How Can We Encourage Scientific Thinking in Children?

[symbolipoint]

I'm watching now. Not can decide if this answers the question but it is an interesting talk.

He said the word, "institution". Maybe that is meaningful. Think of the child so curious as to crawl around under the house, and finds a few artifacts left behind by the construction workers who have long since gone on to other jobs. The child is not doing this exploring as part of any institution. Budding archaeologist or budding anthropologist? Maybe.

Wow! "Get down before you hurt yourself!"

You just have watch the video and look at the cartoon picture near the end.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Are you familiar with the documentary series "7-Up"?

My takeaway from watching it, was that the "BS", was instilled by their parents.

I can see the BS coming from lots of sources, but teachers and science fair judges certainly provide enough positive feedback for the BS to keep the students polishing their turds.

 

[nomadreid]

This thread is a bit old, but the issue remains current. I think there is a piece of scientific method lacking in this discussion: that is, a control group. Whereas it is true that a lot of schools and other social institutions tend to destroy creativity, it is not clear that this is the only cause. Do we have a control group? Not really, so there is a tendency to idealize childhood. But in so doing we seem to forget that childhood is influenced by biological factors. For example, evolution molded us to try to survive and procreate with more efficiency than our competitors, and relatively short-term thinking was usually what was required. At an early age, we see children using their developing minds to handle the basics of survival; and this often requires creativity. However, after a certain point, the need for creativity is no longer evident to all kids, and in fact expending extra "energy" for thinking seems counter-productive if one's short-term goals are met anyway, so the famed laziness sets in in many children. Not all, of course. Puberty complicates the picture even more. Schools, parents, etc. may aggravate this, and put dampers on creativity, although there are also good schools, parents, etc. that promote creativity, so it is hard to say what the net balance is. As well, the measures of creativity are often skewed. For example, I have seen (in my years of teaching adolescents) some amazingly creative inventions for cheating. But this creativity is usually not recognized. So, yes, kids are born with an instinct for a rudimentary scientific method, and it would be nice if this instinct remained and become polished, but we should be careful about ascribing the causes for its decline.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Saying kids are born scientists from these observations is like saying kids are born mathematicians based on K level counting and arithmetic.

It's a beginning that can be nurtured and directed, but a lot of ideas need to be added:
1) Logic and ideas need to be capable of following an orderly sequence of steps so that each observation is not its own law.
2) The idea of rejecting hypotheses based on controlled, repeatable experiments is essential
3) In the physical sciences (and of growing importance in biology), careful, quantitative predictions and experiments are essential. Chemistry and physics are NOT about qualitative predictions and observations. Both disciplines were not really born until quantitative models were formed and tested in quantitative experiments.
4) The notions of independent and dependent variables are key.

In my work with middle and high school students, it's not so much as creativity has been stiffled, but these concepts are not meaningfully imparted.

Sure, the buzz words are used and discussed, but they are not really executed in experimental settings. By the time most students get to high school, they recognize all the words and ideas, but they have not been required to practice them to the point of proficiency. Nor have they been required to understand the key historical developments that led to the rejection of many obsolete ideas (because they were failed hypotheses) in favor of current thinking (based on experiments supporting hypotheses). The FACTS of science receive 80-90% of the time and attention, and the PROCESS of science is woefully underrepresented.

This process continues into college, where the required laboratories are often used as extra demonstrations and practice for the lecture material that will appear on the tests. If the weekly experiment is not testing a well articulated hypothesis that tests quantitative predictions with careful measurements and does not require students to present their data and write a discussion regarding whether the hypothesis was supported by THEIR data, then it is still a FACT focused use of time and not really teaching the scientific method (the key process in developing scientists).

Most science teachers need to stop merely telling students about the scientific method and empower (and require) them to actually execute it over and over again until it is meaningfully mastered.

 

[jack action]

It's a beginning that can be nurtured and directed, but a lot of ideas need to be added:
1) Logic and ideas need to be capable of following an orderly sequence of steps so that each observation is not its own law.
2) The idea of rejecting hypotheses based on controlled, repeatable experiments is essential
3) In the physical sciences (and of growing importance in biology), careful, quantitative predictions and experiments are essential. Chemistry and physics are NOT about qualitative predictions and observations. Both disciplines were not really born until quantitative models were formed and tested in quantitative experiments.
4) The notions of independent and dependent variables are key.

