials (like textbooks and so on) and curricula will have a substantial impact on what positions they will endorse. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful motivator.
Since training at a university level will generally tend to be based directly on evolution rather than be ID-oriented, while school-level teaching materials and curricula will tend to be more influenced by (for example) NCSE policy, one has to wonder at the overall effect of the two.
If we attribute the shift between the red and the blue points largely to effects other than pre-disposition, we must say that these have produced a shift away from Creationism... but not even slightly shifted toward the position of actual biological science relative to ID.
The suggestion that I take away from this is that this may be in part to the effectively accomodationist stances of influential organizations like the NCSE - by openly tolerating, sometimes even advocating unscientific positions like ID (that God "guides evolution", rather than the scientific position of evolution operating by natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift and so on is basically ID), they merely succeed in replacing one load of unscientific nonsense with another.
This is not science education.
Enough with accomodationism. Let's advocate actual science, and get everyone's favourite god(s) out of biology class.
Even though I am in Australia, this sort of thing has particular relevance for me because the Australian school curriculum in under review right now... and while the science curriculum is safe, look what's in the senior History curriculum:
Yep. Maybe if we looked at the controversy itself as historical, this would count as 19th century history. But this is the Ancient History curriculum... as if human origins and radio-carbon dating are actually substantially in doubt now as being useful for informing us about the past - as if we don't really know these things quite well, and as if actual human origins (and carbon dating, for crying out loud) were at issue.
If these are controversies, why not look at the flat earth/round earth controvery, and while we're at it, germ theory too?
I think accomodationism is poisoning our education, by trying to make us accept as equally reasonable points of view that have nothing to do with the actual science.
I think it's insidious. I think it ruins everything it touches.
If it doesn't work, try something else.
Here's an idea - why don't we try NOT being accomodationist for a decade or so. Try actually insisting on science as science - no holds barred. Actually advocate for science. Insist that we teach the accepted scientific positions (and even the parts where there's some actual scientific disagreement if you like) as is. Without trying to fit in everyone's pet unscientific ideas as well, just because it makes them feel all warm-and-fuzzy.
Let's see what happens.
The graphic I want to discuss is here:
If we remove those who failed to express an opinion (the same in both surveys - 9%) we can do a "triangle plot" or Ternary plot, showing the three other percentages:
On this plot, moving up is "more creationism", moving (roughly) southwest is "more acceptance of evolution" and moving southeast is "more acceptance of ID".
We see that the general public (in blue) and the high school biology teachers (red) are not in the same place. We can't from this tell for sure whether it's the training of biology teachers and the materials and curricula that they have to work with that makes a difference or whether those who might become biology teachers are a priori different from the rest of the population, but numerous anecdotes (which attest to the fact that education does change people's opinions) suggest that training and the teacher's available teaching materials (like textbooks and so on) and curricula will have a substantial impact on what positions they will endorse. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful motivator.
Since training at a university level will generally tend to be based directly on evolution rather than be ID-oriented, while school-level teaching materials and curricula will tend to be more influenced by (for example) NCSE policy, one has to wonder at the overall effect of the two.
If we attribute the shift between the red and the blue points largely to effects other than pre-disposition, we must say that these have produced a shift away from Creationism... but not even slightly shifted toward the position of actual biological science relative to ID.
The suggestion that I take away from this is that this may be in part to the effectively accomodationist stances of influential organizations like the NCSE - by openly tolerating, sometimes even advocating unscientific positions like ID (that God "guides evolution", rather than the scientific position of evolution operating by natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift and so on is basically ID), they merely succeed in replacing one load of unscientific nonsense with another.
This is not science education.
Enough with accomodationism. Let's advocate actual science, and get everyone's favourite god(s) out of biology class.
Even though I am in Australia, this sort of thing has particular relevance for me because the Australian school curriculum in under review right now... and while the science curriculum is safe, look what's in the senior History curriculum:
UNIT 2A, pg 8
Controversies
Students develop their historical skills in an investigation of TWO of the following controversial issues:
a) human origins (e.g. Darwin’s theory of evolution and its critics).
b) dating the past (e.g. radio-carbon dating, tracing human migrations using DNA)
...
Yep. Maybe if we looked at the controversy itself as historical, this would count as 19th century history. But this is the Ancient History curriculum... as if human origins and radio-carbon dating are actually substantially in doubt now as being useful for informing us about the past - as if we don't really know these things quite well, and as if actual human origins (and carbon dating, for crying out loud) were at issue.
If these are controversies, why not look at the flat earth/round earth controvery, and while we're at it, germ theory too?
I think accomodationism is poisoning our education, by trying to make us accept as equally reasonable points of view that have nothing to do with the actual science.
I think it's insidious. I think it ruins everything it touches.
If it doesn't work, try something else.
Here's an idea - why don't we try NOT being accomodationist for a decade or so. Try actually insisting on science as science - no holds barred. Actually advocate for science. Insist that we teach the accepted scientific positions (and even the parts where there's some actual scientific disagreement if you like) as is. Without trying to fit in everyone's pet unscientific ideas as well, just because it makes them feel all warm-and-fuzzy.
Let's see what happens.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Unconsciously annoying
Here's a peeve that I've been seeing all over the place the last couple of weeks:
"I'll leave that to your conscious"
. . . That's conscience, dammit.
