If that’s the way he phrased the question, yes, he will have fulfilled the assignment. If you don’t want that answer, ask a different question, such as “State five points Mr. Smith made in his presentation.”
That’s why you have to know how to ask questions. Testing isn’t as easy as it looks:
Technically, that could be an entirely correct answer. (Such a question would never have appeared on an exam at my high school or university, actually - at both schools, exams were checked for that sort of thing before they were given.)
That’s a compelling argument, RickJay. I’m forced to change my mind. It does indeed depend on how the teacher worded the instructions, and we don’t really know how she did.
BA: I have to disagree with you, because this wasn’t during a “science” class, it was during a “wellness” class. Now, I don’t know that particular school district’s curriculum, but in some schools, “wellness class” is just plain gym class.
And in other schools, it’s more like Home Ec. http://www.peggysues.net/school/NWa/nw2syllabus.htm
I don’t have any problem with practitioners of alternative medicine coming into either Gym Class or Health Class or Home Ec class to talk about their specialty. IMO, “homeopathy” might fall under the heading of “all aspects of wellness”.
Are you saying that if you were teaching a course on astronomy, you wouldn’t devote at least one class period to the mainstream Twinkies like Bart Sibrel? Isn’t it better for the kids to learn about Bart Sibrel from you, rather than from Fox? That’s the same rationale they use for Sex Ed in the schools–“it’s better that they learn facts in the classroom than myths out on The Street…”
Yeah, but Duck, if we’re getting the facts of the situation right (and again I stress that we have no way of knowing for sure that this is the case), they weren’t (metaphorically) learning about Bart Sibrel from The Bad Astronomer, they were learning about Bart Sibrel from Graham Hancock.
I don’t care if it’s “high-energy physics” or “wellness” or “happy panda basket weaving.” Homeopathy is a crock of shit and deserves zero respect in anything resembling an objective educational forum.
DDG, you have missed my point. It’s fine to talk about homepathy in a class, wellness or otherwise, as long as it is made very clear to the students that homeopathy doesn’t work. It isn’t science, it is quackery, pure and simple. Bringing in an outside “expert” in homeopathy and not thinking critically about what is being said is the very antithesis of education.
I would happily discuss Mr. Sibrel and his ridiculous claims in a classroom; in fact, I have done just this many times as an invited speaker. But I make it clear that he is wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s when a teacher shows the Fox “documentary” and tries to convince students that the Moon landings were faked that I have a problem with the method.