a thread in which steamroll makes fun of education and then misspells "trailer"

[Steamroll]

[youtube]qoeMm0Tm95M[/youtube]

So yeah if anyone paid any attention to the news in the last ten years there's been a lot of flack being thrown at Texas and their policies on education. Basically up until recently they never supported the ideals of science and evolution to be taught in schools, and the ones that did paid for it themselves instead of getting support from the state. This movie is apparently supposed to act as an edited documentary for it but so far what I've gotten from it (and the other 14,000 viewers on youtube) this is gearing up to be the best comedy of the decade.

 

[mattj]

like 9 threads down

welcome to smogon

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

I have a pretty good education :(

 

[Matthew]

looks like steamroll lives in Texas

 

[Glen]

this is a lot more horrifying than it is funny

 

[TrollFreak]

Don't you just LOVE living in America, one part is the liberal part that wants change, the other is so assbackwards in embarrassing. Great country, real great country.

 

[Myzozoa]

Funny trailer? more like scary, public education is under attack on so many levels these days and it's our children who are going to be screwed by it.

 

[Mafeking]

As a liberal someone who was educated for all of elementary through high school in Texas, I'm sad to say that, at least in my case, most of this seems to be extremely recent or just untrue. I graduated high school just this year, and with the exception of when (in eighth grade--2008) they wanted to remove Thomas Jefferson from the books for being "anti-religion," all of this that they're portraying is really old hat. There's always been angry people in the Texas school system that have wanted to teach creationism over evolution, but it's never come to a head. I went to one of the best public schools in the state and the notion of creationism is something I hardly even remember being touched on. Besides, after 8th grade (at least, in my school's case though I imagine it being similar in the rest of the state) when the science classes you take become specific sciences like Biology and Physics, general science and creationism/evolution pretty much gets dropped out the window.

Of course, that could also be an antiquated experience. I haven't been in a setting where creationism could've been taught in like four years.

Either way, this seems like something that is an extremely scary concept, but not one that's actually been followed through on yet.

 

[Jorgen]

Ultimately, it's the wording of the textbooks that these boards are deciding. Let's be real, what kids actually read their textbooks?

At the end of the day, whether your science education is "normal" or "insane" comes down to the latter point of this trailer: the teachers that these kids have. If you're going to school in a reasonable area, you're going to get a decent education without serious treatment of creationism as a scientific theory. If you're going to school in ultra-rural Texas, well, there ya go, you're more likely to have an instructor who favors and teaches it.

Personally I went to Catholic school in rural PA. The science classes were actually fairly sane for the most part, although there was a particular science teacher who tried to teach that the idea of anthropogenic climate change was a sham. I feel like part of the problem was that most of the science teachers, even the ones not teaching crazy things, treated teaching high school science as just relaying a series of facts and assigning a bunch of problems to do. I never really got anything about scientific thinking and reasoning until university.

What ends up happening as a result of this kind of instruction is that students aren't taught to think about and investigate their world for themselves, i.e., the fundamental principles of scientific investigation, but rather to accept facts about the world as relayed by "older and wiser" folk. This, in turn, leaves students open to misinformation from bad instructors and of course misses the whole point of science in the first place. I think this teaching philosophy is the bigger underlying problem in science education in the US, not just the extreme anti-intellectual attitude among a minority of science educators who want to teach Noah's Ark alongside the theory of evolution in a biology classroom.

 

[Thorns]

in my state's biology classes (i live in australia) they teach intelligent design (the politically friendly way to say creationism) as a theory of evolution alongside abiogenesis and darwinian evolution and nobody complains about this

idk what it is with america, so many angry atheists and angry religious people why can't we all just chill

 

[Firestorm]

Because if I have kids, when I put them in science class I expect them to learn science, not religion. I'd get them to take a religion class if I wanted them to learn religion. When I was in 10th grade, we learned evolution with the teacher stressing that it was being taught because it is scientific theory and we are free to agree or disagree, but it wouldn't be right to not learn about it. We also watched an episode of Friends to lighten the mood. I don't think I actually understood what the big deal was until later when I found out that people go batshit crazy when they find out reality doesn't match their beliefs.

 

[Improbability]

There's a difference between our curriculums thorns. The main reason no one kicks up a shit about it is because it's handled quite maturely. What we are taught is that both evolution and creationism are theories, but that the darwinian model is currently the theory science chooses to accept because there is a lot more evidence to support it as a realistic claim, and will remain that way until further evidence proves otherwise or extends our current model. What they are trying to do is remove any scientific procedure in their decision and state it as a definite truth, whilst at the same time completely discrediting the Darwinian model of evolution.

This isn't just some petty feud over religion and who's right or wrong, it's a denial of knowledge and quite simply promoting the very opposite of what science sets out to do.

 

[meteor64]

it amazes me how this is an actual thing, thank god i live in the uk

religion only belongs in schools to the extent where people are taught about it, it shouldn't be intertwined into education outside of that, and the same goes for political views

 

[marilli]

So separation between church and state is not a thing, I see...

I thought that this was a 50's thing >_>

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

So separation between church and state is not a thing, I see...

