#56265: — 01/04  at  03:34 PM
My high school biology was wonderful (Toronto suburb in the mid 1970s). In addition to the core curriculum bio (which was ok, but nothing special) we had the option of taking 2 additional courses each year: microbiology and an associated chemistry course. We did fun stuff with growing, killing, sorting, counting, identifying various bacteria. Oddly, I found the university bio courses I took to be rather less appealing, and ended up changing my career direction from bio/med to electrical engineering, partway through my first year.

#56266: — 01/04  at  03:40 PM
Not just the US, man, it's India too.. I studied at a relatively well-to-do school, and I have to say, I *hated* biology. Memorise this, memorise that, and vomit it all out at the end, in a green viscous, anatomically-correct pile at the end of the year: That was biology.

Now, on the other hand, I feel towards evolution and biology much as a jew would feel towards G-d. I exaggerate, but evolution has tied my entire experience of biology together in a way that has changed my attitude towards biology. I really wish they had used evolution as a framework for biology at school.

#56267: — 01/04  at  03:40 PM
HS biology was excellent! I got a solid grounding in evolutionary theory from the get-go from a very sharp Jesuit scholastic. This after eighth grade - Sister Paula getting red in the face and nearly stroking out at any mention of the possibility of having primate ancestors.

This was 35 years ago, and I remain impressed at the quality of the scientific education I received. I know for a fact that people of faith (which I do not share) are still capable of thinking deeply and rigorously about the natural world. They understood that no belief could force them to deny those things they could see, touch and measure.

#56268: DouglasG — 01/04  at  03:40 PM
I would say mine was about 50:50 ratio between boring memorization and interesting biological stuff. The catch was the biology teacher was also the football coach. He was allowed to grade on "class participation" and so ALL the football team got 'A's, of which I was one.

We disected a lot of different animals. Worms, frogs, grasshoppers, star fish all went under the knife, that was cool stuff!

So, the teacher knew his stuff, but the automatic 'A' was a bit of a drain on the whole motivation thing. There was also an advanced biology course that I didn't take (same teacher.) It would have been another 'A', but I was (am) more into mathematics...

#56270: Kazim — 01/04  at  03:47 PM
Count me as someone who had a horrible experience with biology class. It was my freshman year of high school, and the whole class seemed to be memorization. That, and we had these huge 20 page packets of multiple choice and fill in the blank questions, where you would go though the book and hunt for words written in bold and fill that in on your paper.

To this day, exactly one thing has stuck with me from that class: The words "endoplasmic reticulum." That's it. I don't remember what they mean.

My dad, a physicist, kept telling me "Wait until you get to the chapter on evolution. Evolution is the unifying principle of biology. Everything will make more sense when you get there."

So we got to evolution and guess what? The teacher skipped it.

I didn't touch biology again until I took a college class entirely about evolution. The funny thing is, my dad was right. If my high school class had been more like that college class, I might have leaned toward a different career.

#56271: — 01/04  at  03:49 PM
I had two years of bio in hs (regular and ap) in Indiana in '89 and '92. We had very few labs due to budget issues in the district. I still wish there had been more attention paid to the value of labs in teaching. I honestly have no recollection of how evolution was presented at all. I suspect it was presented without mention of any conflict with religion. I certainly did not feel that memorization was stressed or I likely wouldn't be sitting where I am today. I had a kneejerk reflex against memorization as a student and those classes tend to be what I regard as my least favorite. I tend to agree with theophylact that the classes and teachers that were good were few and far between without regard to subject. I had an excellent Latin teacher who taught me much more than Latin, a solid biology teacher, and a dynamite chem teacher (who I only grew to appreciate after college Chem).

#56272: — 01/04  at  03:49 PM
My Highschool biology teacher, although not horrible when actually teaching, was also the track and cross-country coach, and made it obvious what his first priority was. I can remember literally spending several days (!) coloring, with crayons and everything, photocopies of birds, while he discussed strategies for the season with his team captains. Oh well, no one minded since we had the #1 cross country team in the nation, and that was sure to bring in lots of... money... or whatever winning athletic teams are supposed to bring in for a public school. Rah.

I also took an elective, new for that year course in biotechnology, but it was run by the agriculture/Future Farmers of America guy. Other than the one time we got to electrophoresis, the remainder of the year was very... corn-oriented, and failed to fire my imagination much.

