Course Development: A legitimate Scholarly pursuit
I provocative
Science education is again in trouble: about a decade ago it was confronting challenges precipitated by the launching of Sputnik I; today, it is trying to deal with the pervasive student disinterest in and antagonism toward science and scientific careers. Actually, the central question in both periods is quite the same: how can science be made more attractive to larger numbers of young people. The dilemma of science education may at present lack dramatic appeal; but the problem is neither a new nor temporary one that will somehow spontaneously straighten itself out and in time disappear. The 1960's saw science education respond to its difficulties by providing new school science programs developed by the various national curriculum projects that had been organized with substantial funds chiefly from the National Science Foundation. The unprecedented curriculum-revision effort produced a group of soience courses that (1) replaced trivial and outdated content with contemporary modern knowledge; and (2) changed the then prevalent instructional focus of acquiring factual knowledge to one of understanding the processes whereby the knowledge of science is gleaned (1). From the viewpoint of the discipline, the new courses are superb: anyone fascinated by the aesthetic qualities and intellectual achievements of science is delighted by the programs with their stress on the structure and theoretical aspects of the subject. From the viewpoint of a general education for all students, however, the programs usually rate less enthusiasm. The national science curriculums have undoubtedly effected changes in the content and procedures of precollege science education. Clearly, the increased rigor of the new courses has caused the emphasis in the content of teacher preparation and of instructional materials (textbooks) to shift toward the discipline itself (B, 3). But the lack of impact of the programs is equally evident. The new courses have patently failed at what was from the outset their most explicit intention: to stimulate and increase student interest in science and scientific careers. The continued decline of science enrollments means that the programs have been unable even to maintain the science-interest level, much less increase it. Obviously, the reasons for the phenomenon are many and complex. Nevertheless, the curriculumrevision movement must be judged as failing in its most crucial test (I). From the vantage point of hindsight, we can characterize the national programs as ill-suited to the mood of the mid-1960's-the time when they were being widely introduced into the schools. By then, our society was seeing some unanticipated "fruits" of scien186
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Journal of Chemical Education
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tific progress; the grim effects of an unfettered technology upon the quality of our life were becoming all too clear and alarming. Viewing the environmental crisis, the weapons of war, and war itself as inevitable consequences of a burgeoning science and technology, a student generation was forming that began to turn from astronomy to astrology, from chemical agriculture to organic farming. Here were the origins of the "counter-culture," a culture that is profoundly anti-science. Surely i t is a culture not likely to be receptive to the orientation of the new courses in which the interests of the discipline were so paramount that they excluded concerns for the rapidly deteriorating environment, the social implications of science, and the critical issues arising from the interactions among science, technology, and the public domain.' A different genre of secondary science courses now seems called for. The trend of the past decade toward ever earlier and greater specialization in courses evidently was a mistake: high school science courses should serve as an integral part of a general education for all students; and not as the beginning studies, the foundations of a professional career for a few. For the purposes of general education, interdisciplinary courses of broadly based content seem most appropriate. And in such courses we must expand our traditional, limited view of the proper purview of the science curriculum to include issues concerning the social and cultural implications of science and the diverse problems of environmental stress. The notion that science is neutral and value free and should be so taught is a gross misreading of the scientific enterprise. The history of science, past and present, clearly shows that science is indeed a value-laden system. We are mistaken if we continue to teach it otherwise and thus ignore the social implications of science and technology: the growing numbers of moral, political, and ethical dilemmas posed by scientific and technological progress.* Although we are probably not yet prepared to offer many answers, surely we can at least begin to raise some questions. Science teachers have as much right 1 Similar ohsenrations can he made about the undergraduate counterparts of the national science courses. Considerable space has been given in THIS JOURNAL, for example, to question the appropriateness of the sophisticated, narrow, specialized courses now commonly used a t the freshman level. 2 Science educators interested in broadening their backgrounds in this ares, will, however, prohihly find it difficult to do so formally: most colleges and universities, including my own, continue to ignore such interdisciplinary fields as science and politics snd do not include them m a n g their academic offerings.