I thought that this was a 50's thing >_>

more like 1920s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial

This is ridiculous, intelligent design isn't even a theory, its a hypothesis, but Ill throw it a bone for trying to not be creationism.

dinosaurs on the ark...

 

[moonbound]

The Catholic Church doesn't even believe that. I've gone to Catholic school my entire life (in Kentucky of all places), and we were taught that evolution is a scientific truth and the much of the Bible is written in figurative, spiritual metaphors that were never meant to be taken as historical fact. It's truly unfortunate that these misinformed individuals are restricting education and dooming future generations to the same lack of education that is their problem.

 

[capefeather]

I feel like part of the problem was that most of the science teachers, even the ones not teaching crazy things, treated teaching high school science as just relaying a series of facts and assigning a bunch of problems to do. I never really got anything about scientific thinking and reasoning until university.

What ends up happening as a result of this kind of instruction is that students aren't taught to think about and investigate their world for themselves, i.e., the fundamental principles of scientific investigation, but rather to accept facts about the world as relayed by "older and wiser" folk. This, in turn, leaves students open to misinformation from bad instructors and of course misses the whole point of science in the first place. I think this teaching philosophy is the bigger underlying problem in science education in the US, not just the extreme anti-intellectual attitude among a minority of science educators who want to teach Noah's Ark alongside the theory of evolution in a biology classroom.

Yeah, I completely agree with this. When any subject (not just the sciences but math and maybe some other stuff as well) is taught as if it's about absorbing a bunch of facts and regurgitating them, not only does it give a completely wrong impression, but when the children grow up, they'll be passing on that impression to THEIR children, until eventually most people don't realize that there's even a problem. And it's not just the religious extremists that take advantage of this (though they are probably the most successful). I wonder how many of you guys have run into the anti-science parts of YouTube... it's a scary place... The idea that science is about right or wrong, and about accepting the most popular theory for no apparent reason, is extremely prevalent in society, and that's what all the angry anti-intellectual groups and "new age thinkers" are exploiting to gain a foothold as a legitimate opinion platform. And okay, they are "legitimate"... but only in the bare-bones sense of having the right to free speech/press/assembly.

 

[Steamroll]

This is actually the binding problem that has almost every public education institution in the same vein of promoting homework and limiting a student's own constructive thought process. The way public education is geared is just to memorize things, not question them in order to get an understanding as to why they're being taught, and regurgitate them in tests. When the state governments support that kind of philosophy of education through state standardized tests it essentially just gives the idea that school is basically a factory so that kids can just get a diploma and move on with their lives.

It really got on my nerves when I realized that it was going on in my year of English. Apparently you can have a wrong answer from interpreting an excerpt of passage and providing plenty of evidence to support it, just because 24 other people in your class came to different conclusions. I mean that's all reading a book is right? Interpreting what's going on in the book and the literary devices used are apart of English, is it not?

English, History, and Science are not to be taught as "just write down what is said, save it for the test." All three are a hell of a lot more than that and all three were built on the fundamentals of questioning and gathering evidence to support the claims. By just stating facts and saying they're absolute, it's really not teaching students anything at all.

EDIT: Also whoever renamed the thread title needs a cookie, I like it!

 

[capefeather]

I like this comic that's kind of relevant to this

I'm actually kind of surprised at myself that I didn't link it before...

 

[Ampharos]

I live in Texas, am currently attending high school, and promise you that while religion is not discouraged, Darwinian evolution is the generally accepted theory in science classes.

I also live in a suburb of Dallas (i.e. not the rural backwoods), so take this with a grain of salt.

 

[PK Gaming]

You know you can re-edit the topic title right?

~_~

 

[New World Order]

This is actually the binding problem that has almost every public education institution in the same vein of promoting homework and limiting a student's own constructive thought process. The way public education is geared is just to memorize things, not question them in order to get an understanding as to why they're being taught, and regurgitate them in tests. When the state governments support that kind of philosophy of education through state standardized tests it essentially just gives the idea that school is basically a factory so that kids can just get a diploma and move on with their lives.

It really got on my nerves when I realized that it was going on in my year of English. Apparently you can have a wrong answer from interpreting an excerpt of passage and providing plenty of evidence to support it, just because 24 other people in your class came to different conclusions. I mean that's all reading a book is right? Interpreting what's going on in the book and the literary devices used are apart of English, is it not?

English, History, and Science are not to be taught as "just write down what is said, save it for the test." All three are a hell of a lot more than that and all three were built on the fundamentals of questioning and gathering evidence to support the claims. By just stating facts and saying they're absolute, it's really not teaching students anything at all.

EDIT: Also whoever renamed the thread title needs a cookie, I like it!

Ya that pretty much sums up American education.

 

[blarajan]

For the record, Colbert talked to this guy:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413074/april-23-2012/don-mcleroy

Has someone been able to find the whole documentary? I've been trying to watch it but have been unable to find it for the last thirty minutes.

 

[Steamroll]

The only website that acknowledges it other than youtube is imdb. It doesn't even show up on a google search for the name (shows a Jamaican Reggae band instead), and Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes do not acknowledge it either. You're fighting an uphill battle, blara.

 

[v]

You know you can re-edit the topic title right?

~_~

but so can I!