Science education - for whom?

1.1 The vocational imperative

Science is taught to many different people, at many different levels. The
exact reasons why particular items of scientific knowledge are taught in
particular ways to particular groups of students cannot always be
determined, except by reference to traditional practice. For teachers
and for pupils, science education serves a variety of purposes that are
seldom clearly defined.
But one of the main reasons for including the natural sciences in
secondary and tertiary education is that they are a necessary prepara-
tion for certain aspects of modern life. Many people need to know
certain elements of science to practise their professions; many jobs
cannot be satisfactorily performed without some degree of scientific
knowledge. Not all science education is strictly vocational. Many school
pupils and university students take courses in scientific subjects because
they happen to be interested in them, or very good at them - that is for
the same reason as they take 'useless' subjects such as history or classics.
But the provision of the means for acquiring and transmitting scientific
knowledge - schools, technical colleges, universities, teachers, lectur-
ers, laboratories, research institutes and so on - would not be supported
to the tune of so many thousands of millions of pounds if this were not
an essential feature of contemporary civilization. The science that is
needed by an advanced industrial society cannot be learnt by watching
mother, sitting next to Nelly, watching 'Tomorrow's World' or 'Hori-
zon' on the TV, reading the newspapers, poring over 'teach yourself
books in the evenings, or even by apprenticeship to a practical craft.
Our technological civilization (for what it is worth - but that is not in
question here) would slowly collapse if tens or hundreds of thousands of
people were not spending some of the most formative years of their lives
learning science systematically from professional teachers.
Of course, many young people have no clear idea for what career they
should be diligently preparing themselves. Of course, there can be much

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 6 Science education -for whom?

argument over which bits of science are really essential to a particular

job. Of course knowledge of some supposedly irrelevant aspect of
science may prove unexpectedly valuable in later life. Of course, the
'scientific attitude' and scientific ways of thinking can be applied to
advantage to all manner of practical affairs. Of course, the scientific
view of the Universe and of Mankind is one of the integrating ideologies
of our times. Of course, this knowledge is one of the finest and noblest
achievements of our civilization. Of course, everybody needs to under-
stand the powers and limitations of science in order to live more safely
and happily with it. Of course, there is as much to learn about the
precise use of language, and as much wisdom to acquire, from the study
of a science as from any of the traditional humanities. And of course -
this is a truism in every branch of education - if science were only taught
better it would be a rewarding human experience for every pupil and for
every teacher.
All these justifications and qualifications of science education are
valid in themselves. It is good to be able to find so many excellent
reasons for doing something so laborious as learning science - especially
when it needs to be done anyway. The fundamental vocational goal of
science education does not completely determine its content and style.
The same end may be reached by various means, which may not be
equivalent in other respects. It is important not to lose sight of these
subsidiary goals in devising new educational techniques to meet new
vocational challenges. In fact, this is just what this book is about.
But the vocational goal of science teaching and learning must not be
played down. With the best of motives - intellectual, moral, profession-
al, political - people with little experience of the teaching of science
fasten their attention on those worthy secondary aspects. Even some
teachers and lecturers, in their enthusiasm for and delight in the
beauties of their subject and the insight they have gained by its study,
forget how difficult it is to teach what has to be taught, and to learn what
has to be learnt on the way to an actual career.
Any proposal for change in science education must be compatible
with these realities. That is not to say that the way science is taught at
present satisfactorily achieves its vocational purposes. On the contrary,
it will be argued that many school children and college students
would turn out better educated for the lives they will actually have to
live if they were to be taught a little less science as such, and a little
more about science. The practical, and entirely proper aim of preparing
people for a variety of jobs where scientific knowledge is needed at

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 1.2 The research profession 1

various levels has been too narrowly interpreted as nothing more than
the teaching of the theories, techniques, and practical capabilities of
science, without reference to the context of thought and action where
this knowledge is to be used.
Our starting point, therefore, is the people who need to know some
science in their actual lives - mainly at work, but sometimes also at
play. These needs are very diverse, not only in the various subjects
required, but also in the extent to which any particular topic must be
understood. The teaching of science, from the early years of the
secondary school to postgraduate courses in the university, is equally
diverse. Before looking for those general features to which general
principles of reform might apply, let us distinguish the major groups of
people for whom the modern system of science education mainly
caters.