and obligation to deal with suchissues as their colleagues in the humanities and social sciences. Preoccupation with atoms and molecules should not allow us to forget that the world of man is a social one and lead us again to ignore the problems of man in relation to his environment. In fact, if questions about science and society are not included in the science curriculum, they may well recieve no attention elsewhere in the school program (4). Also, the proposed broadened courses ought to he concerned with conveying some sense of the philosophical framework within which science operates: the various assumptions and man-created schema that provide just one of the possible ways of ordering and "explaining" the physical univer~e.~For far too long, science courses at all educational levels have essentially ignored such basic content (6,6). The proposals being made are hardly novel, but their implementation has proved difficult. Attempts at conducting interdisciplinary courses often result in an incoherent collection of individual mini-courses. Worse, the suggestion that the content include social and environmental issues immediately raises the spectre of the pre-1960 courses in which students learned about the products of science and precious little about science itself-a road that no one wants to travel again. How then might we develop courses with contentintegrity and of the type and quality required? On this score, the curriculum revision movement can tell us as much about what as what not to do. We now know that if we are to develop well-balanced science courses with both relevance and substance, the scientist must relinquish his position as chief arbiter of pre-college curriculums, and form instead an activ?, admittedly uncommon, partnership with the social scientist. We also know that course revision through short-term writing conferences, where guidelines and lists of topics are drawn up, effect little change in the classroom; the many attempts throughout this century to change high school science teaching through such devices have been quite unproductive. Considerably more is needed to change educational patterns than exhortation, no matter how convincing. Instructional practices in the classroom apparently are best changed by providing the texts and all other materials the teacher must have for a complete course of study. Therefore, what we must have is a concerted comprehensive effort, with the organization, expertise, and public funding that were associated with the national curriculum projects. But i t would be a mistake to view such an effort as a once-more affair-only this time with new ideas, new monies, and new scholars. All these ingredients are probably essential; hut some we must have on quite a differentbasis than before. The relationship of the universities and scientists to the projects in the reform movement just completed
was never entirely satisfactory. True, the projects were located at universities. However, the groups were never really part of the structure of the universities; universities never assumed responsibility for the projects in any sense that would have made the projects' course content studies an appropriate continuing function of the university. The projects were really university appendages that were quickly severed as soon as the funding was discontinued. The experiences of one curriculum project that had been located a t a prestigious eastern university symbolically describes the relationship. Housed in an isolated building on the campus, almost unknown to the academic community there, the project effected no broadening of the educational concerns of the university. When its work was completed, the project moved, and its site was soon taken by a Women's Lib Child Day Care Center: next reform, next tenant. The scientist's commitment to the projects, though somewhat different from that of the universities, was never entirely satisfactory either. Although outstanding scholars wer? directly and deeply involved in the early phases of the projects, usually theinvolvement was rather brief. Once the content and direction of the new courses were established, the scholars returned to their academic departments, taking with them much of the vitality of the project and its impetus for innovation and change. Like the universities, most scientists regarded their participation in the curriculum projects as extramural activities which were outside the province of their "real" professional concerns. Strangely, the position of the scientist in the reform movement is related in a moving memorial tribute to Francis L. Friedman, architect and spirit of PSSC: the colleagues of the brilliant young M.I.T. professor are said to have ". . .waited somewhat impatiently a t times for him to focus on his great work." But in fact, Dr. Friedman had for several years been doing his "great work": the Physical Science Study Committee (7). So, if a new curriculum revision effort is needed and it must be one that is continuing and sustained, then we must have a new kind of commitment from the universities and their scholars. I n the final analysis, however, the commitment that must be made can be made only when both groups come to regard course-development projects as legitimate scholarly pursuits worthy of the institution's human and material resources; and above all, worthy of the professional rewards that the university bestows.
=For the past few years I have attempted to do this in a seminar for a group of graduate students who have been welltrained in their scientific disciplines. The results have been surprising: the course material was appealing hut entirely unfamiliar to most of the group. The students had learned solely the technical knowledge of the sciences; they not only knew little, they also had serious misconceptions about what science is. Thus, despite many credit hours of work in the sciences, these students knew little more about the nature of science than most laymen.
Literature Cited
Evelyn H. Wilson Science Education Center Rutgers, The State University of N e w Jersey N e w Brunswick, 08903
(1) H m o , P.. DsH.. "New Directions in Teaching Secondary Sohool Science," Rand MoNallv & Chioago. 1969. (2) S n ~ ~ m ~L.r n . A N D Cn*xo, P., Sei. Educ.. 50, 223 (1966). (3) STINWETT. T. M.. Tho SC1'. Tsoeh.. 38,24 (Fsb. 1911). (4) O'Hmna. G. AND P E ~ A M.. Sei. Edw., 51.212 (1967). ( 5 ) LIPPINCOTT, W. J. CREU. 45,153 (1968). (6) KIMBALL, M. E.. J . Re& Sei. Teach., 5 , 110 (1968). (7) STRATTON. J. A,, ESI Qurrievly Repoil, 4 (Winter 1962-63).
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