Toot…

About a week ago, my brother asked if evolution is taught in our high school biology. Frankly speaking, I don’t really remember too much about high school biology course but I’m pretty sure evolution was included. I am not sure if it is included in the syllabus now, but I have my doubts. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.

I am interested in a lot of fields of science, and I guess this is, in a small part, because I am interested in the question of the origin of life on Earth. Although the title may have mislead you to think that I’m going to discuss the fallacies of the Genesis “Hypothesis” in the Bible and stong evidence in support of evolution, but no, this is not my intention. What I am going to talk about has something to do with our high school syllabus, or possibly our primary school syllabus.

Doubtlessly, we have been pondering about the question “Why are we here?” for a very long time. I admit that science doesn’t really give us an answer of why we are here, but it does give us a better understanding of how we are here. More precisely, it tells us what are the constraints needed, in the whole universe at a larger scale; and on earth at a smaller scale. Now I think that it is important to be exposed these ideas since one is young as they truly encourage interest in science, which is parallel to what our government it trying to do.

Obviously, I am not saying that we should spoon feed facts and figures to children, because, as Plato mentioned in Republic, “It’s true that if physical work is performed under compulsion, the body isn’t impaired, but compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind”. And so, you can see that spoon feeding have exactly the reverse effect. What I have in mind is that school children should be exposed to an overview of how science has given us a better understanding of how we are here, and also that how many different, and seemingly unconnected fields of science are in fact related to each other in the most intricate way. To me, I consider it art.

Let’s start with high school biology. Frankly speaking, why do we even need to know the effects of Auxin has on the growth of plants when we were not even taught the concept of evolution? I don’t think biology class should be all about facts and memorising. I believe it is important for students to know a little history of biology and its related fields. To start with, Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA, both of which I think are the most important contribution to our advancement of biological science.

Now about Physics. I seem to remember there’s just a small section of form 5 physics syllabus which is nuclear fusion and fission. Obviously I think that it is insufficient. I am not saying that students should remember the elements and energy involved in say… the CNO cycle. What I am saying is that the syllabus should discuss the implications of the facts and theories we learn. Obviously, it applies for all the facts and theories we learn. In the particular case, it should at least discuss about the relationship between stars and the essential elements involved in biological processes.

As for Chemistry, well, let’s just say I have terrible teachers in Form 4. Even until now, I am not much interested in chemistry then I am in physics and biology. What we learn in chemistry is to remember which A reacts with which B, which yields which C; or which A is used to test for the existance of which B, in the a which C solution, etc etc. What I consider the most imporant is the view of chemistry as a bridge between physics and biology. For those who even bother to read this blog post until here, I think this fact is quite obviously to you.

Sometimes, I pity those students who are going through all those toot which I have been through during high school. Even more hilarious the government’s move of changing back to Malay because the students can’t cope, or so they claim. It’s as if the integrity of the education system should be risked, just so that more students can cope. I am not an expert, but I’m pretty sure this is not the proper way to improve the quality of our students. But then again, Malaysia knows all about “Malaysia Boleh”, when W. Edwards Deming had specifically said, “eliminate slogan”.