This article by Frances S. Vandervoort, a science teacher to gifted middle school students in Chicago, argues that science education is suffering in the US because it is presented in a way that is unappealing to students. Vandervoort claims that modern day science teachers should look to John Dewey for strategy on how to teach science. Dewey believed that science education should be inquiry based. Even though the article was published in the eighties, it still seems like the United States is lagging behind other countries in math and science today. Maybe it really is time to reevaluate how science is taught here and return to Dewey's ideas on how it should be done.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
John Dewey and Science Education
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.bu.edu/stable/4447618?seq=4&Search=yes&term=john&term=dewey&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Djohn%2Bdewey%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26wc%3Don&item=12&ttl=35552&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle
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As someone who could never tolerate science class, I find this particularly interesting. It never really occurred to me that science could be more accessible if it were taught in the way Dewey had dreamed, or a more inquiry-based curriculum.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I agree that science is the single most important discipline. However, there is no doubt that science is more important than high school students would like to think. Not being much of a science person myself, I'm not sure if the discipline or the teachers deserve more of the blame, but a revised system of scientific teaching could usher in a new generation of students more open to scientific thought and experiment.