[IAEP] Proposed New K-12 Science Framework

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/28 <mokurai at earthtreasury.org>

> On Tue, July 26, 2011 1:21 am, Chris Leonard wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 1:07 AM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Since it has a total of 270 pages, and I just finished downloading it
> >> (chapter by chapter), I can't comment on the contents. But, this should
> >> be
> >> fuel for some interesting discussions in the next few weeks if the rest
> >> of
> >> you take the time to download and take an in depth look at what is
> >> there.
> >
> > You may need to create a login, but the full book as a single PDF is
> > at this link.
> >
> > http://download.nap.edu/cart/download.cgi?&record_id=13165&free=1
>
> Got it. Thanks. I was able to access it as a guest.
>
> I have only read the first few chapters of the report. It has a number of
> excellent features, such as
>
> * insistence on teaching how science is actually done
>
> * recognition that "Children Are Born Investigators"
>
> * the importance of connecting to children's prior experience and capacity
> for deep thought
>
> However, what I have read so far suggests important lacks in understanding
> of these very principles, along with other matters dealing with the nature
> of science, engineering, and technology. The greatest deficiency seems to
> be in treating of these topics in isolation from mathematics on one side
> and from social semisciences, particularly anthropology, economics, and
> politics, on the other.


As someone who had a somewhat inside view of the process, I think it would
be fair for me to say that the reason the committee held back from touching
these issues (as well as, of course, computer science, which is in some
senses more a branch of mathematics than of science), was not that it didn't
see them, but rather that it felt it could only fight so many battles at
once. The document as it stands is already asking schools and teachers to
restructure themselves in many ways; the authors worried that going further,
to a point which could even imply the need for an entirely different set of
teachers, could be a bridge too far.

Of course, I do not speak for my mother or anyone else on the committee,
this is just my impression.

JQ
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