What the World Needs Now is C-E-R (and a little love wouldn't hurt)

Approximately two years ago, I was asked if I was interested in teaching AP Biology at MHS. And although it was a longterm goal of mine and an honor to be considered, my stomach still sank. In fact, I dreaded it. It's a beast of a course--to see why, just look at the curriculum--but I did not hesitate a moment to say yes.

Blowing off some steam during my first year teaching AP Bio

I said yes because I knew that AP Bio is an excellent course and I predicted that teaching it would bring about much professional growth. My prediction was spot-on--nothing has even come close. Most (all?) students that enroll in the course have had to adjust and one of the aspects I like the least about teaching AP Biology is seeing my students stressed out and overwhelmed. But I know that it's worth it (I couldn't do it otherwise) because it is, of course, doable, and more importantly, the class revolves around a philosophy that I think the world needs a lot more of: to make a claim, you need sound evidence and reasoning. In the AP Bio world, we call that CER, thus the title of my post.

I found this perfect image on the following blog

It would be easy for me to quickly politicize this post by showing side-by-side images of the inauguration crowds from the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections to illustrate that evidence is required to make a claim. But I think that defeats my purpose: I'm calling for all of us to be more reflective and I don't want to lose readers by making this a partisan post. Science, by nature, is supposed to be objective and thus non-partisan. But we all know that is not the case in several fields of science, namely evolution, climate change, the safety of GMOs and the efficacy of alternative medical treatments such as homeopathy. My intent is not to self-righteously point fingers at others atop my soapbox because I have been guilty of letting my own biases color my judgment. We all need to be more introspective because no matter what political party one belongs to, we have a strong tendency to accept evidence that aligns with our values and ideology. We also are not very good at understanding the natural world because it's complex and oftentimes counterintuitive. Psychologists have been studying our misconceptions of the natural world for decades, as described in this article from NPR. Unfortunately, learning more facts does not lead to less science denialism; in fact, some research has found just the opposite.

So, what are we to do? It sounds rather dismal. Well, I have hope and it rests upon an understanding of science as a process (there's the CER approach again!) as opposed to a collection of facts, along with a willingness to look inward and recognize our biases. As the great Richard Feynman said, and this quote is hanging in my classroom,

"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." 

The great physicist Richard Feynman

My 49 AP Biology students and I have spent a year applying this philosophy in class every day, from our discussions to the inquiry labs that lasted weeks. I hope my students extend this approach to their everyday lives, not just to an academic setting. I can tell you that they have certainly applied CER to their blog posts! Students chose a topic that interested them and can back up their claims with evidence and reasoning. So, whether you are reading about why people don't accept evolution and climate change, if we actually only use 10% of our brain, why whales breach, why it looks like there is a waterfall of blood in Antarctica, (I could go on and on--these posts are fantastic), I hope you reflect on how much better off society would be if the CER approach is the norm, not just something we do in an AP Biology classroom.

For those youngins reading this, here's something to help you make sense of the blogpost title.