1.2 The research profession

The most exacting demand is for the training of research scientists.
There are not very many of these - perhaps no more than one or two
per thousand of the population. Only a few thousand of them need to
be trained each year. Their work, as academics, as government
research scientists, and in industry, is often very remote from immedi-
ate use. They are expensive to train, and sometimes apparently reck-
less in the extravagance of their research facilities. But their contribu-
tion to society, in the long run, is quite beyond reckoning.
Despite their small numbers, the production of research scientists is
the dominant factor in the system of science education in every
advanced industrial country. Many people regard it as a regrettable
and outmoded tradition that the needs of this elite profession should
dominate the education of the much larger mass of technologists,
technicians and other useful people. But there is a rationale to this
tradition that is more compelling than sentimental deference to high
science and its mind-boggling discoveries.
The research scientist makes heavy demands on science education in
several different dimensions. Scientific knowledge is cumulative. A
scientist making an original investigation must have a firm base in what
is already known. There is no profit in laboriously rediscovering past
results. Somehow the research worker must be got to the existing
frontiers of knowledge if he is to explore beyond them. His education
must be deep - not just for 'training the mind', but to learn what needs

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 8 Science education -for whom?

to be known in a particular field to undertake research on a particular

problem. The implications of this are discussed in §2.1.
But the totality of scientific knowledge, even in what we call a
'discipline', is far beyond the grasp of any student or any teacher. Of
course, not everything a research scientist needs can be acquired by
formal education. The search for relevant ideas or information in the
published archives of science is itself a significant part of any scientific
investigation. But even an outline of the key ideas in a mature science
such as physics cannot be taught or learnt in many years of full-time
study at school or college. Education for the research profession must
become highly specialized (see §2.4) if it is to reach the necessary depth.
The frontiers of knowledge are far flung. If they are to be pushed
back further in every direction, appropriately specialized research
workers must be produced by the system. Science education must
diversify into many special disciplines and departments, each staffed by
the relevant academic experts. Science may be unified in principle by a
metaphysical notion of 'validity' (§2.2), but without such a highly
differentiated division of labour the advance of knowledge would soon
falter.
Education for the research profession must, in its final stages, be
deep, specialized, and diversified. Just how deep, in what manner
specialized, and by what categories diversified can be a matter for
endless debate in high academic circles. These debates need not concern
us here - except that they are often resolved by a compromise that
transfers the pressure to the earlier stages of education. If the science
student who only knows one corner of physics is thought to be
inadequately prepared for research in biophysics, then the necessary
cellular biology must somehow be incorporated in his education at
school. If it is thought to be absolutely necessary to spend at least four
years studying quantum theory at successively more abstract levels in
order to do research on elementary particles, then the required depth
can be got by starting the subject in the Sixth Form. This is the
machinery by which the educational needs of research scientists drive
the whole system.
In addition to a body of knowledge, the research scientist needs
training in the techniques of active research. By convention, this comes
during preparation for the Ph.D. - essentially a professional apprentice-
ship which lies somewhat beyond the scope of this book. An important
issue in science education is the extent to which the psychological
experience of research can be simulated and anticipated at earlier stages

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 1.3 The technological professions 9

of education, by 'discovery' methods of teaching, by the introduction of

'projects' to replace formal instruction, and so on. But this issue, also,
would take us too far away from our main theme.

1.3 The technological professions

For simplicity, let us distinguish between the scientist, who is concerned
with the acquisition of knowledge, and the technologist, whose work is
the application of knowledge. The educational needs of the technologist
for professional practice are not the same as the needs of the scientist for
research. In reality, this distinction is not at all sharp. A professor of
clinical medicine carries out research on a very practical subject and
applies his knowledge for the benefit of his patients; an engineer
designing a new bridge is simultaneously making an original contribu-
tion to human knowledge.
Modern technology, however, is pre-eminently scientific (§§5.3, 5.4).
The knowledge to be applied in practice derives as much from organized
research as from the systematic codification of past professional experi-
ence. In many cases it derives from fundamental research, directed
simply towards the understanding of natural phenomena, without any
conscious practical orientation. Advanced technology is not only scien-
tific in spirit, relying for progress on deliberate investigations of present
techniques and future developments: it is also science-based, drawing its
theoretical rationale from the basic disciplines of the natural sciences.
Thus, the aeronautical engineer designs the wing of an aircraft using the
mathematical theory of aerodynamics, the plant breeder applies the
principles of Mendelian genetics, and the oil prospector plans explora-
tions on hunches derived from plate tectonics and the theory of
continental drift.
The technological professions cannot do without science. All courses
of technological higher education - medicine, dentistry, engineering,
metallurgy, electronics, geophysics, glass technology, polymer science,
fuel technology, mining, etc., etc. - include major components of basic
science, either in the undergraduate curriculum or as a prerequisite to
entry. Would-be doctors and dentists must study physiology and bio-
chemistry (and also, apparently for traditional reasons, more remote
sciences such as physics), mechanical engineers must know a good deal
of classical physics and mathematics, fuel technologists need a thorough
grasp of chemical thermodynamics and so on. These are genuine
vocational needs. However little anatomy your family doctor may admit

