Some Aspects of High School Biology

Abstract

High school biology is characterized by an almost complete lack of standardization, in both aims and content. The aims are constant matters of controversy, among both biologists and educators. In content, no two textbooks or manuals are alike. Ask biology teachers what ought to be included and what left out, and you get almost as many different answers as answering teachers. Colleges do not make special provision for students who have studied biology in high school, as they do in the case of physics, chemistry, algebra, and some other subjects taught regularly in both high school and college. Although there are many reasons for this diversity, four are outstanding. First, biology is a subject that must be adapted in a large measure to the locality in which it is taught. Second, its course organization has changed a great deal-it has been taught as botany, zoology, nature study, natural history, anatomy, physiology, hygiene, health lessons, etc. Third, since the general course in biology is relatively new in high schools it has not been subjected to the standardizing influences of the stricter college entrance requirements of the past. Fourth, there has been very little organization of biology teachers into groups for discussion of common problems. High school biology is often nothing more than dilute college biology. For the poorly prepared teacher, the only, or at least the easiest way out, is simply to pass on as much as possible of what was received in college. In the days when biology was largely morphology and taxonomy, this condition was inevitable. Now it should not exist, unless the aims of high school and college biology are the same, or unless the sole objective of high school biology is college entrance. Most of the older aims of high school biology can no longer be defended. The disciplinary value of science has gone; we no longer believe in training