X-Message-Number: 19189
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Re: Constructivism
Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2002 07:30:07 -0700

In Message #19186, Scott Badger writes:

>BTW, the majority of these college students come to
the program needing serious remediation in science and
math. They don't know why we have seasons, why the
mooon has phases, etc, etc, etc.

Secular humanists tend to blame the spread of fundamentalism in part on an 
ignorance of science, but I think Americans' anti-intellecualism and 
indifference to book learning also tend to put an upper limit on 
fundamentalist ideological zealotry.  The same students who need remediation 
in science and math would probably also flunk a test of basic literacy in 
their own nominal religious beliefs.  Studying the Bible and other 
theological works is too much like school work to hold mass appeal.  The 
people who do master this material may be respected, but they are also 
viewed as being akin to geeks.

The decline of reading in general among people who are capable of reading 
has been called "aliteracy."  E.g., link to,



http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A23370-2001May13

Mark Plus

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