Scientific Illiteracy
Educationally, I am a "Sputnik Baby" -- I entered High School in September of 1958, 11 months after the first artificial satellite was launched by the Soviets. This launch set off a great Hullabaloo & Cry about the state of Science teaching in U.S. schools -- Primary, Secondary, and College-level. Much mooney and effort was thrown at teachers, textbooks, and curricula.
I went to an exceptional High School, and was in the "bright brat" (level 4) program, which started out with Biology and Algebra in freshman year. Our teachers were very good, and I came away with what turned out to be and excellent grounding in science, and a thirst for knowledge, and a monumental reading habit.
While the lower-level classes were not as intensive as the ones I took, it was my impression that they got a good, if less detailed, grounding in science. The general US culture, too, in that era, was moving away from scorn for "pointy-headed int'lechuls" toward respect for scientists and engineers.
Come forward 50-odd (some very odd) years, and what do you see? The US educational "system" is gobbling mind-boggling amounts of money, and turning out functional illiterates. Enrolment in college-level science and engineering schools is largely going to non-US citizens. Chinese and Indian names are common in lists of high-tech CEOs.
CNN and Fox News publish "viewer opinions" -- and I presume that they are edited for at least minimal legibility and meaningfulness. As to their general content, H.L. Mencken's comment that: "Nobody ever went broke UNDERestimating the taste {or the intelligence -- Sam'l} of the American people." still holds true 75 or so years on.
And nobody seems to care.
*sigh*
I went to an exceptional High School, and was in the "bright brat" (level 4) program, which started out with Biology and Algebra in freshman year. Our teachers were very good, and I came away with what turned out to be and excellent grounding in science, and a thirst for knowledge, and a monumental reading habit.
While the lower-level classes were not as intensive as the ones I took, it was my impression that they got a good, if less detailed, grounding in science. The general US culture, too, in that era, was moving away from scorn for "pointy-headed int'lechuls" toward respect for scientists and engineers.
Come forward 50-odd (some very odd) years, and what do you see? The US educational "system" is gobbling mind-boggling amounts of money, and turning out functional illiterates. Enrolment in college-level science and engineering schools is largely going to non-US citizens. Chinese and Indian names are common in lists of high-tech CEOs.
CNN and Fox News publish "viewer opinions" -- and I presume that they are edited for at least minimal legibility and meaningfulness. As to their general content, H.L. Mencken's comment that: "Nobody ever went broke UNDERestimating the taste {or the intelligence -- Sam'l} of the American people." still holds true 75 or so years on.
And nobody seems to care.
*sigh*
posted by Sam'l B. at
5:25 PM
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