would you teach ID

[AK_Jedi]

Say, by whatever reason, you find yourself teaching a high school biology class in a district that requires the teaching of ID alongside evolution. The time comes in the curriculum to teach these subjects. What would you do? Would you teach ID as required, risk disciplinary action and possible dismissal by not teaching it, or something else. My own high school teacher tought evolution, but spent relatively little time on it in order to avoid any debates and controversies that may have arisen.

As for myself, I would teach ID. I would show the students precisely what ID is, a philosphy with no evidence and no real scientific theories backing it up. Show the students exactly what they get with ID, exactly nothing.

[Ted C]

Teaching it with the intent of debunking it sounds nice, but I'm sure that in any district where they mandated teaching ID, they would insist on particular resource materials and a particular curriculum. They wouldn't let you teach "this is why ID is bunk," they'd insist you treat it as legitimate science.

[Cao Cao]

I might give it a brief mention as a baseless argument against evolution and encourage students to debunk it.
But the study of myths goes in religious class, not biology. If I were a teacher and found myself required to actually teach that insipid crackpot theory on the same level of evolution I'd outright refuse.

[Rye]

I might do, to the extent of "Intelligent design is the opinion that anything we don't understand may be explained by someone unknown in a totally unknown way, somehow, at some unknown time in the past. As you can tell, it is a really useful explanation." If they gave me a full on fuckoff syllabus of rhetoric and bullshit, no way in hell.

[Ariphaos]

"So, by law I'm required to teach Intelligent Design. Since this fundamentally gets us nowhere I'm going over the idea by analogy. Some of you may have idly asked why the sky is blue, why mercury is a liquid, or why stars appear white. You can say 'God did it', or you can explain Raleigh scattering, lanthanide contraction and rod vision.

Intelligent design is the 'God did it' answer to biology. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. It tells us nothing, when there are diseases to cure and species to analyze. And really, there's nothing more to say about it. I'm sure you'd all love for classtime to just be over - but I am paid to teach to a standard. So, let's begin."

Or something like that.

[Elmca]

Science teachers are so hard to come by in most areas already that I doubt any school district would risk losing that many by mandating what is obviously not a popular program among teachers. Check out the comments by many of the Dover teachers during that fiasco. Many, myself included, would simply leave the district to go to a neighboring district that doesn't require this.

For the sake of argument, I'll assume that this is a federally-mandated program, so that I can't just up and leave to go to a new district.

I'd teach it. I've got to if I want to keep my job and I like teaching enough that I don't want to leave it over what would be a one- or two-day lesson. I would definitely NOT put in my normal level of energy into the lesson and would be sure to stick to my theme of "What's the Evidence?" stressing that we need evidence FOR intelligent design as opposed to evidence AGAINST evolution. I would also ask them what types of falsifiable tests we can design for ID.

If I had to teach exactly what they gave me, I'd simply teach the section using the Ben Stein delivery from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That should let the students know exactly how seriously I take it.

PS: My first attempted post using a link. I hope it worked. It seems to be OK in Preview.

[Pelranius]

I'd try to teach it in a way so as to make students reject or intensely dislike ID at the very least.

Or I'd try to do something like extoll the glorious wisdom of the eternal Catholic Church to po the local fundamentalists.

[Velthuijsen]

If it is in biology class I wouldn't but then again you might consider me a fundamentalist about this, in that we should teach kids the theory that is considered the one best explaining what we see and once they get to university level ask them to (dis)prove the current theory and newly formed hypotheses.

At most I would say

• I'm supposed to teach you a hypothesis that has not only failed to meet the most basic standards of science but has been disproven countless of times. This quackery is called intelligent design. But since you are here to learn relevant things we are not going to waste time with it and I will teach you the theory of evolution which is based solidly on the standards that science expects from theories and has survived more then a century of people trying to disprove it.
  If you really want to know more about it ask during the comparative theology lessons (or what ever the relevant class is)

There all that is relevant about ID in a paragraph. I'll still get kicked out but a court (plus quite a few groups paying the costs of litigation) would have a field day.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

If they required me to teach it, as in really explaining and teaching it as a competitor, no.

