Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Scientific Literacy and Cultural Studies Project Mallinson Institute for Science Education 2000 The Rhetoric of Science Education Reform William W. Cobern Western Michigan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/science_slcsp Part of the Science and Mathematics Education Commons WMU ScholarWorks Citation Cobern, William W., "The Rhetoric of Science Education Reform" (2000). Scientific Literacy and Cultural Studies Project. 19. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/science_slcsp/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mallinson Institute for Science Education at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scientific Literacy and Cultural Studies Project by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact wmu- [email protected]. The Rhetoric of Science Education Reform Lederman later acknowledges the sentiment to which I allude. With the ever-present concept of Paper presentation prepared for the annual meeting reform, his ideas could easily be reduced to yet of the National Association for Research in Science another, "TYNT - 'this year's new thing'". Teaching symposium, What Science Should We Unfortunately, and in spite of all the good reasons Teach? In What Sequence? How Do We Know? there are for supporting a "physics first" April 30, 2000, New Orleans. reorganization of the secondary school science, the public has good reason to do just that - TYNT. As revised version has been published as: There are four reasons that I can think of. Cobern, W. W. (2000, Nov). The rhetoric of science To begin with, most members of the public education reform. The Physics Teacher, 38, 20-21. do not like "school bashing." The Gallop Polls continue to show that though people have concerns about education, they tend to think that their William W. Cobern, Ph.D. particular schools are just fine. Professor Professor of Science Education, Joint Appointment: Lederman's rhetoric is relatively mild, but even Dept. of Teaching, Learning & Leadership and the phrases like "obsessed with local control" and Dept. of Science Studies "awesome resistance of school systems to change" Western Michigan University are counterproductive in the public square. Don't 2112 Sangren Hall beat up on local control of school. The public is not Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5192 going to relinquish local control of schools and we should all be glad for that. As annoying as local [email protected] control can be at times, it is a foundation stone in our democracy. Research Web But there is a more serious problem with the http://www.wmich.edu/slcsp/slcsp.htm public when it is university scientists pointing the (Scientific Literacy and Cultural Studies Project) finger of blame at the K-12 schools. Can't you just hear the proverbial person on the street saying, "Well, Professor Lederman, if you and your colleagues have such good ideas, why aren't you But few scientists care to comment on the other side of the showing the way for the K-12 schools by first science-public equation. reforming the way universities teach science?" The There's plenty of evidence to suggest that the public's problem is credibility. It is no secret that the natural misunderstanding of science is sciences at the universities draw fewer students to equaled - or perhaps surpassed - by science's ignorance about start with, than do other disciplines, and the natural the public. (Tom Siegfried, 1999, The Dallas Morning News) sciences have higher dropout rates amongst those who do enroll as majors (Greene, 1997; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997; Hoke, 1993; Wild, 1997). For the lay Sometimes I wonder, when has there ever not been public (not for future scientists), the weakest link in reform movement in science education? Leon M. science education is at the university level, not the Lederman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, brings us K-12 levels. And, given that a Nobel Laureate one of the more recent reform efforts. His Project receives his or her greatest esteem from university ARISE (American Renaissance in Science faculty, it would seem natural to use that esteem to Education) promotes a "physics first" promote teaching reform at the university. reorganization of the secondary school science A second reason that much of the public is curriculum. He correctly observes that, "99 percent th th often deaf to the latest pleas for reform is that such of our high schools teach biology in 9 (or 10 ) pleas are often tantamount to hysteria mongering. grade, chemistry in 10th or 11th grade, and, for th th According Professor Lederman (1999, n.p.) and survivors, physics in 11 or 12 grade" and then certainly many others, the need in science education suggests that this arrangement "is alphabetically for "drastic reform is compelling." Why? Because correct, but by any logical scientific or pedagogical "there is a growing realization that schools are not criteria, the wrong order" (Lederman, 1999, n.p.). preparing their students to cope with the world into 1 which they will emerge" (Lederman, 1999, n.p.). Reformers make claims that appear extravagant to This sounds all too familiar. It was not so very long the public leading to a loss of the reformers' ago that Sputnik was being used to arouse a sleepy credibility (see Gibbs & Fox, 1999). public to American weaknesses in science and I think that most reform efforts are well mathematics, and the great need for education intended by those who propose them. The third reform. Well, we beat the Soviets didn't we? But I reason, however, that the public is justified in guess all those multi-million dollar NSF projects rejecting large-scale reform efforts is that many were not enough, because we then learned about a reformers simply lack a good understanding of how new threat - the economic threat posed by Japan and schools work and the role that schools play in our the Asian Tigers! The remedy was of course more economy. and better science, mathematics and technology There is an alternative view which questions education. Then came the meltdown of Asian banks why, after more than three decades on the and their associated economies. The USA, on the reform agenda, elementary science teaching other hand – and its low scores on international continues to disappoint. Is it because we science and mathematics tests notwithstanding – is haven’t found the right ‘formula’ or could it the midst of a history making economic expansion. be that we have an imperfect understanding Again, the problem that confronts would be of the problem and unrealistic expectations reformers, is the problem of credibility. Last year, a for the solution?" (Wallace & Louden, 1992: story ran in The Chronicle of Higher Education 508) titled, "Scientists Attack the Federal Budget with If there are problems with school science – and I the Politics of Calculated Panic" (Greenberg, 1999, certainly think that there are – the answer is not A72). Greenberg points out that, finding the right formula be it "physics first" or In 1991, Leon M. Lederman, in his anything else. inaugural address as president of the Here is an example of what I am getting at. American Association for the Advancement Professor Lederman (1999) proudly tells us: of Science, warned that "our current of over 70 schools (that we know about) capability for research is only about one- around the nation that have been using this third what it was in the late 1960s -- a "physics first" sequence for upwards of a golden age whose achievements the nation is dozen years. Uniformly, their stories are of still profiting from." great praise for the new sequence…. We Greenberg counters that, stress that this is a design for all students, In fact, from 1968 to 1991, federal support work-bound, liberal-arts-college-bound, or for science conducted at colleges and science-and-technology-bound. The schools universities rose from $ 1.5-billion to $ that are "doing it right" report greatly 10.2-billion -- a real gain of $ 8.4-billion, expanded enrollments in fourth-year according to the National Science electives and Advanced Placement science Foundation. The increase was accompanied courses. by healthy growth in the number of research I have no doubt that this claim is true. I also have no papers by U.S. scientists, which rose from doubt that I could easily find 70 schools who use 103,778 in 1973 to 142,334 in 1991. the traditional "alphabet approach" with equal Greenberg then noted that, success. Of course, a good curriculum makes a The depiction of science as a frail orphan difference, but the greater factor for school success stands in contrast to the billions in support is the commitment that the school community reliably supplied by the federal government brings to (almost) whatever curriculum they for decades…. Extravagant rhetoric has implement. To put it bluntly, reform of the science worked so long and so well for science that curriculum is a relatively minor contribution in it has become the norm. The danger is that comparison to reform that builds a cohesive, when credibility crumbles, it'd difficult to enthusiastic school community. restore. The fourth reason for the public's lukewarm That article was about money while the subject at reception of science reform ideas is related to the hand is curriculum change, but the point stands. issue of understanding schools and education. Too 2 often science curriculum reform efforts involve a that Professors Wilson and Lederman wish to make tacit conflict of interest. Martin Eger (1989), a are worth making. Moreover, rather than seeing physicist, put it very well. There are the interests science as something others might want to emulate "of" the science community, and then there is the and join in with, and history and the social sciences public's interest "in" science.