Feminist Chemistry Class at East Carolina U. Teaches That Science is Racist
“an example of a transformative pedagogical model to dismantle White supremacy in Chemistry”
Have you noticed the rise in this type of activism in the sciences? It’s happening.
Campus Reform reports:
New feminist chemistry class teaches that science is racist
A recent article published in the Journal of Chemical Education describes the development of a Feminism and Science course at East Carolina University (ECU) that was offered at the university. The course, the authors argue, should serve as a “model” for other educators to learn from, “present[ing] this work as an example of a transformative pedagogical model to dismantle White supremacy in Chemistry.”
The article, titled “A Special Topic Class in Chemistry on Feminism and Science as a Tool to Disrupt the Dysconcious Racism in STEM,” argues for a pedagogical framework based on “Critical Race Theory and intersectional feminism.”
One of their goals “was to shine light, through this process, [on] how scientific epistemology and culture have strong links with capitalism, enslavement, colonization, and exploitation of female-bodied folks.”
Students also learned the definitions of terms such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and systemic racism.
“To navigate the binary of the instructor as all-knowing (sage on the stage) and the students as empty slates, often the instructor would do the same assignment as the students and their response [would] be critiqued in class,” the authors wrote.
To emphasize the need for the course, they referenced a student evaluation, which described a professor criticizing a student for using “male” and “female.”
“The student should not have been called out in class and asked to change their answer because the un-offensive words of ‘male’ and ‘female’ were triggering for the professor,” the evaluation reads.
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Comments
Clearly the primary intersectionality is on the crazy/stupid axes.
I never feel terribly old and I hate “these kids today” arguments. But I read stuff like this and force myself to recognize it’s been more than 20 years since I took college chemistry and I wonder what else I am out of touch with.
Well, cis and trans have changed a whole lot.
How does the course explain the fact the non-White world doesn’t suffer the problem of White supremacy in Chemistry? Could it be that the problem isn’t Whites in chemistry, but White existence in the context of Woke ideology? True science doesn’t care about race, only facts. Wokeness doesn’t care about facts, only ideology.
This used to be a joke.
Now, instead of labeling the booth “Gender Studies,” label it “Education.”
How many of these people saying how the patriarchy is keeping them down in chemistry, ever had a chemistry set in their lives? It was never just about the school curriculum. You always had to learn on your own to develop your skill, and some kids even got excited over it, especially making explosives.
I don’t think a chemistry set discriminates on the basis of sex. You can blow stuff up either way.
I guarantee all y’all that a properly executed thermite reaction will produce a ton of heat and sparks and be just as dangerous regardless of who does the experiment. Same for who computes the appropriate stoichiometry on any given chemical reaction or process. The chemicals and reagents themselves don’t give a damn about social consciousness.
How much time will be wasted not learning chemistry in this class?
Ridiculous!
Stick to chemistry.
Chemistry is hard.
Regurgitating social prejudices is easy.
The issue is culture. Cultures which don’t start to educate their children from day 1 end up being cultures that are really far behind, forever. What my peers and I have in common is that we wereeducated by our parents at a very young age, and that momentum continued till we were educating our children at a young age. That is why our children are far ahead on the academic curve. If your child can’t read by the time they start school, well, for an academic career the game is already over.
Of course, THEIR solution is for people like me to stop doing what I am doing, and therefore the outcome of the children will be the same. And that is why we plopped down the extra cash for private schooling, because we knew that public K-12 schools were no longer up to our standards.
And yes, explosives rule.
There are nine authors listed on that paper.