ETA: Regarding the perception that creationism is a “new” thing, that may be wrong per se, but it does seem that it gets a lot more play in the public sphere than it once did. I’ve been interested in physical anthropology, astronomy, and evolution almost since I was old enough to read the books, and everyone I knew, just about, was either Catholic, mainline Protestant, or Reform Jewish. Hardly anybody really seemed to take the Creation story literally, but if they did it usually seemed like it wasn’t worth arguing the point. Regardless of personal beliefs, there wasn’t nearly as much God-talk in politics, so to have anything like George Congressman Paul Broun – a doctor in private life, no less – publicly declare the Big Bang, embryology, and evolution to be “lies from the pit of hell” would have been unthinkable. (You know, people in other countries can see us when people say things like that.) I think a generation or two ago religion was a private matter.
Another factor is probably pay-TV channel drift. We all know that the mission of channels like Discovery bear very little if any resemblance to that of hallowed institutions of research and education like the Smithsonian and National Geographic, or for that matter Griffith Observatory, yet we somehow we still expect Discovery and its ilk to aspire to that level. So it’s disconcerting when biblical fundamentalists are given as much time in the same show as geologists, anthropologists, and physicists. I don’t discount all religiously affiliated tertiary schools by any means, but some of the people you see on these shows seem to be nothing more than teachers at fundamentalist preacher-training colleges. In what world does having passed the 20th grade of Sunday school entitle you equal footing with scientists, on a program about how the world began or how it will end?
Things are different now that nonbelievers are more visible in public life- hardline religious people can’t just tell themselves that everybody agrees with them. I’m sure that’s not the only reason for the changes that have occurred, but I think it’s one of them.
Children who lack intellect can’t be embarrassed into having it. To try is a waste of time and mean to the child.
However, during my education in the 60’s-70’s I observed that many of the kids who were “stupid” weren’t lacking intellect, they were goof-offs who weren’t doing their work, studying, etc… I see nothing wrong with calling a dip shit a dip shit in these cases!
The task is to know who is special ed and who is just stupid!
Again, until 1968, it was literally illegal to teach evolution in public schools of several states. And after that, it only took 7 years for the first Intelligent Design case to make its way to the SCOTUS. So religion was not only not a private matter prior to the 70’s, creationism had enough public support to have laws passed in its favour.
That’s because in the “good ol’ days” you could have prayer in school and ban the teaching of evolution without the Feds coming in and say “no, you can’t”.
I’m a result of an early 80s high school education - and from what I remember, life was tightening up in the 1980s from the good old days. The campus went from “open” to “closed” The school student smoking lounge closed. There were actually REQUIREMENTS for graduation - though at that point they didn’t include competency, they included having sat in class for four years - well, unless you were working at McDonalds on a Work Study program. Being an intellectual geek was still NOT COOL and woe be any kid whose A was known by the class at large.
My mother graduated from high school in the early 1960s. She never had to take an Algebra class and got through English on Classics Illustrated comic books. She isn’t a dumb woman - but she had her share of issues in high school (her mother was in and out of institutions - high school wasn’t a priority - raising her very young siblings and taking care of the family was) but she is far worse educated that either of my children are required to be to graduate.
I totally agree with this. If anything we have become much pro intellectualism in recent times. Back then, the only smart people shown in media were portrayed as unattractive annoying know-it-alls with inch thick glasses who while good for a laugh weren’t actually admired. These days there is at least the possibility of Geek-chic with such science heavy shows as CSI making it into the mainstream.
My high schools highest math class was pre-calc. My daughter will take pre-calc as a tenth grader - she is tracked to be eligible for Calc II as a senior. My high school had no advanced English course - remedial English or regular English. My high school had no AP coursework, no college in the schools. My children’s school offers both. The Science requirement was a single year of Biology - my kids have to also take Chemistry (three years is not required).
Kids who made the A honor roll were not admired by the “stupid” kids - we were shunned and frequently physically abused. If any teacher had handed out test scores by grade, they would have been complicit in the abuse - and since they were well aware of it, they wouldn’t have been that stupid. No one in my high school who regularly attended class every failed or was held back - in fact, my neighbor across the street graduated after having only been in class a maximum of 60 days a year - and he wasn’t turning in work and making up tests, they just passed him. The emphasis by the late 70s at least in our district was in discouraging drop outs and encouraging a high school education.
My old high school - 30 years later - is a better school than my kid’s school - they offer more AP coursework, more Science electives, etc. But in case this is a mere difference in districts - the district I’m currently in has a lot of people who stayed here - and a lot of my kids friend’s parents went 'to the local high school - its gotten MUCH better as a school.
We never had tests handed out according to score or results announced by the teachers.
Sometimes they’d seat dumbasses towards the front, but that was due to the correlation with misbehaving - they wanted to be able to keep an eye on the troublemakers.