All of these are applied by kids:
1) When you have a single observation, you will assume it is a law. If you meet two alien life forms, one blue and one red and the red one bites you, you will assume that the next red one you'll encounter will bite you and classified the blue one as 'harmless'. That is what kids do all the time. The fact that you have little data doesn't mean you don't have a scientific mind.
2) If you meet a second set of blue and red alien life forms and the blue one bites you and the red one doesn't, you will quickly reject your initial hypothesis. That is what kids do all the time.
3) If you meet many other sets of blue and red alien life forms and you finally figure out that the biters are actually the big ones and the color have nothing to do with it, you are using quantitative values. That is what kids do all the time. Lacking precision and accuracy doesn't mean you don't use a scientific process; it means you have rudimentary tools or that you don't use them properly.
4) When you realize that the red alien life form must be a lot bigger that a blue alien life form before becoming a biter and that the number of arms has no influence whatsoever, you can make the difference between independent and dependent variables. That is what kids do all the time.

The difference between a kid and a physicist is experience. The only thing education does is quickly steer you towards the most meaningful experiments to draw the right conclusions. Imagine if every individual had to discover how to make fire by himself or herself. Many of us would not live long enough to accidentally find the two correct rocks to rub together, let alone invent the match. Most of us would think fire is a punishment sent from gods, destroying everything it hits (which is still a valid hypothesis when you don't have other meaningful data).

 

[Dr. Courtney]

The difference between a kid and a physicist is experience.

If this were true, we'd have had a lot more physicists before Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

The scientific method was something developed by mankind, not something humans are born with. If humans were born with it, we'd have had it thousands of years earlier.

 

[TeethWhitener]

If this were true, we'd have had a lot more physicists before Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science
There were.

If humans were born with it, we'd have had it thousands of years earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_scientific_method
We did.

I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but the argument you're making here is shoddy.

Incidentally, this thread made me think of this:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/natural-scientists

 

[jack action]

If this were true, we'd have had a lot more physicists before Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

The scientific method was something developed by mankind, not something humans are born with. If humans were born with it, we'd have had it thousands of years earlier.

So you are saying that alchemists were not scientists because they were on the wrong path, but chemists - who based their work on alchemy - were scientists because they actually found the right hypothesis once that all the bad ones were eliminated?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

3) In the physical sciences (and of growing importance in biology), careful, quantitative predictions and experiments are essential. Chemistry and physics are NOT about qualitative predictions and observations. Both disciplines were not really born until quantitative models were formed and tested in quantitative experiments.

Multiple respondents are missing the importance of quantitative predictions and measurements in the physical sciences. Your experience may be different from mine. But my experience is overwhelmingly that kids do not naturally think of or develop quantitative measurements and predictions relating to natural law until they receive lots of careful guidance and empowerment in that direction.

Further, I recommend those who think kids are born scientists to spend more time reviewing science fair projects at your local regional science fair. Most readers here are probably qualified and can even volunteer to be judges in some category or another. If your experiences end up similar to mine, you will change your mind. Now, most science projects that reach the regional level have already been filtered out at the school level and are purportedly the creme of the crop.

But many (often most) are still pretty bad in terms of demonstrating proper execution of the scientific method. I'm not complaining that the selected problems are not interesting or relevant. Even simple problems are often addressed without a proper execution of the scientific method. Recurring themes:
1. There is no testable hypothesis.
2. The proposed experimental method does not actually test the articulated hypothesis.
3. Woeful underappreciation for confounding factors.
4. No consideration given to measurement accuracy.
5. No clearly articulated predictions properly based on hypothesis for the actual experimental method planned.
6. Support claimed for hypothesis in cases where experiment did not support the hypothesis.
7. Failure to reject hypothesis when experiment actually tended to disprove hypothesis.
8. Strong confirmation bias.
9. Over emphasis on interest or importance or problem rather than proper experiment to test it.
10. Inadequate sample size
11. Removal of data points not supporting hypothesis
12. Fudging data to have stronger apparent support for hypothesis

 

[jack action]

Multiple respondents are missing the importance of quantitative predictions and measurements in the physical sciences.

As the person who started this thread, I think you are the one missing the point. If you haven't done it yet, you should listen to the video in post #1.

It's about adults killing the curiosity in kids, which is where all scientific interest comes from.

The example of science fairs you give is probably another example of how some adults treat science as a contest to be won rather than fun experiments to do. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that we loose more kids with these ridiculously competitive science fairs than we win some. And most of the ones we win probably want to follow through just because they think scientists gets a better pay at the end of the day.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

It's about adults killing the curiosity in kids, which is where all scientific interest comes from.

I am in no way disputing the notion that kids are born with lots of scientific interest or that public education tends to kill it.