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 10 Science education -for whom?

to having remembered or ever used, that is the intellectual framework

which makes sense of her practical skills. Most of the day-to-day work of
an engineer is covered by empirical design formulae and codes of
standard practice - until faced with a problem that takes him or her back
to the first principles of mechanics or mathematics.
But training for a technological career does not demand a very deep
knowledge of a particular field of science. Technologists must try to
understand the basic scientific principles of the techniques they apply,
but their education needs to be thorough and specialized only in the
practice of those techniques. The 'preclinical' sciences of anatomy,
physiology and pathology are preparations for training in clinical skills,
which are the real goal of medical education. The basic mathematics and
physics of the engineering curriculum is subordinate to training in design.
The research scientist is concerned with knowledge as such; the
technologist is concerned with knowledge only as a basis for action. He or
she must not tarry too long in the ivory towers of academia. A sound
grasp of basic principles, some acquaintance with the current body of
knowledge, and a brief introduction to recent advanced theories are all
that he or she can afford to pick up on the way through to the real world.
Many more people are employed in technology than in scientific
research - hundreds of thousands, rather than a few tens of thousands in a
country such as Britain. This includes not only the medical and
engineering professions, but a whole range of jobs in industry and
government for which a science-based higher education is a necessary
qualification. Indeed, the majority of graduates from the traditional
scientific disciplines take up technological careers and receive their
practical training on the job - managing computer systems, analysing
chemical products, advising farmers, running breweries, publishing
technical books, and an infinity of other professions.
Education for technological practice is much wider in scope, much
more diverse in its institutional setting, than education for research.
From a narrowly academic point of view, it makes more demand for
quantity, but less for quality, from science education as a whole. In
university faculties of science, these demands are often regarded as
subsidiary to those of training for research; in technological faculties and
institutions, the teaching of science is often defective for lack of contact
with the research community. But the differentiation of institutions,
faculties, departments and disciplines is less important than the different
vocational goals, the different types of careers, for which students are
consciously or unconsciously being prepared.

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 1.4 Technical employment 11

1.4 Technical employment

The vocational function of school science is much less definite. For

many children, of course, scientific subjects are taken at school as
stepping stones on the way into scientific or technological higher
education. For many others they are merely elements in a general
education that will ultimately be focussed on a career where such
subjects are irrelevant. For any particular child, quite uncertain about
his or her natural talents, inclinations, or future profession, there may
be no real distinction between vocational and general education:
chemistry, or biology, or physics is chosen because it is 'interesting', or
'likely to be useful', or 'what I am good at'. Indeed, the most compelling
reasons may be negative: 'It's not interesting', or 'I'm no good at it' may
rule out alternatives, leaving one or more sciences to be studied by
default.
But an elementary undertanding of certain basic scientific principles
seems almost essential for a very wide range of skilled work. The
electrician and the radio repairman must know a bit about the physics of
electromagnetism; the nurse and the physiotherapist must know some
human anatomy; the engineering draughtsman and the computer pro-
grammer must be reasonably competent in mathematics; and the
horticulturalist and the forester should not be quite ignorant of biology.
The amount of basic science that is used explicitly in such work must
not be exaggerated. The excellence of a craftsman or technician lies in
the skill with which he or she carries out a relatively familiar but not
quite routine job, rather than in a capacity to analyse the task
theoretically or to imagine an entirely novel way of doing it. This skill
derives from sensitivity of hand and eye, guided by long experience,
rather than from formal education or book learning. The traditional
preparation for technical employment was by apprenticeship, where all
that was needed of 'theory' could supposedly be learnt on the job, with
very little reference to the sort of science taught in school.
For a variety of social and economic reasons this form of preparation
for highly skilled technical trades has largely given way to more
systematic training courses, where there may be heavier emphasis on
theoretical knowledge, and hence more demand for prior qualifications
in school science subjects. The traditional dividing line between a
technical trade and a technological profession is now as indistinct as the
boundary between research science and technological practice. Superfi-
cially, only a few additional years of academic education, leading to a

