 | | Science, Education and Society | | Education has become the primary avenue of opportunity - both in terms of delivering job-related competencies to individuals, and serving the more broad social ideals of democracy, freedom, and equalizing opportunities. Our increasingly complex, pluralistic society demands a population that is broadly informed as well as skillfully competent. The professional educator must therefore accept a leadership role in many areas of the students’ development: intellectual, emotional, social, and psychological.
The students’ needs are best met by a teacher who is not only well-informed in his/her special field, but who is also able to model emotional, psychological stability while encouraging the kinds of growth and curiosity which lead toward increased intellectual proficiency.
In science, besides gathering a body of new knowledge, we learn how to gather and evaluate problem-solving evidence, to make decisions which are based upon solid observations, and to discard hypothesis which are no longer supported by good evidence. In short, we reinforce a skill which is generally useful in other areas of life.
In the past it was said that we learn from our mistakes. My philosophy says just the opposite: learning results from the reinforcement of successes. The classroom becomes an environment where experience is skillfully guided by the instructor so that meaningful tasks are set, successes are achieved and clearly perceived by both student and teacher, and then these successes are reinforced.
Consequently, we learn from our successes, while we seek new self-esteem from our mistakes. The teacher’s role is to create an environment where meaningful tasks develop into successful experiences onto which the appropriate labels and abstractions can be attached.
Finally, since there is nearly always more than one path to a given destination, the student must be placed into an environment where student and learning are more important than teacher and structured delivery.
Students, through their educational successes, will learn to meet challenges with stability and security. Successful students will then develop self-esteem and continue to grow and develop personally beyond the confines of the science classroom.
Teaching is the art of skillfully manipulating the students' environment
so that the desired learning will occur.
D.S.L., 1991
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