I am disputing the notion that kids are born scientists. Being a scientist requires both interest and ability. Most may be born with the interest, but they are not born with the ability, as my posts have emphasized.

The example of science fairs you give is probably another example of how some adults treat science as a contest to be won rather than fun experiments to do. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that we loose more kids with these ridiculously competitive science fairs than we win some. And most of the ones we win probably want to follow through just because they think scientists gets a better pay at the end of the day.

How many science fairs have you actually been to in the past decade? At the school and regional level, they are not very competitive at all any more. Most students completed their projects voluntarily (as opposed to being a requirement for a class), and while most would be happy to win, there is not anything approaching the kind of competitiveness one sees sporting competitions or other academic competitions (science and math olympiads, for example). Nor is there a comparable sense of disappointment (to sports) for most students who do not win. Stuff like quiz bowl and robotics have much more competition (and disappointment) than these local science fairs.

Again, you should attend some of these science fairs in person before you wrongly assume that what happens there is comparable to what you may have experienced in the distant past. (The state and national levels do get more competitive in unhealthy ways, but 90% of student science fair projects never make it to these levels, so these students are unlikely to be impacted by the unhealthy competition.) (I've attended over a dozen school and regional science fairs in 3 different states and mentored projects that competed in several additional states.) I always emphasize that if the science if good and done right, students should not focus much on the competitive outcomes, which are subject to the biases and abilities of less than capable judges. (Been on the judging side often also - seen too many dentists and high school students judging physics projects.)

But my experience at many science fairs just broadens by experience at a number of schools at which I've worked and volunteered that screams that most students are not born with anything approaching a sound scientific method. I've mentored many, many more non-competitive science projects and the absence of competition does not improve my near universal observation that without proper guidance, students will attempt science with these recurring themes:

1. There is no testable hypothesis.
2. The proposed experimental method does not actually test the articulated hypothesis.
3. Woeful underappreciation for confounding factors.
4. No consideration given to measurement accuracy.
5. No clearly articulated predictions properly based on hypothesis for the actual experimental method planned.
6. Support claimed for hypothesis in cases where experiment did not support the hypothesis.
7. Failure to reject hypothesis when experiment actually tended to disprove hypothesis.
8. Strong confirmation bias.
9. Over emphasis on interest or importance or problem rather than proper experiment to test it.
10. Inadequate sample size.
11. Removal of data points not supporting hypothesis.
12. Fudging data to have stronger apparent support for hypothesis.

Personally, I'm neutral on whether or not a given science project should end up in a competition. I leave this up to the student and try and do my best to support their choice. Competition can be a useful motivator for some students; often the best motivator is simply the relevant due dates. Other students have sufficient self-motivation to keep their projects moving along without much externally imposed structure.

 

[symbolipoint]

I am in no way disputing the notion that kids are born with lots of scientific interest or that public education tends to kill it.

I am disputing the notion that kids are born scientists. Being a scientist requires both interest and ability. Most may be born with the interest, but they are not born with the ability, as my posts have emphasized.

Be careful with that belief, especially your being an educator. The problem is lack of interest more so than lack of ability.

 

[brainpushups]

The problem is lack of interest more so than lack of ability.

I disagree. Ability must be developed and takes significant effort. Yes, most people have the potential to develop ability but far fewer have the patience and tenacity for it (or, "interest", if you wish). Curiosity about the world, if that's what we mean by interest, is probably as close to a universal human trait as we can get, and that seems to be more aligned with the original post. I agree with @Dr. Courtney 's interpretation of what it means to be 'scientific' which is more that just being curious.

I am currently in the middle of a lesson with my high school students about pseudoscience where they are cautioned about the behaviors Dr. Courtney lists in post #46. I have them read Feynman's famous Cargo Cult Science speech, we discuss rationalization of beliefs that contradict experience and observation (e.g. confirmation bias), I provide several other resources describing some of the warning signs of pseudoscience, and I also show them this Last Week Tonight episode in which John Oliver discusses the problems with pop-science and the general public's tendency to consume it (of which the video in post #1 is perhaps an example). I also provide them with a list of websites (a mix of pseudoscience and legitimate sites) and ask them to identify whether they think the information is bogus or not by citing what warning signs they do or do not observe.

My point with this lesson, as it is here, is that most people (kids included) act in non-scientific ways. Scientific thinking, both as an individual and collectively, is not an innate tendency.