Doing so would violate the NEA code of teacher's ethics by deliberately disseminating information you know to be wrong.

[Darth Wong]

Say, by whatever reason, you find yourself teaching a high school biology class in a district that requires the teaching of ID alongside evolution. The time comes in the curriculum to teach these subjects. What would you do? Would you teach ID as required, risk disciplinary action and possible dismissal by not teaching it, or something else. My own high school teacher tought evolution, but spent relatively little time on it in order to avoid any debates and controversies that may have arisen.

"Class, the politicians are forcing me to go against science and teach you the contents of this book. Be aware that the contents of this book were designed as propaganda for high-school students who never took science at the university level and won't be prepared to debunk its falsehoods and fallacies. Also be aware that none of this material has undergone scientific peer review, and came from the political system, not the scientific community."

"Class, this political propaganda book says that ..."

"Class, your homework tonight is to show that you understand what this political propaganda piece is saying ..."

Etc.

Mind you, I'd probably transfer to another district at the first available opportunity.

[Darth Servo]

"Class, your homework tonight is to show that you understand what this political propaganda piece is saying ..."

So if the kids tunred in a homework assignment that merely said the book is a bunch of bullshit, you'd give them an 'A' right?

[K. A. Pital]

Answer is but two letters. No.

A later consequence - move the hell out of a country that is disrespecting science education and degrading it with religious bullshit in such a way.

[RedImperator]

I simply wouldn't do it. If I had tenure, they could kiss my ass; if I didn't, at my next interview, at a district not run by fuckwads, I'd explain why I was terminated and probably improve my chances of getting a better job. It's not like I've never gone off the curriculum before: last year the book and the curriculum guide both gushed about what a wonderful guy Woodrow Wilson was (I was supposed to tell this to a classroom full of black kids, mind you). I told them no such thing. By the time I got through with Wilson, they thought he was worse than Georgie the Wonder Chimp.

Now if I had kids who had to eat or a mortgage I needed to pay and couldn't risk being out of work, I might have to swallow my pride, and my ethics, and teach it and look for a new job for next year. But I'd probably use Elmca's strategy and just read directly from the textbook in a dead monotone. I also wouldn't attempt to wake up sleeping students, I wouldn't assign any homework, and I wouldn't put any questions about it on the exam.

[K. A. Pital]

It's not like I've never gone off the curriculum before: last year the book and the curriculum guide both gushed about what a wonderful guy Woodrow Wilson was (I was supposed to tell this to a classroom full of black kids, mind you).

That's pretty notorious. Who the hell sets educational standards for history so low that such bullcrap can fly?

[Ghost Rider]

It's not like I've never gone off the curriculum before: last year the book and the curriculum guide both gushed about what a wonderful guy Woodrow Wilson was (I was supposed to tell this to a classroom full of black kids, mind you).

That's pretty notorious. Who the hell sets educational standards for history so low that such bullcrap can fly?

I say a great deal is laziness on how things are written. To introduce in history at that time, that any president did evil(other then Lincoln in the South) is something that is almost never encountered.

My last high school lesson of history was Woodrow Wilson was the President who got us into WWI along with a few other noted facts. Nothing was ever brought up about the politics of the time nor Wilson's personal views on race and such.

[K. A. Pital]

People in America learn in school that Lincoln was doing evil deeds in the South? Um... I'm sort of afraid to ask, what do history textbooks in America say about slavery in the South and the Atlantic slavetrade?

[Ghost Rider]

People in America learn in school that Lincoln was doing evil deeds in the South? Um... I'm sort of afraid to ask, what do history textbooks in America say about slavery in the South and the Atlantic slavetrade?

Textbooks, I do not know, no firsthand experience, so the South does not on any level really regard Lincoln as much.

