Sep 10 2008
Four Beliefs that Impede Education: Part 3
Part 3 (of 5) Problematic Belief #2: Science is for Nerds
A number of my psychology students have expressed to me, “I didn’t think the course was going to be so much about science.” I presume they imagined class-time consisting of sitting in a semi-circle and chatting, Oprah-style, about what motivated an individual’s controversial behavior and how they would go about fixing it.
Why would human psychology be scientific? Psychology, after all, is about people, and science is about calculators and laboratories. Ms. Winfrey knows people and you never see her holding a test-tube and pointing to a table of numbers.
Turning from one cultural icon to another, Einstein offered the opinion that science is the refinement of everyday thinking. In wholehearted agreement, I share examples of how this is the case on the very first meeting of my classes. I point out that whenever a person makes a decision or comes to a conclusion, he or she bases it upon information, whether that information is personal experience, the opinion of others, etc. For example, if a person is contemplating buying a used vehicle, she may talk to her neighbor about his car, which is the same make and model. Generally speaking, when we are more scientific in our thinking, we seek out better information, which usually means greater quantity and/or higher quality. In the case of the used automobile, our neighbor’s experience may be atypical, so the more scientific thinker might instead talk to a mechanic, or, better yet, look up what the Consumer Reports Buyer’s Guide has to say about the vehicle.
Although it may feel inhumane to move beyond personal experiences and feelings in the quest to understand human behavior and other topics, this is an essential step in the refining of our habits of thought. Unfortunately, the label for this refinement, “science,” is frequently viewed as a sterile and alien endeavor that requires special equipment, years of training and, to sustain interest, a perpetual coffee-making machine. I try to counter that sentiment by showing students that not only does science transform our everyday world into enticing puzzles to be solved – and who doesn’t love a puzzle, so long as it is not overly challenging – but it also requires a great deal of imagination.
Every semester my developmental psychology class debates this topic: Are dad’s expendable? Because an ovum needs a sperm for a zygote, fathers are definitely not expendable (at least at this moment in time). But what about dads, what about a father-figure in the house? Can a child do without a dad?
As you might guess, students get very excited about this topic. They just about jump out of their chairs, so eager are they to share their personal experience. Before opening the floor and taking on the role of a police officer gesticulating in the middle of heavy vocal traffic, however, I challenge my students to back up their opinion with material in the textbook. If they want to voice their opinion, they’ve got to back it up with something: a theory about personality development, a statistic about children of single parents . . . anything at all. But back it up.
Following our discussion — a discussion that never resolves the issue — I ask students to imagine how they might find or gather the best information to help move us toward resolving it. That type of creative thinking, I try to emphasize, is “doing science.” No, they haven’t gone the gamut from grant to publication, but science isn’t a sealed package deal. Science isn’t a thing; it’s an activity. And, to one degree or another, all can participate.
Unfortunately, the way our public schools teach science can backfire. First, they tend to focus exclusively on the products of science rather than the processes. Second, science is presented as a specialized field, fully separate from all others. There is science, and then there is everything else. And third, in the science classes themselves, far too often the focus is on learning the jargon and memorizing heaps of relatively dry information. To me, this akin to attempting to learn carpentry by visiting a furniture store.
There is another activity I use to draw students into doing science, into making a disciplined inquiry into a subject that interests them. I instruct my students to conduct an observational study into gender differences in public behavior. They pick a topic; they define a behavior to be counted; they count, compare and report. Do more male or female students wear sandals on campus? Do more men or women eat alone during lunchtime? They define a behavior and count it. Certainly, none of their findings are received as newly discovered truths – and they learn that, though some may wish to conclude otherwise. But these first steps are steps nonetheless. In essence, science is a more disciplined, and hence reliable, way of thinking about the universe. Rather than for nerds, science is for anyone who wants to more accurately understand the world.
