DMB

I am amazed at the fact that so many teachers lack a qualification in the subject they teach. As I am British, I don't entirely understand how university education works in the USA. Can someone please explain to me what it means for a teacher to have taken their subject as a minor? I.e. how long is the degree course, and what proportion of the total time would be devoted to the minor subject? How does that compare with a major?

theyeti

In the US, you remain in highschool until age 17 or 18. Unlike the UK, you don't specialize in highschool. You then attend college to recieve an undergraduate degree -- this is typically a four year program. While you take lots of general courses, you also have to choose a major, for which you will have to take a certain number of required courses as well as a certain number of electives. You major determines what you get your degree in (e.g., I have a B.S in Biology). In addition to a major, you can if you want declare a minor, though no one is required to. A minor has similar requirements (i.e., a certain number of required courses and electives) but is typically about half as intensive as a major. Your minor is not listed on your degree. In America, would-be teachers persue a degree in Education, which makes them qualified to teach pretty much anything AFAIK. They may also persue a minor in the topic that they wish to teach, but this leaves them with less knowledge about the subject than someone with a Bachelor's degree. Things would probably be better if secondary schools required their teachers to have Bachelor's degrees in the subjects that they teach, and let the Education majors teach in primary schools.

theyeti

Kevin Dorner

I think he did.

Lessee... saying evolution is somehow responsible for communism or the holocaust... that's fundytactic # 129 and it's getting boring. I don't hear anyone saying how godless and immoral chemistry was for enabling the production of the Zyklon-B used in the gas chambers, nor physics used to aim German artillery, nor medicine for the atrocious "experiments" conducted on prisoners, whose results were even used in later medical textbooks, shorn of any details of their origins.

"I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work."
--- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

You were saying, Cal?

[ Edit: Did I forget to mention that the Soviet communists threw out Darwinian evolution for the pseudoscience of <a href="http://www.skepdic.com/lysenko.html" target="_blank">Lysenkoism</a>? Yes, I guess I did. ]

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>

Coragyps

I hate to say this, , but Cal brought it up first:
and:
Lest we forget, Dr von Braun was a (nominal, at least) member of the Nazi Party and an officer in the SS: his operation building V-2 rockets at Peenemunde (sp?) relied heavily on slave labor from the German concentration camps. He only became a "good guy" after we got him before the Commies did.

DMB

Many thanks, Yeti, for that helpful explanation.

Valentine Pontifex

Chris, von Braun really was an evolution denier.

Of course he was not a biologist and was not trained in biology or allied field. In fact he was an engineer and not even a scientist. So how he can be presented as an "authority" is beyond me. And if someone does consider him an authority then consider that a strong majority of people in his own profession disagreed with him. So it is a case of both irrelevent authority and selective authority for one simply cannot just pick and choose "authorities" who just so happen to disagree with one's own views. To add insult to injury this man has been dead for thirty years. Gee when one has to use stiffs as authorities one's views must really be in trouble.

Thus the use of von Braun as an authority in this matter is really sad.

S2Focus

Let's change a few words and try this version:

What do health officials fear? If scientific evidence regarding the dangers of crystal-meth is academically unsound and outrageously untrue, why not present the evidence and allow students to decide which view makes more sense? At the very least, presenting both sides would allow them to better understand the two views.

Corwin

Actually I'd been under the impression that Von Braun was essentially working for the Nazi's at gunpoint... or close to it anyway...

Coragyps

<a href="http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/vonbraun/excerpts.html" target="_blank">NASA </a>says that "Von Braun's relationship to the Nazi Party is complex; although he was not an ardent Nazi, he did hold rank as an SS officer. His relationship to slave labor is likewise complicated, for his distance from direct responsibility for the use of slave labor must be balanced by the fact that he was aware of its use and the conditions under which prisoners labored."
He may well have worked under duress, I don't know. My real aim in bringing this up was to rag on Thomas's use of "authority" in this way, while blaming Darwin for the Holocaust.

Valentine Pontifex

What do those astronomers have to fear? Why not teach the evidence for astrology as well as for astronomy.

What do those historians have to fear? Why not teach the evidence that the Holocaust did not happen as well as the evidence that is did not.

What do those chemists have to fear? Why are they suppressing the evidence for alchemy?

What do those geographers have to fear? The suppression of evidence for a flat earth is really just plain censorship.

What do those physicists and engineers have to fear? Why are they suppressing evidence that some Ph.D. physicists find conclusive: that perpetual motion and 100% efficiencies exist?

How about ROCKWELDER from Delphi Forums who insists that neutrons do not exist, that isotopes are, if I remember his nonsense right, elements are with an atomic number greater than 106, that oxygen does not exist, etc.
Hey deranged former HazMat employees can't be full of it? Right? It really can't hurt to lets his views in. After all they were what were taught in all schools before 1972 when those evil [whatever they were] tookover the educational system.

What do mathemeticians have to fear? Why not let the students decide if a general angle can be trisected? Let the students descide if the quacks "proofs" are valid or the proofs of mainstream math people are valid. And the students can decide whether or not pi is rational or not.