I am a science
teacher.
I teach
chemistry, physics, and engineering. I teach about quantum mechanics,
wave-particle duality, and relativity.
The irony is
that I am not really concerned with the actual content of my courses. Don’t get
me wrong, content is important. My courses are rigorous; so much so that every
course I teach to my high school students, counts for college credit.
However,
content is the method, not the goal. Content is a tool that we use to teach
with.
The actual
goal of education is to help students develop the ability to use all of their
combined skills and resources to solve problems.
My science
classes can certainly help students add to their problem solving tool box.
Learning how solid metals undergo phase change and ionization during the ionic
bonding process allows my students the opportunity to take a complex set of
data, break it down and identify trends to predict future outcomes. At least in
theory, anyway.
Far too
often, though, the science lab can get reduced to performing experiments with
predetermined outcomes that the student has already learned about and are being
“confirmed” by completing specified tasks.
What we need
more of in science is what scientists used to get us here; a good dose of
imagination.
How many of
our advancements in science came straight out of the pages of science fiction
novels? From Mary Shelley to Isaac Asimov, our science fiction writers have
served up countless ideas about how we might one day alter the universe around
us to meet our needs.
To end the
story there, as so many do, would be a travesty. You see it is not the science fiction that is important to
future generations, but the fiction itself.
The ability
to imagine an entire world or even just a single event is vital to the problem
solving cycle that we are so desperately trying to teach our youth.
The subject
itself is less important than the shear act of looking at the universe and
altering it, even if only slightly, to match our needs.
Some of the
most influential courses on my teaching practices were literature courses. From
reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis to The Brothers Karamazov to The Hobbit, one
learns that the power of fiction to describe reality is, perhaps, without
equal.
After all,
as a chemistry and physics teacher, I am often faced with trying to describe
what can sometimes only be perceived as strange and magical worlds of protons,
neutrons, and quarks. If I can tell the tale of quantum mechanics using similar
techniques as my literary colleagues, then my students will be better for it.
One the most
impactful lessons in my physics class is when we study the screenplay,
Copenhagen. It is a fictional retelling of the meeting between two of the most
important quantum physicists of the 20th century, Neils Bohr and
Werner Heisenberg. Without the humanizing tale of Copenhagen, my students would
struggle to tie together the politics, science, and personal relationships that
helped shaped the outcome of WWII and the world as we know it.
Simply
stated, without a fictional play, my physics class would have less impact.
At the end of the day, STEM education is
vitally important; but the arts and literature are just as important. So do me favor…
Keep writing.
Jeff Charbonneau
2013 National Teacher of the Year
ZHS Science Teacher
CWU/EWU Adjunct Instructor in Chemistry/Physics
STEM Coordinator for ESD 105
4 comments:
Hello, Jeff! Welcome to HoF, and thank you for this truly thoughtful and heartening take on things. My son is a chemist. He is also an very creative person. The combination did not always get him the grades he wanted in school, because he found new ways of getting to the same result while the teachers required him to go at it a specific way. I get it--they need to know he's absorbing what they're teaching but it's really a shame that creativity--especially when something new and exiting actually WORKS--doesn't get the recognition it deserves.
One teacher was forced to give him a C on a lab, but took him aside and told him it was killing him to do it, but his hands were tied. No one in all his years teaching had ever come at the procedure the way my son did. The prof was truly excited to see what he'd done, but the course requirements tied his hands.
I have to say, the prof's enthusiasm and praise meant more to my son, and to me, than the grade. It's just a shame that creativity is often at odds with the reality of a classroom.
Jeff, thanks so much for joining us on HoF!
I struggle a lot in my labs trying to get it into my students' heads that unexpected results do not necessarily mean they did something "wrong". The best of science forces us constantly out of the box and into new ways of viewing the world. Fiction does the same. Both modes of scholarship require hard work, discipline, and adherence to an important set of rules. But both of them also require a heavy dose of creativity.
Thanks for a wonderful, thought- provoking post. I'll be passing this link along.
Thank you for this, Jeff - and we can only hope there are many more educators in the world with your understanding and vision of what true education is. If you don't mind, I'd like to share this post around!
Piper, I have alerted Jeff to the possibility of sneaking on here to respond to comments, but I'm not sure he will. I do not think he would have any qualms about any of us sharing his post. Have at it!
Mark
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