The lesson described above comes on the heels of two months of fairly rigorous experimental/theoretical skill development where students are taught how to properly measure, estimate and justify their uncertainties, propagate their uncertainties in calculations, make quantitative hypotheses/predictions and test them, and learn to search for errors when results appear to contradict well-established laws. Most students do not have the patience for this final step. I usually have 1 or 2 students (out of around 30) per year who are willing to go back and re-check their measurements and calculations with enough care to find an error rather than just speculate with justification (my minimum requirement) about what the error may have been. That level of care is one thing that distinguishes science.

I'm sure that the fact this level of care is being asked of them by a teacher in a course that many of them would probably rather not be taking has a lot to do with that. Actually, I take that back. Most students like me and enjoy the course, but they dislike the work load (only 3 hrs of homework per week!) and the high expectations. Even when I used to do science fair so that students could pick their own topics most were unwilling to exhibit the kind of care necessary for science.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Be careful with that belief, especially your being an educator. The problem is lack of interest more so than lack of ability.

We may be defining our terms differently. By "interest" I mean the innate curiosity to understand that may not imply enough desire to follow through in ways often needed to gain reliable satisfaction for that curiosity. Today's teachers encounter an ADD generation, but by the time most students reach junior high, an awful lot of their innate curiosity that could (and should) be satisfied by their science curricula has been snuffed out (usually by combinations of teachers, curricula, and resource constraints that focus on facts rather than on the discovery process.)

By "ability" in the above context, I don't mean the potential to gain the skills if sufficient time and effort was expended. I mean having actually already taken the time and effort to develop the skill set to perform and assess meaningful scientific experiments in a manner appropriate to the educational level.

By high school, most of the students I've encountered just want to get through most of their classes with a specific grade goal and don't really care about real learning (all subjects) apart from checking their grade goal boxes. This is certainly not unique to science or math, but the objective nature of these subjects makes it harder for teachers to pretend they are succeeding when they are not. Most teachers settle into a death spiral where they are content with students parroting back the required dogma. My goal is always to find the "on button."

But in the meantime, I do my best to motivate as best I can using student grade goals to jumpstart student effort. Experience has shown that with well designed activities a number of students will regain the spark of innate curiosity and also discover they are able to succeed with the proper application of effort over time. Of course, a number of students will just jump through the hoops to reach their grade goals, but even these will discover that they can do more than they thought, and they will become proficient in the learning objectives needed to succeed at the next level.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Most students like me and enjoy the course, but they dislike the work load (only 3 hrs of homework per week!) and the high expectations. Even when I used to do science fair so that students could pick their own topics most were unwilling to exhibit the kind of care necessary for science.

Thanks for making the effort. In 2019, 3 hours of homework a week is rarely going to win any popularity contests, but it is what students need to learn and succeed. Too many STEM and science research type courses have devolved into nothing more than can be accomplished during the regularly scheduled class time, and often the kind of design, execution, and analysis care you write about are abandoned early as "too difficult." You seem to be fighting the good fight. Keep it up!

 

[jack action]

I must disagree with that kind of speeches that tend towards saying that 'only special people can master science'. The one who fail, apparently just don't work hard enough. In my opinion, you are more describing what is wrong with the current education system that pushes the same curriculum for every child and tends to demotivate children as they grow up.

I really prefer this approach where it is believed that children can learn how to read on their own. I believe this can apply to advance sciences as well. For my part, the key sentences of the text are the following:

As long as kids grow up in a literate society, surrounded by people who read, they will learn to read.

If people read around them, kids will naturally develop an interest in reading. The more people read, the more the need arise to learn how to read. Just like they learn how to talk by themselves because everybody talks around them. There are no courses for that and I never heard of kids not knowing how to speak because nobody taught them. If everybody uses science (and the scientific method) around them, they will want to learn it as well. This is the biggest lack in children environment. One school teacher interested in science cannot be considered an 'environment'.

Motivated children can go from apparent non-reading to fluent reading very quickly.

Children learn to read when reading becomes, to them, a means to some valued end or ends.

These two quotes basically say the same thing and relate to the first one: There must be a need to do something. The worst memories I have from school is related to the fact that I had no clue what I was studying for. Apparently, it would served me later in life, not entirely sure for what though. That is not a motivator at all. There are no needs that relate to me. I want to see and understand the problem and its impact before the solution. I want to see someone resolving the problem in front of me before being excited about how to learn the skill.

 

[brainpushups]

I must disagree with that kind of speeches that tend towards saying that 'only special people can master science'.

Who said that?

If people read around them, kids will naturally develop an interest in reading.

