A maternal sigh of relief

For years, D. has insisted he dislikes science, while at the same time watching lots of science shows on TV with interest. He did like the middle school science teachers, and he did enjoy the “Zombie Apocalypse” (applied science) class he had last year (which was, in fact, featured on the front page of today’s newspaper). But he can’t stand his biology class this year and complains about it constantly.

It’s not that I think he ought to be a scientist – it’s that he has an aptitude for it and a bias against it that could keep him from having a sufficiently open mind, when it comes to what he might choose to learn about in the future. He’s picky selective enough about what he wants to do with his life that I don’t want him to rule out something he might really enjoy because he doesn’t like the way some of his classes are taught.

However! Today he explained that the problem with the class is that they just learn facts and don’t learn why anything is the way it is – he gets questions that the class doesn’t answer, whether because it’s not in the curriculum or because it’s not even known yet. I pointed out that this means his problem with the class isn’t that it’s got too much science. His problem is that it doesn’t have enough science.