Pharyngula

I hate for the first reply for this to be sooooo off-topic, but California just had a huge ruling on home-schooling:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/06/BAJDVF0F1.DTL&tsp=1

A state appeals court has struck a blow against the home-schooling movement, ruling that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.

Posted by: MikeM | March 6, 2008 6:07 PM

Wow. I back teachers all the way, but I think the California ruling goes too far. I think making homeschoolers use approved curricula and pass approved exams is enough of a check. If the parents are useless as teachers, the kids won't pass. I don't think that theoretically there's anything wrong with making parents be certified themselves, but depending on the requirements that will almost certainly keep some people from being able to afford it (classes and testing are expensive). I'd hate to see homeschooling become even more an option only of the rich than it already is.

Posted by: Carlie | March 7, 2008 9:50 AM

Good ideas, but I think he's giving creationists far too much credit for shoehorning evolution into the end of the year. Actually, this is mostly an Evolution is a change in allele frequency in a population over time. How can I teach this if I haven't gone over Mendelian genetics yet? And to grasp Mendelian genetics, students need to understand meiosis, which in turn requires understanding of mitosis...and to get mitosis, they'll need to know at least some of the parts of a cell...and to discuss the molecular evidence for evolution, they'll need to know how the genetic code works...etc.

It's easy for people to forget that your typical 10th-grade biology student's formal science education is practically nil, and that they come pre-loaded with a host of misconceptions that need to be addressed at every turn. I think the best approach is to integrate discussion of evolution throughout all the other units; for example, I always bring up endosymbiotic theory when we do parts of the cell. I've heard Miller and Levine's book does a fantastic job of integrating evolution, but then again, what's a teacher to do when your district is using a different text? I suppose I could stay up until midnight or 1 every morning tweaking the curriculum :-D

Posted by: Andy | March 7, 2008 11:44 AM