2021 Medley #11 - Surprise, there's a teacher shortage

The teacher shortage continues,

COVID losses, PDK poll,

High-achieving schools, Evolution

TEACHER SHORTAGE? SURPRISE!

Four reasons why schools are facing crippling shortages

Chalkbeat, whose "supporters" include privatizers like the Walton Family, the Gates Foundation, and EdChoice, report here on the ongoing teacher shortage made worse by the pandemic. Their explanation focuses on the combination of low pay and the weak economy -- which are, indeed, part of the problem. I think that a more important set of reasons, however, are how teachers have been treated due to lack of respect by the public (and politicians...and the media), and the impact of privatization on public education. After you read this, check out the next article on the same topic.

The staffing shortage has become a defining feature of this school year. Non-teaching, often lower-paid roles seem to have been particularly hard to fill.

“It is affecting the whole climate of the schools,” said Sabine Phillips, whose middle school in Broward County, Florida has buses regularly arriving late and few substitute teachers. “It’s just hard to keep people in a positive mood.”

So what is going on here? There’s no one answer, according to a range of experts watching these shortages nationwide, but a constellation of potential explanations. Some are exacerbated versions of old problems: schools need people to choose challenging roles with relatively low pay. Other explanations are new, like federal money boosting demand for educators, the continued disruption to childcare, and COVID-related health concerns.

‘Exhausted and underpaid’: teachers across the US are leaving their jobs in numbers

Quoted here is Steven Singer, blogger at Gadfly on the Wall Blog (and author of the next post as well). As an actual, current, real-life, teacher, he has a good handle on the reasons for the teacher shortage -- the pandemic, of course, is one, but also, he says, we need to remember low pay, low respect, low autonomy, and lack of a professional voice. All these are part of teaching in Indiana and the supermajority of privatizers in the state's General Assembly guarantees that it will stay that way. Chalkbeat, take note.

“They don’t give us numbers or report it but we see in our buildings how we’re all needed to sub for missing teachers. It’s way more than normal,” said Steven Singer, a middle school teacher in western Pennsylvania. “I, myself, was in and out of the hospital last week due to my Crohn’s disease. The stress of the pandemic is taking a toll on me and all of us. We’re just at a breaking point. This crisis for teachers didn’t start with Covid. We have low pay, low respect, low autonomy, and no one listens to us. Now we’re being forced to risk our lives and our health.”

At least 378 active teachers have died from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, along with hundreds of other school workers. Several surveys have shown teachers are more likely to leave the profession because of worsening stressand burnout during the pandemic, coupled with pre-existing issues such as a lack of resources and low pay.

COVID LOSSES

My Students Haven’t Lost Learning. They’ve Lost Social and Emotional Development

Teachers have been telling the public for years that there's more to education than "reading, writing, and 'rithmetic." There are things that go on in classrooms that are more important than test scores. The "loss" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is more than just content area loss, which can be made up. The loss is emotional...parents, relatives and friends lost to COVID-19. The loss is social isolation from being quarantined. Students have to learn to deal with those losses before so-called "learning loss."

According to the CDC, more than 140,000 children in the U.S. lost a primary or secondary caregiver such as a live-in grandparent or another family member to the virus.

Globally, that’s more than 1.5 million kids who have lost a parent, guardian or live-in relative to the pandemic, according to the Lancet.

No wonder kids are having trouble dealing with their emotions! Their support systems are shot!

My students are bright, caring, energetic and creative people. They have the same wants and needs as children always have. They just have fewer tools with which to meet them.

Administrators often focus on academic deficits.

They worry about learning loss and what the kids can’t do today versus students in the same grades before the pandemic. But I think this is a huge mistake.

My students are not suffering from a lack of academics. They’re suffering from a lack of social and emotional development.

PARENTS APPRECIATE THEIR LOCAL SCHOOLS

PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools
A supplement to Kappan magazine

Every time the PDK poll is released we learn that the majority of Americans (and even more public school parents) love their local schools...it's "those other schools" elsewhere in the country that are, apparently, terrible. This year is no different. Why is that? Could it be that we are being given poor quality information about schools in other places? Could it be that we know our own children's schools and appreciate the work that is done there?

Majorities of Americans give high marks to their community’s public schools and public school teachers for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic during the 2020-21 school year. Further, the public is broadly confident in schools’ preparedness to handle the challenges ahead in 2021-22. Teachers fare especially well in these assessments. About two-thirds of adults overall, and as many K-12 public school parents, give their community’s public school teachers an A or B grade for their pandemic response. Parents are almost as positive about their community’s public schools more generally, giving 63% A’s or B’s, though the positive rating slips to 54% among all Americans.

As is customarily the case, public schools nationally — as opposed to schools or teachers in one’s own community — fare less well, with about 4 in 10 adults overall, and parents in particular, giving them A or B grades for their pandemic response.

HIGH ACHIEVING SCHOOLS MAY BE TOXIC

The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School

Toxic high-achieving schools...

Students at high-achieving schools exhibit much higher rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse than those at lower achieving schools…

The harmful effects of attending a high-achieving school are long-lasting…

The toxic achievement pressure for HAS students comes from parents, teachers, peers, and ultimately from within the student.

US ACCEPTANCE OF EVOLUTION PASSES FIFTY PERCENT

Evolution now accepted by a majority of Americans

Science, not religion, ought to be the determining factor in what's taught in our public schools. But citizens of the US have always had a difficult time separating church and state, despite the protections of the First Amendment. Included among the topics attacked by the science-deniers is evolution. Education is the key. [Note: I added the link in the quote below]

Examining data over 35 years, the study consistently identified aspects of education — civic science literacy, taking college courses in science, and having a college degree — as the strongest factors leading to the acceptance of evolution.

