"We were pretty much told not to put it in there," Kielborn said. The rationale was community reaction, she said. This is how almost all so-called education reforms are implemented.Education leaders form teacher groups to suggest changes. Then they tell the teachers how to make the change. This gives the public the impression that the change came from the teachers when in reality the change was manipulated by these so called leaders.
In this case, I don't care that this change was made but I also don't care for the manner of the change. This manipulation is why we have changes such as "block-scheduling" and "balanced calanders".
I really don't see why, at least in public schools.
The schools generally do a poor job of teaching math, english, and history. On core topics, the schools do a poor job. Why try to cover everything? What's wrong with focusing attention on proven scientific areas that avoid controversy. Graduate school can cover that. But public school science? They could teach:
Physics
Chemistry
Astronomy
Biology
Without controvery. Now, there are aspects of biology that they might choose not to cover, but they can study plants and animals, phylla, kingdom, species, and they could do dissections. LOTS of good biology knowledge.
They could do a lot with geology too. Some might see that as problematic, but I think sedimentary, igneous, glaciers, volcanoes, continental drift, and earthquakes could be educational without ruffling feathers.
The NEA is focused on indoctrination. If they cared about education, they'd focus on these good areas and try to do a good job with them. But they have other fish to fry.