Two Critical Incidents in School Science Nick Selley Prepared for the Second International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, Herstmonceux Castle, UK, August 16-20, 1998

   

For some time I have been aware of frequent cases of discrepancy between my values concerning science education, and those prevalent in some educational situations in which I am involved. I have recently attempted to record these moments, using a kind of 'objective' narrative style. Possibly the attempt to portray the events from the viewpoint of a neutral observer will enable me to see more clearly the range of value positions which are possible. Of course it may be that it is impossible for an author of a narrative ever to eliminate preconceptions - but the pretence of doing so may make for clarity of analysis. We shall see. I believe that the technique has helped me to recognize that the two educational situations, in the narratives which follow, are fundamentally different.

Critical Incident no. 107: I Didn't Mention It Aloud.

I visited a school to see a Year 7 science lesson, given by a PGCE trainee teacher. The theme was 'Life and Living Things', which is often put at the start of a biology module. As a preparation for the lesson, the students had been given, as homework, the task of classifying some ten objects; and these were all obviously living or inanimate. So far so good.

After the unanimity of the sorting had been established, the teacher's opening question was 'In what way are all these alike?': 'these' being cat, chimpanzee, crocodile, hare, rabbit, and flower. This rapidly led to confusion and stress, since most pupils could not see any clear meaning to the question. Some were alike because they had fur; some had long ears; most had four legs. But so what? In the end the teacher had to give them the answer, which was 'They are all alive'. This was met with great lack of enthusiasm, since it was, once stated, so obvious that the class felt that they had been tricked.

Further attempts to open up a discussion, by questions such as 'What is life?', were unfruitful. The class knew, by now, that their own suggestions were likely to be disqualified, on unpredictable grounds. The one question that did arouse intense participation was about a girl pupil who had an almost identical sister in another class: were they alike or different? This linguistic quibble had enough fire in it to light up a lively debate, if the teacher had chosen to harness it.

The teacher-in-training now showed the class, by OHP, a list of seven words, each with a definition. Taking them one at a time, he asked whether they applied to the various items in the original list. This attempt to apply the scientific terms to actual examples was admirable in theory, but unsuccessful in practice because the words themselves were unrecognizable. They were: Reproduction, Irritability, Nutrition, Growth, B**** (which I forget), Excretion, and Respiration. 'Growth' was probably the only word which was received as intended. Reproduction, Excretion and Respiration were given common-speech connotations that clearly could not apply to plants. Irritability means, of course, a bad temper, as associated with humans, dogs and probably bulls. The pupils were, we must remember, only ten years old, of typical mixed attainment, and unaccustomed to technical biology.

In order to bring back some interest in the lesson, the teacher brought on the prize exhibit, as provided by the school, and already used in similar lessons with other classes: it was an ingenious mechanical toy dog, that barked and hopped when commanded by any loud sound signal. He demonstrated this, making the dog jump when he shouted 'jump', etc. The teaching point was that the toy dog exhibited some, but only some, of the seven 'Characteristics of Life'. Therefore it only seemed to be alive. The greatest resemblance to a living thing was in its 'Irritability' (which, it turned out, meant 'responsiveness to stimuli'). But it also had batteries, which could count as Nutrition.

The class, although momentarily amused by the irritating yapping and prancing of the poodle, were not won over to liking the lesson. Perhaps they felt a little alienated by the strange use of the English language, or (more fundamentally) by the constraints which had been put on their freedom to think about experience in their own chosen way.

As intelligent discussion had by now become impossible, our teacher made the class copy into their 'best' books everything that he had written on the board, and the offending Overhead Transparency.

In the post-lesson review, the school's Professional Tutor (and Head of Science, and regular teacher of this class) was highly critical of the management, the slow pace, and what he saw as failure to teach efficiently. By this he meant a failure, or perhaps a reluctance, to instruct the class in the seven special words.

It turned out that the reason for the inclusion of 'irritability' instead of the more comprehensible 'responsiveness' was that a vowel was necessary for creating a certain mnemonic; and it was a requirement of the school's Year 7 science curriculum that every pupil should memorize this name, and of course the seven constituent words; and would all be tested on this knowledge in the end-of-year examination.

