Recently, I was reminded of Dr. Peikoff’s essay “The American School: Why Johnny Can’t Think.” (This essay can be found in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist thought).
Upon reviewing the government mandated grade 9 science curriculum in Ontario, there *appears* to be a focus on major concepts including the method of scientific inquiry and the major branches of scientific study ie. biology, chemistry, and physics. The truth is that an overwhelming proportion of the curriculum is consumed by a random hodge-podge of “topics” delivered under the banner, “Relating Science to Technology, Society, and the Environment.” In other words: scant cohesion and integration of concepts and instead, students are inundated with an overwhelming barrage of random and disparate topics of study. Needless to say, I am glad I am no longer a high school student.
The Ontario Secondary School Curriculum Guidelines can be seen online: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/science910curr.txt
Some excerpts and my responses:
“Science is related in many ways to the economies of all developed nations…it is critical, for example, to decisions and developments relating to *sustainable development*.” [Emphasis added].
Science is related to the economies of all developed nations and that is because developed nations are free nations. Science is important in free nations such as Canada and The United States — aside from the fact that science can only flourish under freedom — because of its role in allowing human beings to understand nature and thus use that knowledge to discover and create values. These values are, for example, expressed in a vast array of technological advances seen all around us. It is the market process — capitalism — that allows the achievements of science to be brought to the masses in the form of our every day goods and services we take for granted.
“Sustainable development (SD),” a term which seems to perpetually evade definition, is a euphemism for global bureaucratic control of individual and economic activity. The premise is that individuals, left free to their own devices, would rapidly consume all of the world’s resources, decimate the environment, and eliminate — or pose significant danger to — human existence. What is necessary, according to SD proponents, is some form of centralized planning agency to prevent the alleged catastrophic consequences of human activity.
The folly of SD is so profound and so obvious because it contains all the same fallacies as socialism. The failure of socialism was due to inability of the “planners” to perform rational economic calculation — this is only possible when performed by individuals. Yet somehow, the SD planners will obtain the level of omniscience proven impossible to obtain by socialist planners, and apply this to the global use of resources. Just as socialism was predicated on the need to save and prepare for some undefined and amorphous notion of “the future,” so is sustainable development. Just as socialism justified the trampling of individual freedom (such as the abrogation of property rights) , so does sustainable development.
Ultimately, an illiberal agenda such as that of sustainable development is antithetical to what lay at the foundation of scientific and technological progress: a free society based on the principles of individual rights. The fact that SD is cited as important in relation to the grade 9 science curriculum tells us exactly what the ideological agenda of the course planners are. Is any of this surprising given that this is a government mandated curriculum?
Here is a gem straight out of the curriculum guidelines:
”Science can therefore not be viewed as merely a matter of “facts”; rather, it is a subject in which students learn to weigh the complex combinations of fact and value that developments in science and technology have given rise to in modern society.”
This statement encapsulates several epistemological errors derived from modern philosophy. Concerning the issue of facts and certainty, it is implied here that a teacher would not want to impose too many “facts” onto her pupils — after all, there is no absolute truths, only “conjectural truths” as philosopher Karl Popper tells us. Values, as A.J. Ayer tells us, are mere emotional ejaculations with no basis in reality. Causality, as David Hume tells us, is impossible to determine and logically indefensible. Reality, as Immanuel Kant tells us, is divided into the noumenal and the phenomenal realm — the latter is what science deals with, and therefore science only gives us fleeting descriptions of “appearance.”
Nonetheless, the curriculum seems quite paradoxical. A brief glance at the curriculum breakdown describes seemingly endless subjects of study. Actually, there is no shortage of facts and content that must be crammed into the students minds. “How can the curriculum planners assert a deemphasis on facts and yet create a curriculum that is so full of fact-content, isn’t that a contradiction?” you ask. That would be a tautology, the positivists would say; the truth of your criticism is contained in your definitions (which are arbitrary linguistic constructs anyway), so shut up and leave education to the experts.
Notice the epistemological inversion here. The science course offers little in the way of chronological order, historical context, and logical hierarchy in the presentation of content. Students are expected to jump from describing mitosis — to naming common elements and compounds — to “weighing the complex combinations of fact and value” pertaining to the use of natural resources — to describing an electrical circuit. The cognitive chaos that must ensue in many students possibly explains the rise in ADD and the rampant labelling of children with “learning disabilities”.