“The more education you have, the more likely you are to accept evolution,” observed co-author Glenn Branch, deputy director of NCSE, adding, “The proportion of Americans with a college degree almost doubled between 1988 and 2018.”

The researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA. Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.”

The series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

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What do vaccine and mask deniers do when they get sick?

Delightful. Medieval America always in intimate personal confidence of the Almighty. -- George Bernard Shaw

In 1909, the women, ages 16-23, who worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the Leiserson & Company went on strike.* They were fighting against...

• unsanitary working conditions
• fire hazards (which would later prove all too relevant)
• the endless fines for talking, laughing, singing, stitches being crooked, etc
• long working hours, often until 10 at night, with only 1 break for eating
• low wages (around $6 a week, men made $12 a week for the same work in 1907)
• the inappropriate behavior (aka, sexual) of their bosses.

When the women were told by one magistrate that their strike was against "God and Nature" George Bernard Shaw wrote the words at the top of this page.

More than a century later, the same mentality that assures some that they know exactly what God wants is, as Shaw wrote, still present here in the United States.

DEMONIC MASKS

Let's be clear at the outset, the people who are anti-mask-in-school are a minority. Those who are against school-children wearing masks because it's "demonic" are an even smaller minority, but it's those people who grab the headlines and the clicks...like the "nurse" who went viral with this...

"Remember we have authority in Christ Jesus," Melissa stated. "These are demonic entities, and all the school boards of all the United States of America, and all of us Christians will be sticking together to take them out, or the police officers that kick us out for our First Amendment right."

Melissa went on to say that she's been a registered nurse for 13 years and that "masks just don't work."

...Melissa then went on to reiterate that the school board was full of "demonic entities," which led school board officials to cut her mic off for a final time.

Where might she, and others like her, be getting this information? Could be from politicians...

Former Missouri gubernatorial candidate Saundra McDowell recently suggested that mask wearing is part of a "demonic ritual" to take away "God-given rights."

It could be from religious leaders...

“I don’t need to be a jerk for Jesus, but ... I’m not going to kowtow down to a wicked godless culture,” Mr Locke said...

The pastor has previously claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris is a “jezebel demon” and that the Biden administration is in charge of “child-trafficking tunnels” underneath Washington, DC.

FACTS SHOULD, BUT OFTEN DON'T, MATTER

More and more children are getting COVID since school started this academic year. Yet the extreme (and minority) right-wing science-deniers continue to fight against vaccines and masks.

This is despite the fact that masks...

The report found in part that masks effectively prevented COVID-19 transmission even without physical distancing in schools and on buses.

...work.

...studies show that even in situations where these other measures aren't being used, masking makes a big difference in keeping the virus from spreading. That was one conclusion of the ABC Science Collaborative, a major research initiative involving nearly 1 million students from 100 school districts and 14 charter school in North Carolina. It found that universal masking policies helped keep transmission rates of the coronavirus within schools to under 1% last fall and spring.

...and so do vaccines.

...studies that have looked at how COVID-19 vaccines work in real-world conditions (vaccine effectiveness studies) have shown that these vaccines are working well.

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE?

You need to choose who you're going to believe.

Lack of Trusted Authority is Why Covid-19 is Kicking Our Butts

The US has only 4% of the world population but nearly a quarter of all Covid cases.

That’s not a coincidence.

In large part, it’s because we don’t know how to combat the virus because we don’t know who to trust.

And the resulting credibility vacuum has enabled unscrupulous politicians, agents of chaos and other charlatans to position themselves as experts.

I don't know the self-proclaimed nurse, Melissa, quoted above.

I do know that Dr. Anthony Fauci has an M.D. from Cornell Medical College (N.Y.C.) and more than fifty years of experience in the field of medicine, and specifically, immunology and infectious diseases. I also know that the Centers for Disease Control, when not being manipulated by politicians, is staffed by professionals in their respective fields.

I'll trust the experts rather than those who call down demons from supernatural myths we should have left behind centuries ago.

I'll Trust Science

I admit it. I loved teaching science to young children during my years as an elementary classroom teacher. I loved teaching science because I understand the scientific method and I trust it to provide us with answers and then corrections to answers that we might have gotten wrong. It's important for students, and all of us, to learn that science changes when we get new information.

When I was a child there were nine planets. Now there are eight planets, a collection of dwarf-planets, and tens of thousands of minor planets all orbiting the sun.

When I was a child, early computers took up hundreds of square feet of warehouse space and ran on vacuum tubes. Now we wear much more powerful computers on our wrists, or carry them in our pockets.

I'll Trust Modern Medicine

I trust modern medicine. I never got smallpox or polio because I was born at a time when vaccines for those diseases were available. Because of modern surgical techniques, I can walk on my right heel that shattered when I fell down some steps. I can breathe even with allergies, lung disease, and an immune deficiency because of advances in medicine.

What do vaccine and mask deniers do when they get sick, with COVID-19 or any other illness? What do you think they do?

Susan B. Anthony explained it well in 1896, when she said,

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.

Protect unvaccinated kids in school. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated.

*Triangle Shirtwaist Factory women strike, win better wages and hours, New York, 1909

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America - Exceptionalism or Ignorance?

ANTI-FACT EDUCATION - AGAINST SCIENCE

We're used to ultra right-wing, anti-intellectuals screeching against schools teaching real science.

