Cafe de Mello

Barry Karr the director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, renamed to better capture the breadth of the group's mission) reported this week on the help CSI provided to Jamye Johnston, who teaches 9th grade science in Grand Praire, Texas.

After viewing the material for college students on the CSI website, Ms. Johnston wrote Mr. Karr requesting assistance:

I am desperately seeking ways to teach my students to be skeptical of the world around them, but there are limited resources available to high school teachers to do this. . . I'm looking for something that I can share with a class of 14-15 year olds that they will enjoy and that I can legally have in the classroom, and that's tough!

CSI offered to provide copies of CSI's major publication, "The Skeptical Inquirer," and perhaps more assistance and inspiration. In accepting these materials Ms Johnston wrote:

Just having a few books and magazines for the classroom can go a long way. I wish we could request and supply budget money for more materials like the ones you have to offer, but even the pens and pencils and paper that I supply to my students (66% of whom are below the poverty line) come out of my own pocket. Last year the budget for our particular school didn't even cover the cost of any chemicals for the chemistry labs, which I feel (sadly) is where our science education system is heading.

Ms. Johnston used the material and inspiration she received to develop what sounds like an effective program to accomplish her goal of, "raising a generation of students who aren't afraid to question things around them!" The students learned to develop a skeptical mind set, ask and write their own questions, and conduct research to answer those questions.

With the acceptance of superstition, the paranormal, and pseudoscience on the rise again in this country (if you don't believe it check the schedule of ghost and monster hunting "reality shows" on the Scifi channel), Ms. Johnston is to be commended for her vision and creativity (CSI deserves major kudos as well).

I recently moved from Texas to California. Both states are virulently against raising taxes, and education is suffering in both states. Anti-tax activists shout about the need for increased efficiency, and trimming entitlements, but education is an entitlement that must not be trimmed.

It's a crying shame that science education in our country has fallen in priority to the point that there is no budge for chemicals for the chemistry labs. If this continues and the United States continues to underperform in the production of PhD. Level scientists, the nation will be weeping at our inability to compete.