Science in retreat : Nature
Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.
There has been a lot of discussion on a discussion list I belong to about this article: Science in retreat : Article : Nature
Canada has been scientifically healthy. Not so its government.
Comparisons of nations scientific outputs over the years have shown that Canadas researchers have plenty to be proud of, consistently maintaining their countrys position among the worlds top ten see, for example, Nature 430, 311-316; 2004. Alas, their governments track record is dismal by comparison.
When the Canadian government announced earlier this year that it was closing the office of the national science adviser, few in the countrys science community were surprised. Science has long faced an uphill battle for recognition in Canada, but the slope became steeper when the Conservative government was elected in 2006.
I don’t want to go into any of the issues discussed because it is a closed list, but I did want to post my response to a general sense of comments that we have to do more to teach science. And I really thing we need to do less. Less programming of our lives, more… well read on.
I teach “Concept Development in Science” in the School of Early Childhood Education. I think the problem is deeper and more profound. There’s a lack of autonomous spaces and opportunities for unstructured play for children. Children are over-programmed and over-stimulated. They never know what it means to spend a bored summer running wild through back alleys and fields. They are out of touch with the curiosity that comes from just being bored with nothing to entertain them. They don’t know how to invent their own diversions and explore, get lost and find their way home, experience the ’safe’ fears of realizing they are alone in a forest and learning to listen to the world around them. If children don’t have opportunities to develop intrinsic interests and lack the time to explore and finally complete something of interest to them, I wonder if they’ll ever develop what is for me the hallmark of an independent learner: the intentionality required to choose to learn something and the task dedication to complete something. That is, intrinsic motivation. And this is an issue in the humanities as much as it is in science.
We all, parents, educators, creators of technologies, are responsible for what are being called the millenials (think of Greg Inwood’s post on rfanet last month). Every time we, as educators, do not challenge our students to learn how to think, we are encouraging the reproduction of a cultural situation that we then complain about.
I’m finding that I need to spend as much time trying to find ways to get students enthusiastic about science as I need to spend helping students learn how to help children develop science concepts. Many of them don’t like it, and there are questions as to why I focus on the students’ curiosity and interest when I should focus on age-appropriate science. I’m not sure if we can do anything to help children until we address the systemic social issues that create adults who are too busy trying to make their way in the world to recognize the world around them, so accessorized with technologies and stimulated with entertainments to generate anything of their own, and so lacking with authentic unmediated contact with the world around them that the sky, clouds, trees, water go unnoticed, and any deeper awareness or inquiry is just lost in the buzz. And who are also willing to bring children up with all the diversions that sap them of the kind of curiosity and desire that motivates them to become autonomous self-motivated learners.
Science is not about training or rigor, it is about wonder, curiosity, inquiry and the desire to see what’s going on out there.
IMHO, of course.
Jason