#56275: PZ Myers — 01/04  at  03:59 PM
The PE teacher phenomenon is common, I think. They took a little anatomy and physiology in college, so they get roped into double-duty coaching and teaching biology/health. It's a real shame that makes biology a second-rate class taught with the same emphases the teacher got in his old sports medicine course.

#56276: — 01/04  at  04:00 PM
I was unfortunate enough to have been taught biology at a baptist high school (only one year there). I learned a lot about how complex cells were (I don't remember them being called machines though). Evolution was briefly covered, under the topic of "how to argue with an evolutionist." I don't remember the details of that one either.

#56277: — 01/04  at  04:08 PM
My biology experience was limited to AP biology in tenth grade. I had different teachers for the micro (fall) and macro (spring). Overall, it was a great experience.

For the most part, I was prepped for biology because of the Boy Scouts and my interest in backpacking. Much of it was memorization, but when we got to genetics, the world took off for me--it was the first experience I had thinking in an 'if-then' mode rather than rote memorization. I don't know if others had the same instruction, but we essentially ran the gamut from Mendel to Monad, nailing down every significant discovery in the field along with Miller's work.

I missed much of the spring semester (which was macro) because of being hospitalized, and had to catch up on the on a lot in the last two months.

Mike

#56279: — 01/04  at  04:12 PM
I had such an ideal experience in high school bio. Same teacher for both regular and AP, he's the reason I'm going for my PhD in cell/dev bio now. We did all sorts of experiments, and he was just so excited about it all, he really made us see how cool all this stuff was...but among my grad student peers, I'm very much in the minority as far as having loved high school science. However, I should mention I grew up 5 miles from Lawrence Livermore National and Sandia Labs, which probably influenced the quality of our science education considering many of my classmates' parents worked at the lab.

#56280: — 01/04  at  04:16 PM
Biology was one of my favorite courses in high school, and covered pretty well in junior high too. I went to public school in Ohio, and biology was ~20 years ago for me. I took the equivalent of honors biology in HS, which used a BSCS textbook and curriculum. Evolution was talked about as a fact, and things like our eyes having their evolutionary roots in the light sensitive features of central nervous systems (not quite complex enough to be called brains according to the teacher) of primitive invertrabates are some of the unifying ideas that still stick with me 20 years later.

#56281: Babbler — 01/04  at  04:21 PM
I cannot recall any biology covered in Elementary School, other than a short lesson on plants. In fact, I remember little science AT ALL. Mostly English, French and Math.

Sec I I had ecology. The teacher was really an English teacher; I should know, I was in her English class twice. She treated us like we were in Kindergarten, expect giving homework load appropriate for Sec V. Nice lady, thought, and she really liked us (she invited us to her wedding). Needless to say, I don't think anybody learned much ecology. There was a section on human evolution in Ancient History (again, thought by same English teacher), but I think nobody learned much history, either. I remember looking over a biography of Charles Darwin in her class.

Sec III, I had (human) biology. Now that was great; the teacher was an actually biology teacher and the material covered wasn't too hard and uninteresting.

I don't take any biology until last semester in college, where I took General Biology I. Again, I got surprised when the teacher was changed, at the last minute. She was nice teacher as well, but has an annoying affinity for PowerPoint. I got a 70, although I faired poorly on my second class test and lab exam. The genetics and the evolution parts were the easiest part, but the part where you just memorized where just murder.

Oh, BTW, my teacher did cover creationism. It took five minutes:

*Theory: God dunnit, garden of Eden, etc.
*Succeeded by evolutionary theories.
*Only thought in the more backwards portions of the Earth, like Kansas.

She should get an award from the Discover Institute.

#56282: — 01/04  at  04:21 PM
I had an *awesome* high school biology teacher. Brendan Herlichy would sometimes play different characters while explaining concepts or important "stories". This included the Frenchman talking of the virtues of microbial processes that turn grape juice into wine, though if you wait too long, then (pretending to take a swig) it turns into vinegar (grimacing and uttering a French-sounding expletive (I took Spanish, so I wasn't sure)). Another was the fisherman with a Bostonian accent singing a brief song about marine life, then telling us that sea anemones look like (hushed, conspiratorial tone) anuses. He loved whales, and took the class on a whale-watching trip at Cape Cod, far away from the smoggy confines of Yonkers, NY.

I think I would have loved biology regardless, because though my AP biology teacher was not particularly engaging (okay, I was pretty damn disappointed with his class), I steered towards the sciences in colleges (where I met many other less-inspiring teachers) and am a PhD graduate student in the biological sciences today.

