First things first. A DeKalb County student was severely burned at school. This is a tragedy. And it was avoidable.
The story reported in the press indicates that a teacher ignited some alcohol in a container, the flames got out of control and the teacher then attempted to extinguish the flames with what was presumed to be water. It wasn't. It was alcohol.
It wasn't an "experiment" either. Most of what is labeled "experiment" in public schools across the country are in fact "demonstrations" bereft of any aspect of the scientific method. There is no informed hypothesis. No theory being extended, examined and verified. There is no mathematical modeling, no expected results, no data collected and no analysis. These are all just variations on the grade school volcano, mere classroom theater serving only to entertain, offering nothing in the way of learning or knowledge.
But there is an experiment at hand and it is the public schools themselves. The hypothesis was that governments were the proper instrument for education, an education based on the generally accepted notion that an informed population is the foundation of a sound, democratic society. But decades of data have not yielded much in the way of support for that original, government-is-the-best-education, theory. But rather than accept the data, declare the experiment a failure and move on, we've continually redefined the original hypothesis removing all teaching, learning and knowledge from the equation. We have generations who believe that third grade volcano spewing red dye number two represents legitimate science because they are being taught by a generation who believed the same and were never in close proximity to any real science.
It is time to call this experiment what it is: a failure. Then we can examine all the data, draw conclusions, form a new theory, a new hypothesis and design the next experiment, one that might work. This one certainly hasn't.
The story reported in the press indicates that a teacher ignited some alcohol in a container, the flames got out of control and the teacher then attempted to extinguish the flames with what was presumed to be water. It wasn't. It was alcohol.
It wasn't an "experiment" either. Most of what is labeled "experiment" in public schools across the country are in fact "demonstrations" bereft of any aspect of the scientific method. There is no informed hypothesis. No theory being extended, examined and verified. There is no mathematical modeling, no expected results, no data collected and no analysis. These are all just variations on the grade school volcano, mere classroom theater serving only to entertain, offering nothing in the way of learning or knowledge.
But there is an experiment at hand and it is the public schools themselves. The hypothesis was that governments were the proper instrument for education, an education based on the generally accepted notion that an informed population is the foundation of a sound, democratic society. But decades of data have not yielded much in the way of support for that original, government-is-the-best-education, theory. But rather than accept the data, declare the experiment a failure and move on, we've continually redefined the original hypothesis removing all teaching, learning and knowledge from the equation. We have generations who believe that third grade volcano spewing red dye number two represents legitimate science because they are being taught by a generation who believed the same and were never in close proximity to any real science.
It is time to call this experiment what it is: a failure. Then we can examine all the data, draw conclusions, form a new theory, a new hypothesis and design the next experiment, one that might work. This one certainly hasn't.
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