![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jenn_unpluggedThis was reported in the NY Times, incidentally. It's big news in Austin: Chris Comer, the director of Science Education at the Texas Education Agency, was forced apparently to resign after forwarding an email to her colleagues about a talk on evolution vs. creationism/"intelligent design". I know I shouldn't be surprised, because this is Texas, after all, but it's just stunning to me that someone would be punished for arguing that we should teach actual science in science classes, and not religion. I mean, seriously -- is it any wonder our kids are falling behind compared to the rest of the world in math and science? There are no other industrialized countries in which teaching kids science is controversial.
Someone forwarded this link to me today which I think sums up the issue very nicely. (A satire, in case it isn't obvious.) An excerpt:
In an effort to make math “more relevant to today’s third-graders — the future of our great country,” the recently adopted textbook questions the “old wives’ tale” that 2 + 2 = 4.
“Many families are uncomfortable with such rigid, formuliac thinking,” said the book’s publisher, Tatiana Rococo, CEO, COO and Secretary/Treasurer of Hot Off the Press, an Ardmore, Oklahoma-based textbook consortium that vows it “wants to keep its mind open when it comes to math and out of the gutter when it comes to everything else.”
“People like to say 2 + 2 = 4 — like it was a proven fact,” said Ms. Rococo, an Ardmore native who says she dabbles in mathematical pursuits such as astrology, bingo and paint-by-numbers works of art that decorate her sunken living room in her suburban home. “But that’s so not true! Not every mathematician agrees. In fact, there’s lots of controversy about that so-called ‘fact.’
If it weren't so close to the truth, it would be a lot funnier. :-P
Someone forwarded this link to me today which I think sums up the issue very nicely. (A satire, in case it isn't obvious.) An excerpt:
In an effort to make math “more relevant to today’s third-graders — the future of our great country,” the recently adopted textbook questions the “old wives’ tale” that 2 + 2 = 4.
“Many families are uncomfortable with such rigid, formuliac thinking,” said the book’s publisher, Tatiana Rococo, CEO, COO and Secretary/Treasurer of Hot Off the Press, an Ardmore, Oklahoma-based textbook consortium that vows it “wants to keep its mind open when it comes to math and out of the gutter when it comes to everything else.”
“People like to say 2 + 2 = 4 — like it was a proven fact,” said Ms. Rococo, an Ardmore native who says she dabbles in mathematical pursuits such as astrology, bingo and paint-by-numbers works of art that decorate her sunken living room in her suburban home. “But that’s so not true! Not every mathematician agrees. In fact, there’s lots of controversy about that so-called ‘fact.’
If it weren't so close to the truth, it would be a lot funnier. :-P