School boards, individual parents, and state legislators argue against teaching accepted science such as evolution, safety during the pandemic, and climate change. Indiana, as one of the reddest of the red states, is no slouch in that regard. For example, the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund have published a report, Making the Grade: How State Public School Science Standards Address Climate Change. Indiana rated a D which may be a surprise because it's too high. Why isn't it an F?

One reviewer commented...

"Interestingly, there is a good deal of focus on science and engineering solution-oriented perspectives, and this is why I scored the ’there’s hope’ section higher. This ... focus could be very effective if it was used to address and ideate climate adaptation and mitigation solutions.”

Notice the "if." So, despite the poor showing for Indiana, "there's hope," though I doubt I'll live to see a positive outcome.

...AND HISTORY

The current insanity over Critical Race Theory has added history and social studies to the mix.

Many of the same science-denying activists and legislators who are trying their best to "protect" American school children from climate change, public health efforts, and evolution, are now trying to "protect" students from actual history which doesn't always present the "American Experience" in a good light.

Instead of teaching children that the freedoms so eloquently described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should be taken as goals, not reality...that such freedoms were not available to women, native people, and hundreds of thousands of Africans and their descendants enslaved throughout the entire country, they want us to focus on "American Exceptionalism" -- that the USA is somehow God-ordained to lead the world morally as well as militarily. Somehow, if we hide the ugly side of our history it will be ignored and forgotten.

Apparently, they don't want the next generation of Americans to learn...

• that the founding fathers included slave holders

• that Reconstruction ended when white supremacists in the former Confederacy decided that formerly enslaved people shouldn't have the right to vote despite the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments

• that racism existed in the Union states as well as the South

• that redlining was a thing

• that Black veterans weren't allowed to reap the benefits of the GI Bill

• that the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s was fueled because of the racism of white supremacists

• that we still need the 1965 Voting Rights Bill

Instead, their goal is to instill our children with "alternate facts."

But if we hide the true facts the goal of of the Declaration and the Constitution will never be achieved.

TEXAS LEADS THE WAY

Derek Black reported today that Texas is leading the charge to hide our history...

To be clear, it doesn’t ban discussions or readings on these people & topics, but it makes them optional. This begs the question of whether it is possible to teach civics w/o discussing the people & movements that expanded the civic body to include more than just white men. 2/2

— Derek W. Black (@DerekWBlack) July 18, 2021

Texas Senate Passes Bill to Remove Required Lessons on Civil Rights Movements from Public School Curriculums

It’s amazing how out of all the things to spend endless legislative time and energy on, hamstringing teachers from talking about the messy parts of American history solely because it makes white people uncomfortable is what gets the most attention and the fastest action from Republican lawmakers.

Well, both that and also speedily passing restrictive voting legislature because it’s the only way Republicans can stay in power.

In fact, this bill on teaching curriculum is currently stalled in the Texas House of Representatives because House Democrats are in Washington D.C. advocating on behalf of equitable voting rights. This is all in opposition to a voting bill that would place more restrictions on the state’s already restrictive voting process.

There is a concerted effort on behalf of many Americans to hide the truth from our children...the truth about science, and the truth about our history. How "exceptional" can America be when we're sending our children to school and encouraging them to remain ignorant?

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2021 Medley #6 - We Slide into Superstition and Darkness

Mask misinformation, Climate change misinformation, Vaccine misinformation, Legislative ignorance

MASK MISINFORMATION

N.J. school nurse fails science, experts say, in comments about face masks.

Sadly, this nurse at the center of this article has failed to keep up with the science she (should have) learned in nursing school.

One of the arguments Nurse Pein gives for being against masks is that it causes damage to the mental health of children. More first-graders are suffering from anxiety and depression, she claims. She blames the masks but fails science in at least two ways.

Science lesson #1

First, her conclusion is based on a small sample size, just one school. Any good scientist will tell you that a large enough sample size is necessary before concluding that a hypothesis is correct. Small samples increase the margin of error and reduce the confidence level. Are the first-graders in her school representative of all the first-graders in the state...the country...the world? Obviously not. Perhaps there's something happening in her community that is causing stress among the population of young children -- something like a pandemic, for example. Blaming it on the masks alone is just plain ignorant.

Science lesson #2

Failure number two -- correlation does not imply causation. Nurse Pein blames the masks for the distress of the children in her school, but did she explore anything else that might be causing the problems? Are all the children who wear masks to school feeling anxious or depressed? Perhaps her attendance area has a large number of COVID cases and the students are worried about their family members or classmates. Perhaps the children have heard adults spout misinformation about the dangers of wearing masks! Whatever the cause, the conclusion that the masks are causing the negative feelings of the children is a conclusion without a basis.

Finally, it must be noted that she hasn't kept up with the changes to the science of the pandemic as we learn more about the virus. Early on we were told that masks weren't effective against the virus and were needed for medical professionals. However, as we have learned more about how the virus is spread the science has changed. We've learned more. We know more than we did in February and March of 2020. Now we know that masks are effective in preventing the spread of the virus. Similarly, we now know that children are more susceptible to coronavirus variants than they were a year ago (Northeast Indiana readers, see also here).

Science is not an unchanging truth. Science conclusions can and do change when we learn more.

Other objections Pein has for mask-wearing are debunked in the article.

After refusing to wear a mask herself, Erin Pein said she was suspended from her job in the Stafford Township school district.

Now her supporters are planning a rally and her cause has become an issue in the upcoming Republican primary for Hirsh Singh, who arranged and posted a widely shared video interview with her and argues that no one should be forced to wear masks — calling it “a matter of personal freedom.”