From where I come from(The Northern Virginia Area), we learned that slavery was not a particular good thing, the basic economics behind it, as well as a few horror stories(it was kept relatively clean in terms of what it was), but the slave routes were more of less lumped in with the Sugar and Rum routes, with very little covering on anything but the South had slaves and the North were abolishionists. So a vague introduction of the time.

It took about college before I learned of the thought in Europe towards slave trade and some facts regarding of slavery and the slave trade of that era and before hand.

[RedImperator]

It's not like I've never gone off the curriculum before: last year the book and the curriculum guide both gushed about what a wonderful guy Woodrow Wilson was (I was supposed to tell this to a classroom full of black kids, mind you).

That's pretty notorious. Who the hell sets educational standards for history so low that such bullcrap can fly?

The canonization of Saint Woodrow has been going on in American historiography probably since the end of WWII, about the same time American historians (and the public) began regarding US entry into WWI as a good idea. It's only recently that Wilson's star has been falling; he still routinely shows up high on the list of "best presidents". His apologists have done a pretty good job of glossing his abuse of civil liberties and burying his loathsome racial attitudes because he's the great American champion of internationalism, but as people have begun to realize (again) that entering WWI was wasteful and stupid, the rest of his policies have been open to criticism again (and boy, does he deserve it).

The textbook writers were only following the lead of the historians. Hopefully this time the racist meddling puritan fuckwad's bad reputation sticks. As far as I'm concerned, he's still a worse president than the Wonder Chimp.

[Kuroneko]

Since someone once asked me if my avatar was an image of W. Wilson. I thought that was somewhat strange, since I didn't really notice any particular resemblance.

I might do, to the extent of "Intelligent design is the opinion that anything we don't understand may be explained by someone unknown in a totally unknown way, somehow, at some unknown time in the past. As you can tell, it is a really useful explanation." If they gave me a full on fuckoff syllabus of rhetoric and bullshit, no way in hell.

It's a good approach. In the latter case of being required to take it seriously, one could translate its "methods" to other areas, to illustrate that it really is nothing more than "someone did something somehow at some time" without actually stating so. Although overall, simply refusing and (possibly) getting another job would probably be for the best.

[Darth Wong]

On a similar note, if I were a science teacher forced to teach ID, I would also point out that nuclear fusion in the Sun is just a theory, and it's also possible that there is a mysterious unknown force inside the Sun which mysteriously generates energy through a mysterious unknown mechanism. Similarly, the neutron is just a theory, and it is also possible that curious behaviour in nuclear physics is caused by mysterious unknown entities operating in mysterious unknown ways.

[Yogi]

"So class, I'm supposed to spend the next class period talking about Intelligent Design. However, since it's all bullshit, we're going to take the period off instead. Here are some chips, soda, and napkins, just clean up after yourself when you leave."

They can't fire me, the teacher's union is too powerful (at least where I came from.)

[SpacedTeddyBear]

If I knew ahead of time that I would be forced to teach ID with no other possible job to fallback on, I would spend the few weeks or so teaching the class what science is and what science is not ( ie, the scientific method, proper use of terminology, logic and etc). Then I'd continue to assign problems in homeworks, quizes, and exams pertaining to the scientific method and such when the class moves onto actual lessons in biology . So that when the time comes to where I had to teach ID, I would teach it in a way that my students would be forced to challenge everything that I'm teaching in order to recieve credit.

[dworkin]

No.

I like Yogi's idea, though.

[darthbob88]

Sure. Political views and bias, IMHO, have no place in the classroom. Scientific ones, however, do, so I would be honest about it. I'd tell them that ID is a hypothesis, while evolution is a theory, and explain the difference between the two. I'd advise them to read the stickerinside the cover of their text, and replace the word "evolution" with "ID" and "theory" with "hypothesis". Then we'd have the lecture on ID("God did it") and get on to evolution.

[OmegaGuy]

I'd definitely teach ID.

ID - FSMism, that is.