In a statement, the council rationalized the reduction by stating they wanted to reduce the content load on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others. These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.
Ok don’t make it mandatory but then what would you be teaching instead? These are all like the basic building blocks of chemistry and geometry. You just aren’t gonna teach kids those subjects then?
I think there’s an argument to be made for letting students specialize a bit earlier than college freshman or sophomore 18-20 years old). I think a basic foundation of subjects is something everyone should have, but an entire year of something like chem or physics or bio? That’s about as useless for humanities people as an entire year of reading plays would be for science types.
Maybe a semester on each one is sufficient, and then after 10th grade (16-18 YO) you can choose to focus more on humanities vs STEM. You can still leave something similar to the current curriculum in place for the undecided students. And of course you can still have some crossover with electives.
All of these topics are : How the Universe Works 101
…and they apply to literally any and every field of study…
General knowledge like this is ducking priceless when it comes to understanding… so. ducking. much.
That aside, I also think your specialization comment is stupid. Did you happen to graduate from a school in India in the past 16 months?
I’m a humanities major. I’ve used pythagorean theorem in my life but never the periodic table. However, the table (and Pythagoras) would still be included under 1 semester of chem.
Plus the UK lets students specialize earlier than the US does, so fuck them I guess?
“101”? Sounds like an American educational system perspective.
Maybe if you spent more time learning some civics and less focusing on making IT working STEM lords you wouldn’t have voted in Trump.
This is not priceless general knowledge, it’s hyper niche knowledge that doesn’t apply to the majority of adults lives. Anyone in my country who wanted to pursue these topics would have picked “advanced” versions of the units during year 9/10.
I think you could make an argument of combining the essentials of physics and chemistry into a single year long course but that would include teaching the conservation of energy, periodic table and so on.
But I disagree that people don’t use apply these subjects in your life. I think it’s pretty necessary to be able to estimate distance or be able to engineer repairs at home without having to call a professional or order brand new goods, or for chemistry, be able to clean your home without accidentally making a bomb.