But epidemiologists say such claims are little more than “inflammatory rhetoric” and at odds with the science that has repeatedly shown that face masks are highly effective in reducing the spread of the coronavirus. At the same time, they said as new variants of the virus develop, the wearing of masks has become more important than ever.

CLIMATE CHANGE MISINFORMATION

Making the Grade? How State Public School Science Standards Address Climate Change

Are you surprised that Indiana didn't get an F in its state standards addressing climate change? The fact that there's some hope raised the grade to a D.

The state standards for science in Indiana, according to the report by the National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, don't even acknowledge that the changing climate is a problem. Students graduating from K-12 schools in Indiana will hear pundits on TV raging about the dangers of climate change and will assume that it's not a problem we need to worry about. Graduates from Indiana will be unlikely to contribute to advances in climate science and other related fields. The right-wing myth that climate change is a hoax will continue to find a home in Indiana.

Indiana
Overall grade: D

Indiana earned a D, just barely escaping and overall failing grade. The state's approach to the reality and severity of climate change as well as the human responsibility for causing it is abysmal. One reviewer: "I must say [the standards do] not meet the needs of Indiana students in the process of learning their foundational understanding of the world they are inheriting and the promising careers and opportunities available to them; this is a disservice to them." Saving the state from an F were somewhat better -- but still poor -- marks for addressing the possibility of solutions to the problem, which is odd since the standards failed to make clear that the problem exists. One reviewer summed up thus: "These standards do a relatively poor job in meeting the four rubrics. They do not have a coherent learning progression or explicit information. Interestingly, there is a good deal of focus on science and engineering solution-oriented perspectives, and this is why I scored the 'there's hope' section higher. This...focus could be very effective if it was used to address and ideate climate adaptation and mitigation solutions." Not surprisingly, the state got failing grades for preparing students for studying climate change in higher education and for responsible participation in civic deliberation on the issue.

VACCINE MISINFORMATION

Why mRNA vaccines can’t change your genome: a lesson from Elmer Elevator
My last blog post, Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket, focused on science literacy, and the lack of it in American culture. I suggested that teachers connect to organizations to help bring science literacy to their students. One of those groups was the National Center for Science Education. In this post, Executive Director of NCSE, Ann Reid, debunks the conspiracy that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines alter a person's DNA. Hint: You should read the book My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, a 1949 Newbery Honor Book. Hint #1: mRNA vaccines won't alter your DNA.

Over the course of Elmer’s adventure, he uses each of these objects. For example, the toothbrush and toothpaste serve to distract a hostile rhinoceros that threatens to drown Elmer in the pool he weeps in because his horn (the book says “tusk,” but rhino horns aren’t teeth) has grown grey and ugly. Only the jackknife, which Elmer eventually uses to saw through the ropes holding the dragon, makes any sense in advance. But every object is used, and every one is essential; without each and every one of them, Elmer would never have reached and rescued the baby dragon.

All right, I can hear you saying: “What in the Sam Hill does this have to do with mRNA vaccines?”

Well, this. For an mRNA vaccine to alter your DNA, it would have to overcome a series of challenges, each of which requires specialized cellular components that would have to be in the right place at the right time. Just like Elmer Elevator, the mRNA can’t just show up in your cell and expect to get past all the wild animals between it and the baby dragon, as it were.

SCIENCE IGNORANCE CAN BE HARMFUL TO YOUR PUBLIC SCHOOL

A state legislator is howling indoctrination because my 7th graders are learning the ocean is polluted

A North Carolina representative wants to make sure that students aren't taught about climate change which he says is "indoctrination."

This is what happens when science is misunderstood, misrepresented, and then politicized.

What also scares me about this bill is that it would require teachers to spend an insane amount of time every day posting lesson plans online.

A member of the North Carolina House of Representatives held up my teaching as an example of harmful indoctrination of children this week as state legislators met to discuss a new bill which would require teachers to post their lesson plans online for public review.

The K-12 Education Committee approved HB 755, also known as “An Act to Ensure Academic Transparency.” It passed the House by a vote of 66-50 and now moves on to the Senate.

The legislation mandates that all lesson plans, including information about any supporting instructional materials as well as procedures for how an in-person review of lesson materials may be requested, be “prominently displayed” on school websites.

Iredell County Republican Representative Jeffrey McNeely gave the bill two enthusiastic thumbs up, pointing to my teaching as an example of the hidden indoctrination that will be exposed if the bill is passed into law

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan's 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World, is prescient in its description of the world 26 years into its future -- superstition, lack of critical thinking, the inability to question, the inability to distinguish between truth and falsehood...

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

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Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

(c) Can Stock Photo / mheld

POLLUTION

I never wanted to be one of those grumpy old men who say things like, "The country is going to Hell in a handbasket," but it's getting harder and harder to control myself. We in the US have a serious pollution problem. It's not just air and water pollution, though those are certainly worth our attention.

Sadly an insidious form of pollution is spreading throughout the US. It's pollution in the form of increased science denial and conspiracy addiction.

Last week I read a Science news article about a private school in Florida (receiving voucher money, no doubt) that refused to allow any of their teachers to get the COVID-19 vaccine for fear that it is somehow dangerous to the students.

It is our policy, to the extent possible, not to employ anyone who has taken the experimental COVID-19 injection until further information is known. … It is in the best interests of the children to protect them from the unknown implications of being in close proximity for the entire day with a teacher who has very recently taken the COVID-19 injection.

Follow-up articles confirmed that those who ran the school were not just against the COVID vaccine, but vaccines in general, as well as conspiracies around 5G communications networks. One teacher, who has since quit teaching at the school, said that the atmosphere was "like a cult."

