Textbooks and botany

In grade school science books generally plants get overlooked, downplayed, and portrayed as static objects, so kids come to think of plants as "boring". For those of us in the botanical education business, none of this comes as a surprise, however, it's still good to have real studies of the problem. And the errors and misconceptions about plants taught to kids; it's terrible. How many times has the Phactor seen the cotyledons of a bean seed labeled "endosperm"? Plants respire like animals, but they don't "breathe". No, no, stop before you start ranting. You would do well to check your kids science books, and if they ignore plants, or get the plant facts wrong, complain. Of course, the Phactor did this, and the middle school science teacher told me, "Well, plants just aren't interesting." In this case it was sheer ignorance of plant biology compounded by just plain poor, passive teaching. Don't stand for it. Buy them funking plants for the class room. Suggest a field trip to a botanical garden. Bring in a load of unusual fruits including those that kids think are vegetables. Which ones have seeds that grow? Help the school develop a learning garden. Generate some interest. My job depends on it!

Why don't students want to study plants?

Others have wondered the same thing? Why is it that plants capable of fascinating the Phactor for so many years are of so little interest to students? There is no one answer, but several factors do come into play, but before outlining these for you, some smallish percent of our biology students do like studying plants, about 10% on average.
Firstly, and most importantly, it takes a certain mental and emotional maturity and sophistication to apprectiate something a subtle as plants. This certainly explains the attitudes of many of my zoological colleagues. Flower children versus colleagues red in tooth and claw. They're just like most of our students, but grown up. Secondly, you have to know something about plants to appreciate them, and today's biology, especially in the USA, has a heavy human biomedical emphasis that even ignores non-vertebrate animals. A student complained about our animal behavior course as being about "insects" rather than animals. Wow! Unfortunately biology students who think biology is about baby zoo animals is all too are all too prevalent, and they become high school teachers. So thirdly, high school teachers educated in this system perpetuate the cycle by treating plants as uninteresting items forced into the curriculum. When the Phactor complained once to a chair that botanists weren't being considered for many jobs, he said, "You won't be happy until half the department are botanists (at the time it was 8 out of 34), but what will they all teach?" Genetics, cell biology, ecology, evolution, physiology, etc. was my answer, but of course, "real" biology is animal biology, so this could not be tolerated. He was dick about lots of other things too, so no big surprise in his attitude. To a great extent generally held preconceived notions about plants (and fungi) color people's attitudes, and even many gardeners revolt, or get revolting, when you try to learn them something about plants, sort of a don't muddle my poor head with knowledge, and never ever use a scientific name (which is why the Phactor blogs every now and them about knowing your genera; oh, it's been that long?). Fortunately the master garden programs are reversing this for many. Even worse, higher education, which should be a bastion of biological diversity, is run by pin-headed "bean" counters so if your area of expertise is on the short end of the stick, well, too bad. No one needs all of biology, just enough to get people into medical school, and so it goes with no real regard for the discipline. It''s like a conspiracy.