My web site "From Stargazers to Starships" attempts to add new interesting content to high school science education from space research, history, personal stories, technology and ties between science and culture. It also tries to help getting science across, by describing new concepts in explicit and clear terms, targeting problem areas and misconceptions, and by providing teacher-friendly tools. All these may be necessary, but they are not sufficient. They all assume an ideal student--motivated, viewing school as a preparation to adult life and intending to make good use of it. But what about non-ideal ones who rate their studies below peer interactions, below TV and entertainment--students who rarely crack open a book, and do at most the very minimum needed to get a passing grade? And what about the ones unwilling to invest any effort in their classes, no matter how well those are presented, the ones who see no value in scholastic achievement? Two recent experiences re-awakened such thoughts. First, as a mindless diversion, I started reading "Alan Mendelsohn, Boy from Mars," whose wry description of middle school brought back memories. And second, the '99 Christmas issue of the Washington Post carried a column by Colbert King about his elementary school paper from 1949, fifty years earlier. It was, I gathered, a segregated Black school in Washington, yet its students wrote surprisingly well--even poems that scanned and rhymed. What has changed since then? For one, TV, the great distractor, which did not exist in 1949. Only a week earlier I saw my first-ever "South Park", a Christmas special even raunchier than expected. For another, even then schools had minimal students, though perhaps a smaller proportion. The new courses offering "relevant physics," color pictures, "cool" overtones and easy tasks may be an attempt to reach students who tune out harder work and more formal teaching. One wonders how productive this new approach is. Any student who seeks real knowledge will be bored, and may develop a contempt for the school's science program. Nowadays AP courses are tailored to such students, even though from what I have seen, they are narrowly focused, not too inspiring and essentially simplified college courses. The main justification for the easy approach may be to nurture motivation, postponing the acquisition of skills and knowledge. A motivated student may later decide science is worth some effort, though motivation also depends largely on the teacher. Some students indeed get seriously interested, but others, accustomed to easy tasks, give up when more is demanded. Middle school is the great divide. Kids in elementary school seem serious about their studies, maybe because the teacher is much bigger and more experienced than they are, because the demands are small and because schools exposes them to novel and interesting experiences. Some kids at this stage may already be hooked on TV, some may be slow readers, but in the class they go with the flow (or so it seems). Middle school is where puberty arrives, also cigarettes and in some places, drugs, and at least from what our daughter has reported, that is where "good" kids are separated from "bad" ones. By high school, the choice has been made. Articles on education sometimes claim that parental culture is the most significant factor--kids of single parents are expected to fail and often do, kids from professional families are expected to succeed and often do, too. That, however, is looking at outcomes: the real question is, why are these outcomes likely? Professionals want their children to enjoy the same good life as they do, and therefore insist that they acquire the pre-requisites (e.g. college education). Refugee and transplanted families often have a similar motivation: they see school as an essential stepping stone. Single parents, and parents of the poverty culture, are often overwhelmed by day-to-day requirements: let the TV keep the kid quiet. Furthermore, if they themselves used to be "minimal students," they might never have appreciated the value of schooling.
So the real challenge of science education may be in middle school or earlier: grab the kid's interest and accustom him or her to work in an orderly way, using only arithmetic. You can teach hydrostatics, buoyancy, levers, heat machines, electricity as a fluid analogy and more. One stumbling block are the teachers, often shallow and untrained--sometimes running the class more on charisma than on substance. Another are textbooks, cute but disorganized, also too bulky and heavy. "Stargazers" may help motivated high school students (and judging by the mail, adults), but something additional is needed in the earlier grades, to effectively transmit "Science for all Americans."
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Author and Curator: Dr. David P. Stern
Mail to Dr.Stern: audavstern("at" symbol)erols.com .
Last updated 9 June 2002