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In a message dated 8/6/2005 1:59:32 PM Central Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

I  suggest we need to take stock in science education and science 
belief and  try better to connect the two, than just rely on the "our belief 
is better  than yours" argument. 




As I mentioned earlier, my son still expresses his dismay in the  reaction of 
his physics teacher to a discussion on man being able to travel at  the speed 
of light. My son viewed the teacher's negative reaction (Why would you  waste 
class time discussing that? That could never happen. It's simply not  
possible.) as one of condescention to what was purely a hypothetical discussion  of 
"Wow, what would that be like?"  
 
If we tell students they should be thorough, should look in every  nook and 
cranny for the answers, should be creative (a word not used often  enough with 
science), we have to give them freedom to discuss ideas we may not  always 
agree with.  Better they discuss these ideas in the school science  classroom, 
where they will mix with other thoughts, than discuss them in a  more singular 
context.  
 
I remember the intelligent design discussion coming up in one  of my college 
level Curriculum and Instruction classes.  The  young man standing up for ID 
was my teaching partner for the semester.  Our  professors were discussing the 
teaching of evolution.  "Evolution's just a  theory!" my teaching partner 
snapped. This comment brought the class  in to a discussion of what a scientific 
theory involves. By the end of a very  heated discussion he was very upset and 
had not changed his views.   However, it taught me an important lesson of the 
difference between  belief and theory (don't think that's obvious to all 
science students) and it  also brought me and this young man to a later dialogue 
that we  would never have had  otherwise.           
 
                                                Janine

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