Closer to home, some local parents are up in arms because their kids are being forced to wear masks at school. "Kids don't die from COVID!" is the claim from parents. Apparently, these parents don't know anyone older than school age who their children might infect. So, the school system brought in medical professionals who explained that masks were effective. The board President, who is against mask-wearing and offering no scientific rebuttal, simply said that

...he was not “in full agreement” with the statements from health professionals.

On Thursday (April 29), the Board President's wife suggested that parents take action against a teacher who spoke

...positively about the COVID-19 vaccination.

She also suggested that parents participate in a student "sick-out" in the fall so the school system would lose "$5 million."

Why are she and her husband fighting against established science? Why not listen to actual medical professionals (who, by the way, talked to the school board)? Perhaps because they don't "believe" the science. They've likely been convinced by right-wing media that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, or that the danger of the disease is exaggerated. My guess is that they refuse to believe the CDC's claim that nearly 570,000 American citizens have died from COVID. They believe their preferred media outlets over actual medical experts. When their child brings home the coronavirus and infects an elderly or at-risk relative will they ask the media outlets for help...or will they go to an actual medical doctor?

In cableland, white supremacist sympathizer Tucker Carleson has called on viewers to confront people and tell them that "your mask-wearing makes me uncomfortable. Take the mask off." He went on to claim that masks didn't prevent wearers from getting COVID. When the CDC responded that mask-wearing was more for the benefit of other people than for the mask wearer, Carleson ignored the response and replied that masks don't prevent wearers from getting COVID.

These are the same people who, I expect,

• go to doctors and hospitals when they are sick

• take prescription medications to improve their health

• use computer technology for safety (in their cars, for example), entertainment, and convenience

• use municipally cleaned water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning

• live in homes heated and cooled by electricity

• eat meals made with high-yield grain or high-yield grain-fed animals

• use (or pay someone to use) fertilizers and plant foods to keep their lawns and gardens growing

• watch television, or listen to the radio, whose signals are beamed from satellites

• use other products, materials, and services improved by science in their daily lives

A SPUTNIK MOMENT

Unfortunately, these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. About half of all Americans reject the concept of evolution (because "it's just a theory"). More than a third of Americans are dismissive, doubtful, or apathetic about climate change. About one-fourth of all Americans are afraid to get the COVID vaccine putting the nation's herd immunity at risk. Beyond that, there's 1) the moon landing was a hoax, 2) the government has covered up aliens on Earth, 3) drug companies are hiding cures for diseases, 4) all vaccines are dangerous, 5) the Earth is flat, and numerous other conspiracies.

As a former science teaching elementary school teacher I feel discouraged. The nation's children, including those who attend Miami's antivax private school, are watching. A large number of them are being taught to ignore expertise and deny basic science. It's as if the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the last three hundred years of scientific learning never happened. The country is being polluted with ignorance.

Have we been so obsessed with teaching only reading and math over the last two decades that we've given science and other content areas short shrift in public school curricula? Is the current lack of scientific literacy in our citizens due to the cult of personality around the previous President (who is also a science denier and conspiracy theorist)?

Science literacy has to be taught, but, as we've seen, teachers willing to teach kids to be science-thinkers are often up against science-denying school board members. In order to combat this trend in usually Republican areas of the country, there are several science-teacher groups that provide help and support for classroom science teachers, like the Association for Science Teacher Education, the National Center for Science Education, and the National Science Teaching Association. It's up to teachers to choose to use the groups' resources, however.

We need a "Sputnik moment." In 1957, the Soviets beat us into space. The successful launch of their Sputnik satellite pushed complacent Americans into action...actions which included a massive investment in space science and science education. We need something that will spur the same sort of action now. The worldwide coronavirus pandemic might have done it if it hadn't been politicized, but it looks as if we'll need something else.

Maybe the Chinese will land on Mars...

Grumpy old man

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Traitors or Heroes: Ben Franklin

Today is birthday number 315 for Benjamin Franklin. He was born in Boston on January 17, 1706.

Franklin is the only founding father to have signed all four of the key documents establishing the U.S.: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain (1783) and the U.S. Constitution (1787).

Most people know about Franklin, the statesman and philosopher. Here are some relevant Franklin quotes for today...

THE NEWS MEDIA

Apology for Printers

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

ON COMPROMISE

Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania

Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro’ a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct Course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left, so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst.

THE EMPIRE DIMINISHED

Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One

[A] great Empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges.

HEALTH CARE

Referring to private hospital funding alone:

That won't work, it will never be enough, good health care costs a lot of money, remembering 'the distant parts of this province' in which 'assistance cannot be procured, but at an expense that neither [the sick-poor] nor their townships can afford.' … '[This] seems essential to the true spirit of Christianity, and should be extended to all in general, whether deserving or undeserving, as far as our power reaches.'

LIBERTY

Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1755-1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), pp. 19-21. [November 11, 1755]

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

WAR

Letter to Mary Hewson

All Wars are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will Mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their Differences by Arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the Cast of a Dye, it would be better than by Fighting and destroying each other.

TRAITORS OR HEROES

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (March 16th, 1775).

In 200 years will people remember us as traitors or heroes? That is the question we must ask.

Franklin was one of the most well known and well-respected scientists and inventors of his day. We have him to thank for (among other things)...

• Bifocals

• Fire Departments

• Public Libraries

• Understanding the relationship between electricity and lightning

• Lightning Rod

• The U.S. Postal System

• Franklin Stove

• Mapping the Gulf Stream

• Swim Fins

• Glass Armonica

• Flexible Urinary Catheter

• Odometer

• Long Arm

FURTHER EXPLORATION

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

VIDEO (30 minutes): Walter Isaacson: "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"

NOTE: This is an edited version of an earlier post celebrating Franklin's birthday. I've added some quotes and information and corrected some links.

