Me: And so, why would have human brains evolved this way? Why would this trait have been advantageous?
Student: I DON'T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! GOD! YOU ARE LIKE ALL THE OTHER SCIENCE TEACHERS!!!!
(silence)
Me: Errr..... yeah? Probably.
(class titters)
Next day. Still talking about the brain.
Me: Okay, so now what evidence do we have that humans' brains evolved this way? What were we doing for hundreds of thousands of years that would have led to this adaptation?
Same Kid: NOOOOO!!! YOU CANT MAKE ME! EVOLUTION ISNT TRUE. I DONT BELIEVE IT!
Me: Yeah. Okay. Um. So, here's the thing. You don't have to like evolution, but one day, it's really good for you to UNDERSTAND the idea. You haven't had genetics yet. You haven't talked about mutations or natural selection or any other number of things. Science isn't about belief, its about data, and evidence. In order to argue against something, you have to know what that something REALLY means. And most people, not even people your age, but MOST people, have a huge, huge amount of misconceptions about evolution. They believe all SORTS of crazy stuff that is NOT the theory of evolution. So, all I want you to do now, is accept that there are probably a bunch of things you don't know, wait until you understand the concept, and then, maybe we can talk. Until then, how about no more screaming at me? That'd be cool.
Kid: FINE.
Yikes.
2 comments:
Nice post.thank you so much for share...
Hi, Ms. J -
I stumbled upon your blog back in middle school and read through the entire thing. I loved your stories about happy times and wished you the best with your struggles. I'm a senior in high school now and I still think about you and your blog a lot. I hope you're doing okay, your students are doing okay, and you're happy with where you are. I know teaching gets hard sometimes, especially in rough areas where it seems you've spent a lot of your time, and with younger kids. But you're doing so much good for them, as a teacher and as a person. This is probably kind of a weird message and I'm not even sure if you check this blog anymore? But I was just wondering how you were doing. I hope things are going well.
- Becca
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