OK, fair warning here: this is a rant. In my past life, before husband and children, I studied an awful lot of chemistry, physics, and biology. I designed experiments and analyzed data in both academic and commercial applications. I think that the way science is moving currently, and it’s path over the last 20 years projects to a future devoid of sound science.
One by one I have watched the once-great bastions of science fall first to the unscientific pressures of politicking and now to the pressures of politically-driven agendas.
The American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and now the American Chemical Society, or ACS, have one by one toppled to the pressures of those running the immense computer software companies of the age who somehow feel they can dictate a dumbed-down science curriculum for children. The ACS was until recently pretty immune to those pressures, focused on presenting and promoting the study of chemistry, not politics.
But today I find that the ACS has reinvented itself in a flashier, video-driven, less-wordy entity that claims to teach kids chemistry with frankly boring video games that teach nothing more that eye-hand coordination and some basic physics. Where is the chemistry? Where is the science? Where is the logic that strongly underpins chemistry? Are they even aware of what they are doing to the next generation of scientists and citizens?
People must demand better. We must put aside the self-loathing that is behind environmental politics. We must once again celebrate the exceptionalism of humanity. We must regain hope for our future.
You and I must stand up and say,
“No.
We refuse to play along with Common Core and all it stands for and implies.
We refuse to expose our children to this mind-numbing curriculum and standard set.
No way.”
It is a sad day for me to find the ACS is no longer what it ought to be, but perhaps if we all stand up and reject a politically-driven education system then we can right the course of our society once again.I speak out, I educate my own kids for a bright future, and I hope. Above all, I hope.
