California, late 80’s (graduated '91), public high school.
I don’t remember it being taught in Biology at all, really. We covered things like cells and classification, and I don’t remember most of it anyway. The teacher was pretty bad; my MOM called him “a conehead” which is about the only time I remember her saying anything negative about any teacher I had. I think it was, overall, a pretty bad course. My whole high school education was pretty abysmal.
In history class my freshman year, we had a class debate between evolution, creationism, and theistic evolution, with student teams assigned to present each side. Almost no one voted for pure creationism; the class was largely split between the other two options. (Actually it was supposed to be evolution vs. creationism, but the creationism team argued for theistic evolution, not a YEC view. Not that most of us knew the difference anyway, I don’t remember such things ever being an issue in school or church.)
Another Catholic school kid chiming in…about fourth grade, we began learning the basics of evolution in a straightforward manner.
Public high school, however, didn’t even seem to want to go there. It was at the buckle of the bible belt and most of the teachers came from the local evangelical church-affiliated college and either bought into creationism or didn’t want to make waves.
Public high school, New Jersey, took high school biology in 10th and 12th grades, so 2002 and 2004. We covered it in-depth, from abiogenesis to Mendel’s peas to Darwin. At some point in 10th grade the teacher did say some nonsense about how not everyone believes in this, but that was the extent of that. In 12th grade the teacher said something similar, and added that the school required her to say so, but since there was precisely no scientific basis whatsoever for any alternate theories, they would not under any circumstances be discussed in class.
Secular school in Argentina. We started studying it in fourth grade (early 90s) and continue it up to High School.
But is not a political issue down here… I didn’t even know what creationism was up to a couple of years ago.
The only thing I remember about creationism really is that it took six days to create the Garden of Eden. And even then, Sr. Frances Ramona just told us that the Earth was already there, it was just muddy and wet, and God had to clean it up and make the garden and the like. (That was in first grade)
(She also just rolled her eyes at us when we would giggle at the naked pictures of Adam and Eve in our Children’s Bible. Yes, the naughty parts were strategically hidden, but hey, we were six.)
I learned about evolution thoroughly during three years of high school biology and again in college. This was in Kentucky in the 90’s. If I recall correctly, Kentucky had some sort of law or guideline on the books saying that teachers were supposed to use the word evolution, but rather “change over time”, but with emphasis that this didn’t alter any of the content. Whatever the case, my teacher still used “evolution”.
I went to public school, but my experience was the same as StG’s. I had no idea until late high school that some people believed in the Creation story as literal truth, and I was gobsmacked by that.
Indeed. Although I’d read about the idea of evolution long before 9th grade, my first formal education in it was believe it or not, by a elderly Jesuit priest, who went into great detail about punctuated equilbrium vs phyletic gradualism, the various mechanisms of natural selection, etc…
No real mention that I recall was made of creationism or anything like that- he matter of factly said that it was pretty much incontrovertible that it was the way that things had worked, and that the creation story pretty much had to be allegorical.
I went to public school (graduated '97) in NE Ohio, and like Sarahfeena I had no idea until I was an adult that people took Creationism seriously. I was raised a Lutheran and went to church through 7th grade, and I don’t remember ever being confused by the Bible’s version and science’s version. I still have no problem believing in God and evolution.
No idea when I was taught evolution, but I’ve always known it to be true. I know I learned a lot of the specifics in Human Anthropology in college.
I do remember we had a really religious 7th grade biology teacher. We all remember him from his “Why do people curse?” religious speech, but never heard a peep out of him about Creationism.
Speaking as one of the many Catholics, evolution never seemed to be presented as at odds with the idea of God. It was all that matter, down to the intricacies of the atom , in all it’s variety and beauty, was directed by the hand of God. I don’t know if that’s what the concept of intelligent design espouses, because I went to school in the '60’s and '70’s.
Public high school, early 2000s. The first explicit mention I recall was in freshman biology, where the teacher (who I liked very much) set aside exactly one class session for a bull session in which all views were reasonably investigated in the scientific viewpoint. The generally consensus was agreed to be that creationism was possible, but the overwhelming evidence was on the side of the scientific side of the argument and that a belief in a creationist viewpoint was not scientific because it relied almost exclusively on faith in religion against the evidence*. After the one day of bullshit, non-scientific viewpoints were not tolerated.
*In the yuppie-ass town I grew up in, this was a foregone conclusion, not a brave gesture on the teacher’s part.
I took a year of biology in high school, either as a freshman or sophomore, I don’t remember. There were two major concepts in that year: evolution and genetics. We looked at lots of critters and how cells worked, but that was all details. I don’t remember why, but at the time I remembered the details and got good grades. All that I remember now is natural selection of the best adapted and that alleles are for some reason important to dominant and recessive. Sigh. That and if both my parents are blue eyed and I am brown eyed that they are a quart low and I’m adopted. I forget which.
We had very limited science classes. You had to take two years (four credits of science). Two credits were elective science and the other two credit had to be Chemistry, Physics or Biology. I took Chemistry and Physics.
All of the time was spent doing stupid things like making sugar crystals or memorizing the Periodic Table or the structure of an atom, which stopped at Electrons, Protons and Neurons, even though smaller things had been discovered. Most people avoided biology 'cause they didn’t want to dissect things.
We were so busy memorizing the symbols for the periodic table that we never had a chance to learn about anything actually relevant.
I sat in on my Dad’s Advanced Biology classes at the local high school. My elementary school was just down the street, and I got out a good 2 1/2 hours before he got through teaching, so I just walked a couple of blocks and slipped into the back of the room. I remember the students didn’t like it much when I could answer a question (at age 7) and they couldn’t.
I learned part of evolution in Biology my sophomore year in high school. My teacher wouldn’t teach us about how the earth was created, monkeys to man, or dinosaurs and he said it was because of religious beliefs. But we learned about the Darwin theory and what ever the square was called that figured out recessive and dominate genes.
Spain, there were bits about it in our earliest Natural Science books (6th grade) but it wasn’t a “required” chapter. Private Catholic School (but when I was little, Spanish public schools were Catholic too) and private Catholic High School. They’re required to teach the same curriculum as the public schools, but can add extras.
We did get it (along with genetics, Linneus and dissection practice) in 9th grade, which for me was 1982-3. We talked about it in Religion class the next year, and in Philosophy and Science in 11th, and in History of Philosophy in 12th.
But I’d been hearing about it before; it’s taken for granted that it’s our best bet for now (it’s “accepted scientific knowledge”), I’d heard about it from the priests explaining it from the pulpit, I’d heard about it from my family… it’s the kind of thing that’s considered “basic culture,” at least in my circles.
Sorry, out of time. What I was never taught, even from the pulpit, was creationism. The Jesuits would send to the nearest “health rest home” any of their number who defended creationism; the Franciscans who were my other main influence are happy with anything that means more animals to love (only a partial joke, as they laugh and admit it’s true).
The closest I got to being taught creationism was a mention of the similarities and differences between the order of creation in the “seven days allegory” and the order that the biologists and physicists say it’s correct: in both the stars are created first, (planets appeared at about the same time as stars IIRC, according to physicists, so that’s not the same), water bodies and dry land take a while to appear, life appears in the water first, humans are relatively recent. This is used as an example of two views which are at first sight completely opposed, one based on intuition and the other on the study of physical proof, yet aren’t so far off from each other; from then the teaching usually goes to “listen to the other part before you start yelling 'orf wiv 'is ‘ead!’”
