Right, I haven't finished reading this yet, but the sentence I quoted is throwing up red flags. Is it true? Is it provable? I know quite a damn bit about science but, like all but a fraction of the population, the technical details of fracking escape me. Many of the people who believe that climate change doesn't exist were exposed to scientific proof that it does at some point -- but that doesn't sway their ingrained beliefs (and the ones who have the power to do anything about climate change all went to Ivy League schools anyway). Honestly, I care deeply about the environment, more than most, and even on my most bitter and cynical days I wouldn't claim that offshore drilling directly affects me (or that, if I'd learned its ins and outs in school instead of from Wikipedia, things would be different somehow). Shitty science education doesn't cause all those unplanned pregnancies; lack of available condoms does. There's a tie-in, but it's at a societal level, not in the classroom. The example she gives of a family who refused doctors -- that seems to me not a failure of the education system (although it undoubtedly failed that family in other ways) but rather just another example of superstition trumping knowledge. This happens everywhere, it happens to people who went to school ... and anyway I didn't learn a thing about vaccines or angioplasties in high school. It could be argued that I learned a certain respect for doctors and transitively an awe of science and medicine, but that's tenuous. Standardized tests don't matter or help, and this is ridiculous anyway. It smacks of elitism to maybe point out that while funding was being channeled toward kids who were struggling so they could pass tests and "keep up," it was being withheld from the brightest kids, the ones who might with a little pushing have gone on to Ph.Ds in biology and chemistry -- but it's true. Regardless, I don't want to get derailed shouting about NCLB; low-hanging fruit. So what's actually at stake when schools skimp on science? I think the worst result is that tons of kids go off to college not even realizing science is an option. It's not necessarily the knowledge they miss out on -- again, could go my whole life not knowing the amount of physics I do and it probably wouldn't matter -- it's the opportunity to be one of the few people to whom a deep understanding of physics is vital. It's well-documented, I guess, that America's losing the brain race these days, and this article right here points out why. You skimp on science and you don't grow any new scientists. (For the record, I don't agree completely with everything I've written here and I actually think this article is right in a lot of ways -- but part of it struck a jarring note with me. Clearly.)How well we understand science affects almost every aspect of our personal and civic lives: our health, our reproductive choices, our understanding of the news, how and whether we vote, and our interaction with the environment.
No Child Left Behind, signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002, was my constant professional companion, rating the schools where I taught as adequate or inadequate and allocating resources accordingly. This frequently maligned law identified the subjects I taught—English, reading, and writing—as among the most crucial (along with math), and I received additional support so that my students could be successful on the standardized tests that determined my schools’ yearly progress.
I think it's important that the argument for better science education isn't simply pushing science as knowledge, information you know, but science as a process or as skill, a way of looking at the world and learning through experimentation and challenging preconceived ideas. Science is a tool that helps you learn about the world around you. That being said, it applies to all school subjects. Teachers would do well to reinforce that students are not just writing a paper about Huck Finn, they are learning how to process ideas and articulate their thoughts in a way that others can understand. History isn't just about memorizing dates, but about connecting information and seeing the causes and effects of world events. Learning from the past informs the present. I'm not even going to touch on actually trying to instill a "joy for learning," I just think it's important to contextualize what it is a student is learning. The details may not be directly relevant to their lives, but it could be. The ability to process the intricate workings of a process is important. It requires a good teacher to be able to relate topics to students lives, and a great one to show them how to do that themselves. Sorry if that was rambling, but I've long thought standardized testing and classroom learning negatively effects science much more than other subjects. The not just lack of understanding, but fear and dismissal, of science in the American public is greatly disheartening.
