From the Guardian, a hopeful situation for climate realists everywhere.
Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said. Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives.
In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum “to get back to the science in science”. “We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don’t date,” he said. “We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff.
The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist.” His stance marks a turning point in the development of the national curriculum. Oates’ intention is to substantially reduce the national curriculum. Under the previous government, the curriculum expanded to nearly 500 pages. His remarks also show he wants to reverse a shift in emphasis, made under the Labour government, under which teachers were encouraged to place great importance on scientific “issues” and not just scientific knowledge. Climate change has featured in the national curriculum since 1995.
Full story at the Guardian
h/t to WUWT reader Matt
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Maybe this is how it finishes,not a triumphal march for the sceptics , nor castigation for the perpetrators of a failing theory.
Just common sense re-asserting itself .
I doubt this would have happened had we not been in such fiscal mess.
The Orwelian speak should be dropped first.
a start, however, it still allows the subject to be taught, if that teacher has already been ‘indoctrinated’, as they may still feel it is an ‘issue’
It’s a step in the right direction . For the record , I’d like to tell Bob Ward et al that I’m fed up with skeptics being compared to creationists .
I hope that when schools teach climate “science” that they actually teach the importance of the scientific method and they also explain the weakness in the use of models in predictions and projections.
Andrew Weaver says we need to teach students about global warming.
Victoria global warming expert turns his attention to the future: youth
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/environment/Victoria+global+warming+expert+turns+attention+future+youth/4934816/story.html
“Its pages are littered with irrelevant material – mainly high-sounding aims, such as the requirement to ‘challenge injustice’, which are wonderful in politicians’ speeches, but contribute nothing to helping students deepen their stock of knowledge.”
Challenge injustice???!!!!
Does that mean you can’t teach inequalities like (x + 4 < 12) in algebra? Or you can only disprove inequalities?
Highly refreshing to see a FULL depoliticization of math, not just removing the climate junk.
This only applies to England & Wales. Scotland has a different education system and will probably keep on with the propaganda. No more will follow in the footsteps of
John Logie Baird
Joseph Black (discoverer of CO2)
David Brewster
James Dewar
Alexander Fleming
Sir William Jardine
John Napier
Daniel Rutherford (discovered Nitrogen)
Robert Angus Smith (Acid Rain)
Charles Wilson (cloud chamber)
James ‘Paraffin’ Young
Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt
to name a few, for quite a few years anyway.
Good. Pity the kids who got a bellyful over the last 10 years of their education. SOme deprogramming to be done there I think.
About time the indoctrination of children was stopped.
“I’m fed up with skeptics being compared to creationists”
P Walker,
Me too, although creationists aren’t the worst thing to be compared to. And I can’t wait to stop hearing the “I think Evolution is true, therefore Global Warming is true” version of the same over-presented Warmer Stupidity. Somebody, make it stop, PLEASE.
Andrew
Bob Ward is not going to let the kids go so easily !
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/13/curriculum-climate-change-education
See his very fast response (as usual). Zere vill be no escapes !
As someone who taught, until a couple of years ago, in primary schools I can tell you that AGW was never really taught. There was too much real science to get through. Besides teachers do not like government agendas, of any political persuasion, being forced upon them in the classroom. So we tend to ignore them.
Actions speak louder than words.
I’m not buying the B/S until it’s proven through action. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats and they should never be trusted at their word.
I still remember being taught that it was a coincidence that the coast of Africa and the coast of South America matched up so well. They didn’t know about plate tectonics and continental drift then. OTOH, they weren’t trying to get the govt to spend trillions of dollars to prevent continental drift either. Perhaps the best we can hope for is for the warmist scientists to be remembered as ‘discredited’. Though personally I would prefer criminal charges, civil penalties and moderate prison terms.
tallbloke says: “Good. Pity the kids who got a bellyful over the last 10 years of their education. SOme deprogramming to be done there I think.”
Those kids are already teaching these kids. The battle isn’t over, yet.
To NOT include the basic physics underlying climate change, with special emphasis on the carbon cycle, would be ludicrous. To not talk about the fundamentals of ecosystems, the critical importance of biodiversity, the vital relationship between oceans, forests, soils and carbon absorption would be a tragic error. The English are much smarter than this.
One of my granddaughters is taking a Science exam in London this month – the OCR 21st Century curriculum.
It is stuffed full of PC views on climate change. Climate change and the evilks of CO2 arise in at least 5 of the 9 modules
I’m cynical enough to believe that the teachers will resist, of only because the hard science can’t be fudged in its teaching, and a lot of them don’t know it very well.
‘Climate change also comes up in the geography curriculum and may be tackled in religious education too.’
Well at least it sounds like someone knew which department should deal with global warming.
I’m not convinced. Moreover, what “science” does the minister have in mind? Does this mean that Al Gore “science” in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” which is presently taught inside Brit classrooms with some sort of weak warning not all was kosher forced on by Brit courts – that NO Brit teacher actually corrected inside the classroom nor made the court’s warnings known to their students. Believe me if anyone remotely understands schools and their sever reluctance to any sort of change down at the school level this minister is sadly mistaken he decides anything that schools actually teach inside the classroom walls.
Oh boy, do I remember that. I even cut them out and put them together like a jig-saw puzzle to show the other kids. It was excruciating, in a way, because I was accustomed to respecting and believing authority, but I was also pretty accustomed to believing my own observations. Around that time I also read Journey to the Centre of the Earth and decided that the teacher must be wrong about everything to do with geography. Not sure how the reasoning went, now, but it shows how important it is for teachers (and scientists) to maintain trust; when trust is broken, the mind becomes susceptible to the most ludicrous things.
Are are gaining ground?
Here is a lovely polar bear survival story for the kids.
What?!! But how did polar bears survive this? It’s worse than we thought. :>(
Why is this even a question?
Teach the kids radiative theory, convection, facts about latent heat and adiabatic process. Lets them work out for themselves what effect CO2 will have in our atmosphere.
Being able to think logically about a problem is far more important than learning a bunch of “facts” about it. This isn’t history class.
A stitch in time saves 9.
With the UK regional climate going opposite direction, the last thing the teacher needs is a curriculum that the students can honestly ridicule as being totally preposterous. And they will. Kids are tuned into what’s going on around them, escpecially when they spend so much time outdoors.