I agree, but your analogy to science fails in its premise:

If everybody uses science (and the scientific method) around them, they will want to learn it as well.

Most of what is done around students is not science, and scientific thinking is so uncommon in our general experience that special training seems to be required.

 

[jack action]

Who said that?

Yes, most people have the potential to develop ability but far fewer have the patience and tenacity for it

Stating only 'a few have what it takes to develop the ability' is dangerously close to saying 'only special people can master the craft'.

Most of what is done around students is not science, and scientific thinking is so uncommon in our general experience that special training seems to be required.

That is the heart of problem: Science is not used in everyday life. It is considered a waste of time, but it really is not. How can a child ever appreciate it if this is the kind of thinking he or she is surrounded by? This is another post I wrote in another thread that shows how people cope with scientific illiteracy in everyday life.

It is not special training that is needed, it's motivation.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Stating only 'a few have what it takes to develop the ability' is dangerously close to saying 'only special people can master the craft'.

In the broader context, I took that statement to mean that only a few students bother to work hard enough to develop the ability, rather than that only a few students will develop the ability among many who do work hard.

The scientific method is straight forward, and it can be mastered by most middle and high school students with adequate effort. I tend to recommend using 25-40% of science classroom and home work time be focused on the scientific method (mostly lab-type experiments). Over a 6 year time span (7th-12th grades in the US system), with the typical 180 class hours per year, that would be a total of 270-430 hours of student effort (excluding homework time). 15-20 complete experiments per class year is a great target. Most of the failure seems to be in how science teachers allocate science class time, and in students squandering whatever laboratory opportunities they do happen to have. It is no different from math, really. If students don't do the work, they will not learn. It's not that they are not capable of learning IF they do the work. But a lot of the US system has empowered students to refuse to do their work more than it has empowered teachers to require it.

 

[brainpushups]

Stating only 'a few have what it takes to develop the ability' is dangerously close to saying 'only special people can master the craft'.

You are misinterpreting what I mean. Firstly, as you have quoted me above, I said 'most people' not 'special people' or 'a few' people. And what I really mean is that, barring some type of handicap, everyone can develop a level of mastery in the sciences.

I don't disagree that students often lack motivation and I agree with much of what you said in your linked post. All (good) teachers struggle with how to motivate and there is not a one size fits all approach.

I simply cannot agree with the statement 'all kids are born scientists' for reasons that have been articulated by others above. Including you it seems. (see quote in #54).

 

[jack action]

I said 'most people' not 'special people' or 'a few' people.

You said:

Yes, most people have the potential to develop ability but far fewer have the patience and tenacity for it

I understand what you meant, but the words say literally "most people don't have the qualities to develop the ability [even though they have the potential]" and one could jump easily to the conclusion "Therefore most people will never be able to do it because they don't have what it takes." But, again, I understand what you meant.

Because these are statements I hear often: "I'm not made for science and math." "I tried to do it and fail. I will never be able to understand it." "You're lucky, you have a gift for science. I don't." And if you try to teach something to these people, they basically put their fingers in their ears and starts shouting "La!La!La!La!" to not hear what you're telling them. It seems like learning something would be the worst thing that could happen to them! (Actually, it's probably the fear of looking stupid that takes over.)

So anything said that tends to support these claims of 'requiring special talents' to do science and math, kind of push my buttons.

But a lot of the US system has empowered students to refuse to do their work

By saying this you basically put the burden on the students. Actually, we (as a society) failed to show the need for this work to be done. Who can blame them? It is completely insane to do work that doesn't - or you think it doesn't - give you something in return. It's not laziness. It's not lack of tenacity or patience. It's being efficient. And if it is really a 'need', we must being going out of our way to hide it from kids for them not to see it. If science is important, it must be part of everyday life. How can we failed showing that?

 

[symbolipoint]

By saying this you basically put the burden on the students. Actually, we (as a society) failed to show the need for this work to be done. Who can blame them? It is completely insane to do work that doesn't - or you think it doesn't - give you something in return. It's not laziness. It's not lack of tenacity or patience. It's being efficient. And if it is really a 'need', we must being going out of our way to hide it from kids for them not to see it. If science is important, it must be part of everyday life. How can we failed showing that?

Much of the results of science is throughout modern-day life. Once so well packaged or organized, the consumers or the users hardly give any thought to how the results or parts were understood, developed, and made available.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

By saying this you basically put the burden on the students.

