editorially /peaking
Students are completing high school scientificallyand technalogically illiterate-foreigners in their own culture. They lack the essential knowledge and intellectual skills to assume their civic responsibilities or to realize fully their own adaptive capacities. Thus they threaten the nation's economic competitive edge.
This observation in 1986 by Paul Hurd, Professor Emeritus of the Stanford School of Education, incorporates the essence of the nrohlem that numerous commission reoorts and studies have addressed in the recent past. Some of these attempt to delineate improvements needed in the systemthe people involved and the structure in which they workof secondarv education; others address the educational content purveied by this system. Hurd focuses on the issue directly. The products of this system are generally scientifically illiterate, a phrase that many scientists can appreciate, hut one that most cannot define. Many of the recent suggestions for improving the secondary system of education do not necessarily address the literacy issue mentioned by Hurd. For example, it does not necessarily follow that improving the professional status of high school chemistrv teachers. or that orovidine for more lahoratory experiences in high school, will make high school students more scientificallv literate. That is not to sueeest that these are not worthwhiie endeavors for other reasons, only that they may have little to do with solving the illiteracy problem. What does it mean to he scientifically literate? What are the basic elements of scientific literacy? Is there a "litmus test" for scientificliteracy? Perhaps an understanding of the general concept of literacy could give us the beginning of an insight into scientific literacy. Literacy has a definite international meaning; it is the ahility to read and write, a t least a simple message. In that narrow sense. literacv is relativelv. easv " to evaluate: can a person read (or write) a t a certain level of achievement. That kind of evaluation is what the ~ r i m a" r vsvstem . of education is, a t least in part, about-providing answers to the very practical questions of whether Cynthia (or Sam) can read and write at, for example, the sixth-grade level. This, however, is surely too narrow of an operational definition to help us understand scientific literacy.
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The concept of literacy has acquired a functional significance over time. The ahility merely to read and write a t some level of proficiency does not necessarily qualify a person to meet effectively the practical needs of daily life. With the increasing complexity of modern societies, the individual must be able to read simple instructions, write a legihle letter, and engage intelligently in interactions with others. Most commentators would call a person with these skills functionally literate. Thus, a literate person is one who can read and write toward certain obiectives. and. bv imnlicapattern of thinking and doing that r"ns through the activities of a people that distinguishes them from all other peoples. Most commentators would agree that culture consists of the learned ways of behaving and adapting as contrasted to inherited hehavior patterns or instincts. The most recent bout with literacy in the academic world involves "comnuter literacv". For manv comnuter literacv has evolved into establishing the ability of a &dent to "use' a comnuter. With modern software tools "use" now has two basic components. These include the technical details of running a computer-how to turn it on, how to hoot it up, how to do simple trouble shooting-and interacting with more-or-less standard software such as that available for word processing and electronic worksheets. This level of computer literacy does not include programming, although some who become computer literate in this narrow sense may also become sufficiently interested to acquire programming skills. In other words, computer literacy appears to mean heing knowledgeable, a t a minimal level, about the uses of computing without necessarily being able to exhibit personal creativity with computing techniques. As we have seen in the case of reading and writing literacy, it is not enough merely to achieve reading and writing skills a t some minimal level: one must also he able to use these skills functionally and/or creatively. In contrast, the current definition of "comnuter literacv" seems to have settled on ~killi the tirct phase 1 8 f I~ttwvy-tht. n v t j ~ t i s i t i ~ ~ n ~ ~ lwirhottf nrtrrnpring t o d d i n e hox the .;kills are to he wed If scientific literacy is a part of our culture, it must he included in the learned part of our hehavior. But what are students to learn if they are to he scientifically literate? J J L
Volume 64
Number 9
S e ~ t e m b e r1987
733