I don't really buy this and never have. Science as I was (often) ineptly taught it in school was all about knowledge. What you're describing is rationalism, or observation. I know that the "scientific method" is a buzz-phrase that schools stress now because they pretend it helps their students in real life, but what they're actually doing is taking credit for common sense. Sure, although memorizing dates would be a hell of a start. Kids used to have to actually learn things in school -- when battles happened and where, who the rulers of X were -- and now they just "synthesize." ...another buzzword. You can't synthesize something you have no basic grasp of; if kids can't even tell me where Austria is I refuse to waste my time reading their paper "connecting the events" of World War I. Enjoying learning is vital but I think basically impossible to instill externally. Everyone has to figure that one out for themselves. Having good parents who stress reading etc. from day one is much more crucial than having teachers who make the classroom "fun." If you only manage to teach kids to enjoy learning things that relate to their own lives, you're going to raise a bunch of narrow-minded ignoramuses. It's got to be more. In short, I don't think we as educators do anything right, to say nothing of teaching "critical thinking" (--what does that even mean?). But forcing kids back to the classical education habit of instilling basic knowledge that will never be forgotten would be a start. However, I've tried teaching kids things in various circumstances for various occupations -- it's hard. It's borderline impossible to get kids to learn if they don't already care innately. So who knows. EDIT: thanks for responding; it sucks writing up paragraphs on hubski and having no one see them.I think it's important that the argument for better science education isn't simply pushing science as knowledge, information you know, but science as a process or as skill, a way of looking at the world and learning through experimentation and challenging preconceived ideas. Science is a tool that helps you learn about the world around you.
That being said, it applies to all school subjects. Teachers would do well to reinforce that students are not just writing a paper about Huck Finn, they are learning how to process ideas and articulate their thoughts in a way that others can understand. History isn't just about memorizing dates, but about connecting information and seeing the causes and effects of world events. Learning from the past informs the present.
I'm not even going to touch on actually trying to instill a "joy for learning," I just think it's important to contextualize what it is a student is learning. The details may not be directly relevant to their lives, but it could be. The ability to process the intricate workings of a process is important. It requires a good teacher to be able to relate topics to students lives, and a great one to show them how to do that themselves.
You're welcome! Your post made me think, so I felt I should respond. I'm trying to get in the habit of contributing more since I find good discussion here. I am a scientist, so I see the scientific method as more than just a buzz-phrase. I will also say that common sense isn't always true, and it can be dangerous to assume that it is. I understand what you are saying though. I agree with all of your points. You can't build a house without a solid foundation, but there also has to be the desire, or at least an appreciation of the need, to build a house in the first place. Sometimes you just have to force things I suppose. Not everything needs to be fun. Most of what I was saying was just my personal thoughts on the matter. I was always a very motivated student; I love learning and I loved school. If I was didn't feel like doing an assignment I found some way to get value out of it or figure out why I was learning it. Having to instill that is a puzzle that I don't know how to solve. My favorite experiences in science class was when the teacher gave us a problem, the tools to solve it, and force us to come up with the answer. We had to be wrong, find out why, and try again. If we were right, we had to explain why. There's a progression of puzzlement, frustration, excitement, and understanding that one has to go through. That's a lot closer to what "science" is and it's a shame not all students get to experience that. I have all the respect in the world for teachers, it's not an easy task. I wish more people felt similarly.
My favorite experiences in science class was when the teacher gave us a problem, the tools to solve it, and force us to come up with the answer. We had to be wrong, find out why, and try again. If we were right, we had to explain why. There's a progression of puzzlement, frustration, excitement, and understanding that one has to go through. That's a lot closer to what "science" is and it's a shame not all students get to experience that. Me too. I find it pretty difficult to empathize with the kids who don't choose to learn on their own, which surely clouds my judgment on education as a whole. Oh, and I didn't mean to imply that the scientific isn't real or helpful, it's just misapplied in the classroom nearly every time I see it.Most of what I was saying was just my personal thoughts on the matter. I was always a very motivated student; I love learning and I loved school. If I was didn't feel like doing an assignment I found some way to get value out of it or figure out why I was learning it. Having to instill that is a puzzle that I don't know how to solve.