Back to the Drawing Board

Here I am, back to the drawing board once again. Why am I wanting to explore the world of values in science education? What does this mean for me? for the readers? for the school community and the institution that informs it? for this society and the world at large? For a start, I am certain that I need clarity in this issue and hopefully, with these, all the other secondary concerns will ease themselves into place.

I guess I have to start from the perspective of a subjectivity statement. Having been a science teacher, I have seen what science attempts to teach children in the classrooms, basically as a body of knowledge that needs to be learn and understood. Some scientific processes are taught and skills examination fall into the assessment mode for science studies I have had a hand in making a certain meaning out of this discipline and handing that self-constructed meaning, also constructed for me by others, i.e., my teachers, my peers, my parents, my family, almost everyone I have come in contact with in my early life and also later on as a tertiary student and then a teacher, to the children.

I am at a point in time, after teaching actively for 12 years (10 years to 15 and 16 years olds and for 2 years, learning the role of a facilitator in a free-progress school with 9 to 12 year olds), questioning my assumptions about science. In day to day life, I come face to face with the impact of science and technology on our daily lives, notably the increase in carbon dioxide emission, the resulting global warming and dire consequences out of this; the conflicts amongst nations and the eminent dangers of warfare, biological, chemical, ballistic, all of which are fed by science and technology; about contamination of food for consumption both fresh and processed; In all issues related to these aspects, values on which we make decisions take centre-stage. Values seem to be at the heart of the process and the practice of science, since scientists are human and operate on human principles guided by a value system and so are consumers of science human, making decisions pertaining to the use of the products of science. If something looms before us as catastrophic, at the heart of the matter is, almost always, a values issue feeding a decision making process confronts all of us in the picture.

The amalgamation of such issues put before me as a science teacher resolved to bring the best of education to our children for a better and progressive future of one and all, I have embarked on a search. An embattlement within has fed this embarkation. Meaning making is a powerful process. The manner in which meaning-making is influenced is another powerful process. What has been my role in this process in the classroom? How has the school informed this process, influencing me in many ways, many times facilitating, and other many times, putting before me constraints and expectations to fulfill an institutional goal more than ensuring a sound and meaningful education for each individual child, for his or her personal growth and progress in the level of consciousness, to facilitate his or her flowering into consciousness entities who work for their individual growth and fulfillment as well as that of the society they are part and their roles as inhabitants of earth?

Why has earth spun itself into what it is today, according to environmental scientists, ailing and in need of immediate treatment and remedy if we do not want to see the devastation of life-chains as soon as within the next few decades (Stern, N., 2007)? Science has been largely responsible for the way things exist in our lives at this point in time. The very way we live our lives, with the levels of comfort and convenience at the material level has been brought about by science. But have we used science for the benefit of this world and its inhabitants? Have we been measured and mindful about our exploits? Have we been well informed as consumers of science and also practitioners? What values have directed us towards the current fate that confronts us? Schools seek to embrace the “teaching”of values to children. What has been the scenario with science education with regards to values? Much work has gone into research on values in science education, from many perspectives. The search goes into the nature of science and if science is really objective and values-free or amoral as scientists have made out to be since the time science appeared in the forefront a few centuries before (Aicken, Frederick, 1991). There is emergent insistence that scientific knowledge is also a construction of the mind – both influenced by cognitive methods and socio-cultural methods of meaning-making (Hung, Edwin,1997). The sociology of science examines the application of science and its processes in the real world (Kaufman, Douglas et al., 2003). It remains a pursuit of the truth in matter and phenomena but the way it is pursued and applied begs study, if only to explain the plight of the earth today and on a positive note, what each one of us connected to science (Moss, T. David, 2003) and that means all of us, actually) can do about the situation at hand. Are we to position ourselves for mass-destruction or shall we re-maneuver and head towards a goal of mutual benefit and progress that science can facilitate?

Gauch (2003) came my way. A cursory glance points out that this book would be an essential read to address some of these questions I have asked, or at least in charting a path for me in the huge jungle I suddenly find myself in.

Then there are the issues of how values are formed. I hope to take a constructivist view towards the epistemology of values formation, that seems the most convincing to me as of now. Piaget and Kohlberg (Kohlberg, L and Turiel, E, 1971; Piaget, J., 1965) inform of structures (cognitive and socio-cultural) with which children engage in meaning making (or construct meaning).

In studying the scenarios in schools, the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism is likely to inform my search with the research methodologies of ethnography and narratives. Participant observation, analysis of policy documents would feature as key research methods in my endeavour to uncover science as is presented to children in the schools of my selection (Crotty, 1998; Guba and Lincoln, 1994).

Below are some references that have fed my interest, curiosity and put some things in perspective.

Reference

Aicken, Frederick (1991). The Nature of Science. Heinemann, US

Crotty, M (1998). Introduction: The Research Process. In The Foundations of Social Research (pp 1-17). Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage

Guba, E G and Lincoln, Y S (1994). Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research. In N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research (Vol. 2, pp. 105 – 117).