Not at all. Students should all feel free to drop my course as soon as they fail to see the need to be there. But if they want credit in my course, they need to realize that I (as the teacher) am bound by the representations that have been made to the accrediting agencies and funding sources regarding course content. To award a passing grade without committing fraud, I need to ensure that the students are proficient in the material as promised to the accrediting agency and those paying for the education. To have any chance of including all the promised material in the available class time, the class needs to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Teachers can't waste time justifying every day's work to students who don't want to be there. Students who don't want to be there need to either comply with the program or get out, and the quicker they are removed, the better it will be for the other students who actually want to be there.

You may have your fantasy implemented somewhere, but good luck getting it accredited or getting it funded on any meaningful scale.

 

[Svein]

A thought...

We just got a kitten - and I think kittens are natural experimental physicists. Case in point: The kitten pushes something over the edge of a table. Scrutinizing the object carefully, he finds another object and pushes it over the edge of the table. After doing this with about 30 objects and several tables, he stops.

Question: Has he "discovered gravity" or just concluded that pushing something over the edge makes it "move to the floor"?

 

[symbolipoint]

A thought...

We just got a kitten - and I think kittens are natural experimental physicists. Case in point: The kitten pushes something over the edge of a table. Scrutinizing the object carefully, he finds another object and pushes it over the edge of the table. After doing this with about 30 objects and several tables, he stops.

Question: Has he "discovered gravity" or just concluded that pushing something over the edge makes it "move to the floor"?

Next Question:
Do most adult cats still push things off tables? (and will your kitten grow up in a couple of years or therabout and still push objects off tables?) Then what else do kittens enjoy doing, and do they find more things to do like that when they grow up? Or was their impulse to think creatively stifled at some point?

 

[brainpushups]

I understand what you meant, but the words say literally "most people don't have the qualities to develop the ability [even though they have the potential]" and one could jump easily to the conclusion "Therefore most people will never be able to do it because they don't have what it takes." But, again, I understand what you meant.

Like the content area skills needed for science, the 'qualities' needed to develop scientific skills are not determined at conception. People can learn to persevere and take care in their work. Once these habits have been fostered one will have an easier time progressing in science. I do not consider perseverance to be an unusual quality in general, but I do think that these qualities must be developed. I can give a personal analogy that can be applied to students learning science: I did not have the patience for learning an instrument when I was 9 (to a skill level that would be remotely considered proficient) and after several lessons decided to quit. Later in life I tried again and I developed both the interest/motivation, perseverance for learning music, and then particular musical skills.

To put things in a way that the words would be more challenging to mince: I believe that all students that put in the effort to learn science can do so.

 

[jack action]

Not at all. Students should all feel free to drop my course as soon as they fail to see the need to be there. But if they want credit in my course, they need to realize that I (as the teacher) am bound by the representations that have been made to the accrediting agencies and funding sources regarding course content. To award a passing grade without committing fraud, I need to ensure that the students are proficient in the material as promised to the accrediting agency and those paying for the education. To have any chance of including all the promised material in the available class time, the class needs to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Teachers can't waste time justifying every day's work to students who don't want to be there. Students who don't want to be there need to either comply with the program or get out, and the quicker they are removed, the better it will be for the other students who actually want to be there.

You may have your fantasy implemented somewhere, but good luck getting it accredited or getting it funded on any meaningful scale.

I agree with this post 100%. When I was doing my engineering courses, I estimated that 80% of the students didn't care about the material. And they weren't shy about telling it to anyone who wanted to listen. The only reason they were there was for the promise of high paying job. And this had repercussions on teachers who would just assume every student didn't care and taught accordingly.

But, as a society, how is it possible that students don't care about learning how their environment work? You see children in a small remote village somewhere in the third world getting excited to go a school a few kilometers from their home, simply armed with a single pencil. You send a kid from the Western world to school by bus, in a school with gymnasiums, laboratories, video equipment, computers etc. and they feel it's a burden imposed to them. Something is obviously wrong.

 

[David Lewis]

I need to ensure that the students are proficient in the material as promised to the accrediting agency and those paying for the education.

I believe your students' future employers would also constitute part of the school's customer base.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I believe your students' future employers would also constitute part of the school's customer base.

This view is absolutely right. Some years ago, a colleague and I wrote:

Consequences [of treating students as customers] are potentially disastrous, because the notion that “the customer is always right” can lead to the perceived product (course credit or degree) meeting the desires of the misidentified “customer” (student) rather than the real product (value added to student) meeting the standards of the properly identified customers (future employers and taxpayers).