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Isaac Asimov, January 2, 1920

On the occasion of Isaac Asimov's 101st birthday, I offer some quotes relevant to today's political and cultural environment.

ON IGNORANCE

A Cult of Ignorance,  by Isaac Asimov. Newsweek, January 21, 1980

It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: “America’s right to know.” It seems almost cruel to ask, ingenuously, ”America’s right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?”

None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

The complete article, A Cult of Ignorance, by Asimov, may should be read here.

ON DENIAL

From The Gods Themselves

The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.

From Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations

It is the easiest thing in the world to deny a fact. People do it all the time. Yet it remains a fact just the same.

ON WISDOM

From Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

ON SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

From Combatting U.S. Scientific Illiteracy in The Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1989

Increasingly, our leaders must deal with dangers that threaten the entire world, where an understanding of those dangers and the possible solutions depends on a good grasp of science. The ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, questions of diet and heredity. All require scientific literacy. Can Americans choose the proper leaders and support the proper programs if they themselves are scientifically illiterate? The whole premise of democracy is that it is safe to leave important questions to the court of public opinion—but is it safe to leave them to the court of public ignorance?

ON RIGHT AND WRONG

From Foundation

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

ON VIOLENCE

From Foundation

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

ON SCIENCE, EVIDENCE, AND TRUTH

From an Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.

From The Roving Mind

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

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2020 Medley #22 - The Process of Science is Ongoing

Science is a way of knowing

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) provides resources for science teachers. A new series of lessons deals with the scientific method -- the process of science. The aim is to give students experience in using the scientific method for real-life decision making. The first lesson (see below) deals with helping students overcome misconceptions...

1. MISCONCEPTION: Science is complete, absolute, and unchanging.

2. MISCONCEPTION: Science can answer all questions.

The responses to those misconceptions are 1) as we gather more information, scientific conclusions can change, and 2) there are some things we don't know.

The value to correcting these misconceptions is obvious to anyone who has been living in the U.S. for the last nine months. The coronavirus pandemic has tested the scientific understanding of the American people -- and their leaders -- and found them wanting. The misconception that science is complete, absolute, and unchanging, has, for example, allowed millions of people to believe that wearing masks has no impact on their health and safety. How many times have you heard someone comment something similar to...

"We can't trust Dr. Fauci (or the CDC) because first they said that masks don't work and now they say they do. Which is it? They need to make up their minds."

The concept of changing our behavior based on the accumulation of more information seems foreign to the "anti-maskers," and their denial of the efficacy of facemasks is based on a simple case of believing the misconception that "science doesn't change."

The lessons from the NCSE will, hopefully, boost students' scientific literacy and protect them from establishing erroneous knowledge as their beliefs. As they grow they will understand that scientists who are helping to develop public policy might have to change their minds based on new evidence and additional data.


Science is a Way of Knowing

...the nature of science unit takes a misconception-based approach to teaching and learning. To combat misconceptions, students are given opportunities to examine evidence— for example, an online interactive that shows how face coverings prevent particle dispersion—to answer everyday questions like, Why wear a mask? This not only helps them counter the misconception they may be exposed to—“Masks don’t help prevent COVID-19”—but also equips them with the skills needed to analyze, assess, and, if necessary, debunk future misinformation.

Lesson One...

This lesson introduces students to a basic understanding of the scientific process in action.

Additionally, by the end of this lesson, the student will understand that, while an experiment may come to a conclusive end, the process of science is ongoing, continually evolving as new evidence emerges, and will recognize that science cannot answer questions that do not pertain to natural processes.

Backfire: Watching Madness in Real Time

The danger of not understanding that science can change leads to people who are unwilling to accept a change in position when confronted with new information. In fact, the research discussed here indicates that once people make up their minds, the presentation of facts in opposition to their beliefs will only exacerbate their error. Anything that opposes their current belief becomes "fake news."

Fortunately, the article also offers a way around this obstinacy.

What happens when you remove that element of choice and present someone with arguments that run counter to their worldview? In this case, the cognitive process that comes to the fore is Disconfirmation Bias, the flipside of Confirmation Bias. This is where people spend significantly more time and thought actively arguing against opposing arguments.

This was demonstrated when Republicans who believed Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 terrorist attacks were provided with evidence that there was no link between the two, including a direct quote from President George Bush. Only 2% of participants changed their mind (although interestingly, 14% denied that they believed the link in the first place). The vast majority clung to the link between Iraq and 9/11, employing a range of arguments to brush aside the evidence. The most common response was attitude bolstering – bringing supporting facts to mind while ignoring any contrary facts. The process of bringing to the fore supporting facts resulted in strengthening people’s erroneous belief.

If facts cannot dissuade a person from their pre-existing beliefs – and can sometimes make things worse – how can we possibly reduce the effect of misinformation? There are two sources of hope.

Christian Nationalists’ Rejection Of Science Is Exactly What We Don’t Need Right Now

An example of the inability to change ones mind despite new information and facts, is the insistance of some religious leaders (those of the "religious right" or, as this author calls them, "Christian nationalists.") on opening their churches and not following recommended procedures for limiting the spread of the coronavirus.

...the longstanding effort to water down or remove instruction about Darwinian evolution in public school science classes, but that’s far from the only way the Religious Right’s anti-science attitude manifests itself. Many of them also deny climate change and, as we’ve seen during the coronavirus pandemic, growing numbers have signed up with conspiracy theorists who either believe the virus isn’t a real threat or that the country is overreacting to it (despite the U.S. death toll, which has now topped 209,000).

