Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Teaching Thinking Thinking is hard. Writing is hard because it requires thinkCan we do anything about this? In her final chapter, Jacoby ing. Both thinking and writing involve time and concentration— suggests that the U.S. may have arrived at a teachable moment commodities that these days are hard to come by. Sometimes it as a result of many failures of government policies that have igseems that nobody has time for, or even cares about, thinking— nored facts and scientific consensus. Jacoby argues that solutions or for that matter concentrating on any to our problems will not be technological single task. According to Steve Jobs, but rather must come from changing the If a nation expects to be eBooks will fail because “people don’t way we think—and how much time we read anymore. Forty percent of the peospend thinking. Jacoby wants politicians to ignorant and free, ple in the U.S. read one book or less last provide leadership and tell us that we “have year” (1). Presumably these people are become too lazy to learn what we need to in a state of civilization, busy viewing videos on their iPhones, know to make sound public decisions”. This listening to music on their iPods, drivis going to be very difficult, if not imposit expects what never was ing their SUVs, or all three at once. sible, for politicians to do unless those of Next month is our summer reading us in the trenches of the educational system and never will be. issue, with reviews of more than a dozen help our students to learn how to think books that would be valuable to read in as scientists think, how to apply rational Thomas Jefferson, your leisure time. But before you start thought to everyday situations, and why on those books, I recommend Susan doing this is crucial to a free society. In the letter to Charles Yancey, 1816 Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason words of Daniel Webster’s eulogy for John (2). Though not explicitly about chemAdams and Thomas Jefferson in 1826, our istry or science, it has a lot to say about science, teaching, and country was founded on the basis of “a newly awakened, and public understanding. an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of Jacoby’s condemnation of “unreason” is much broader, but knowledge throughout the community”. That is, the founders she specifically documents ignorance about science. America based a country on the spirit of science. We need to maintain is the only developed country in which evolution by natural that spirit when we teach science. selection is not viewed as accepted, noncontroversial science. I encourage you to read Jim Roach’s Commentary on p 768. Jacoby refuses to accept religious fundamentalism as the sole Its title begins “Als Ik Kan”, Flemish words for “to the best of my reason, citing many non-fundamentalist dismissals of scientific ability”. Roach has resolved, and encourages all of us to resolve, consensus. She argues that ignorance of evolution, and worse, to teach to the best of our ability and to motivate our students of science and its principles and modes of thought, are the main to learn and work to the best of their abilities. I encourage all problem. In support she quotes NSF studies revealing that more who read this to serve as models of rational, scientific thinking than two thirds of Americans do not know that DNA is the key and create learning environments in which our students are to heredity, 90% do not understand radiation, and 20% think encouraged—even required—to apply rational thought to both the sun revolves around the earth. She also cites poor perforscience and their daily lives. Set aside some time to think quietly mance on examinations that compare U.S. students with those and carefully about how to do this. from other countries. A recent poll by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry does nothing to contradict Jacoby—nearly half of Americans could not name any scientist as a role model Literature Cited for today’s youth (3). Jacoby attributes lack of knowledge of science to “a stun 1. Markoff, John. Bits: The Passion of Steve Jobs. The New York ning failure of American public schooling at the elementary Times, January 21, 2008. and secondary levels”, but I think there is more to it than that. 2. Jacoby, Susan. The Age of American Unreason; Pantheon Books: To a considerable degree intellectuals in general and scientists New York, 2008. in particular have gotten too busy with their own pursuits to 3. Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. The State of Science in pay attention to maintaining the infrastructure that undergirds America, March 20, 2008; http://www.stateofscience.org/ (accessed science and its contributions to society. We scientists have not Apr 2008). been as aggressive as we should, for example, in recruiting top students to careers in teaching at the K–12 level and providing such students with the scientific background they need to Supporting JCE Online Material excite their students about science. Until both scientists and the http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2008/Jun/abs763.html general public begin to afford K–12 teaching the respect and Full text (HTML and PDF) with links to cited URL importance that it deserves, we are likely to continue to spiral downward in quality rather than soar to new heights. Blogged at http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/chemeddl/
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 85 No. 6 June 2008 • Journal of Chemical Education
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