No sooner do I post an answer for one “Ask a ScienceBlogger” question than another one gets posted. If you thought Summer at ScienceBlogs was going to involve lots of lounging by the pool and drinks with paper umbrellas, that’s not how it’s shaping up.
The question of the week: What makes a good science teacher?
Others are already weighing in about the things a good science teacher ought to do. I would like to remind current and future science teachers (and those who interact with them) what good science teachers ought not to do.
Full disclosure: This is part of a rant I’ve ranted before. I still believe it.
Every science teacher (especially in middle school and high school) who tries to convince his/her students that only really smart students could possibly understand anything scientific needs to be rounded up and administered a resounding dope-slap. Is it any wonder that people dodge science classes in college with this kind of early encouragement? Given our societal dumbening about matters scientific, we’ve got no room for science teachers who can’t teach science to their students (which, really, is what’s going on when a teacher says, “If you’re not smart enough to understand this on your own, I can’t help you.”)
Adding to the old rant just a little:
- In the grand scheme of things, the most important knowledge for the science teacher to transmit has to do with methodology rather than a laundry list of facts (especially since lots of the facts get updated). And the methods of scientific inquiry are not completely divorced from common sense. Building on the continuities between the two is a good way to get the kids who may not grow up to be scientists* a good appreciation of how science works.
- Sometimes the “science is for supergeniuses” stance is a cover for weak pedagogical skills — the teacher assumes that the kids who manage to figure out what’s going on despite the teacher’s opaque explanations are the ones who “have what it takes” to do science. Maybe they just have what it takes to learn science from a textbook rather than from a teacher; that doesn’t mean that the ones who need some teaching with their textbooks couldn’t be awesome scientists.
- Other times the “science is for supergeniuses” stance is a cover for the teacher’s shaky mastery of the science he or she is teaching. It would be better for the teacher to address this problem without making the students feel inadequate.
- More generally, if you’re a teacher, your goal when you walk into the classroom should be to teach all the students whatever it is you’re charged with teaching them. We don’t always meet our goals, but dammit, at least try!
- Treating science as if only people with gigantic brains can understand it feeds the already overfed stream of anti-intellectualism running through American culture at present. Science is kind of like soccer: not everyone will go pro, but a huge number of people can learn the game, play the game, and enjoy following the game. There really is a popular appeal to science that any teacher worth his NaCl ought to be playing up.
Science is cool, and every kid ought to learn some. This means a good science teacher needs to believe that it’s possible — and convey that to the students.
_____
*I have serious doubts that future professional scientists could be picked out of a class with any accuracy at age 12, or even age 18. Even if they could, it’s not clear to me that the science teachers (or the guidance counselors) would be the ones who could make the identification.
Well put, and I agree entirely. But please fix the boldface spelling error! 😉
At my high school science was strongly stratified and math idiots like me were barred from the advanced classes. I would have had to had my parents file a special letter in order to take physics. It would be benefited me to have taken more science in high school, but now that I am in college and can chose my own classes and teachers, I have taken organic chem and physics without problems and I’m catching up in math, but I’d be much further if I had been allowed to take real science classes in HS.
I agree, high schools need to let everyone have a chance to do science, not just the people who have already taken calculus or who score best on placement tests.
don’t forget the administrators who like to hobble those rare teachers who — gasp! — can teach science, but do so using unconventional methods. those unconventional teachers get fired because of their audacity, for being “different”, while the complacent, rigid, conformists retain their jobs so they can turn off yet more generations of students (and future voters) to science.
forever.
Bravo!
Your post reminds me of a physics teacher I had in high school who, along with several gifted physics classes, was required to teach two sections of mainstream physics. Although I was in the gifted program, I was not gifted (to say the least) when it came to math, so I took the lower-tracked physics class, the one that didn’t require calculus. We “slow” students couldn’t get any respect from the man, and when my parents tried to talk to him at Open House, he only seemed to have time for the parents of students in his gifted and AP classes. WTF?! That evening marked the only time I saw my dad, who was also a high school teacher (but of special ed students) do a very special flippin’-the-bird dance at the physics teacher’s back.
Earlier that year, when none of us in the “slow” class earned higher than a C- on a test, the same teacher told us we’d all be sleeping on park benches some day. He tossed the exams at us and locked himself in his office. Needless to say, when my parents heard about this, my dad called Mr. A**hole and left a message. The next day, Mr. A waited for the class to settle down and then, in an obvious attempt to humiliate me, asked why my father called. Since the class was quiet, I decided to address him from my seat near the back of the room, letting all my classmates know exactly what my parents and I thought of his methods. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a grown man grow so pale so fast. He called my father later to say he found me “surprisingly articulate,” and said I’m lucky I was in his sixth-period class because his seventh-period class (also mainstream physics) was “brain-dead.”
Years later he lost his credential for philandering with underage girls.
No, it’s not his fault I’m not a physicist, but he certainly disillusioned me to the hard sciences.
Oh, my goodness! It is so simple. I think Miz. Janet is saying “Science education is very different than scientist training.” Re: The footnoteThis has been proven over and over in the memoirs of career scientists who sustained and can be said about all levels of our current career evaluation system including tenure and promotion, publication peer review, and resource allocation.Polly A.