|
Les, the education system is rife with gross inaccuracies in many subjects, and astronomy (if it's ever taught at all) is one of them. I've seen the various textbooks they use in high schools for teaching science and they have a lot left to be desired. The astronomical knowledge in them is woeful. I actually approached the senior science teacher and headmaster at a school I was doing teaching at back in the late 90's about this and showed them the books in question, pointing out the inaccuracies. Apart from being clueless themselves, they did feign surprise at the inaccuracies but I'd doubt they really had the requisite knowledge to understand anyway.
It's a complete and utter educational disaster to think that these books are actually being used as authoritative texts!!! The knowledge of those that write them is in my opinion entirely suspect. I wonder whether they even did a science course at uni, at all. I seriously doubt it. To really teach science, you need to have done science and I believe you really need a science degree to be even competent in the field. Not a subject or two, maybe, scattered in amongst the art and humanities courses. No wonder our science education in this country is going backwards!!! When it came time to teach the kids I had a little bit of physics and astronomy, I refused to use the text and taught from my own experience and knowledge. I rewrote their curriculum and suggested an appropriate text for them to order. I then suggested they write to the BoSSS (Board of Secondary School Studies) and have them change the curriculum for the state.
|