On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Val Smith <vsm...@ku.edu> wrote: > I lay much of this decline at the feet of their parents, who seem to care > progressively less and less about knowledge. I recall a particularly > notable incident from over a decade ago, when my youngest daughter's grade > school Principal retired. The new Principal unilaterally decided that > Science Fair projects for grades 2-6 should become completely voluntary, > rather than remaining as a formal requirement that had long been embedded in > this school's outstanding science preparation curriculum. On the day of the > science project evaluations, I expressed dismay about this undesirable > change to another parent, who at that time was almost 20 years my junior. > Her response was to shout across the room to her husband, "John (not his > real name), this guy thinks everybody should have to do a science fair > project, and /that this is all about learning science/!" and she then turned > to me to say, "If everyone has to do a project, that lowers the chance that > our child will win the Best Science Project award. That's unfair > competition." And she walked away. > As I was reading your post, I was hoping you would mention the role of parents in any decline in the quality of the American education.
I think it started with the baby boom. After the Depression and World War II, parents wanted the best for their children, but by providing the best materially, many raised children with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance. When these children raised my generation, self-esteem was seen as the most important quality you could promote in a developing mind, so many of us grew up feeling even more entitled and important. Also, since self-important people like today's parents don't respect authority figures, parents now tend to side with their children over teachers when there is a student-teacher conflict. Worse, since the entire class is, on average, not as prepared as it should be to learn the material you're trying to teach, disgruntled students can look to low average performance for the whole class to assure themselves that it's your fault if they don't get high marks. With students and parents both blaming you for low grades, and a low class average apparently supporting their arguments, it's easiest to lower your expectations and standards. (And you'll probably get higher teaching evaluation scores if you do.) When you do, you end up passing on students who aren't prepared for the next level of education. I understand the importance of questioning authority, and Wendee Holtcamp's example of childbirth in American hospitals attests to that importance (though I believe the doctors rush the delivery because they're trained to believe it's best for the patient, not because they put their spare time ahead of patient care). However, there's an important distinction between questioning authority and assuming authority is wrong. With respect to the original conversation thread, while I certainly agree that it's a problem that people with the appearance of authority are making BS claims on television, I don't think that's the only major threat to scientific authority. Another threat is the widely-held perception that any scientist who thinks they know more than you do about their area of expertise is arrogant (and wrong). Because scientific knowledge is contingent on future results, scientists sometimes find themselves admitting that they were wrong about something. Unlike pundits or politicians, scientists can't blame some other party, and people will hold onto those errors as evidence that we're not as clever as we think we are, so they can ignore us if they don't like our message. Also, some people just don't like smart people much, so mistakes made by smart people are cherished as proof that they aren't so smart after all. Mind you, I have little evidence for most of the generalities I'm making here, but this is just my model of why students seem to be less prepared than they used to and why scientific authority doesn't get the respect I think it should. Jim Crants