The student teacher was aware that some pupils (at least) were uncomfortable with this task, and asked what could be done. The Head of Science said that he knew of a different mnemonic ('Mrs. Green': Movement, Reproduction, Shelter(?), Growth .. etc.) that was reputed to be easier to learn; and he was considering introducing it into the school from the next year.

I mentioned that the pupils had been quite intrigued by the question of the status of wood, wool, etc., which had come from living things but could not be said to be 'alive'. Perhaps a way forward lay in inviting them to explore, using their own understanding and vocabulary, some of the items which they found difficulty in categorizing.

To my surprise, the Professional Tutor responded vigorously, and immediately condemned any suggestion of allowing the pupils to discuss ambiguous cases. He declared sternly: 'I would say that we had failed in our duty if we allowed any pupils to leave Year 7 believing that Science had not got a clear definition of Living Systems, and was not sure whether or not something like a motor-cycle was alive.'

I was reminded of the answer given by a ten-year-old girl at a school far from this one: 'The Sun is alive.' 'Why do you think so?' 'Because it never dies.' (I take it that the implication of her words was: 'even when other living things do'.)

But I didn't mention it aloud. It would not have been accepted as relevant to a school biology lesson.

Critical Incident no. 109 : Fishes and Birols.

The class was the lowest of six Year 9 sets, in an all-girls school. The topic of the lesson was biological classification, and the necessary information was all to be found in the textbook, on a double-page spread entitled The Animal Kingdom. This gave equal space to the groups (roughly the phyla): coelenterates, annelids, molluscs, echinoderms, arthropods and vertebrates. Each of these headings in the diagram was followed by selected examples of members of the group. For example: marine worm, leech, segmented worm; shrimp, spider, insect; fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal. All very systematic. The corners of the page were occupied by a few small pictures of representative animals, and some brief descriptions of the distinctive features (such as the earthworm being 'obviously segmented').

The task that the teacher had set, the week before, seemed simple enough, and it was in fact derived from the SEN support material which accompanied the textbook. Sheets of 12 standard nameddrawings of selected animals (brittlestar, jellyfish, beetle, etc.) were to be cut up into little rectangles, and glued in place on an outline diagram of the Classification system. Given that they were all mentioned on the textbook page, this was not an unduly difficult task, and required only care, attention to detail, and the knack of getting the PVA glue out of the ancient bottles. Most of the girls were now, in the second double period, near to completing the exercise. They were all (all ten of them) staying 'on task', and working diligently, in near-silence. The teacher was kept busy, occasionally confirming the correct placing of some item, but mainly as 'glue unblocker', using an opened-out paper clip to poke into the nozzle.

As they finished the girls went on to the next worksheet, which was a table of two columns, one the Animal Group (already filled by Arthropod, etc.), the second for Examples (to be inserted). The information was in the diagram in the textbook, but copying the words did present quite a challenge. I questioned the pupils as I went round, and found that many of the names were unknown to them. Not only 'annelid' but also 'leech', 'segmented', and even 'worm'; but since English was a second language for most of the class, I suppose that this was not surprising. I asked one child where she would expect to find a marine worm, but that question was too clever by far.

By mischance, a blemish in the printing plate had caused the words bird and mammal to appear imperfect in all copies; and when I found that two girls had copied them as 'birol' and 'manimal', I asked them what they thought these creatures would be like. Of course they had no answer: they were completing a table, not learning about animals.

One further instance helped me to locate the students' present readiness for learning. I asked a girl, who was struggling a bit with fish and bird (we had cleared up the 'birol' error by then), whether she could tell me the name of any fish. She replied 'starfish and jellyfish', two words that she had recently copied (Well done indeed!). I told her, and my conscience still troubles me, that these were 'not really fish'; and asked for a fish that we might see swimming in the sea. She looked at the textbook, pointed to the only picture of a swimming vertebrate, and said 'that one'. It was a dolphin. I pressed on with 'What kind of fish do you eat?' 'Fish Fingers: - Finger-fish?' 'Do you know any names of fish in your own language?' She called to the teacher, who was a short way off, and they conversed in Hindi for a few minutes, after which he assured me that she knew quite a few fish including tuna, shark and rayfish.

