One of the constant problems that I have with public schools (High school and Junior High school) is the way that they teach science.
”Science” is a term that includes a lot of subgroups. Chemistry, physics and biology are the standard minimum HS fare, although some schools offer other science classes. The problem is that the classes are taught completely independently of each other. This means that each teacher must assume that the kids in their class doesn’t know the basics of the other sciences (even if they have taken and passed another science class, it doesn’t mean that they actually remember any of it). So each course begins by covering the basics of atomic and molecular structure. Of course, if a kid has taken another science course, and actually learned anything, this is simply redundant, and a waste of time. After sitting in a classroom for a month listening to material that the kid already knows, is it any surprise that by the time the new stuff comes around the kid is completely tuned out?
Besides the redundant teaching, a nasty reality about science is that the “categories” – the biology, chemistry, and physics – are meaningless artificial groupings. So, how did these artificial grouping come about? Well, in the not-so-distant past, they were separate subjects. There was little to nothing to be shared between Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. Biology dealt with animals and plants on an organismal level, with some forays into cellular structure. Physics dealt with motion, statics, force, and energy, and chemistry dealt with the existence of molecules, what they were, how they went together, and eventually, atomic structure. These groupings made sense in the early days of science, but in the modern world, the categories are really sections of a continuum.
It is impossible to study ‘biology’ with a basic understanding of both ‘chemistry’ and ‘physics’. Modern biology requires the ability to understand molecular interactions – in some cases at the subatomic level, and also requires a good understanding of physics. A simple example is running a gel to separate proteins – a common HS biology lab. Without understanding how the electrical charge of a protein can be determined, the lab is meaningless. To understand how a protein can have an electrical charge, the student needs to understand the molecular structure of the protein (‘chemistry’), and the way the electrical charge effects the protein’s movement through the gel (‘physics’). Likewise, when a student is studying chemistry, the structures of proteins, sugars, and other organic compounds are simply trivia without a framework to hang them on – so we’re back to biology, with physics thrown in so that we can understand why some structures are more stable than others.
So, rather than having the “sciences” broken down into subgroups, why don’t we simply re-write the curriculum to reflect the reality of modern science? There are a couple of reasons. The first is because this is the way we have always taught sciences. A simple fact is that changes in education take a very long time. The more significant the change, the longer it will take. Don’t forget – we’re talking about a system that still regularly seriously considers teaching creationism as an idea that is as valid as evolution. Second, it isn’t just the public schools that have this problem. Colleges and universities face the same issue, and have been just as slow to modernize their classes and departments. Why should public schools change the way they organize their classes when the students will be getting the “old way” as soon as they hit university?
The unfortunate reality is that it is very unlikely that any significant change will take place in the foreseeable future. Those students that manage to keep an interest in the sciences alive through the public schools will go on to University and find a way to work on the stuff that interests them regardless of how the material is structured. I have worked with undergrads interested in everything from plasma physics to fluid dynamics, to evolutionary biology. In the course of pursuing their particular interests, they come to University with a good broad base of scientific knowledge. Knowledge that they do not get at school, but knowledge that they have picked up on their own.
What happens to the kids without the motivation or resources to get this level of scientific literacy before they come to university? I can’t say. I do know that they do not find their way into the research labs, and that I have yet to meet one in an introductory course I teach at university. I have to assume that they simply lose interest or give up on their scientific interests, and join the great majority of americans that view anything scientific as simply magic. So there ya go: Science education in America is either self education or no education.
In my daily perusal of a bunch of online stuff, I came across a few interesting stories (for some reason, these stories always seem to pop up right before school starts). Anyway, they were lamenting the fact that many school districts have major retention problems. They quote numbers that suggest that 1/4 of new teachers stop teaching within 3 years, and 1/2 within 5 years. One school (I think it was in Chicago) claimed to have 100% teacher turnover from year to year.
So, given all of that, is it any surprise that half of the teachers that start out punt in 5 years? Especially considering the fact that moving out of the public schools – moving into private schools, tutoring, or other educational venues – counts as “leaving teaching”. The simple fact is that the teachers that remain in teaching are either completely dedicated, or so incompetent that they have no hope of finding any other job. And the truly dedicated ones burn out, leaving behind empty husks that simply don’t have the energy to change.
