method of science in the middle of the century, The

School Science and Mathematics, Nov 2001 by Oliver, J Steve, Nichols, B Kim

1901-2001

100 years

SSM CENTENNIAL

The optimism which came from an apparent prospect of victory in WWII was revealed in the pages of School Science and Mathematics even before the victory was complete. It seems hard to imagine now, more than 50 years later, but the sense of optimism and hope for the future of our society carried over briefly to the schools. Crediting US schools with a portion of the victory was all too quicklyreplaced with a sense that the new waves of the future were upon us and that we must move quickly to change our schools or run the risk that the next war would not come out quite so well.

Robert Samuelson, a writer for Newsweek, wrote in his 1995 book, The Good Life and Its Discontents, that many ofthe problems of American society are traceable to the post-WWII beliefs that after winning the war, no fight was unwinnable and thus no goal was too high, whether it was in technology, social welfare, or in education. As he wrote,

We had a grand vision. We didn't merely expect things to get better. We expected all social problems to be solved. We expected business cycles, economic insecurity, poverty, and racism to end. We expected limitless personal freedom and self fulfillment. (p. XIII)

And this exorbitant goal setting resulted in perpetual disappointment, due to the fact that those amazing modern technologies did not alleviate all difficulties and that social reforms did not eliminate poverty, or that school reform did not alleviate the problem of students failing to learn. It is this sense of disappointment over not accomplishing all that we could and thus seeming to have accomplished nothing that more than any other factor marks the literature about the products of schools and perhaps the entire baby boom generation.

Take one case in point. In 1964 a book was published under the auspicious title, New Curricula: A Report On the Methods and Programs for Teaching Science and the Humanities Which Promise to Revolutionize American Education. This title was partly hype, but it is also a reflection of the editor's beliefs about the potential. Chapter 1 begins with a statement regarding this potential.

The curricular revision described in this book are a part of a new reform movement in education which gives promise of bringing sweeping changes in all the schools from kindergarten through the university. This movement had its origins in the years following World War II when critics of the status quo in the public school found a large and receptive audience among troubled and discouraged parents who doubted that the schools were doing all they could do and ought to do for their children. It was augmented by academic scholars troubled by what they perceived to be a decline of standards and an outmoded curriculum in the high school. It was given impetus by international threats and by the launching of Sputnik I and the debate that followed. And, by 1960, it was supported by a growing number ofprofessional educators who had become convinced that a new look was needed in American education. (p. 1)

Like so many statements of reform found throughout the history of education, this one could have been written about recent innovations ifthe word curriculum had been replaced by standards in a few select places. But the important point for the journal SSM is to look back and see how the new curriculum developed from the ideas of scholars and teachers.

This installment of the centennial series will begin with the year 1945. The articles in School Science and Mathematics were projecting an optimism about the end of the war. Frequently, there were articles discussing the importance of using the "Scientific Method." This was not a new topic for SSM, but it took on a new impetus when at the end of the long war there was a great recognition for what science accomplished in the war effort-not just the atomic bomb, but also radar, codes and computers, and communications. The products of science and their importance was a natural entree to thinking about how science was done. And this emphasis in the literature on how science was done was a key component of the efforts to make science increasingly important in schools.

The January 1945 issue of SSM contained an article by David Aptekar of Mackenzie High School, Detroit, MI, titled "Can Science Courses be Taught Scientifically?" He was not an author who gave the science teaching of the past credit for the success in WWII.

Now that everybody is concerned with postwar planning we naturally turn our attention to the challenge of doing a better job of teaching science. Critical reflective analysis of our courses indicates that many of us are victims of the "traditional approach" to the teaching of the exact sciences. With few exceptions approved texts follow an order of presentation that has been in mode for at least twenty years. (p. 33)

Aptekar went on to say that, though it may have been possible to teach all the knowledge of science at some point in the past, it was no longer (in 1945) a reasonable objective. "Teachers' conventions are often characterized by discussion on how to include new topics in an already overstuffed text" (p. 33). Interestingly, he did not say that the new topics were being stuffed into a curriculum but rather into an "already overstuffed text." As he continued, it seemed clear that there was no difference between these two aspects of the science course. For instance, he wrote, regarding the objectives of the "modern" science curriculum, which sought to encourage the student to "learn to employ principles, laws, theories, and facts to answer questions. Examined in the light of these objectives, the style of presentation of our present texts seems inadequate" (p. 34).