Wonder, Wonder Everywhere
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For most children, somewhere around the age of 10 there is an awakening to the wonders of the world. Fueled by a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed naiveté, they catch a glimpse of the magic of the universe while marveling at a dandelion bloom, cradling a simple toad, or gazing at the faint, mist-like Milky Way on a dark summer night.
There is wonder in all of this -- clear, unabashed wonder at the "why" and the "how" and the "if" of the world. And for all intents and purposes, the wonder has not changed over the millennia. It is the subtle, driving engine that for centuries has pointed the curious toward the sciences and the quest for knowing.
But all too often, the basic drive that starts our wonder, the glimpse through a slightly opened door, goes awry. Instead of embarking upon a voyage of enlightenment, some would-be scientists are smothered by avalanches of facts and figures, theorems, laws, and equations. Such information is the foundation of what governs the sciences, but sadly it is also what extinguishes the spark of wonder.
For decades now, reams of papers and multiple studies have warned of America 's loss of technologically supremacy, and still, for all our efforts at stemming the tide that flows away from the sciences, we have missed the simple truth that undergirds all fields.
There is little fun left in science. We have lost the joy of discovery.
As a tribe, scientists have never been driven by hopes of any real monetary gain. Glory, yes, but seldom riches. Instead, they have reveled in the learning and the knowing. Why roots grow down and stems up. How bats find gnats at midnight. The microscopic burglary of viruses stealing their way into healthy cells.
That is why scientists do science. The learning. The knowing. The chance to read the assembly manual for the universe.
This is what lures children toward careers in science.
What drives them away is the poor way we teach it. Ineffective teaching is at the root of our failings in science education as a nation. Science lessons are often built of vocabulary lists, of theorems and laws, the dissection of facts into their smallest components. We have traded the "Mr. Wizard" wonder of science for indoctrination in the scientific method.
Science textbooks are laden with formulae and have become formulaic themselves. The process resembles an immense checklist of facts to be stored and accounted for by every student pointed towards science. And it is a ponderous list indeed.
Some years back, mathematics educators accepted the long-fought idea that coming up with the correct answer is less important than understanding how it was reached. The ability to digest the problem is more important than its solution. And that acceptance has led to the use of calculators and computers in the same classes where pencils and paper once reigned.
Cannot the same work for science? Surely the scientific method can be followed without it becoming dogma. And the wonder of discovery can stay at the core of all science instruction.
Science educators have more recently realized that while children must work at learning science, learning science need not seem like work.
There is a difference between the two. Effective science instruction is self-motivated. The student provides the drive to know, to discover. The teacher serves as a guide rather than as a police officer.
Universities must take the lead in forging a new way of attracting America 's youth to science and in so doing, help primary and secondary school teachers draw upon the wonder.
There is a danger in this approach, however, one built on the risk of overselling the product, of painting a picture of science as filled with a continuing series of "eureka" moments. One researcher on campus this fall to help plan a national meeting on science education said, "The sad truth is that much of the doing of science is routine. And it is certainly boring at times." Unreal expectations of what a life in science entails could do as much harm as an anti-science bias.
"Still," the researcher added, "when those moments come -- and they do come -- it makes all the rest worthwhile. It is the moment of discovery."
Solving the problems of science education will neither be quick nor easy. Neither can they be solved by one group alone. What is required is a new partnership between public education and higher education to return the wonder to science, both for the students and the teachers.
Imagine a decade of discovery, dedicated to melding the spirit of wonder with the depth of our scientific knowledge. Imagine the wonder of a nation of 10-year-olds. And imagine what that might yield. __EMH