After reading Leon Lederman’s comments and the responses by Michael Bretz, Ian Thomas, and Douglas Giancoli with Lederman’s reply, I am compelled to respond from my experience in the high-school physics classroom. Order of classes, though a thought-provoking aspect of science education, is not the most relevant issue. The most pressing issue is teaching science as science is practiced, regardless at what level or in what order.
In his response, Lederman refers to the “firm, conceptual, and process-rich sequence I am trying to describe.” It is this conceptual thread that runs through what is referred to as inquiry-based science teaching and student learning. As a public-school physics teacher, I am responsible to my students to get them excited about learning physics. This goal will not likely be achieved if we do not give our students time to explore and truly discover those phenomena that get us to work or school, allow us to enjoy music and art, or understand what (aside from pain) is involved when an outside linebacker makes a quarterback a part of the turf.
Two methods that allow for conceptual development are the learning cycle 1 and the conceptual change model. 2 In these inquiry-based methods, students are required to explore, discover, and, in many cases, change their ingrained perceptions of the universe.
Another aspect of teaching science, addressed by Giancoli, is the idea of cross-curricular teaching. True, we should not expect the biology teacher to teach the fluid dynamics of the circulatory system, or the chemistry teacher to teach the concept of cross sections when introducing nuclear chemistry. Yet teachers need to team-teach occasionally to show students how truly connected all of the disciplines are. At my former high school, I team-taught a lesson with the social studies department chair during his unit on World War II. He taught the political aspects of the Manhattan Project and I took on the military and scientific aspects. The students were quite surprised that two teachers of differing disciplines would take the time to teach in this manner, and their attention was not difficult to maintain.
As with any change, there will be plenty of system and procedural inertia to overcome. Tackling this hurdle will require systemic change in teacher preparation and professional development, which I thought Roger Tobin, Ramon Lopez, and Steven Bittenson addressed nicely ( Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 55 1 2002 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1457247 January 2002, page 10 .)
Lederman is certainly accurate in saying that the Third International Math and Science Study results should be a red flag indicating a serious lack in our public-school science classrooms, but let’s not take tests to the extreme that our body politic is suggesting. Let’s use them to generate dialogue about how to repair the problem, not to affix blame.
If inquiry-based teaching and learning are to truly take hold in this nation’s science curriculum, time is a critical factor. Inquiry comes at a cost in both dollars and time. In Richard Rhodes’s book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon & Schuster, 1986, p. 108), Theodore von Kármán, seen by most as the architect of the space age, said of his science education, “At no time did we memorize rules from a book. We sought to develop them ourselves.” Rhodes added, “What better basic training for a scientist?” If it worked for von Kármán, it will work for our children. As Plutarch said, “The mind is not merely a vessel to be filled, but rather a fire to be kindled.”