Now that I think of it, I remember the concepts of evolution taught in my high school class, not from AP bio.

I have had other exemplary science teachers in elementary and junior high, so perhaps my earlier experiences were strong enough to fuel my interest in science (though, to this day, I still absolutely HATE inorganic chemistry).

#56283: Kristine Harley — 01/04  at  04:25 PM
Boring! And I truly was sick the day that we dissected the fetal pig--my lab partner got back at me for that by being "sick" the day we dissected the frog. That was fun, actually, so I didn't mind doing it all myself. I think my teacher was bordering on senility (this was not a prestigious high school, but one in which 8x10 color photos of jocks decorated the walls), and was hoping to retire before his body did. My lab partner had the longest fingernails in the world. She was always pristine, hair perfectly styled, no zits, filthy rich...and she got stuck with me. Well, hell, I didn't see her at the class reunion! Ah, high school memories. (I actually first learned about evolution in sixth grade.)

#56286: — 01/04  at  04:36 PM
Gene Davis at Albany High School in Albany California is a great biology teacher. I had his class in the late 80's. Excellent coverage of all aspects of basic biology: evolution, anatomy, cellular structures, taxonomy, genetics, metabolism, etc.. He really made it fun, but also rigorous. Damn good teacher. He really tied it all together into a coherent whole.

Funny thing is, there was one other biology teacher at the same high school, and EVERYBODY who took her class hated biology afterwards. This post made me think how glad I am that I never got her.

#56287: charlie wagner — 01/04  at  04:41 PM
Olivia Judson wrote:

"Biology was a subject that seemed as exciting as a clump of cotton wool. It was a dreary exercise in the memorization and regurgitation of apparently unconnected facts. Only later did I learn about evolution and how it transforms biology from that mass of cotton wool into a magnificent tapestry, a tapestry we can contemplate and begin to understand."

Sorry Olivia, but it wasn't evolution that rang your chimes. The "magnificent tapestry" that you refer to is the unity of life. Similar genes, similar processes and similar structures are used over and over again across a wide range of different forms. We're all part of the same "web of life" and we're all cut from the same cloth. This is the profound truth of biology and it's this relatedness that binds us all together and gives meaning to the study of life science. It leads us to the conclusion that we probably all came from a common origin. And it is an understanding that has great significance.
It also has nothing at all to do with "evolution".

#56288: — 01/04  at  04:42 PM
My bio class was really good, at least in my opinion. It was very diffifult and there was a lot of memorization, but we also did enough labs to keep it interesting, including labs that we designed ourselves. I don't think that's typical of current high school courses though. That one was supposed to be like a semester of college level intro to bio. Still, I really liked it.

#56289: — 01/04  at  04:44 PM
ooh - I forgot to mention - the fetal pig that I dissected had a vagina and testes. Weird!

#56291: — 01/04  at  04:46 PM
As a former biology teacher (and current Assistant Principal of Instruction) I can tell you high school biology wasn't the reason I majored in Biology. The teacher was a nice man, but it was as most everyone else has described-dull.Evolution was not really taught at the high school level where I went to high school. My college intro biology class was a good class-taught using evolution and genetics as the pivotal concepts. I got an evolution double whammy as a freshmen because I took a physical anthropology class from a Dr. V. Sarich, who went into evolution quite a bit and was quite eloquent. As a bio teacher I tried to go away from rote memorization and focused on genetics and focused on the evolution of specialization in plants and animals. Students did a lot of writing both in labs and on tests. I believe we need to change how bio is taught at the high school level. In some areas, it is the first class students take and they lack the physics and chemistry background to deeply understand the material. Physics and chemistry should be taken before and/or concurrently with bio (like in college)to enable the teacher and the student to get to some of the really interesting and fun things that can be studied. This would give high school students a glimpse of the complexity of biology and perhaps motivate them to explore that as an area of study in college.

#56294: — 01/04  at  04:59 PM
My high school biology teacher inadvertantly taught us a little about deep time by virtue of his advanced age, but never mentioned evolution - or much of anything interesting, unless you're inordinately fond of anatomical memorization. Worse yet, my first biology class in college was also duller than dirt in just the ways described here - dull memorization, no coherence, passing mention of natural selection but no solid grounding in the theory and structure of evolutionary biology. That one class alone was enough to dissuade me from my original intent to double major in physics and zoology. A graduate philosophy seminar titled "History and Philosophy of Evolutionary Biology," taught by Ernst Mayr's student Michael Ghiselin, was the first genuinely interesting biology class I ever had. I've been hooked ever since.