This attitude led many Christian nationalists to insist that their churches should be able to remain open even in the face of public health orders curbing all large gatherings. Many derided recommendations from medical professionals such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance, and some extremist pastors went so far as to simply ignore these orders.

Such reckless behavior threatens all of us. Around the country, several events that took place in houses of worship have been identified as “superspreader” incidents. (Last month, authorities in Maine reported that seven people had died after a couple held a wedding reception and did not follow health guidelines. None of the seven had attended the reception.)

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Listen to this - 2020 #4

THE NEED FOR SCIENCE

Children Are Born Scientists. What If School Encouraged That? (Kristina Rizga)

Standardized tests are generally a waste of time and money, but they do show what states require schools to emphasize in daily instruction. It's no surprise that there's been an "overall decline" in the time spent teaching science...which is not tested to the extent that reading and math are.

In Indiana, for example, all children in grades three through eight are tested every year in English/Language Arts and Math. Science is tested only in grades four and six, and then not again until subject area tests in high school (Social Studies is tested only in grade five before high school). Students in grade three have an additional reading test tied to a grade-level promotion.

There are standards for science in every grade, of course, and teachers are required to teach those standards every year, but the fact that they're not tested tells the teachers and the students that they are "not important" and are often relegated to the position of "fillers" and taught "when there's time" during the school week.

Kindergartens, which have transitioned from developmentally appropriate activities to the "new first grade", rarely allow students time to study science through free play at water tables, sand tables, building blocks, and other natural explorations.

Our students should start preparing for a science and technology-based society. Carl Sagan reminded us in 1990 that we live in a society dependent upon science and technology, yet too few of us understand science and technology.

From Kristina Rizga

Studies that have looked at time dedicated to science in elementary grades since the mid-’90s, have found variation between states, but generally show an overall decline, especially in schools serving high numbers of low-income children. Meanwhile, jobs in the STEM-related fields are now projected to be among the fastest growing in America, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Political storms: Emergent partisan skepticism of hurricane risks

From Elisa F. Long, M. Keith Chen, and Ryne Rohla

That Americans don't understand or trust science is reason enough that we need to teach it. As a nation, we are ignorant of science-based problems like climate change, toxic and radioactive wastes, and ozone depletion. When someone raises an alarm about a looming scientific crisis there is widespread denial that it's happening.

A significant number of our citizens distrust scientists and science, and sadly, science distrust and denial are tied to one of our political parties. Proof of that can be seen in the study below, where people from the science-denying political party were more likely to ignore warnings about dangerous hurricane forecasts.

Exposing students to good science beginning in early childhood is a way to make sure that they grow up to be science-literate citizens.

Mistrust of scientific evidence and government-issued guidelines is increasingly correlated with political affiliation...Combining GPS data for 2.7 million smartphone users in Florida and Texas with 2016 U.S. presidential election precinct-level results, we examine how conservative-media dismissals of hurricane advisories in 2017 influenced evacuation decisions. Likely Trump-voting Florida residents were 10 to 11 percentage points less likely to evacuate Hurricane Irma than Clinton voters (34% versus 45%)...The rapid surge in media-led suspicion of hurricane forecasts—and the resulting divide in self-protective measures illustrates a large behavioral consequence of science denialism.

LET THE SCHOOLS FIX IT

‘The failures of everyone else get passed to the schools’

America's public schools have been charged with fixing societal problems for decades. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the problem in 1967 remarking that

...we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.

There are still those who think that "fixing" the schools will fix society despite the fact that it has never worked. Politicians, pundits, and policymakers have, for years, passed the buck to the schools. Maybe it's time for them to accept some of the responsibility. Schools can help, of course, but can't do it alone.

From Middle school teacher, Braden Bell

Whenever society has a problem and those in charge can’t resolve it, the problem gets punted to the schools, which simply must deal with it as best they can.

Hunger. Lack of reliable child care. Gun violence. Pregnancies and STDs. Students who are abused or vulnerable in any number of ways...In all these cases, society is conflicted or at an impasse. As politicians and ideologues argue, schools have to address the problems encountered by the students who show up each day. Schools can’t punt. And because this exceeds what schools were designed for, they are often not well equipped to take on these challenges.

INFINITE DIVERSITY IN INFINITE COMBINATIONS: LIVING TOGETHER IN A COMMUNITY

Gene Roddenberry Quotes That Inspire a Great Future

No matter how hard the current occupant of the White House and his followers try to deny and prevent it, the US is a diverse country. That diversity is a net positive for our growth as a nation.

From Gene Roddenberry

Diversity contains as many treasures as those waiting for us on other worlds. We will find it impossible to fear diversity and to enter the future at the same time.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg says this is the secret to living a meaningful life

From Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The myth of the American "rugged individual" has been taken to the extreme. We have become a tribal nation focused on getting benefits for ourselves only. Unfortunately, we live in a community of people...and a community of nations. We need to understand that "we all do better when we all do better." The late Justice Ginsburg understood that.

...to make life a little better for people less fortunate than you. That's what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself, but for one's community.

Reimagine Schools after Covid-19? Bring Children Together!

Thurgood Marshall said,

...unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together and understand each other

From Nancy Bailey

Public schools can bring us together. When children learn to care for each other with tolerance and understanding, they will grow to respect one other as adults...

Vouchers and charters divide. Private schools and charter schools segregate. Remote learning, or learning at home or anyplace anytime, does little to bring students together.

This country needs strong public schools that unite students and families.

