3 ms·

There has been a ton of speculation presented as fact in science-related reading materials for kids across the board, and I'm not sure how much that's improved

There has been a ton of speculation presented as fact in science-related reading materials for kids across the board, and I'm not sure how much that's improved (although it has in some places). It seems the thinking often was that we need to keep things simple for children so they'll uptake it more easily. Many educators want to avoid getting bogged down in fuzzy areas like debates about support for theories, or difficult ones like the details of actual research. The unfortunate downside is that the oversimplification of introductory material inevitably leads to a period of frustrating cognitive dissonance for anyone who develops an interest in a subject, as they need to unlearn all the nerfed-to-the-point-of-being-wrong stuff. I suspect those who have multiple & diverse interests are more likely to go through mentally and emotionally devastating experiences of overall disillusionment with humanity as a result.

bombcar 4y ago
I remember a "Our Universe" book [64] that was pretty cool; and it was quite capable of describing what we knew from telescopes and other scientific sources, while still having "fanciful" pages detailing how a mars base might look and what a creature that lived on Jupiter might look like. I feel that was a pretty good way to balance the objectives. [64] https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/national-geographic-picture-atlas-of-our-universe_roy-a-gallant_margaret-sedeen/253504/item/5599812/ https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/national-geographic-picture-at...
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  One of my favorite books in elementary school. Checked it out from the school library several times per year. Now I grab a copy just about every time I see one, think I've bought three—I have kids now, and because of the format combined, now, with the age of the book, the binding tends to fail, so they're a bit consumable at this point. I've lost one so far. IIRC from when I looked into this a while back, there are actually two versions of the book, and one has more pages than the other (like, a dozen more, or perhaps twenty) so if you pick one up and are like "I could have sworn..." it might be because you're holding the one with less material, and are used to the larger one. I noticed and did some digging because I flipped through a digital version on archive.org and it was missing some stuff that (at least) one of my physical copies has. I forget whether it's the earlier or later edition that has more material.
- dekhn 4y ago
  I had completely forgotten about this! It was clearly influential on my developing mind.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I cannot speak to all kids and all contexts, but I have a 4 and 5 year old and something I've learned in the past ~3 years is just how completely wrong I was about this. My kids are completely ready to hear "we don't know, but we think it might be like X or maybe even like Y." It's actually incredibly empowering, I think, for a specific reason: a conclusive answer shuts the book, an inconclusive one begs imaginative minds to think about the blanks to be filled in. And my kids leap on the opportunity to begin imagining what the answer might be, with such boldness and confidence that most adults seem to have been stripped of somewhere in school.
gibspaulding 4y ago
I wonder if some of this could have fueled certain people's mistrust of science today. I could imagine realizing that the science you grew up with is false could foster mistrust going forward. - "They can't even decide whether dinosaurs had scales or feathers, why should I trust them on what the temperature was."

bombcar 4y ago

I remember a "Our Universe" book [64] that was pretty cool; and it was quite capable of describing what we knew from telescopes and other scientific sources, while still having "fanciful" pages detailing how a mars base might look and what a creature that lived on Jupiter might look like. I feel that was a pretty good way to balance the objectives. [64] https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/national-geographic-picture-atlas-of-our-universe_roy-a-gallant_margaret-sedeen/253504/item/5599812/ https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/national-geographic-picture-at...

yamtaddle 4y ago
One of my favorite books in elementary school. Checked it out from the school library several times per year. Now I grab a copy just about every time I see one, think I've bought three—I have kids now, and because of the format combined, now, with the age of the book, the binding tends to fail, so they're a bit consumable at this point. I've lost one so far. IIRC from when I looked into this a while back, there are actually two versions of the book, and one has more pages than the other (like, a dozen more, or perhaps twenty) so if you pick one up and are like "I could have sworn..." it might be because you're holding the one with less material, and are used to the larger one. I noticed and did some digging because I flipped through a digital version on archive.org and it was missing some stuff that (at least) one of my physical copies has. I forget whether it's the earlier or later edition that has more material.
dekhn 4y ago
I had completely forgotten about this! It was clearly influential on my developing mind.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I cannot speak to all kids and all contexts, but I have a 4 and 5 year old and something I've learned in the past ~3 years is just how completely wrong I was about this. My kids are completely ready to hear "we don't know, but we think it might be like X or maybe even like Y." It's actually incredibly empowering, I think, for a specific reason: a conclusive answer shuts the book, an inconclusive one begs imaginative minds to think about the blanks to be filled in. And my kids leap on the opportunity to begin imagining what the answer might be, with such boldness and confidence that most adults seem to have been stripped of somewhere in school.

gibspaulding 4y ago

I wonder if some of this could have fueled certain people's mistrust of science today. I could imagine realizing that the science you grew up with is false could foster mistrust going forward. - "They can't even decide whether dinosaurs had scales or feathers, why should I trust them on what the temperature was."