#56295: — 01/04  at  05:03 PM
My high school biology course (it may have been subsumed into General Science, but it was at least a unit of that) was OK. The teacher was genuinely curious and pretty cool (despite a maddening twitch of one eye) and he provided very thorough and accurate sex ed info, along with having us cut up the usual frog, pig embryo, and cow heart.

Someone has already mentioned the great job that Scientific American has long performed in the area of popular science education. I want to give a shout out to Random House's "All About ..." book series of the '50s (I may be misremebering the publisher, but I think that's right). I didn't need to learn about the deeps of geological time or the coolness of ancient humans and other living critters, or about evolution in general, from high school biology, because I had alreadyread good popularizations by the scientists and museum curators themselves in grade school.

And thanks to the 'rents for signing me up for the All About book club. That cool new book every month or so was really something to anticipate and treasure!

So, along with the science classes, let's all support good science writing, literacy, and libraries, beacons against the darkness.

#56302: — 01/04  at  05:16 PM
I wasn't going to read ALL of the comments, but I did, and I noticed a distinct lack of non-USA responses. American Exceptionalism strikes again, perhaps.

I graduated high school in 1996, in Calgary. A school full of surprises. Calgary has a high proportion of Mormons, and my HS AP bio courses were about 1/2 raging creationists, but there was little overlap - most of the creationists were not Mormon, and the Mormons were mostly OK with evolution (at least, as far as the earth being really old, and organisms evolving gradually into new species over millions of years).

My bio teacher was pretty good - not great, but certainly not bad. When we got to the provincially-mandated section on Evolutionary Biology (came right after cell bio and just before neurology, I recall), she knew 1/2 the class was just waiting to denounce her as a godless heathen, so she started with a 30-second announcement to the effect that you can believe anything you like, but if you're going to argue against something, you'll do better if you understand that thing. This kept the IDiots quiet for the rest of the week.

The bizarro part of my HS was the AP chemistry teacher. I learned more about chemistry from Rob Ledderer than about any other subject from any other teacher. Molecular structure, covalent and ionic bonds, organic chemistry, thermodynamics, kinetics, all were covered lucidly, in detail and with real skill. But every so often he'd remind us that "this proves evolution can't happen", generally by citing the 2nd Law. Naturally I ignored that part of his lectures.

When I got to university, every one of his "arguments" was demolished in the first 5 minutes of day 1 of 1st year biology. The name of the course was "Diversity of Life on Earth". Now I'm finishing my M.Sc. in Evolutionary Genetics, but I knew I wanted a PhD in (marine) biology since I was about 8 years old - high school had very little impact on that desire.

Sorry this comment is so long. Also, cephalopods are cool.

#56304: Laura — 01/04  at  05:24 PM
I loved biology in high school. In fact, both my math teacher and my biology teacher thought I should become a genetic engineer. Instead, I wanted to be a poet. So I put science in my poetry. Go figure. Of course, I dissected animals on my own in junior high. My favorite thing--PZ, you'll appreciate this--was dissecting a squid and getting the backbone (such as it is) out whole. I was so proud of that! I remember talking about evolution in high school, and I was in the bible belt. I'm not sure how much I retained, but it seemed we mostly directly applied it in the lab.

#56306: HP — 01/04  at  05:33 PM
My goal in high school was to get through it as quickly as possible, so I took biology during summer school around 1977-78. There was about a quarter acre of undeveloped wetland on the school's property, so every summer they offered a class called "field biology." It was something like six weeks and two hours a day. At least one hour a day was spent observing and collecting in the field. There was quite a bit of ecology, some botany, lots of rotifers and paramecium. I remember hunting fruitlessly for galls on the shrubby trees there.

We might have done a lecture on Darwin's fieldwork in the Galapagos, but there wasn't much discussion of evolutionary mechanisms, etc. Neither was there any sense that evolution was in any way controversial. I remember dissecting a preserved grasshopper that was well past its expiration date. Mostly, however, I remember this tall blonde girl with very long legs who wore very short shorts to class, because it was summer.

It was not a bad class, but not exactly an AP course either. I remember much more about my AP physics and chemistry classes.