I have nine minutes to write this post. I do not have internet at my house, even though I ordered it. I am a slave to the hours of the coffee shop.
There are a few problems that I face with teaching science. First of all the only reason given for teaching anything in science is the state mandated standardized test in science. This is only half the problem.
The other half is that most science teachers don’t know science themselves.
These problems compound to getting a batch of students who are basically good kids, whose parents have no idea who Carl Sagan was. Their number one extracurricular activity is usually based in Church (probably because its free). Their only exposure to science is fed to them by the ignorant who don’t give too much of a shit about science themselves and they only do it to appease a test which seeks primarily its own market share.
My states test is definitely made by a private company, and that private company holds a strict monopoly of the whole educational system.
What do you do?
Most of the stuff I can think off would border on being either unethical or depressing.
In spite of writing this highly cathartic anonymous blog I do try to maintain a relatively mainstream professional ethic about teaching.
I wear my goddamn tie, something which I don’t even have to do.
I mostly get my paperwork in on time.
I give my principal the benefit of the doubt.
But I really feel like my legs are broken on getting these kids to love science.
And let me be clear, my incentive as a science teacher is to cultivate a lifelong love for science.
People who love science take good care of the world.
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I’m another science teacher in a different part of the world, teaching a different set of students. But our basic problems are the same.
I share your pain.
I’m another science teacher in a different part of the world, teaching a different set of students. But our basic problems are the same.
I share your pain.
I may not be a science teacher but as a history and geography teacher I face the same problems of having kids come to me and not know the history of their own country. I have fellow teachers who teach history and don’t know when the world wars occured compared to the 20’s-30’s. I have fellow geograph teachers who don’t understand the very basic elements of human spatial distribution. The joys we face.