See: Who Is The Customer in Higher Education? https://arxiv.org/vc/physics/papers/0612/0612117v1.pdf

ABET accreditation in engineering and the ACS approval of degree programs in Chemistry have done a lot to maintain quality in these fields, and employers of engineers and Chemists often require or strongly prefer the accredited/approved degrees. When I interviewed for a position as the founding director of a Forensic Science Program a mid-tier university in the south, I was clear that I wanted the program to be accredited by the accrediting commission of the AAFS (See: http://fepac-edu.org/ ). The university seemed to agree with my view and they hired me. I also began visiting crime labs in the state to speak with this customer base directly and see what they wanted/needed in graduates. They clearly expressed they were in dire need of sound scientific fundamentals rather than lots of job-specific application details. I designed the program accordingly to meet both the FEPAC standards and crime lab needs. But the university's highest goal was really student happiness and retention. They had no real intention of a rigorous Forensic Science Program (or any rigorous science program), and they had my resignation as soon as I realized this. 12 years later, a vanishingly small percentage of program graduates are working as forensic scientists.

The challenge in Physics is twofold: 1) There is no accrediting or approval program through which future employers can express what they would like to see in graduates. 2) Future employers are much more varied for physics graduates than they are for graduates in Chemistry, Forensic Science, or a specific field of Engineering. The stronger programs (meaning more rigorous academically) tend to see graduate school as being the biggest customer of their graduates. (And it probably is.) But the weaker programs both lack a clear vision for the employable skills of their graduates, as well as the required academic rigor to ensure proficiency for graduates in whatever learning objectives they settle on. What good is a well-identified customer and great learning objectives if a degree is not anywhere near an indicator of proficiency?

My view is that a sharp, well-trained mind, an excellent work ethic, and the ability to follow instructions are more important to potential employers of physics graduates than a specific skill set. A degree of sufficient rigor that students really had to work hard 40-60 hours a week for 8 semesters better prepares students to be good employees even if it missed a some topics a specific employer would prefer. Graduates who learned to be diligent can pick up new skills quickly. In contrast, students who managed to pass with only an hour or two effort each week outside of class most weeks are lazy and will not make good employees even if the topical coverage of their curriculum was much more in line with employer needs.

Zooming back out, there are just too many common employment paths for Physics grads to hit the right topics for all of them with the number of credit hours of Math and Physics in most 120-128 credit hour degree programs. But we can teach honest hard work, the ability to follow instructions and turn work in on time, and impart sharp, analytical minds to all our graduates.

 

[jack action]

Consequences [of treating students as customers] are potentially disastrous, because the notion that “the customer is always right” can lead to the perceived product (course credit or degree) meeting the desires of the misidentified “customer” (student) rather than the real product (value added to student) meeting the standards of the properly identified customers (future employers and taxpayers).

The biggest problem is not a misidentified customer. The problem is that the student is not aware of what is good for him or her. How come the student does not know what will be good for him or her? If he or she was, they would be motivated and learning would be a breeze. It all comes back to show the problem before teaching the solution.

You've thrown another group in there: the taxpayers. But do taxpayers really know what is needed? Do they really understand what they are getting in return for what they are paying? Why does someone who cannot appreciate what trigonometry can be used for, would pay for teaching Taylor series or Laplace transform to the next generation? If that person doesn't want to learn it for himself or herself, why would his or her kid want to learn it? If they would like to learn it but can't stop saying to everyone they don't have the "gift" for it, why would a kid not think the same at the first difficulty he or she encounters? It's even worst when they start saying stuff like: "All that theory is not applicable in the real world and is a waste of time." What kid would be motivated by such statement?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

You've thrown another group in there: the taxpayers. But do taxpayers really know what is needed? Do they really understand what they are getting in return for what they are paying?

Taxpayers express their will regarding how their taxes get spent through the republican process. Legislators express some of this will through law and educational standards codified in law. In other ways, this will is expressed through Departments of Education and other administrators and bodies that develop curricula. My wife and I had a long, hard look at public education and chose to home school our children. We had a strong inclination that we'd be raising scientists, and all our children turned out to be science majors (Physics and Chemistry). Homeschooling gave us nearly complete freedom to dictate our own curriculum - other than needing to include at least 180 hours each year of science and math, we could do anything we saw fit to prepare our children for their anticipated college choices.

