Mary ann Barnett, a teacher at newark (Ohio) high School, stands in front of her tenth-grade biology class at the beginning of each year knowing that in her mix of students, confrontation awaits. For she knows that in the process of teaching scientific method, ecology, genetics, and taxonomy, she will address evolution, and thus a string of related questions. what is a theory? who was charles Darwin? how do we know evolution happens? Did humans evolve? why does evolution matter now?
She also knows that the topic will evoke challenges from some students. “Can you teach this? Is it legal? It’s against my religion,” she’ll hear. and she’ll respond as she has for the last 30 years: “My job is to teach you the science,” she tells them. “Your job is to see how it fits into your life.”Barnett doesn’t dance around the subject; in fact, she’s quite unabashed: “It’s not about opinions, it’s about evidence.” But in a school district where signs reading eVOLUtIOn IS a LIe are waved around during Friday night football games, she must remember that her students come from many backgrounds, with all kinds of preconceived notions. and because of the social conflicts that result from diversity, her principles as an educator—principles backed by heralded science—will forever be under attack.
Education major and aspiring biology teacher Lindsey chrislip ’07 has worked with Barnett since her sophomore year, and so has already learned much about the challenges of evolutionary theory. But she and fellow education major and close friend Liz Doerschuk ’07, who plans to teach history, felt they needed to know more about the controversy before becoming teachers themselves, so they took the topic on as summer research projects last year. the result of their collaboration was much more than just analysis of a difficult situation; it became a means for dealing with the situation through a statewide conference that they hosted on Denison’s campus.
Through her research, chrislip hoped to find what teachers were really teaching behind the closed doors of their classrooms. the state standards in Ohio are clear: evolution is a mainstay of the tenth-grade biology curriculum, yet there remained political bickering and calls for the inclusion of alternate theories. Just how widespread is the teaching of intelligent design in high schools? she questioned. why do some teachers, who are mandated to follow state curriculums, not teach evolution?
Chrislip began by studying the nature of science—the premise that our senses and extensions of those senses through the use of instruments can give us accurate empirical data about the universe—which she believed was crucial to her analysis of arguments made by intelligent design proponents. through subsequent interviews with biology teachers and scientists around the state and at the national academy of Sciences (naS), she found that despite curriculum standards, teachers experience tremendous pressures to not teach evolution. The pressures seem to come from all over—school boards, principals, other teachers, parents, students, the media, and their own churches. The more teachers understand the nature of science, she concluded, the more able they are to balance their teachings on evolution with their religious beliefs.
“For me, religion and the science of evolution co-exist.
They both address different parts of the human experience.”
Doerschuk, meanwhile, explored historical context, looking at how the fundamentalist perspective developed. Throughout the 20th century, arguments against the teaching of evolution continually crept into the dialogue of the public school system. The landmark 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial and more recent 2005 federal district court case involving the Dover (Pa.) Area School District, in which Judge John E. Jones III ruled against teaching intelligent design, stood as bookends for her research. She took particular interest in the development of vocabulary, from “creationism” in the 1980s to “intelligent design” in the 1990s and increasingly now to “critical analysis”—all labels, she maintains, carefully crafted to take advantage of loopholes in the language of biology curriculums and to gain public support, especially through the media.
Doerschuk and Chrislip also spoke with intelligent design proponents, including authors of books used to justify the arguments, such as William Dembski and Michael Behe, a primary witness in the Dover case. Doerschuk traveled to the Discovery Institute’s Washington, D.C., office, where she was invited to attend a press conference for the release of Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision by David DeWolf, John West, Casey Luskin, and Jonathan Witt—only to be disappointed when she wasn’t permitted to ask questions.
“The whole topic became important to me,” Doerschuk says as she and Chrislip became determined to segue their summer research projects into something meaningful to teachers. “Summer research forced a real understanding of the issues,” Doerschuk says.
When their research was done, the two friends felt like there was more they could do for teachers like Barnett. So they marshaled the resources of the college to organize a statewide October conference called “Beyond the Media: A Conversation about Evolution and Science Education.” High school biology teachers gathered with scientists from Denison and other Ohio colleges and representatives from the NAS to share their teaching experiences in a safe environment and discover new strategies for coping with the controversy that all too often leaves them feeling isolated and conflicted.
The all-day event offered an ambitious, far-reaching agenda. “From the media, we all hear loud and clear that we must choose between evolution and intelligent design. It’s not two sides for us, just one,” Chrislip says. The Christian Right and Biblical fundamentalists make arguments that appear legally sophisticated and are often conveyed in the simplest terms to make the information accessible to the general public, Doerschuk told the audience in her opening remarks. “They advocate intelligent design, a ‘scientific theory’ that supposedly has no religious connections or connotations,” she said. “They maintain that teachers and students should not be forced to teach or learn a doctrine, like evolution, that offends their religious beliefs and that to exclude alternatives to evolution from the curriculum is a breach of academic freedom.”
Mary Ann Barnett discussed specifically the high school perspective, while Denison biology professor Rebecca Homan spoke on “Evolution and the Scientific Framework.” Ohio University’s Joe Faber presented “Evolution in the Scientific and Educational Communities,” and Miami University’s Tom Gregg explored a topic he’s been investigating for years: “Intelligent Deceit: Jonathan Wells and the Discovery Institute.” Jay Labov, senior advisor for education and communications at the National Research Council and the NAS, presented the national perspective. The day closed with an open forum in which teachers, professors, and speakers discussed the issues and their personal experiences.
“We wanted to create a safe place to talk about teaching science in hostile environments,” Doerschuk says. “We wanted them to know they’re not alone.”
Chrislip and Doerschuk continued to interact with conference participants long after the conference ended. The National Center of Science Education requested the presenters’ PowerPoint presentations. They received two books from the NAS, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science and its supplement Evolution in Hawaii, to distribute to participants. Teachers began to network and form a community of support through Chrislip and Doerschuk’s email list.
Both women were satisfied with the conference’s results and its implications for their futures. Chrislip feels better prepared for her student-teaching semester with Barnett this spring and her career beyond. Doerschuk, still exploring the issue for her honor’s thesis, is talking with the NAS about employment opportunities.
“In the beginning, it was hard to talk to people about evolution,” Doerschuk reflects. “I felt like I had to talk so neutrally because people just wanted to argue. That was hard for me because I had no interest in arguing. I simply wanted to know more about it. I remember when I was in high school, I felt like I was betraying my faith or doing something wrong when the teacher tried to cover evolution. People want to take it personally.”
Both women have moved beyond that. They’ve resolved the distance between science and religion in their lives. “For me,” Doerschuk says and Chrislip agrees, “Religion and the science of evolution co-exist. They both address different parts of the human experience.”