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2020 Medley #13 -- Scientific Ignorance and American Anti-Intellectualism

A vaccine for conspiracy theories, 
COVID-19 and masks, No more testing, Scientific literacy, Schools as child care centers,
Anti-science/Anti-intellectualism, Sagan: We've been bamboozled

A VACCINE FOR CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Conspiracy Theories

The internet has opened the door for Americans to gain wide-ranging expanded knowledge...but, as Isaac Asimov wrote, "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

With that expanded knowledge comes expanded falsehood...conspiracy theories. Teachers are tasked with teaching students how to read critically...to sift through massive amounts of information and learn how to tell truth from falsehood. The state of the nation today would indicate that we have failed. Conspiracy theories abound.

Take the current worldwide health crisis. According to conspiracy theories...

• the virus is spread by 5G towers, 

• masks will starve your body of oxygen,

• Bill Gates is going to use the coronavirus vaccine to inject us with microchips,

• coronavirus is a Chinese bio-weapon

[For debunking information see Debunking COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories]

The National Center for Science Education offers a way to combat conspiracy theories with critical thinking...with the help of an acronym CONSPIR.

John Cook, a frequent NCSE collaborator who focuses on combating misconceptions, recently co-authored The Conspiracy Theory Handbook. During a recent conversation with Cook, he noted: “While we do not have a vaccine for COVID-19 at this time, we do have a vaccine for misinformation and conspiracy theories — critical thinking."

So how do we guide our students to critically think? Isn’t that the million-dollar question? In the case of conspiracy theories, just remember the acronym CONSPIR.

By analyzing information using these seven traits, students — or any concerned citizen — can easily pick out the red flags of conspiratorial thinking. If you can answer yes to any of the following questions when reading articles about COVID-19, chances are you have stumbled across an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory or intentional disinformation...

THE TROUBLE WITH MASKS

Palm Beach County residents express outrage over mask requirement: 'Devil's laws'

Even though medical professionals wear masks for hours at a time (think of a heart or brain surgeon performing an 8- to 10-hour surgery...as well as the doctors and nurses who assist) mask-wearing as a preventative for passing the coronavirus is being accused of "killing people" for lack of oxygen. Others claim that having a municipal ordinance requiring mask-wearing is a violation of our constitutional rights -- even though many of those folks accept the laws requiring wearing seat belts in cars, car seats for children, and protective helmets while motorcycling.

Witness...

A Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners public comment session went viral Wednesday after residents denounced mandatory masking laws as “devil’s laws” that would “throw God’s wonderful breathing system out the door.”

One attendee, Sylvia Ball, said she was “very sad to see the authorities stomping on our constitutional rights,” adding, “They want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out the door.

NO MORE TESTS?

New coronavirus spike alarms Republicans, but not Trump

Does the President's statement below mean that the U.S. Education Department will no longer require annual achievement tests for children?

"If we didn't have standardized reading tests, we wouldn't have poor readers. We only have poor readers because we test..."

“If we didn’t test, we wouldn’t have cases,” he said later at a shipyard in Marinette, Wis. “But we have cases because we test...”

TYSON ON SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why Science Matters During COVID-19

In this episode of Star Talk, Neil deGrasse Tyson reminds us that science matters...

There comes a time when really the public needs to listen to scientists, in this case, to medical professionals...not only people in public, but people in power of legislation and policy, had the ear of scientists and elected not to take the warnings seriously.

K-12 SCHOOLS AS CHILD-CARE CENTERS

“Parents Need to Go to Work” Does Not Stop COVID at the School Door.

Side note...one of the reasons politicians are so anxious for children to return to school is for babysitting.

When I hear discussions about schools reopening in the fall, I already know what two chief reasons will be offered.

One is that students need to be educated. Of course they do, and as a career teacher, I desire to educate. I have dedicated my professional life to educating generations of children, and I miss being at school, in my classroom, with my students.

The second reason, which seems to follow quickly on the heels of the first, is that “parents need to get back to work”– the implication being that schools need to open so that parents once again have the built-in child care that the K12 school day (and its auxiliary programs) offers.

ANTI-SCIENCE AS ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

Franklin Graham Thinks Science And Religion Must Fight. As Usual, He’s Wrong

Anthony Fauci has the credentials and experience. We ought to listen to him.

“One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are – for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable – they just don’t believe science and they don’t believe authority.”

Fauci added, “So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who’s talking about science, that there are some people who just don’t believe that, and that’s unfortunate because, you know, science is truth.”

Americans need to learn that science is a process, not a list of facts. It involves continuing observation and exploration, multiple hypotheses, and then more observation and exploration. Rarely does it end. For example, the Germ Theory of Disease (just a theory?) can be traced back to the 11th Century A.D. and was updated in the 14th, 16th, 18th and 19th centuries. We're still learning about the "germs" that infect us...today.

Scientists are the original fact-checkers. If you claim you have made a scientific discovery, dozens of your scientist colleagues will try to prove you wrong.  Sometimes, even when there's a scientific consensus, someone comes along and changes everything. The fact that scientific information changes is a feature, not a bug.

Finally, the fact that scientists sometimes disagree about a certain topic is a sign of health and vitality in that discipline, not a weakness. Eventually, the scientific method, including the use of double-blind experiments, leads to a consensus. It’s all right for a scientist to challenge a prevailing theory, but he or she had better be able to produce some research and back it up with experiments that can be replicated by others under the same conditions – or those ideas will fall by the wayside.

Fauci is right about resistance to science being an undercurrent in American society...

SAGAN: WE'VE BEEN BAMBOOZLED

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