More substitution considerations

So I did something at work this week that I have not done in 7 years...I used the faculty restroom. I've just been holding it in all these years because I don't like to use restrooms away from home and I already feel uncomfortable in random schools all the time. It was glorious. I had been drinking plenty of water and even though I went several times at home before I had to leave, I had to go at school, too. I grew more uncomfortable as the day went on. On my lunch break, I went for it. I only had one class left after that but it was remarkable how much more comfortable I felt. I could stand or sit or walk around. However, I had two more days of working at the same school so I've proceeded to stop drinking any water because I sure don't want to do that again.

I've been subbing for the same teacher all week. Today's assignment in all classes was for everybody to pair up and have a documented mini debate about women's suffrage. One person had to be for it and one person had to be against it, both using arguments from this time period. From an educational standpoint, this was a fantastic assignment! I saw students immediately engage and behavior problems disappeared.

I did a little research of my own and was shocked to find out that Massachusetts was the first state that tried to pass a measure to allow women to vote and 200 women came out to protest-it never passed. I have always pictured men protesting women voters but much of the early opposition came more from women, at least publicly. For the downside, this assignment posed some ethical questions as the day went on. One reflective student seemed frustrated all during class and said to another student, "This is a dumb assignment. It just pits the boys and girls against each other. No girl today will say women shouldn't vote and no guys are going to bend over backwards to defend women's rights."

I heard other comments such as, "This is just a way to divide us more" and in a few classes, I kept hearing VERY sexist remarks. It was in groups of guys and they'd support and encourage each other. Girls glared or whispered to their girl friends that they hope he never has a wife or daughters but were not very loud about their disgust. I mediated as best I could and found myself saying that I hope a lot of what I was hearing was for the sake of the assignment and would not be a part of life outside of the classroom today.

There were people who broke the molds. There were a few boys during the day that DID battle for women's rights to vote and they were vocal and sometimes challenged some of the sexist remarks that were said. Some girls did take the side against women voting and I heard a lot of different reasons, including, "I don't even care about any of this. I wouldn't put a lot of energy into changing it one way or another." People are certainly entitled to feel that way, men or women. This is just a situation that makes me question where the balance lies. It was an assignment that helped people engage more but was what they were learning helpful? Should there be assignments that focus on gender or do those just divide us more? I'm not sure what the answers are.

The flaws of Darwin

I read the book Groupthink by Christopher Booker. I didn't agree with everything in it but the more I thought about his ideas and my experiences, many of his writings were more accurate than I first wanted to recognize.

He's clearly against organized religion and I belong to one but groupthink does affect our religion, even if that doesn't interfere wholly with the tenets of belief. Groupthink does contribute problems even to religion. It contributes problems to educational institutions as well, no matter how great the ideals one might be founded on are.

One of my favorite parts of the book deals with Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin himself suggested there were four problems with his theory that could cause him to concede he was wrong. They were: 1. The absence of 'intermediate forms' (Darwin found no fossils that show transitional stages of one form of life evolving into another. Darwin hoped if more fossils were found, this could be laid to rest but this hasn't completely happened, although there are some scientific communities that suggest there ARE more transitional fossils. Different groups are defining transitional fossils with variations that make it hard to draw definite conclusions).

2. Evolutionary leaps or the appearance of complex organs (These are organs in which all the parts must work interdependently for them to function efficiently. Again, Darwin hoped with more fossil discoveries, this could be addressed but it's still questionable if it really has been.),

3. The compound eye as a particular example (Darwin said that "to suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances..could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." Darwin thought that he just didn't understand natural selection well enough to explain this.)

and 4. The Cambrian explosion (Darwin can't explain, especially through the gradual process of evolution, how there are only 3 simple animal phyla pre-Cambrian times and then at least 26 animal phyla during the Cambrian period but in the half a billion years since, only 4 more animal phyla have been added. Where did all of the new phyla come from and how did they evolve into the complexities of creatures on the earth? Darwin thought there would be more fossils deeper in the earth that could later explain this but it hasn't happened.).

In spite of these flaws, which I have never heard of being discussed in school, people have embraced this theory of evolution so strongly that anybody who disagrees or even asks questions is discredited by the scientific community. In 1993, a group of scientists got together in California (including Dean Kenyon). They had all concluded through their own studies that natural selection could not explain many things about our world. There is evidence of information of a logical structure or some form of intelligence contributing to much of what was occurring. This was considered the early part of 'intelligent design.' It was not relgious. It was entirely science-based. In 1996 the biochemist Michael Behe used the phrase 'irreducible complexity and published supporting information in the book Darwin's Black Box.

This included scientific arguments for intelligent design and some US newspapers gave positive reviews but many others were dismissive and claimed 'intelligent design' was just trying to smuggle in a religious explanation for evolution, although no religious ideas or views were suggested in the book. At this point Darwinians lumped intelligent design ideas in with 'creationism', grouped up with the ACLU to sue to keep this from public schools. The judge said this was a way to teach disguised religion and it should never be taught in schools. The ironic conclusion to these events is that by banning the scientific ideas of intelligent design, calling them religious in nature when they were strictly scientific, now those studying evolution must only come to believe it by taking giant leaps of faith

because that theory as it stood contained huge holes and gaps that could not be explained.