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Throughout these pages I will be adding commentary to the letters and columns by other authors. My commentary will be in [ bracketed red text ].
Proposal is in the early stages, but the science department is concerned about a possible uproar
By: Colleen Valles; Staff Writer
Gilroy - About 140 years after Charles Darwin rocked 19th-century science with talk of natural selection, Gilroy High School's science department could do the same by considering a semester-long class devoted to evolution. [ I find it amazing that simply considering an elective in a valid scientific topic has caused/is causing such a debate]
Although the proposal is in the very early stages, some believe the class, meant to expand on a unit already taught in biology courses, could be a hot button for some in the community.
"I've experienced a backlash in a regular biology class where it's taught for two weeks," said Nicky Austin, a GHS science teacher assigned to work on the proposal for the class. [ UPDATE: 23 APR 1999: The class is being stonewalled at the district office approval stage, and the instructor can't get the class read in front of the board. :-( ]
The class is one of a few the science department hopes to add to its curriculum, according to department head Eric Kuwada. Kuwada also is working on a proposal for an environmental science class. Other ideas for classes include marine biology and genetics. [ Genetics and Evolution are intimately bound. Look up 'modern synthesis' in any good search engine, or on the talk.origins site.]
"What we're trying to do as a whole is offer more selections," he said. "We're trying to offer more classes that are aligned with a career path and to allow teachers to teach their strengths. It keeps us fresh." [ It is also a science literacy issue. The insistence of public education administration, particularly at the local level, of teaching to the least common denominator, is causing scientific illiteracy. The gap between the quality of education available at the high-school level and the college level is getting larger, despite the best efforts of dedicated teachers. ]
The evolution class would be an elective class while the environmental science class would be an Advanced Placement class, and students would have the option to take the AP test at the end for college credit.
Having a class devoted to evolution would allow students to explore it in depth, according to Austin. Currently the evolution unit is two to four weeks long, depending on the teacher. [ Dale Morejon said 'five week course' in his 08 APR 1999 letter to the editor. ] The class would probably not be available to students until the 2000-01 school year.
"We never really have enough time to understand different theories and the evidence and lack of evidence, good, bad and ugly," Austin said. "This theory has been around for 140 years, and it has changed everything in the life sciences, and it has not gone away, so we had better understand it."
School board members have not seen the evolution class proposal yet, so it would be too early to say if the class would be approved, Board President Jane Howard said.
"In general, I know the board will look at any kind of curriculum to see how it relates to the curriculum audit and our focus, and right now, our focus is on literacy," she said.
For a class to be instituted at the school, it first must be approved by the high school's staff council, which includes the principal and department heads. It then goes to the district's cabinet, which includes the superintendent, assistant superintendent and directors, for approval and must be approved by them. [ I understand that this is where the class is being "stonewalled." This is outrageous. What is the problem here? Moral cowardice? Our embattled Superintendent doesn't want more controversy? The directors are YECS? What? ]
Following that, the proposal is presented to the school board for a first reading, and then the proposal and materials are put on display so interested members of the public can see what the class would include and can comment. The proposal then returns to the board for final approval.
The evolution class proposal is scheduled to go before the cabinet March 15. The environmental science class proposal should have its first reading by the board at the end of this month, according to Kuwada.
Austin may not teach the evolution class, and as the science department member working on the proposal, she is concerned about a possible uproar regarding the course. Most people are not opposed to the teaching of evolution, but many would also like creationism, or the idea that God created the world, taught as well, she said.
That, however, is against the law for public schools, Kuwada said. [ Except as a course on comparative mythologies or something similar. You could do it if you also included Hindu creation mythology, Buddhist creation mythology, Native American creation mythology, etc ]
At some private schools, such as Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, the issue of teaching evolution does not come up. [ Of course it doesn't. This 'Christian' school is more interested in teaching children their fundamentalist theology than things like 'science' or 'fact' . In doing so, they are raising a class of scientific illiterates. What will happen when these kids get to college, and are confronted with evolution for the first time? Either they're going to have to take remedial science, or they're going to be funneled into fundamentalist colleges where they're not going to be bothered with such troublesome "theories". ]
"We don't teach it, but we explain that there are other opinions out there," said Principal Ralph Swasey. "We are a Christian school; we teach the Bible's perspective." [ Translation: We teach strict creationism. Evolution is the work of Satan and has no place in our school. ]
At GHS, the course would not be taught as the absolute truth, Austin said.
"It's taught as theory, which means it can be worked and re-worked," she said. [ Evolution is an observed fact, as well as a theory. What a class such as this would deal with will most likely have to be the various proposed mechanisms of evolution, such as 'gradualism' or 'punctuated-equilibria', as well as covering subjects such as 'genetic drift', 'taxonomy', 'cladistics', etc. ]
New classes are paid for from the existing budget for the department, Kuwada said.
Kuwada has been working on the environmental science class proposal since the beginning of the school year, and Austin, a part-time teacher at the school, has been working on the evolution proposal because she has the time, she said.