TIME FOR A CHANGE

BARBARA ALLENMinneapolis, Minnesota

Eighty per cent of the young people graduating from our highschools today will not go on to college. Only a few of the remainingtwenty per cent choose science as their vocation. Why, then, do wecling so tenaciously to our traditional chemistry courses, neglectingthe needs of the majority of our students and even making them an-tagonistic toward science?The 1932 study by Wilbur Beauchamp revealed that science teach-

ing is a conglomeration of the orthodox practices of the age of mentaldiscipline (1890-1910) and the newer practices of the two decadespreceding the study. While courses in general biology and generalscience have kept abreast of the newer trends in education, courses inchemistry and physics have clung to the aims of mental discipline,with only a few utilizing the newer practices.We argue that we must prepare our students for college entrance

exams, for their careers in science, for innumerable other distantevents which need not dominate the high school. "There is now gen-eral agreement that in our democratic American educational system,the secondary school is not the place to train specialists in chemistry,biology, medicine, or agriculture though special aptitude should bediscovered and encouraged.’71 Rather, we must concern ourselves withpreparing all of our students to live useful, productive lives in a scien-tific world.The goal of science courses in general education should not be to

equip the student with a vast store of scientific knowledge but ratherto give him an understanding of science and its contributons to theintellectual, spiritual, and physical aspects of his life. Thus, a sciencecourse in general education should show what science is like, whatscientific method is like, and what scientists are like.2

This is a big order. Arthur G. Hoff tells us that, "the findings ofmodern psychology reveal that the majority of the high school popu-lation is unable to make effective application and transfer of princi-ples now learned in school. It is necessary, therefore, to make thetransfer and application as they are being studied. This can be donemost effectively by relating the subject matter to the pupil’s environ-ment; that is, build learning experiences around problems vital to thelife of the learner." A study by Margery S. Gilson has shown us thatchemistry, as taught in high schools today, does not function in the

1 Wundt, Gerald, "The Role of Science Education in a Democracy," The Bulletin of the National Associationof Secondary-School Principals, p. 19: Vol. 37, No. 9 (January) 1953.

? McGrath, Earl J.. ed.. Science in General Education, William C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa (1948).

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daily life of the pupil mainly because there is not enough correlationbetween the subject matter and actual living, and because the quan-tity of factual information required of the pupil is greater than he isable to assimilate functionally.The picture is not an entirely black one, however. Chemistry

courses have progressed to a certain extent. One of the changes ex-hibited since 1930 is the offering of more courses of study specificallyadapted to meet the needs, abilities, and interests of those pupilswhose formal education will end with high school graduation. Therise of the chemical industry has also helped to change our tradi-tional chemistry courses; emphasis is, in some cases, now on wiseselectivity and away from a wholesale piling up of facts. The text-books have had a face-lifting too. Rather than giving the pupils large,indigestible chunks of difficult material at the beginning of the course,the psychological approach is being used in which difficult material isdistributed throughout the text.3 Perhaps a few of our most forward-looking teachers have adopted these changes. That the majority havenot can be shown by the enrollment figures for science courses from1910-1949.4 Enrollment in chemistry has increased from 6.9% to7.6%, while the enrollment in general biology has increased from1.1% to 18.4%. We are not giving our students what they need.Let us look at one alternative to our traditional chemistry courses,

an experimental chemistry course tried at the Susan Miller DorseyHigh School in California in 1940-42. The students devoted theirtime to studying various problems such as agriculture, petroleum re-serves, and water supply, using as their methods of study reading,discussion, experiments, and trips related to the general problems. Ina comparison with other students of the same general ability who hadhad their chemistry in a regular class, it was found that the studentsfrom the experimental classes gained higher marks in their othercourses than did the students who had not taken the experimentalcourse. Results on standardized chemistry tests showed that studentsin the experimental classes gained adequate factual knowledge oftechnical chemistry. Further, grade-point averages after one year ofcollege showed a slight over-all advantage for the experimental group.A special testing program within the classes themselves showed im-provement of students^ ideas of the interrelationships between them-selves and the environment, increase in desirable social attitudes, in-creased ability in organizing material and in giving oral and writtenreports, and development of laboratory and library techniques.5

3 Jaffe, Bernard, "Trends in High School Chemistry," The Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals, pp. 67-73: Vol. 37, No. 9 (January) 1953.

4 Johnson, Philip G., "The Teaching of Science in Public High Schools," p. 21: Bulletin 1950, No. 9, FederalSecurity Agency.

5 Laton, Anita D., and Powers, Samuel Ralph, New Directions in Science Teaching, McGraw-Hill Book Com-pany Inc. (1949).

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Another example of this new type of chemistry course is the classestaught at George Rogers dark High School in Hammond, Indianain 1941-42. The classes were closely tied up with the community,studying its problems and its industries. Some of the unusual featuresof the course were: evening sessions every two weeks at which stu-dents presided and at which demonstrations and project-reports weregiven, joint sessions of the classes held weekly for group discussion,visual aids, etc., and a cooperative program in which the studentsmight substitute two weeks in class for two weeks in the laboratoriesof various industries in the region. The students continued to rankhigh on Purdue tests, showing that they had lost no academic groundby participating in the program.6Another alternative to our traditional chemistry courses is a unified

course in physical science. After a setback during the war years,physical science courses are again on the increase. This trend seemsto be based upon the recognition of the superior possibilities of acomposite physical science course over the separate chemistry andphysics courses in contributing to the aims of general education, andupon the disposition of many colleges to recognize the physical sciencecourse as a bona-fide college entrance unit. Perhaps, the physical sci-ence course will supplant our separate chemistry courses, but thisshould be an event of the distant future. Despite its possibilities, theimmediate substitution of physical science for separate chemistry andphysics units seems foolhardy. Too few of our present teachers areprepared for multiple-subject science teaching. Many do not haveadequate preparation for teaching one science; forcing a unified physi-cal science program upon them would be disasterous to both teacherand student."Taught properly science is a flexible, functional inquiry into a

fascinating universe of facts, ideas, speculations, discoveries, and con-clusions.^7Let us look at our history and then at our aims. It is time for a

change.8 Ibid.7 Brooks, Harold E., and Woodruff, Clarence H., "The Administrator Looks at Science Education Objec-

tives," The Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals, p. 12: Vol. 37, No. 9 (January)1953.

Today in 8,000 communities there are lay citizen committees working on edu-cational problems with local school boards and administrators. In 1950 there werefewer than 1,000 lay citizen groups of this kind known to the National CitizensCommission for the Public Schools.

Every year amateur photographers take enough snapshots to encircle the earththree times.