A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash

[n2doc]

By AMY HARMON
Published: August 23, 2008
ORANGE PARK, Fla. — David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote “Evolution” in the rectangle of light on the screen.

He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.

“If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”

In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.

But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.

more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/education/24evolution.html

Good , inspiring article!

[Peregrine]

1. I'm a FLA middle school science teacher

My school (a charter) hasn't implemented the new state standards yet, though Osceola county has for 6th grade (next year they will for 7th grade ...). There is no insidious reason why we haven't, the state just hasn't told anybody when FCAT will start testing the new standards, we think it is 2011 or 12 (FCAT tests science in 5, 8 and 10th grades only). So between now and when the new standards are tested, the old ones will be tested.

What I am faced with (since I teach evolution as does the 8th Grade teacher) is a lot of unknowns, but 2 knowns. I have a moslem child who is the daughter of a teacher here that last year informed my 6th graders that evolution is a myth. I also have a child whose mother just emailed me to let me know that her daughter was brought up in a proper christian family so if she does something wrong, just to let her know.

[Enthusiast]

2. God bless David Campbell!

He is fighting the good fight, a fight to educate the children of his community against a rising tide of organized ignorance.