When did you fall in love with
science? Did you find a science passion from a teacher in your early years of
school?
Personally I found my passion
when I was a child thanks to my mother. She taught me to observe butterflies, and
we spent hours watching, reporting and measuring changes of caterpillars,
butterflies and eggs.
My teachers didn’t do too much
to light my fire about science in fact, they never talked about science, so my only one deeper
knowledge came watching the TV show Cosmos. Nobody can deny the value of
science for education, economics and countries progress, or how much education
is working to engage children in math and science, and how difficult is find
the right way to do it, but certainly education must find new strategies, and
this example comes from UK.
The British newspaper The
Guardian published few days ago a note about a new model to teach science titled Maths and science 'should be studied up to age 18', which has opened a huge,
debate about when and who should teach science in UK classrooms. The title is “Maths and science “should be studied
up to age 18” explaining briefly recommendations of a committee of education
experts of the UK National Academy of science.
These recommendations are
particularly important coming from UK. since they have a high level on
teaching, research, development and inversion in science with Oxford, and
Cambridge Universities as example of their quality.
The main argument of the
report Vision for science and mathematics education is based on the fact that analytical
and problem-solving skills acquired by studying mathematics and science should
be introduced by an inspirational curricula at the heart of the laboratories
and places where this knowledge is generated, where researchers and theorist
work every day.
The main debate is focused on
a question, who should teach science?
This reminds me Carl Sagan,
when he wrote in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark (1995) that science was not inspiring for him during his first years at school,
but he found that passion when he began to be in touch with people doing science.
My story is similar. I didn’t
find passion for science until I began to study my PhD, maybe because all those
hours watching butterflies had sense between persons trying to understand
everything about the brain.
I am sure many of us share
similar stories. What can we learn from a checking list written on a book? What
can a teacher see wrong only following the book? Should students believe with
faith what books say? Books never talks about deadlines, or a short budget; books
never fail trying to convince to others that our research is viable, needed and
possible; books never talks about how to convince to other researchers and participants
that our method is correct.
Learning science from a book
is like learning how to write with a teacher that does not read our ideas.
Teachers are not scientist!, but don’t take it wrong!, teachers have a very
different, important and amazing work: teach to learn, and in some cases,
teaching to motivate and keep us in the classrooms, and if we have any doubt of
their work, let’s see the number of students who left classrooms every year,
adding more and more pressure to unemployment and violence at any country.
A good teacher will inspire, a
good teacher is an example of life. A good scientist will show us a different
world, a world of service, a world where our ideas are useful.
The cited report includes
critical analyses about how students see science, for example “84% agree that
science is a such a big part of our lives that we should all take interest”.
Science is not a note on an exam; science is not a label on a product. Science
changes and save lives!
“72% of students agree that is
important to know about science in their daily lives”. Isn’t our goal? People
would take better medical and daily decisions, or maybe I should say: people
would know the right to take decisions.
“55% did not feel informed”.
No matter how much work scientists can do writing notes every day about
science, public doesn’t feel engage with them, part of it because in general,
people do not see themselves as scientists and this is something that a person
with an obsession about any field can spread.
“21% of the people in the UK
workforce need scientific knowledge and training to do their current jobs”. Science
must leave the comfortable and warm space of universities and colleges; science
must be in streets and in every home, because it allows countries to grow.
Can we create scientific literacy nations? Can we develop knowledge and understanding of
scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making,
participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity? No doubt!, there is enough
history and strategies to reach that goal. Some countries have been more
successful than others, and as UK is showing, even those with high level of
science development can auto evaluate their skills and make them better.
Human beings are curios by
nature, and scientists are like children repeating questions. We shouldn’t stop
children’ questions, we need to engage creativity in classrooms because is an
important part of the process of finding new ideas and solving challenges. We need that in schools as preparation to
define a problem, find the right method and innovate to find solution to our
every day problems.
I hope many countries can
analyze carefully the report, because probably many new scientists will find a
path with this model, especially because focus on grasp concepts at an earlier age
and then move on to the complicated things in a higher level of science can be
a good strategy, instead trying to teach everything in the first years. In
addition learning from modeling and not only with a book can be more inspiring.
If you could change the way
science is taught in your country, who would be teach science? Who can share
more passion, a teacher or a scientist when we have a question about the universe
or biology?