This Is a Good Teacher
24/8/08 10:48![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madrobinsI love teachers. I am awed by people who spend their lives trying to impart information and understanding to other people, particularly to children. And this guy is a really good teacher.
David Campbell teaches Biology in Florida, a state which now mandates the teaching of evolution as part of its curriculum (partly due to Campbell's efforts, as a matter of fact). But he's also teaching in a state where a lot of kids are steeped in adamantly anti-evolution religious rhetoric. Teaching high school kids is hard enough; teaching kids who are predisposed to tune you out because what you're teaching is "wrong" is spectacularly difficult. But every example The Times gives of how Campbell handled the class is just brilliant.
That's a good teacher.
David Campbell teaches Biology in Florida, a state which now mandates the teaching of evolution as part of its curriculum (partly due to Campbell's efforts, as a matter of fact). But he's also teaching in a state where a lot of kids are steeped in adamantly anti-evolution religious rhetoric. Teaching high school kids is hard enough; teaching kids who are predisposed to tune you out because what you're teaching is "wrong" is spectacularly difficult. But every example The Times gives of how Campbell handled the class is just brilliant.
He started with Mickey Mouse.
On the projector, Mr. Campbell placed slides of the cartoon icon: one at his skinny genesis in 1928; one from his 1940 turn as the impish Sorcerer’s Apprentice; and another of the rounded, ingratiating charmer of Mouse Club fame.
“How,” he asked his students, “has Mickey changed?”
Natives of Disney World’s home state, they waved their hands and called out answers.
“His tail gets shorter,” Bryce volunteered.
“Bigger eyes!” someone else shouted.
“He looks happier,” one girl observed. “And cuter.”
Mr. Campbell smiled. “Mickey evolved,” he said. “And Mickey gets cuter because Walt Disney makes more money that way. That is ‘selection.’ ”
That's a good teacher.