Science: A recipe?
This was written by a friend of mine - a science graduate. It is a very interesting blogpost about current school pedagogies and thoughts for the future.
"Teenagers are coming out of high school with an extreme lack of scientific literacy." This was said by my flatmate, an experienced teacher, and experienced in modern learning pedagogy. I asked her why, and her response was "because teachers do not know how to teach it." I find this incredibly interesting as a student who fared very well in the traditional schooling system I grew up in. I want to explore this sentiment, and my own reflections on how it fits into today's scientific arena.
In school, and to the most extent university, science is taught as a recipe, where each instruction in the recipe has a logical flow from the instruction before it. Each question has its own "right answer"; in NCEA physics, you can miss out on an Excellence grade if you do not put the right term in your answer. Teachers are taught to mark according to the marking schedule, ensuring that every child is graded the same, rightly or wrongly. There is very little scope for creativity, or working outside the curriculum. Practical experiments are put to students as a series of steps, often with the final objective "see what happens to x when you change y". Students are told what they are looking for, and even how to look for it. I can honestly say that until my postgraduate study, I have never been asked to find my own direction in a scientific experimental project. After my undergraduate, I spent a summer setting up a new experimental course for third year physics at Otago University. The premise of the course was to take all the lab work out of the theoretical courses so that "experimental technique" could be developed. Students were increasingly expected to find their own answers to questions, develop their own ways of running the experiment, be creative. This happened in 2010, and was the first attempt I had seen in the university undergraduate system to really nurture creativity.
And then you graduate. You have done, say, ten years of scientific learning through your childhood and young adulthood, and you are expected to be able to apply what you have learnt. And I agree with my flatmate, you, I, feel a bit lost. Young graduates are coming out into the world, into a world of knarly problems, "controversial science", and being expected to step up. Or at the very least, the world needs them to. The problems that arguably matter the most are the ones that have the conflicting moral values attached to them, the political influences, the social consequences. They are those problems that need biologists and atmospheric chemists and sociologists and psychologists to work together. They are not prescribed, and they need creativity. Our schooling system was developed at a time where a need was identified to train an elite group to deal with the complex and difficult scientific problems of the time. It was understood that this scientific elite would be able to progress society, and support government. We have identified quite clearly now that this model does not work. We cannot pump children through their education on a conveyor belt, one size fits all. In fact, it is incredibly disadvantageous to continue doing so. A scientific elite no longer exists, and a scientifically literate community is required. And this starts in the education system.
So I think the fact that "teachers do not know how to teach [science]" is slightly more complex than it seems. The direction of scientific education follows the curriculum, and teachers must teach to this curriculum. I am not a teacher, and I do not have the answers. But I do believe that opening primary and secondary school up to creativity in the sciences is imperative to the growth of science in society. Some teachers are doing this, this I know. But they are fighting against the beast of inertia that the education system holds. My only conclusion is that we must stop ranking children on their ability to get the right answer, and start nurturing their creativity, their empathy, their values, their curiosity. Through these things they will find the answers, and develop their own critical thinking processes. They will become strong and functioning members of the scientifically literate community.
"Teenagers are coming out of high school with an extreme lack of scientific literacy." This was said by my flatmate, an experienced teacher, and experienced in modern learning pedagogy. I asked her why, and her response was "because teachers do not know how to teach it." I find this incredibly interesting as a student who fared very well in the traditional schooling system I grew up in. I want to explore this sentiment, and my own reflections on how it fits into today's scientific arena.
In school, and to the most extent university, science is taught as a recipe, where each instruction in the recipe has a logical flow from the instruction before it. Each question has its own "right answer"; in NCEA physics, you can miss out on an Excellence grade if you do not put the right term in your answer. Teachers are taught to mark according to the marking schedule, ensuring that every child is graded the same, rightly or wrongly. There is very little scope for creativity, or working outside the curriculum. Practical experiments are put to students as a series of steps, often with the final objective "see what happens to x when you change y". Students are told what they are looking for, and even how to look for it. I can honestly say that until my postgraduate study, I have never been asked to find my own direction in a scientific experimental project. After my undergraduate, I spent a summer setting up a new experimental course for third year physics at Otago University. The premise of the course was to take all the lab work out of the theoretical courses so that "experimental technique" could be developed. Students were increasingly expected to find their own answers to questions, develop their own ways of running the experiment, be creative. This happened in 2010, and was the first attempt I had seen in the university undergraduate system to really nurture creativity.
And then you graduate. You have done, say, ten years of scientific learning through your childhood and young adulthood, and you are expected to be able to apply what you have learnt. And I agree with my flatmate, you, I, feel a bit lost. Young graduates are coming out into the world, into a world of knarly problems, "controversial science", and being expected to step up. Or at the very least, the world needs them to. The problems that arguably matter the most are the ones that have the conflicting moral values attached to them, the political influences, the social consequences. They are those problems that need biologists and atmospheric chemists and sociologists and psychologists to work together. They are not prescribed, and they need creativity. Our schooling system was developed at a time where a need was identified to train an elite group to deal with the complex and difficult scientific problems of the time. It was understood that this scientific elite would be able to progress society, and support government. We have identified quite clearly now that this model does not work. We cannot pump children through their education on a conveyor belt, one size fits all. In fact, it is incredibly disadvantageous to continue doing so. A scientific elite no longer exists, and a scientifically literate community is required. And this starts in the education system.
So I think the fact that "teachers do not know how to teach [science]" is slightly more complex than it seems. The direction of scientific education follows the curriculum, and teachers must teach to this curriculum. I am not a teacher, and I do not have the answers. But I do believe that opening primary and secondary school up to creativity in the sciences is imperative to the growth of science in society. Some teachers are doing this, this I know. But they are fighting against the beast of inertia that the education system holds. My only conclusion is that we must stop ranking children on their ability to get the right answer, and start nurturing their creativity, their empathy, their values, their curiosity. Through these things they will find the answers, and develop their own critical thinking processes. They will become strong and functioning members of the scientifically literate community.
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