Don't blame the subject, blame the teachers

In an ongoing argument over evolution, Clayton Craymer says he objects to the arrogance of the teachers. They should not be teaching the subject in the manner of someone who has all the patents on Truth. In return, I keep telling him his problem is not with the subject of evolution, but with the poor quality of education, especially in the lower grades. Complain about that, not the science which the teachers are so inept at teaching.

Now, from Betsy's Page, an example of inept teaching:

Meghan Cox Gurdon's second-grade son has to do a poster project for Black History MOnth. Anyone with children in the public schools has gone through this as February rolls around. She is so exactly right to talk about how such projects force kids to notice racial differences that they really hadn't been aware of before. I well remember my daughters' elementary school and the posters they'd put up every year. It always amused me how lame the group of people were that they were supposed to learn to admire. Almost all of them were sports and entertainment figures. I just don't see why we have to be teaching children in school to admire Michael Jordan. Jackie Robinson was a historical figure, but Jordan? Give me a break. If I were black, I would have found those posters so demeaning and patronizing. <snip> ...another of my many pet peeves about how schools teach history. History is taught so poorly in the elementary and middle school levels that kids have no idea really of what these black heroes did to deserve admiration since they don't have any understanding of the historical context. They end up with some confused idea that lumps Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jordan into one big group of people that all did poster-worthy things at some time, probably within weeks of each other since they're all up on the wall at the same time. <snip> ...When I was in sixth grade we had to do reports on Russia, our unit that month. All the kids did little reports and brought in food and colored pictures. I came in and told the story of Rasputin and the repeated efforts his enemies made to kill him. The class was spellbound, if I do say so myself. I think even then, I knew how fun it would be to be a history teacher.

Exactly. The word "history" comes from the same Latin root as the word "story". History is the story of what happened. There's no excuse for history lessons to be boring. In fact, history taps in to a primal urge in children and adults.

In a panel discussion on encouraging literacy, Bjo Trimble told of a time she was in a book store, and she was reading aloud from one of the books to one of her kids. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed other kids had settled down to listen, as had many of the adults – even those who didn't have kids in tow.

Part of what makes us social creatures, able to get along with each other, to cooperate on projects, and to form workable societies, is that urge that cries out, "Tell me a story".

Anyone who presumes to teach children, and who can't figure out how to tell them a story, really ought to consider other work.