Context matters in science education
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Context matters in science education Michael Tan1 Received: 9 August 2019 / Accepted: 14 January 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This forum paper responds to the article summarising the similarities between science, technology, societies, and the environment; socio-scientific inquiry; and socially acute questions. Collectively called science in context (SinC), the authors propose that philosophers, borrowing Marx, should also change the world, and not merely interpret it. In this forum paper, I take the opportunity to make problematic this intention to change the world. We in the English speaking world live in contexts that are intensely being overwhelmed by technocratic, reductionistic, accountability schemes that limit the imagination of what schools can do. It needs remembering that these conditions have come about with more than a little help from the natural sciences (and technology) that we seek to teach our students. Yet, the solution is not one of abandoning science and technology; students need science, but they need a vision of science that can lead them to think differently about what is possible. While it is important that they understand the problems that they will inherit, preparation for the future by merely understanding the past is like trying to shoot a moving target by aiming at where it once was. We need to educate for a certain openness of ambition, which may require that we as educators to come into the educational interaction with no desire for mechanistic processes guaranteeing outcomes. Yes, the world needs change, but only that which is desired by those who will inherit our problems. We educators occupy a unique position, and we should not abuse it, no matter how well intentioned these attempts at change may be. Keywords STSE · SAQ · SSI · Science in context · Purposes of science education · Ontology · Epistemology What role should context play in science education, or for that matter, education generally speaking? On the other hand, to what degree should localised contexts of schooling influence (science) education? Behind these rather simple-to-phrase questions lie rather This review essay addresses issues raised in Larry Bencze, et al.’s paper entitled: SAQ, SSI and STSE education: defending and extending ‘science-in-context’ (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-019-09962-7). Lead editor: Tan Aik Ling. * Michael Tan [email protected] 1
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
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complex responses that will require us to think deeply about the ontology and epistemology of the various knowledges that we wish our students to become proficient in through schooling. The stakes become clearer if we think about a different knowledge claim such as literature: should students in rural China or India learn the assorted works of Shakespeare, perhaps as part of a course on great literary works around the world? If so, why Shakespeare, and not, say, stories from Nigeria or the First Nations people of Can
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