Another school reform is underway in the Czech Republic. It is to be expected that the political opposition criticizes it. It is almost its duty, one might say. But now Charles University has joined the critics . More precisely, it concerns the teaching of chemistry. Not that it matters. It will proceed in the usual way. A wave of heated debate, then the ministry will formally withdraw the proposal, and then it will be quietly introduced over the next few years. Even if the ministry doesn’t push through any change, it will happen on its own simply by different types of teachers coming out of the universities.
However, it is interesting to look at the reasoning of university chemists.
Firstly. If chemistry is taught, it will annoy most people, but every now and then someone will catch on. And these individuals can grow up to be great chemists. I agree, but the ring system might be enough.
Second. Even ordinary laymen should have a basic idea of what atoms, acidity, alkalinity, elements, energy, etc. are. Without this, they will fall too easy prey to the various scammers selling weight loss products and other miracle stuff. This is what we saw during the COVID, when a certain part of the audience could not distinguish between a virus and a bacterium, but had listened to videos about the Jewish conspiracy and had the self-confidence of a university professor. The less people understand the technical basics, the more you have to protect them with censorship.
Third. University scientists are protesting against the new method of teaching practical applications first and then the basics. ‘This is a special issue, quite complex, and I will return to it in a separate text.
Fourth. And this, in my opinion, is the most important point. The authors of the new curriculum work with a completely new kind of purposefulness. What is the point? When we see a hoe, we know that it is intended for hoeing flower beds. When we see a factory, we see that it is intended to produce a product. When we see a farmer, we know that his job is to produce food. Only then do we ask about other characteristics, side effects, etc. The authors of the curriculum turn this around. According to them, the basic purpose of industry is to pollute. That the factories also produce something is not really worthy of attention.
How are we going to rebuild industry in a country where education promotes this mentality? Anyone remember that compulsory schooling was introduced mainly to facilitate the industrialization of the country? Actually, we don’t have an education system, we have an anti-school system.
Which leads to a positive conclusion. If someday conditions change so that it pays to build factories, there will be people smart and powerful enough to see to it that education stops producing morons.