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 12 Science education -for whom?

higher qualification, separate the doctor from the nurse, or the produc-
tion engineer from the workshop foreman. As more and more skilled
trades become professionalized, and as the independent technological
practitioner comes more and more under bureaucratic control in the
government service or in corporate industry, these ancient class distinc-
tions become less and less meaningful.
In any case, whether or not the demand for formal educational
qualifications in science is vocationally justified, there is no doubt that a
great many children take science subjects up to 'A' level* on their way
into employment where knowledge of these subjects is relevant to their
work. This also applies to many management and office jobs in
industry, commerce and government, where it is essential to understand
something of the technical and/or scientific background.
The very diversity of such employment makes it impossible to
prescribe science curricula that would meet all these vocational needs in
detail. What branch of physics should be emphasized at 'O' levelt or
'A' level: electricity and electronics for work in telecommunications;
properties of matter for the civil engineer or dental mechanic; heat,
light and sound for the plumber or television cameraman? Is some
understanding of the electron theory of valency an essential ingredient
in the training of a chemical laboratory technician? How much bio-
chemistry and physiology should be included in a practical course of
animal husbandry for farmers? Even if such questions could be given
precise answers, these could not be reconciled with one another in the
very rough justice of school timetables and examination syllabuses.
Nevertheless, although science subjects are usually taught in schools
and technical colleges without specific applications in mind, the fact
must not be ignored that many of those who study them will be putting
them to vocational use in due course. What they learn about science
from their teachers may be just as significant for their careers as the
knowledge of science that they acquire at this impressionable stage of
their lives.

1.5 Science as general knowledge

Even in our technological civilization, everyday life depends very little

* That is, in the English school system, to a formal examination at the age of 18+.
t That is, the 'Ordinary' Level of General Certificate of Education, taken at 16-1-, the
minimum school-leaving age in Britain.

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 1.5 Science as general knowledge 13

on general knowledge. Indeed, it is quite astonishing how ignorant

people can be about things in general ('What is the name of the Prime
Minister?', In what continent is Canada?', 'When do birds lay their
eggs?', etc.) without apparently impairing their capabilities in work
and play. One can get along quite well, doing what the doctor tells us,
without knowing the difference between viruses and bacteria, just as
we can go on speaking prose without knowing the difference between
nouns and verbs.
Beyond the merest mechanics of the three R's, the fundamental
purpose of general education must be to fill in the background against
which most people take on the daily business of life. It is obvious that
science is a major component of that setting. Our civilization is as
much based on the physics of energy and electricity, on the chemistry
of steel and polythene, on the biology of antibiotics and
contraceptives, as it is on the politics of capital and labour, the history
of William the Conqueror and Oliver Cromwell, or the language of
Shakespeare and Churchill. Science education in the early years of the
secondary school is the main source of such basic knowledge for most
people.
The sort of scientific knowledge that is 'useful' in this very broad
sense would include general structural concepts, such as biological
evolution, chemical bonding and physical dynamics. It should convey
simple representations of the astronomical universe, the earth, solid
matter, living cells and the human body. It should at the same time be
linked to familiar everyday reality - weather, food, materials, ma-
chines, reproduction and illness. There can be no place in such a
curriculum for technologically or academically specialized topics, ex-
cept to exemplify the capabilities and limitations of particular scientific
concepts or techniques.
The secondary school science curriculum not only conveys a specifi-
cally scientific image of the world and its inhabitants: it also transmits
an attitude towards science and scientific expertise. The place of
science in the popular culture of our times and the role of the scientist
in our contemporary society are largely determined by the way in
which scientific knowledge is presented in the classroom. Although
most people learn very little science, and make very little direct use of
what they learn, they are the silent majority whose views eventually
carry much more weight than the tiny minority of research workers
and advanced technologists. They too must learn something about
science as part of their education about things in general.

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 14 Science education -for whom?