"I'll leave that to your conscious"
. . . That's conscience, dammit.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Two spins, one story
In looking for some links to a completely different story, I came across two different headlines for exactly the same piece of news:
NSW students 'above average in all areas' (which goes on to say "over 90 per cent at, or over, the national minimum benchmarks")
Story quotes the State Education Minister:"It's just such a tribute to our teachers, to our principals and of course to our kids themselves. They've done brilliantly."
vs
10pc of students fail to meet minimum literacy standards
and quotes the Federal Education Minister:"While it was very pleasing that 90 per cent of students met minimum standards, governments have to focus on making sure every Australian child succeeds at school."
NSW students 'above average in all areas' (which goes on to say "over 90 per cent at, or over, the national minimum benchmarks")
Story quotes the State Education Minister:"It's just such a tribute to our teachers, to our principals and of course to our kids themselves. They've done brilliantly."
vs
10pc of students fail to meet minimum literacy standards
and quotes the Federal Education Minister:"While it was very pleasing that 90 per cent of students met minimum standards, governments have to focus on making sure every Australian child succeeds at school."
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Too much mathematics homework
Recently I commented over at En Tequila Es Verdad, saying in part that I thought too much mathematics homework was a bad thing, education wise.
The response to headlines about US falling behind in education (say, like this one) is usually to increase homework.
Well, a paper in Econometrics Journal apparently concludes that for average students (about half of them, speaking roughly), lots of mathematics homework is not productive.
[Of course, this is looking at relatively short term effects. What will be the effects of too much homework five years down the line? My guess is that long term it will probably be unproductive for an even larger percentage.]
The linked news article says: According to Henderson, the learning process needs to remain a rich, broad experience.
Which is one of the main points I was getting at in my lengthy comment over at Dana's blog. Nice to see I'm not talking complete bullshit.
Think of it this way:
Imagine art class consisted of having to practice drawing a duck, over and over, until you could produce a good outline of a few very particular kinds of duck, drawn just so. You would do half an hour of ducks every night for homework. Then back to school the next day for more ducks. Then you'd move on to chickens. The generalization to all birds would be sort of handwaved, because the curriculum is kind of packed. It's time to move on to drawing fish! If you didn't learn to draw ducks, you would get even more work on drawing ducks. Some aspects of what you learned in drawing ducks could be used in drawing fish, but the relationships aren't very intuitive, and anyway, there's just so many bits to remember and it's all so confusing and WTF, now I have to go home and do fish for an HOUR?
And then suddenly you're drawing battleships, and while drawing kind of made sense before, suddenly it makes no sense. You never quite got the hang of ducks and now you're trying to catch up that, fish and now battleships? How on earth are you ever going to remember all the parts of a battleship? And god forbid you should draw the parts in the wrong order!
If art was like that, most people would hate it.
Imagine Rembrandt at a party, who desperately wants to convey something of the beauty and importance of chiaroscuro. What would he hear, over and over, as he brought up the topic of art?
"Art? I was never any good at that. I always hated art! My worst subject. All those ducks! You must be very strange."
Most people - if you forced them - would be able to draw a fairly reasonable-looking duck, but there'd be precious little art in their lives. They'd certainly have no sense that it could be moving and beautiful - or indeed that it was about anything other than ducks and fish, and maybe something painful about battleships.
The response to headlines about US falling behind in education (say, like this one) is usually to increase homework.
Well, a paper in Econometrics Journal apparently concludes that for average students (about half of them, speaking roughly), lots of mathematics homework is not productive.
[Of course, this is looking at relatively short term effects. What will be the effects of too much homework five years down the line? My guess is that long term it will probably be unproductive for an even larger percentage.]
The linked news article says: According to Henderson, the learning process needs to remain a rich, broad experience.
Which is one of the main points I was getting at in my lengthy comment over at Dana's blog. Nice to see I'm not talking complete bullshit.
Think of it this way:
Imagine art class consisted of having to practice drawing a duck, over and over, until you could produce a good outline of a few very particular kinds of duck, drawn just so. You would do half an hour of ducks every night for homework. Then back to school the next day for more ducks. Then you'd move on to chickens. The generalization to all birds would be sort of handwaved, because the curriculum is kind of packed. It's time to move on to drawing fish! If you didn't learn to draw ducks, you would get even more work on drawing ducks. Some aspects of what you learned in drawing ducks could be used in drawing fish, but the relationships aren't very intuitive, and anyway, there's just so many bits to remember and it's all so confusing and WTF, now I have to go home and do fish for an HOUR?
And then suddenly you're drawing battleships, and while drawing kind of made sense before, suddenly it makes no sense. You never quite got the hang of ducks and now you're trying to catch up that, fish and now battleships? How on earth are you ever going to remember all the parts of a battleship? And god forbid you should draw the parts in the wrong order!
If art was like that, most people would hate it.
Imagine Rembrandt at a party, who desperately wants to convey something of the beauty and importance of chiaroscuro. What would he hear, over and over, as he brought up the topic of art?
"Art? I was never any good at that. I always hated art! My worst subject. All those ducks! You must be very strange."
Most people - if you forced them - would be able to draw a fairly reasonable-looking duck, but there'd be precious little art in their lives. They'd certainly have no sense that it could be moving and beautiful - or indeed that it was about anything other than ducks and fish, and maybe something painful about battleships.
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