An Inconvenient Truth: Educator Al Gore Gets It Wrong
AN Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s homage to powerpoint presentations, has been held up as the wake-up call to the world. Global warming is coming. Have you seen the film? The camera doesn’t lie. Fact!
But before you get your tickets for Live Earth and buy a hemp T-shirt for Gaia, read this:
First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year…
But Mr. Gore’s filmed climate-change lecture is showing up in classrooms across Canada, frequently unaccompanied by critical analysis or a discussion of competing theories. “One of the teachers at my kid’s school showed it and he even said ahead of time, ‘There is some propaganda in this,’ ” says Tim Patterson, a Carleton University earth sciences professor. “I said to him, ‘You even knew this was a propaganda film, and you still showed it in your classroom?’ ” The weirdest part: It was the gym teacher.
Are teachers just sticking on a video so they can nip out for a crafty smoke? And now Al Gore is accepted dogma, will the cool kids rebel and take to burning fossil fuel for fun?
In addition to a companion book written for school-aged children, producers have created a lesson plan, “AIT in the Classroom,” for teachers to download.
On a clockwork, green computer…
Posted: 21st, May 2007 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