Hugh G. Gauch (2003). Scientific Method in Practice. Cambridge University Press, 2003

Hung, Edwin (1997). The Nature of Science: Problems and Perspectives. Wadsworth Publishing Company, CA.

Kaufman, Douglas., Moss, M David and Olson, Terry (2003). Beyond the Boundaries: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Learning and Teaching. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Kohlberg, L and Turiel, E (1971).Moral Development and Moral Education. In G Lesser, ed.Psychology and educational practice. Scott Fresman.

McComas, William. S (1998). The Nature of Science in Science Education: Rationales and Strategies. Springer.

Moss, T. David (2003). The End of Science ….. and Where Other Disciplines Begin: Exploring the Nature of Science. In Kaufman, Douglas., Moss, M David and Olson, Terry (2003). Beyond the Boundaries: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Learning and Teaching. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Piaget, J. (1965). The Moral Judgment of the Child. The Free Press: New York. Power, F.C., Higgins, A., and Kohlberg, L. (1989). “Lawrence Kohlberg’s Approach to Moral Education.” New York: Columbia University Press.

Rutherford, Floyd James and Ahlgren, Andres (1994). Science for All Americans: Project 2061. Oxford University Press, US.

Stern, N. (2007) : The Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Science Over All? An article posted on Washington Post following President Obama's move to allow for state funding of stem cell research

This post will take a real example of a controversial issue that is the talking point today and that raises the point about the role of the scientists in society. Is it only to engage in science alone, blinded to all else, or are scientists, in this time and age, expected to make values based dicisions on science issues?

This article, by Yuval Levin was posted on the Washington Post of Tuesday, 10 March, 2009. It presents the issue of President Obama's move to facilitate stem cell research through public funding as a case against moral and ethical standards. This move, Yuvel warned, signals a 'dangerous temptation in Science policy". Yuvel takes issue with President Obama's apparent refusal in taking a moral stand on the issue, and instead, mentioning that it will be bound by a code of ethics that a certain scientific community would work out. Yuvel takes issue with the fact that when it is politics that should draw guidelines on public issues based on public feedback and sentiments and the good of the nation, the president had left the scientific community to arbitrate.

We are once again faced with the dilemma in science: Is science amoral and value-free? Will the scientific community be able to draw up ethical guidelines on the issue of the stem cell research.

Yuvel's concern presupposes some questions:

1) Will scientists be in a position to advance their take on moral and ethical issues?

2) Are scientists incapable of making measured judgments over the issue of stem cell research and make their proposal a fair representation of what the society they are a part of wants and not only what the scientific community aspires for.

I do agree however, that the scientific body drawing up the ethical guidelines needs to be fairly represented, not only by scientists but also statesmen, politicans and heads of religious and spiritual organisations.

It would be a good idea to gather information on what exactly the scientific community thinks of this controversial topic. It is the values that scientists hold that would enable them to make well informed, collectively beneficial decisions on controversial issues. And scientists, being human, operate through values.

How is Science Taught in the Classrooms?

In pursuing my interest in values in science education, perhaps one of the first questions that need to be answered would be how exactly is science being taught in schools world over. This entails some exploratory work, some literature search. It would be great if I can hear from educationists, parents, students around the world. On my part, I would make attempts at finding out something about what science education is like in some countries around the world, like North and South America, England, France, Germany, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Hong Kong, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and a country in Africa.

There are certain intrinsic values embedded in science as a discipline which manifests themselves in the classrooms as skills to be taught, such as the skills of observation, measurement, organisation, identification, hypothesis generation, application etc. Science is often characterised by certain attitudes such as being open information reaching from all around us, new suggestions, ideas coming our way, deliberately looking for alternative points of view and being open to falsification. In short, science occupies itself with the pursuit of truth, the truth in the objects and phenomena that are associated to our everyday lives.

However, do these values that are embedded in science filtered into the classrooms or is science taught as a body of knowledge, whose content students are expected to mug up for an examination? Or is science simplified and treated as field play without students internalising the scientific values as well as the concepts? Are values such as translated more into examinable skills and their intrinsic values ignored? what is the spirit with which science is taught in schools world over?

In connection with this trend of thought, I have included two links to to add to the discussion. One link contains an articel posted by John Moore, Title : Are We Really Teaching Science, giving an American perspective to how science is taught. In this article is mentioned President Barack Obama's pledge to "restore science to its rightful place". Link at http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/chemeddl/2009/03/29/are-we-really-teaching-science-april-2009/Read on.

Another link that I have included is a posting on the state of science education in Australia, at http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/publications_resources/science_in_australian_schools/executive_summary.htm. Title : Review of Science Education Literature and Reports: Executive Summary

For the above two links, refer to the links section on the left.

Thats it for now and cheers!

Affective Science

Here is the link, on the left, under links to the URL that I posted on the last entry some 5 days ago, on Affective Science. This will contain links to important web pages, documents and blogs that would inform this discourse on values in science education. If any of you followers have related links, do post them.