Summary: This article discusses what science education is and why it is important. This article discusses the idea of evolution in the education world. The article focuses in on the Kansas State School Board ruling of taking evolution out of the teaching of biology. One school board voted to take it out of curriculum because "the fact is a group of closeminded science educators were determined to put in place curricular standards that held up Evolution as the most important concept in all of science," and "What the State Board did do was take input from all constituents and develop a set of standards based on good, qualifiable science." The school board member who said these statements was trying to explain why the decision had been made to take evolution out of the textbooks and curriculum. The articles author goes on to discuss how these ideas shouldn't necessarily be taken out of education but shouldn't be considered the "right" way of science due to many religious freedoms in our country. In our countries law it states that evolution can be taught as long as there is no coercion going on when it's being taught. Throughout this article very controversial questions are posed and discussed in relation to the teaching of creationism and evolution in the science classroom. The final argument made is that public school students should be taught both ideas of evolution and creationism.
Reflection: I found this article to be interesting because I didn't realize that this debate was still occurring in 2004 when it was written. As an educator you just are always told not to bring religion into your teaching and I've never taught evolution so according to this article I am doing a disservice to my students. I would have to disagree because I am teaching my students the standards that were set aside for their best interest by the state and I teach the information necessary for them to be successful without bringing my religious beliefs into play. I realize that this probably relates more to high school teachers of biology but elementary teachers tap into ideas that are background for biology. I felt as though the author of this article was very biased and so the ideas on evolution were very much argued with. When I looked more into the author I realized that he works for the institute for creation research. I'm glad I read this article to be aware of issues still occurring in the science and teaching world when it comes to evolution and creationism. I didn't know about Kansas City schools taking evolution out of their curriculum. Found this article to be an interesting read.
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