What's the big deal about high school biology class?

It is no secret to my regular readers that I get a bit exercised about the science wars playing out in various school boards and court actions. This is no doubt unavoidable, given that I think about science for a living -- when you've got a horse in the race, you end up spending a lot of time at the track.

But lately, some thoughtful folks have been wondering whether people ought to be devoting quite so much energy (and emotional involvement) to the question of what a community decides to include in, or omit from, its high school biology curriculum. This dispatch from Dover, PA by Eyal Press (available online only to Nation subscribers, but maybe your library has it -- if not, email me) is an example of this kind of worry.

Press describes the Dover area as it unfolded for him in a drive-along with former Dover school board member Casey Brown:

We drove out past some cornfields, a sheep farm, a meadow and a couple of barns, along the back roads of York County, a region where between 1970 and 2000, 11 percent of the manufacturing jobs disappeared, and where in the more rural areas one in five children grows up in a low-income family (in the city of York the figure is one in three). Dover isn't dirt poor, but neither is it wealthy. It's the kind of place where people work hard and save what they can. Looking out at the soy, wheat and dairy farms while Brown explained that lots of older people in the area can't afford to keep up with their mortgages and end up walking away from their homes, I was struck by the thought that this was a part of the country where, a century ago, the populist movement might have made inroads by organizing small farmers against the monopolies and trusts. These days, of course, a different sort of populism prevails, infused by religion and defining itself against "outside" forces like the ACLU.

Press also went to see what the students in Dover thought of the controversy:

What do the intended beneficiaries of the Dover school board's actions make of the intelligent design debate? A few days before meeting Casey Brown, I drove out to Dover high school to find out. It was late in the afternoon and a couple of kids were milling about outside, waiting for rides. When I asked them what they thought of the controversy, they looked at me with blank stares that suggested I could not have posed a question of less relevance to their lives. "I think you should leave us alone," one of them said. "Everyone just sleeps through that class anyway," said another. I approached a third kid, who was standing alone. Nobody he knew ever talked about the issue, he told me; it was no big deal.

Press suggests that this is not just a matter of teen ennui. The schools in the area may not be up to the challenge of addressing the real needs of their students:

For the most part, though, kids in Dover seem perplexed that so much attention is being paid to what happens in a single class. It is a sentiment shared by Pat Jennings, an African-American woman who runs the Lighthouse Youth Center, an organization that offers after-school programs, recreational services and parenting and Bible study classes to kids throughout York County. The center, which is privately funded, is located in a brown-brick building in downtown York, next to a church. ... A deeply religious woman who describes her faith as "very important" to her, Jennings nonetheless confessed that she hasn't paid much attention to the evolution controversy, since she's too busy thinking about other problems the children she serves face--drugs, gangs, lack of access to opportunity, racism. "When we are in this building there are no Latinos, blacks, Caucasian children--just children," she explained after giving me a tour of the center. "But when I go out there"--she pointed to the street--"I'm reminded that I'm different."

"There's a lot of kids out there looking for something," Jennings continued. "They have questions that need answering. They're looking for someone to trust." I asked her if she thought schools were providing that thing. She shook her head. "I don't know if it's the schools or the parents or whatever, but something is wrong. The kids I see lack discipline. They lack reading skills." Listening to her, it was hard not to view the dust-up over intelligent design as a tragic illustration of how energy that could be poured into other problems is wasted on symbolic issues of comparatively minor significance.

Why those symbolic issues have assumed such importance in America has a lot to do with the fact that, in places like Dover, the only institutions around that seem willing to address the concerns of many people are fundamentalist churches.

I take it that Press is not primarily interested in taking scientists to task. Rather, his point seems to be that folks in Dover and places like it are much less concerned about "direction" of curriculum by fundamentalist churches because those churches are perceived as taking care of social needs that no one else -- including the government -- seems willing or able to address in these communities. It doesn't seem altogether irrational to bend a little to the folks keeping things together, especially if the bending involves changing the curriculum that the high school students are going to sleep through anyway, does it?

This is a variant of the ongoing debate I have at my university about what is supposed to be going on here:

Dr. F-R: A college education should help you understand different kinds of knowledge and reasoning. My class should help you understand what's distinctive about scientific knowledge.

Jaded Student: Dude, I really just want to sit in the chair and do the minimum I need to do to get the three units of upper division science general education credit. Don't bug me.

Dr. F-R: You're a college student! Learning this is good for you!

Jaded Student: I'm only in college so I can get a job that pays a decent wage. If I could do that any other way, I wouldn't be here.

Dr. F-R: How will you navigate the modern world without some understanding of science?

Jaded Student: Unless understanding science gets me a better salary it ain't gonna happen. Learning for its own sake is for suckers.


And here's where I want to say that Eyal Press is right that there are very bad things that are much larger than the details of the biology curriculum happening in communities like Dover, but that the fight over quality public education is central rather than merely symbolic. Education is not a dispensible luxury. Rather, it is an essential tool for people in making reasonable choices about their own lives. Education isn't just about teaching specific skills for the workforce; it also lays a foundation with which to learn new skills to keep up with a changing economy (or, dare I say it, with one's changing interests). Even more, education is supposed to open up a world quite apart from the world of work. The world may need ditch diggers (or repair technicians for the ditch-digging robots), but it would be a much better world if the ditch diggers (and repair technicians) not only earned a decent wage but also had enough left over to buy a few books and to think about things they wanted to think about. (Yes, I'm going on my "everyone deserves a life of the mind" rant. It happens.)

Making a better world may require choosing one's battles. Some would suggest that the battle over science education is a high-investment, low-payoff battle. But my own sense is that the minute we decide a certain population of students don't really need good science education, we've put up the white flag. Do we help students who are in difficult socio-economic circumstances by reducing their future prospects to succeed in further science classes or pursue a career in science? Do we help these students when we throw them out into the world as voters and consumers without a clear understanding of how scientific knowledge is produced and of how it is different from other kinds of knowledge? Might it not reinforce the feeling that the larger society really doesn't actually care much about you or your future if you find out that people with a voice didn't even whimper as you were subjected to an "education" these people wouldn't have allowed their own kids to suffer through?

One of the guiding ideals of science is that it is a project in which anyone can engage -- provided they have the necessary training. Scientists try to work out accounts of what's going on in the world that are tested against and built upon observation that human beings can make regardless of their home country, their socio-economic status, their race, their gender, their age. The scientific ideal of universality ought to make science a realm of work that is open to anyone willing to put in the work to become scientist. A career in science could be a real avenue for class mobility.

Unless, of course, we decide that public school students in less affluent communities (or more rural communities, or red states, or whatever) aren't really entitled to the best science education we can give them. If keeping them fed and out of gangs and passing the standardized tests in reading and writing is the extent of our obligation to these students, maybe a sound science education is a luxury. But if this is the case, we probably ought to cut out the whole "American dream" story and admit to ourselves that this place is not a meritocracy. Those who have the luxury of a quality education have an advantage over those who don't, and by golly they should own up to that. Especially when budgets are being hammered out, or when elections are coming up.

The kids in Dover, and Iowa, and Kansas, are part of your future and mine. Even if, as 15 year olds, they don't fully appreciate the stand being taken on their behalf, I'm not willing to back down from taking it, just the same way I'm not willing to let jaded students out of my classes without some learning taking place. Valuing other members of our society means valuing their future options to set their own course and to find meaning in their own lives. Good making good science education is not sufficient here, but my gut says it may be necessary.


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