It became clear to me that although the worksheets had been modified to meet the needs of SEN pupils, the curriculum had not been differentiated at all. After the lesson, in conversation with the student teacher and class teacher, I mentioned that the pupils seemed not to have the faintest idea of what they were copying, and did not even expect it to contain any meaning; so why were they being given science content which was so unsuitable for them? Why could they not work with animals that they knew - i.e. mainly vertebrates. The answer was that the classification of vertebrates 'had already been done' - in Year 7. The Year 9 textbook, which (it was assumed) they had to use, contained hardly any reference to large or familiar animals.

And might not the student teacher look around for other resources, containing information about the living world more accessible to these pupils? This suggestion was greeted with suspicion, but also that patient tolerance that we reserve for the ignorant or unaware: for the reason was that all the pupils in the Year group (i.e. all the sets from a to g) had to take the same end-of-module Test. And their prospects for promotion to a higher set rested entirely on the marks that they would get in that Test. [I was informed, just to make it absolutely clear why this procedure was essential to the well-being of the School, that these Tests were constructed in close imitation of the KS3 SATs.]

Later the Head of Science agreed with me that there was little point in making the lower sets take this common test, but it was a practice imposed upon them all as School Policy. He softened the depressing impact of the low test results by including a set of True/False questions, because he had found that on these the weakest candidates 'did surprisingly well'. But apart from that, they would score hardly any marks. I suppose it is easy to get your echinoderms mixed up with your amphibians, when you have no idea what either is.

I believe that considerable harm is being done in following this rigid, arid, specialist-knowledge-based curriculum. Mainly this is the lost opportunities to teach something intelligible, interesting, even enjoyable: the variety of animal life treated as living, moving, thinking creatures (rather than items for classification). Animal behaviour; the matching of bodies and habits to the habitat; predators and prey; reproduction, population, communication, etc. etc. But, more than just a lost opportunity, the curriculum could be positively disheartening, alienating, and either boring or infuriating, depending on the pupil's temperament. These girls were docile, and probably grateful for anything the school might give them. But others could well respond to this insultingly degrading curriculum by rebellion and disobedience.

It would not take an impossibly great change of approach to bring these girls into a state of participation in learning. The teacher could borrow some Year 7 books, on the acceptable grounds that the class 'needed the revision'. [In fact many of them had not even been in the school when the Year 7 work had been 'done'; and their language needs were in any case such that reinforcement of familiar vocabulary was a prime necessity.] The student teacher could borrow posters, or record off-air one of the excellent wildlife or Schools TV programmes; and then use this kind of stimulus for written work which involved some thought, judgement, and understanding of (simple) principles. But mainly for the sheer pleasure of seeing all those animals (names optional).

Secondly, I must not blame the teacher or the Science Department, for the inappropriate content of the lesson. I blame the textbook authors who, in a concise and tightly structured course made no real provision for the less academic pupils (and I estimate that this would be 80% of the population of state schools). The SEN worksheets were a deception and fraud, since they did not address the problem of communication and comprehension; instead they just provided a sterile 'busy-work' activity to keep the students quiet.

I do not normally blame the National Curriculum for poor science teaching, because the programmes of study are usually sufficiently loosely drafted as to allow sympathetic interpretation for a wide range of student abilities; but in this case, when I looked it up, I was disappointed. The statement at KS3 goes

'Pupils should be taught: to classify living things into the major taxonomic groups.'

Note the 'the' (my italics): not much room there for the teacher's pedagogical judgement. Nor much sympathy for second-language pupils working towards Level 4. What a pity a printing blemish didn't obliterate that word.

Postscript

A year or so later, Jack Whitehead told me that the first story left him feeling 'empty and depressed', while the second one seems to offer some hope. I think that the first is sparse, and without commentary, because I was so pessimistic at finding the school secure and confident in educational values which I detest. In the second Critical Incident I was able to insert some comments, reflective of my views; and this was because I sensed that the school's position was not a deliberate one, but arising from insufficient attention to the needs of the class. This could be remedied, and I might be able to make a contribution. [P.S. Two months later the trainee teacher had made her own differentiated resources, utilising coloured postcards of familiar animals and plants, with some bilingual labels.]