Our core science and math courses had 90+% overlap with public school STEM curricula, and our students have ended up extremely well prepared for college. The problem with public schools is mostly with the quality of teaching and assessment of real learning (academic rigor required to pass) rather than with the topical content. The problem lies with accountability rather than content. In our home school, we fixed the accountability problem, and we succeeded. We didn't spend much time and effort on the motivation side. Since we were trustworthy as parents, "Because I said so" was a good enough answer most of the time. By the time they had graduated from high school (with unaccredited degrees, no less), our students had put together the pieces of why what they were learning is important, but often it is much easier to see the utility of knowing things after you know them than before.

There simply is not sufficient time to zoom out and treat the importance of knowing a specific topic every time a student begins to struggle with that topic. A better approach is to establish integrity in the system so that students trust a more general "this will better prepare you for later challenges in life" rather than daily rabbit trails of why every topic is important. Lots of academic exercises are important for building the strength of the mind for later problem solving, and having a student ask "when I need to know how to balance chemical equations?" is akin to a football player asking when he'll ever squat a certain weight in a football game. It's the strength that's needed, not the exact skill.

When daily hurdles are hit and students lack motivation, my approach is to come along side and break down the challenge into a series of logical steps that the student can manage with their current abilities. This is a productive use of the time that might be wasted by spending too much time on "why this topic is important too." But it depends on the students trusting the teachers that following instructions regarding learning objectives is really going to help them. But on the whole public education has produced too many incompetent teachers and the fraudulent gifting of grades has gone on too long to see a clear path to a remedy for the trust problem in public education. Perhaps it is time to wipe that slate clean and start over.

 

[jack action]

My wife and I had a long, hard look at public education and chose to home school our children. We had a strong inclination that we'd be raising scientists, and all our children turned out to be science majors (Physics and Chemistry). Homeschooling gave us nearly complete freedom to dictate our own curriculum - other than needing to include at least 180 hours each year of science and math, we could do anything we saw fit to prepare our children for their anticipated college choices.

Are kidding me? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Not only YOU are a scientist and use and value science in your daily life, you went out of your way to make sure your kids had the best tools to succeed. What message do you think they got from that?

We didn't spend much time and effort on the motivation side.

You didn't need too. They already understood how important it was for their parents and that might be all the motivation they needed. I bet you and your wife were talking science often in your daily life in front of your kids, maybe even solve problems with it in your daily routine.

Since we were trustworthy as parents

For all kids, their parents are trustworthy. And if their parents say: «No clue what that is, never used it in my life.» That is a strong motivator to NOT do something. If a teacher enters the life of these kids for, say, 45 hours in their lifetime, and says the opposite ... well this teacher must be damn well convincing to change the kids opinion comparing to their trustworthy parents they've been living with for years.

You told showed your kids their needs without explaining anything to them. You told showed them that you couldn't have the lives you have without having the knowledge you have. They don't need to hear the words and the logic, they can figure it out by themselves intuitively.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

For all kids, their parents are trustworthy. And if their parents say: «No clue what that is, never used it in my life.» That is a strong motivator to NOT do something.

There is really very little teachers can do in limited class time if trustworthy authorities as the parents are undermining their efforts this strongly. But the premise of this argument is flawed. It is foolish to keep repeating and justifying the false premise as if it needs a direct answer.

The strength of mind brought by academic efforts and learning are more likely to be of value than the actual learning and skill set. Therefore, wise parents (and teachers) will answer more like, "Learning to balance chemical equations will give you a strong mind for solving all kinds of problems in real life even if you never need to balance a chemical equation after you finish school." Somehow everyone understands why general body strength is important for athletes, but many forget how general intellectual dexterity is essential for those who earn our living primarily with our minds rather than with our backs.

The science class is the weight room for the mind. That is _why_ it is important. A parent who may not be educated enough to go into detail might answer (as my mother answered to me, paraphrased), "You need to learn your science and math so you can have an easier life than I have had and not have to work in bars and restaurants" or as my 4th grade math teacher answered (more verbatim), "Do your math homework or you'll be digging ditches."

 

[jack action]

"You need to learn your science and math so you can have an easier life than I have had and not have to work in bars and restaurants" or as my 4th grade math teacher answered (more verbatim), "Do your math homework or you'll be digging ditches."

What everyone should understand is that science can be extremely helpful when working in bars and restaurants or digging ditches. Unless you aim for a society of elitists (the ones who can) and slaves (the ones who can't). Having a strong mind shouldn't mean you do not have to do manual work. It just means you work smarter.

 

[nomadreid]

I would be extremely interested to hear an argument that would convince hormone-filled teen-agers that knowing the electron shell structure is going to help them dig ditches or, for that matter, help said adolescent in their future dream professions of being the lead guitarist in a metal/goth/metalcore band or YouTuber.