1.6 Science education and science teaching

Within the educational system as a whole, science education appears as

a relatively uniform and continuing process, through which each student
is drawn, year by year, to successively higher levels of knowledge,
conceptual grasp, technical skill, etc. This steady increase in the
'validity' of scientific education with student age is represented sche-
matically in Fig. 1. But not all forms of employment demand the same
degree of scientific competence. School children and students in higher
education move out of science education at various ages, as they enter
various more or less 'scientific' careers. In a natural progression
according to age, we observe the majority of people leaving general
science education along with all other formal schooling, at 16+. A
substantial number, however, continue with school science subjects in
the Sixth Form, in preparation for skilled technical employment. A
smaller number, again, enter tertiary education and take scientific or
technological degree courses to qualify for the higher science-based
professions such as engineering and medicine. And at the most ad-
vanced and specialized levels of science education, we find a very small
proportion of each generation being trained for research in the sciences
they have studied.
This description of the vocational function of science education would
be incomplete without reference to the training of the teachers of
science. At every level, the intellectual demands of science are severe.
No amount of pedagogical technique can hide an inadequate grasp of
the principles to be taught. In terms of 'validity' this means that the
science teacher should at least have passed successfully through the
level of science above the level at which he is employed to teach. Thus,
the conventional qualification for teaching to degree level is a higher
degree such as the Ph.D., whilst school science to GCE A level should
be taught by science graduates, and cannot safely be entrusted to
teachers whose professional training has not carried them significantly
beyond the A-level standard, even though this might be quite adequate
for the teaching of general science in the earlier years of the secondary
school.
The general system of science education must therefore make provi-
sion for training science teachers for each level. This may call for little
more than studying a particular branch of science in the usual way to a
more advanced standard; the higher one goes in the system, the less
emphasis is laid on instruction in the arts of pedagogy. Indeed, as

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 1.6 Science education and science teaching 15

indicated in Fig. 1, the general rule is that the teachers at each level had
passed through the next level without any special vocational differentia-
tion before they took up teaching as a career. Thus, for example,
specialist science teachers in secondary schools have usually taken
university degrees in conventional science subjects, along with would-be
research workers and technologists - and, unlike university lecturers,
they get a year of professional training before they take up employment
as teachers. The same applies even more forcibly for the academics
themselves, whose postgraduate training is entirely directed towards
professional research, without any reference to the undergraduate
teaching for which they will in due course be employed.
This pattern of vocational training for teachers in the natural sciences
derives, quite simply, from the intellectual structure of science itself. As
will be shown in the next chapter, there is no escape from the
hierarchical ordering of scientific concepts, where the 'validity' of
knowledge at each level depends on deeper or more detailed knowledge
that can only be acquired by passing through the next educational level.
Quite literally, the teacher who has not passed through that further level
'does not know what he is talking about' and is therefore incompetent
for his job.
But it has, nevertheless, a very significant effect on the goals of
science education. At every level, the teacher's eye is fixed on entry to
the level above (where he or she was trained in science) and is not
always sufficiently attentive to the needs of the many students with
different vocational intentions. The school science curriculum at A
level, for example, comes to be thought of mainly as a qualification for
admission to college, where degree courses and examinations are
dominated in their turn by the goal of research. Intellectual snobbery -
that is, greater esteem for abstract theory and 'validity' than for
practical technique and 'relevance' - is reinforced by this characteristic
feature of science teaching as a profession.
Of course, it is a grave misrepresentation of human reality to describe
what happens in schools and colleges as the workings of a 'system'.
There are idiosyncratic historical, political and social features of these
activities that defy rational analysis in terms of purpose and function.
Every country has its own peculiar pedagogic traditions, and goes about
its educational business in its own very peculiar way.
But our science-based civilization is much the same all over the world.
It provides - or demands - much the same range of skilled jobs in much
the same proportions. Much the same scientific and technological

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 16 Science education -for whom?

knowledge is needed everywhere to carry out these jobs satisfactorily.

The fundamental vocational purpose of science education thus imposes
upon it a certain degree of uniformity that seems to match the
universality of science itself. Fig. 1 is labelled to represent the English
pattern of science education: change the names of the formal qualifica-
tions, distort the age scales a little, and it might be made to refer to
almost any advanced country in the world.
Science education has a well-defined social function, which imposes
severe constraints on its pedagogic style and institutional forms. What-
ever else may be expected of it in the cultural or spiritual sphere, it must
continue to turn out its cohorts of technically trained or scientifically
informed people, for employment as electronic engineers and veterin-
ary surgeons, nuclear physicists and computer programmers, foresters
and chemistry teachers. This means that it must also respect the
intellectual imperatives of 'valid' science, the hard core of reliable
knowledge that is the ultimate justification for educating people to
exercise these particular skills. In the next chapter we must consider the
effects of these constraints on the spirit of science teaching as presently
practised.

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 1.6 Science education and science teaching 17

16 18 21 24
Fig. 1. Science education and vocation

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