Georgia Educators Learn Tactics to Better Teach Evolution
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Updated: 9:49 PM Jun 24, 2009
Georgia Educators Learn Tactics to Better Teach Evolution
Georgia educators are spending the week learning teaching techniques that will help them tackle the controversial topic of evolution.
Posted: 3:06 PM Jun 24, 2009
Reporter: Jacqueline Ingles
Email Address: jackie.ingles@wctv.tv
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Teaching evolution is a controversial topic that's got educators enrolling in workshops to learn techniques they can bring to the classroom.

Evolution.

It's a touchy topic for educators in the Bible Belt.

"I had friends that actually cut the chapters out of their science books, glued their pages together, skipped over the section," said Gail Jennings, a 7th grade science teacher from Moultrie.

"I've had children bring the Bible into class and when the word evolution was mentioned maybe the first week of school and they hear what we are going over and they say, 'That is wrong! That is wrong,"" said Cynthia Pousman, a high school science teacher from Augusta.

But no matter which side of the evolution fence teachers, students and parents fall on, the State of Georgia closed the book on the controversy, making evolution a curriculum requirement.

For 27 years, it wasn't part of the state mandated Quality Core Curriculum.

In 2004, that changed.

"By putting it in the Georgia Performance Standards its increased its visibility and teachers recognize the importance of addressing it," said Thomas Koballa, Ph.D., a principal investigator for Georgia's Teacher Quality Program.

And for teachers like Gail Jennings, who is guided by her Christian beliefs, teaching evolution is something she is trying to grow into. That's why she enrolled in an evolution workshop being held at VSU this week as part of the Georgia Teacher Quality Program.

"As a teacher I felt ill-equipped because I really hadn't addressed the topic of evolution with students for 15 years. We're learning ways to present evolution that's non-threatening to your faith," Jennings explained.

But all the teachers in attendance agree, believing what science has to say about evolution or believing a higher power had a hand in creation, is a matter of choice.

Latest Comments

Posted by: Biologystudent Location: Georgia on Jun 28, 2009 at 10:18 AM

Its too bad this piece was on the "controversy" or the "either/ or" approach to separating these two theories. Instead of forcing your viewers to pick a side, it could have been more about what the teachers were actually learning including giving a few examples of how the two ideas don't conflict. Better luck next time WCTV.
Posted by: Dane Location: Springfield, OH on Jun 27, 2009 at 12:20 PM

This class for the teachers is an interesting concept, but am wondering how to sort out contradictions that my kids are faced with. In 7th grade they learned as truth the "cell theory" where "a living thing can only come from another living thing" yet in 8th & 10th grades they were told that originally the first life came from a mixture of chemicals. In 8th & 10th grade helpful mutations, of which there is an abundance, are used to explain where changes in organisms come from that let natural selection produce a different species. Yet in 7th they were to memorize that mutations are rare and that 99.99% of all mutations are harmful to the organism. These are just a few contradictions they see. So when my kids ask which teachers are presenting fact and which ones aren't, what do I say?
Posted by: Sandy Location: Valdosta on Jun 26, 2009 at 08:01 AM

Why would God bless humans with such unique abilities if we were not expected to use them to study the natural world? Biological evolution is a scientific effort to unravel the mysteries of the web of life. I recognize that the Creation story in Genesis was an appropriate explanation of human origins in its historic context. The biblical account was as much as people, in that time, were able to understand. In the same way we simplify the ways we clarify things for young children, those people did not have the complex language or knowledge base to understand what we have discovered through years of observing and making sense of the universe. The more I understand the brilliance of nature, the closer I feel to God. The God I know draws me to share that understanding to elevate scientific literacy. A better educated population might use our ability to think rationally and stop destroying the balance of nature that developed over the billions of years that living organisms have existed. We teach science in public schools and allow our students to develop their religious beliefs on an individual basis at home and in their churches. Hopefully, they take home the message that it is important only to understand how evolution explains natural phenomena; because evolution, like gravity, is not a matter of belief.
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