S.O.S. — or, more prosaically, Save Our Science

nick cowen, 2 December 2008

The Royal Society of Chemistry is currently organising a petition to the Prime Minister to register concern about the steep decline in the standard of science teaching that has recently taken place in the country’s schools.
The petition runs:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reverse the demonstrable decline in school science examination standards that is destroying our competitiveness.”

“Science examination standards at UK schools have eroded so severely that the testing of problem-solving, critical thinking and the application of mathematics has almost disappeared. Even bright students with enthusiastic teachers are being compelled to ‘learn to the test’, answering undemanding questions to satisfy the needs of league tables and national targets. The RSC has powerful evidence of the decline in standards, adding to the revelation that students are able to receive a ‘good pass’ with a mark of 20%. This system is failing an entire generation which will be unequipped to address key issues facing society, whether as specialist scientists or members of a wider scientific community.”
If ever one needed insight into the mind-set of the officialdom helping to bring about this destruction of the country’s education system, it is more than amply provided by what an unnamed spokesperson for the DCSF is reported to have said in rebuttal of the claims made in the petition:
“Times have changed — it is unlikely that pupils from the 1960s could answer questions set today, given that the role of science has changed so much in the last 40 years.”
Dear, oh dear.
It might have been one thing for this spokesperson to have said that pupils from the 1960s could not answer questions set today because science has advanced so much in the last 40 years. But in suggesting that the reason they could not do so is because the role of science has changed so much implies that examinations in science are intended to test pupils’ knowledge of the role or application science has in the world, and that the study of science in schools is study of that role.
While, increasingly, sadly, this is what science teaching and science assessment has come to be about at GCSE level certainly, the role science plays in the world is one thing and science itself is another. Understanding the role that science plays is what, in contemporary edu-speak, is often referred to as ‘scientific literacy’. Production of such ‘literacy’ has increasingly come to displace the teaching of scientific knowledge and understanding itself. But it is no substitute for the latter, as David Perks explained in ‘What is Science Education For?’ in the Civitas anthology The Corruption of the Curriculum. There Perks wrote:
‘The focusing of the [science] curriculum on controversial aspects of the implementation of science and technology, such as genetic modification [of crops] or nuclear power, can no doubt provide young people with opportunity to express themselves about issues we face. But in the absence of a thorough grasp of science and a clear understanding of its importance in the context of a particular debate, any discussion will quickly boil down to rhetorical posturing or simply confusion.’ (120-21)
‘Science teaching is … [ not just] passing on stories about science that are now being prescribed. It is about treating students as potential future scientists and providing them with a scientific understanding of the world that will stand them in good stead whether they pursue science further or not.’ [123]
The increasing replacement within the science curriculum of so-called ‘scientific literacy’ for genuine scientific knowledge and understanding has partially been responsible for the terrible dumbing-down of assessment in science of which the RSC complains in its petition. Michael Gove was reported to have observed in a recent speech that ‘science papers were now so easy that students did not need any prior scientific knowledge to answer some questions.’
In relation to the RSC’s petititon, I would only have one small cavil. Although I appreciate that, without competitiveness, the country will suffer a decline in wealth, there is far more at stake over the issue of whether children in this country receive a decent grounding in science than simply economic considerations. To appreciate what more is, it is often necessary to go back to writers of an earlier age who could see these matters far clearer than we can.
First, there are distinct civic or social benefits in having a public who has gained a basic understanding of the rudiments of science and its method. Such an understanding tends to mitigate against superstition arising from ignorance of science, and hence against the barbarisms and fanaticisms often associated with such ignorance. As Adam Smith explained in Book V of The Wealth of Nations, in terms that, perhaps, might strike some today as discordantly patrician:
‘The state… derives no inconsiderable advantage from the instruction [of the inferior ranks of people]. The more they are instructed, the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders… Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.’
Second, and, perhaps, more importantly in the present context, there are intrinsic benefits for someone of their having gained a scientific knowledge and understanding of the world. John Ruskin explained these benefits so in his incomparable book, The Stones of Venice:
‘The main mischief [caused by ignorance of the physical sciences] is that it leaves… men without the natural food… for their intellects. For one man who is fitted for the study of words, fifty are fitted for the study of things, and are… [capable of] a perpetual, simple and religious delight in watching the processes, admiring the creatures, of the natural universe. Deprived of this source of pleasure, nothing is left to them but ambition or dissipation; and the vices of the upper classes of Europe are, I believe, chiefly to be attributed to this single cause.’
One of the very first people to introduce the teaching of natural science into English classrooms was J.M.Wilson who was hired as one of the first teachers of science at Rugby. In an anthology on the nature of a liberal education, published in 1867, Wilson explained the intrinsic benefits that are uniquely obtainable from having acquired even only a basic scientific understanding of the world. He wrote:
‘Scientific knowledge… is no mean, and peddling, and quibbling knowledge, as the ignorant believe; it is the key to the highest ideas… The great thoughts and principles which are to be gained by scientific knowledge are not only of a quality that increases the dignity of a man’s mind… but are not inferior… to those which may be reached by other studies…
‘It is not granted to us to attain … [to the noble ideas which crown science] except by slow degrees. Step by step must the growing mind approach them; and to exclude them from our schools the preliminary steps is to debar from the attainment of such ideas all whose leisure in after-life is so curtailed that they can never break ground in any fresh subject for thought or labour [beyond what has been introduced to them at school]…To [someone who has gained the benefits of a scientific education], the stars of heaven, and the stones of earth, the forms of the hills, and the flowers of the hedges, are a constant source of that great and peculiar pleasure derived from intelligence [which is denied to an ordinary gentleman ignorant of everything in nature.]… The power of [intelligent sight], once gained, can never be lost.’
All this will be lost on the DCSF spokesperson and all the other philistines who now control state education in Britain. Can the situation be reversed before it becomes too late for oit to be reversed? Time will tell.
One small step that can be taken by those who share this concern is to add their name to the RSC petition which can be done electronically by clicking onto their website: Royal Society of Chemistry.