s&c n/d 74 donald b. neuman - u-wis: milwaukee

I just don't have time to teach science with so many important things to do during the limited school day.
The children must learn to read, write and compute accurately if they are to become productive adults.
They must have time for art, music, and physical education.
I have to prepare and grade papers and report cards, administer standardized achievement tests, send home parental consent slips, collect lunch and milk money, solicit for various charities, assist the nurse in ht/wt readings, help children pose for annual class picture, plan Xmas, Valentine and Easter parties and get the children ready for spring music festival.
In addition, the children need an occasional recess during which I'm pressed into carrying out a sparkling array of scholarly activities such as pushing undersized boots onto oversized feet, whip running noses, settling fights, ad pulling undersized boots from oversized feet. No, I just don't have time to teach science.

I propose that we acknowledge that the ability to read with compre- hension is the key to success in school and, indeed, the key to a successful life. The right to read has been recognized as a national educational goal for the decade of the seventies.1 Therefore, reading must be given priority in the utilization of time iii our schools.

We must agree on realistic arid practical criteria for determining pri orities for using the remaining time. We ought to give highest priority to those subjects and activities that clearly provide children with unique opportunities for intellectual and emotional growth. School experiences should be parceled out in ways that increase the likelihood that maximum numbers of children will achieve maximum growth.

Science can serve as a vehicle for providing children with unique and highly valuable school experiences, because it appeals to the basic cu riosity that youngsters feel about the natural and manmade world around them. Young children enter school at the ages of five or six with an open. fresh, and questioning attitude about things around them. Many of these children become 'sheep' by the end of lst or 2nd grade. Instead of nurturing a childÕs curiosity, many of us manage, somehow, to destroy it. Evidence indicates that overall school performance is improved when heightened curiosity is induced or maintained in primary-age children.

Curiosity energizes exploratory behavior. Nowhere in the school curriculum can a young child be given more or better opportunities to express curiosity or to explore than in an activity-centered, discovery- oriented science program.

Dewey once stated, "No one has ever explained why children are so full of questions, outside of school." Yet, science, inside the school, can be the one area of the curriculum in which a questioning attitude is most enthusiastically encouraged, the one area that is designed to foster a search for novel explanations to novel occurrences, and the one area in which a child is for should be) rewarded for his persistence arid in quisitiveness.

Science experiences can help children develop useful attitudes such as honesty, rationality, humility, and objectivity. As an outcome of science, children learn to think critically and to differentiate verifiable fact from whimsical fancy. They learn to search for and demand evidence for statements of "fact' presented to them. They are encouraged to recognize superstition for what it is and to avoid making decisions when only a fraction of the evidence is at hand. Bigotry and injustice thrive on people who know or care little about evidence. I know of no area of the curriculum that is better designed to foster significant attitude.. than science.

Science can provide youngsters with knowledge that will enable them to make better decisions as active adult citizens. The solutions to ever- increasing political and economic problems will require an understanding of complex scientific and technological information.

Science experiences call help children develop a wide range of in- terests that result in the cultivation of life-long pursuits and the wise use of leisure time. The need to develop purposeful interests to fill one's "free time" will become even greater over the next few years. Science and science-related activities can fill this need most effectively.

Science activities can help children develop a variety of basic skills, both manipulative and investigative. Included among the manipulative skills are improved hand-eye coordination and the ability to fashion and use a wide variety of apparatus and equipment. Science experiences can help children develop facility in the skills of observing, classifying, and predicting. They can develop the ability to experiment and to communicate the results of their experiments. By means of inference, as an extension of observation, children can develop rational explanations for natural and man-made phenomena.