One again demonstrating the influence of modern philosophy, this statement smacks of John Dewey:
“Science is approached in all courses not only as an intellectual pursuit but also as an activity-based enterprise operating within a social context.”
What is an “activity based enterprise operating within a social context”? If it means students benefit from hands-on activities, experiments, and working together in groups and deriving mutual individual benefits, then I agree. I suspect, in keeping with the pragmatist theme of John Dewey, that this is intended to undermine the notion of “purely” intellectual pursuits in favor of “learning by doing” — the slogan of pragmatist education. The doctrine of pragmatism eschews the notion that the mind can hold conceptual knowledge (derided as mere “a priori” or “analytic” knowledge) and the only way of properly acquiring knowledge is the concrete-bound method of trial and error. Since the functioning of the individual mind in the acquisition of knowledge is inherently flawed according to pragmatism, the ultimate standards of truth is not objectivity, but what the greatest number of people believe to be true; ie. the “scientific consensus” — for instance, we are told that according scientific consensus mankind is destroying the environent and leading us to a cataclysmic doomsday scenario.
“Environmental science is integrated into the curriculum expectations of every science course.”
After all the apparent refusal to conceptually integrate, there is one unifying theme: Environmental science. Not that studying the environment and man’s relation and impact on the environment is an invalid field of study, but as mentioned in the above discussion on Sustainable Development: there is an ideological agenda in effect.
Consider the physics section of the course. I would imagine that prior to jumping into concepts pertaining to electricity — a specialized branch of physics — a student would be exposed to some rudimentry building blocks, some historical context, or some overarching principles pertaining to the study of physics. Instead under the major unit of Electricity students are asked to, “compare methods of producing electrical energy, including their advantages and disadvantages (e.g., voltaic cells; primary and secondary cells; photoelectric cells and thermocouples; hydro-electric and fossil-fuelled power; wind, and tidal power).” Students are also asked to,”Evaluate the social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits arising from the methods of electrical energy production … devise a plan for a self-contained system to generate energy, using renewable energy sources, to meet the energy requirements of a dwelling, farm, or community…(e.g., design a plan to use any combination of wind, solar, or hydroelectric power).” [I find it interesting that nuclear power is not included.]
So far, I have not discussed anything that is mentioned under the curriculum headings “Weather Systems” and “The Sustainability of Ecosystems.” The titles speak for themselves.
Relating Dr. Peikoff’s essay on modern day public education, the level of epistemological corruption and ideological indoctrination that permeates the public education system is stunning. It takes the heroism of certain teachers such as my wife-to-be to prevent our public education system from becoming a machine of indoctrination, churning out generations of little socialists and environmentalists.
Regardless of the environmentalist agenda, consider the multiculturalism smuggled into what is supposed to be a science class: in the Astronomy unit the students are supposed to discuss various cultures “attitudes and beliefs” pertaining to celestial bodies, the stars, and heavens. Of course, it would be “eurocentric” or “tainted by imperialism” to suggest that modern microscopes and telescopes are objectively superior (which they are) to some native tribal traditions involving tom-tom drums and burning smoke for the sky gods.
The proper antidote to such intellectual bankruptsy is an education rooted in a rational philosophy that recognizes the supremacy of reason and its corollary: the supremacy of science. A rational philosophy does not see it necessary to bombard students with an endless barrage of content along with the current politically correct doctrines such as environmentalism and multiculturalism without any attempt to integrate a semester/year’s worth of teaching into a logical whole. A rational philosophy equips young minds with the method and content necessary to pursue knowledge acquisition as a life-long process.
Many people would say that I just have my own bias and if I were a teacher I would just indoctrinate students with my own ideology. This criticism can be tended to with two points. First, this highlights the fundamental flaw of public education: a one size fits all program means that true diversity of ideas is sacrificed for current intellectual and ideological trends. Little competition in the marketplace of education means little competition in the marketplace of ideas. For instance, I am not a proponent of religious education, but the values of a significant number of Canadians are shut out of any discourse in the classroom. Secondly, the basis of a rational philosophy does not condemn free inquiry — it harbours an atmosphere that encourages questioning of authority, independant learning and learning from peers, and a benevolent attitude.
