SiOWfa16: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy

Hello all. I’m Kameron Villavicencio. New York City has my heart and I was born in the Bronx, but I’ve been living in Easton, Pennsylvania for fifteen years now, so I guess I have to say that I’m from here. I am a junior, which is still scary to say, and I’m pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performance. Yes, I would like to be an actress. Yes, I want to be in television and film. Here at Penn State, my classmate and I started Wonderlust Theatre Company, which as of today is officially recognized as a student organization. We seek to explore life’s illimitable questions through original and published works of theatre. We have our first general interest meeting this Friday at 4:30 in room 230 of the Theatre Building. Come check us out! I swear this isn’t a shameless plug. Our goal is to promote community engagement through the arts, and I think it vibes well with what Andrew wants this course to be.

I am not a science major because my heart has always been with acting and I can’t imagine pursuing anything else. Not to mention, I’m terrible at it. That and math. However, I do like the point that Andrew brought up in class and that is that math and science, the STEM courses, are not taught well in high school. I remember my math teacher my senior year telling me how many of the people who are excellent at math and science will not go onto be a teacher in high school for those courses because they could make much more money pursuing a career in that line of work. I googled “Why good science teachers don’t teach science?” and it brought me to an article from US News from five years ago. In the article there is a quote from the CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative, Tom Luce, that reads “If you don’t have content knowledge then it’s very difficult to not only teach the class, but it’s virtually impossible to inspire somebody.” The article discusses how many people are not certified to instruct the STEM courses they teach. It brings up the startling statistic that “30 percent of chemistry and physics teachers at public high schools did not receive a major in these fields.” Of course I realize that this was five years ago, but I went to a public high school, and not in a good school district, and only graduated two years ago, so perhaps I can’t vouch that not much has changed. I don’t want to go into detail on our crumbling education system because that would take a million blog posts, but it should be noted that that statistic is terrifying.

That took a disappointing turn. I’m excited to be in Sc200. I like that I get to call my professor my his first name. My opinion of science has definitely shifted from the stereotypical “I hate science. Science sucks.” point of view, and I am ready to have an open mind. I like to think I’m good at critical thinking and humans are critical thinkers by nature, right?