Deplorable State of Scientific Education

[ABierman1986]

As someone (like most of us I imagine) who sat through a discussion on Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature and struggled to identify mussel organs from poor xerox copies I can understand why science "sucks" for so many people. There is science in everything, and the facts that the natural world have revealed to us are important to explore and understand in detail for sure, but they are not science. An art historian is a scientist when they examine new pieces, a jazz musician is a scientist when they use musical theory to analyze music, a writer is a scientist when they decide on what type of tone, format and syntax should be used for their audience.

It doesn't help that it is also really difficult to find good teachers these days. Getting the necessary training is difficult, it's a decent, but not necessarily good job in terms of pay and benefits, parents and politics are always looking for a new scapegoat in schools (being accused of child molestation can ruin your career as a teacher forever - regardless of whether the accusations are true or not **ESPECIALLY** if you are a male teacher.)
But you are wrong on what a scientist is. An art historian is a scientist precisely for the same reason that any historian or archeologist is - they work to preserve the cultural past and they study that culture. Having that knowledge is just as important to history as any old timepiece or literature.
Music, Writing, and all forms of art is a kind of science. You wouldn't call them scientists, sure, but their place for critical thinking, logic, art, and so much more is indisputable.
Listen, there are a lot of reasons that science (and math for that matter) sucks, but it's not just because schools have too low a budget. That can be a part of it, sure, but the education system in the US gets a huge amount of money - so it's not really the only problem. It's teachers, parents, the school district, people who run the school district. You can really change things if you know exactly where to tweak things.

I'd like to clarify my point on what a scientist is because I think you misread me; I believe a scientist is anyone who uses the scientific method to further their passions. I completely agree with you that music, writing, and all forms of art and creativity are scientific. They can be pursued scientifically, they can be investigated, and in that matter are no different in approach than cosmology or biology. This addresses the very issue I am trying to get at, though perhaps it came off as more anti-education. I am concerned that the very definitions that schools use for their educational curriculum are being warped from their correct usage. What students are taught is science is not science, it is an aspect of science, or something that was deduced scientifically and then these subjects are declared to be science. I have a problem that the schools couch higher scores on multiple choice biology tests as higher understanding of science.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I completely agree with you on the complexity of the educational system. I don't even propose to attempt to change it, at the moment. My purpose is to clarify exactly what we mean when we say we teach our children science, and regardless of what content is taught, I believe revealing the lack of science in our schools would surprise many people and perhaps spark a discussion in wider thought.