Science can provide children with a variety of realistic, valuable, and unique experiences, many of which provide great long-term growth po- tential for children. In addition, there is one more reason for teaching elementary science that transcends all of the others. It concerns the child's image of himself as a worthwhile individual and a capable academic performer. it has immediate, as well as long term pay-off for the child. A teacher's view of the relative worth of a pupil can have a marked impact on that pupil's overall school performance. For example, a well-known study indicates that teacher expectations of how well, or how badly, their students will perform in school not only affects the child's actual academic achievement, but also influences the student's intellectual growth, as measured by a standardized test of intelligence. The results of this study seem to indicate that teacher expectations, whether basedon valid or faulty data, exert a more profound influence on first- arid second-grade children than on older youngsters. Thus, when teacher-s believe that a child Id is a high achiever, that child is likely to fulfill he "prophecy," and be a high achiever.

On the lines below write the names of the your BEST pupils in your class (if you are not an elementary teacher, ask one to do this) Think carefully about selection, but don't read on until you have compiled the four names.

1

2.

3.

4.

Now write the names of the tour children in your class who are the BEST achievers in READING.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Go to the list of "best children" you have compiled above. If you perceived the top readers to also be the best pupils in your class, think about what may be happening to the self-image of those children who, for one reason or another, do not read well-but who have perfectly good minds? Is there any academic area in the school program in which a child who has difficulty with reading is not, in some way, penalized for his lack of skill? Is there any academic area in your school's program in which you can discover various intellectual skills a child may possess without asking him to decode written symbols? Usually the answer is "No." What might happen when a teacher discovers that a child is having problems with reading? Here is an example:

Miss Desniond is an experienced first-grade teacher at Fourteenth Avenue School, a typical graystone inner-city building whose student population is 96 percent black. After approximately nine weeks of reading readiness and easy reader work, she discovered that Morris, a handsome, bright-eyed youngster, was having difficulty with his reading. He is also having some problems with the first writing lessons initiated during the 7th week class. Morris looked bright and seemed alert. He knew his letters and numbers. He could name the basic colors. Miss Desmond decided that all Morris needed was a little more practice in reading. Therefor, he and a small group of classmates were formed into a group that read for over and hour each morning and an additional hour in the afternoon. However, after two weeks of this schedule, Miss Desmond noticed a subtle but definite change in attitude by Morris. No longer was he bright-eyed in appearance.

His smile disappeared and he seemed much more shy than before.

Obviously, his reading problems were bothering him.

The answer: an extra half hour of reading each day to help Morris Ôcatch up.Õ

His moderately disdainful attitude about school very quickly became one of open hostility. Morris began physically attacking children around him and one day screamed, ÒI hat you. I hate you.Ó at Miss Desmond. Her initial shock turned to a feeling of confusion, then to anger. She had spent an inordinate amount of time ÔhelpingÕ Morris with his reading and what was her thanks? His open hostility toward her, her classroom, and her school.

But how had she helped him? By giving him increased opportunity to fail? If this is help, what is hindrance?

The tragedy in all this is that many so-called poor readers are not at all intellectually deficient. Many "poor readers" have been shown to have highly developed skills in such areas as logical thinking.

Thus, if teacher judgments of the relative worth of children are based primarily on reading and related verbal skills, there seems little doubt that many other "best" children are not being recognized; they might be "best" in equally valuable but less highly prized ways. The value of logical thinking, the importance of problem-solving skills, and the significance of perseverance in the face of adversity often go unrecognized iii schools where the primary concern is bringing children up to grade levels on standardized reading tests.

How do we discover these other children? Certainly not just by in- creasing the amount of time spent in reading each day. We must find ways in which they can demonstrate skills ills in a wide variety of nonreading activities.

Science with its wealth of manipulative materials and its highly "discoverable" concepts and principles is an ideal vehicle for this task. However, if science is to serve this "special mission, it cannot be taught as an adjunct of the reading program ("open your science texts to page 3, read to page 41, and answer the even numbered questions on page 42"). They must be taught in a true discovery fashion with materials and sufficient time for real discoveries.

Science can help a wide variety of youngsters to achieve success be- cause it can be separated from the school's reading program. For this reason science is unique and can help make schools places where all children succeed.