Education: The science in science?

I recently read a most disappointing article on The Guardian's website: Climate change should be excluded from curriculum, says adviser. The adviser is Tim Oates (see bottom of linked page for his bio), an academic researcher hired by the UK Government to perform a review of the United Kingdom's school curriculum. And what follows that headline is the unfortunate deck: "Head of government review says school syllabus needs to 'get back to the science in science.'"

I'd like to give Oates the benefit of the doubt. The Guardian interviewed him, though, and I will trust them with the same benefit of the doubt; surely they reported such quotes verbatim. According to the article:

Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said.

Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives.

Okay. In spite of my personal understanding that climate change is an essential issue to develop a strong knowledge of, I can buy the premise that schools—or rather, teachers and students together—should be free to decide lenses through which to study science. However, the rest of the article contains some disturbing ideas about Oates' approach to education. This should worry many, as he is in rather a position of power.

Consider the following:

In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum "to get back to the science in science". "We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff…"

I appreciate what Oates is suggesting, that a solid grounding in scientific fundamentals is relevant. I presume that's what he means by "the science in science." (Note, however, that our understanding of oxidation and gravity have changed as we learn more about the chemical and physical nature of our world.) The Guardian explains that Oates seems to intend to shift any emphasis in the curriculum from "issues" like "cultural understanding of science" and "applications and implications of science" to his "science in science."

[Oates] said the topics that engaged children in science "changed dramatically" from year to year. "The national curriculum shouldn't ever try to keep up with those, otherwise it would keep changing." Teachers knew best which current affairs topics related to science would interest their pupils, he said.

"If you live in a town where there is a lot of manufacturing, then teachers can use that as a context to discuss the social effects of science; other groups of pupils might be more interested in how the pharmaceutical industry produces drugs. It's really important that children think through the social application of science, but the precise topics... do not have to be specified by the state."

Again, much of what he says sounds appealing. But just as the "science in science" tends to persist from year to year, so does climate change. There are myriad angles through which climate change can be interrogated, and those could easily be determined by teachers and students according to the students' interests. But the principle social issue, like others—nutrition, effects of manufacturing, natural resource depletion, environmental stewardship, and so on—does not "change dramatically" from year to year.

Students should be made aware of and have the equal opportunity to study climate change and other critical socio-scientific systems as well as "the science in science."

Education: Fill students' heads with facts, or aim for critical thinking?

In the same Guardian article I referred to in my last post, Climate change should be excluded from curriculum, says adviser, the UK education secretary Michael Gove is quoted criticizing the national curriculum under review:

"Its pages are littered with irrelevant material – mainly high-sounding aims, such as the requirement to 'challenge injustice', which are wonderful in politicians' speeches, but contribute nothing to helping students deepen their stock of knowledge."

I hardly know where to begin but worry for kids in the UK if someone who truly espouses such a viewpoint is able to exert any influence over the actual education of those kids.

First, studying injustice and how to challenge it can absolutely help students "deepen their stock of knowledge." During the investigation of injustice, students will uncover facts, theories, processes, phenomena, and methods which are all forms of knowledge.

Second, injustice is not "irrelevant material." It is a feature of our civilization which affects the lives and livelihoods of untold numbers of human beings, mostly non-white and non-European; this is especially so in the "developing world." Injustice is an effect of the way our world is socially, politically, and economically organized. It can be studied a primary cause of war, terrorism, and other forms of violence; more importantly, as a primary cause of economic inopporunity, poverty, and human suffering. I can hardly think of something more relevant for children in the UK to learn about.

Even if the concept of injustice was pruned to its most primitive meaning, there are plenty of instances to study of mere miscarriage of justice in the United Kingdom.

Third, should the aim of education be to "deepen" students' "stock of knowledge?" The dilemma Gove presents is challenging. Knowledge takes many forms, and so his premise is already weak. But inferring what he means—that students should be taught basic facts, rather than study complex multidimensional phenomena—suggests that he feels it's more important to fill kids' heads with bits of information.

Education should be a process that helps kids develop critical thinking skills, as well as a "stock of knowledge." The investigation of injustice is one excellent topic for such a process.