class 19: education

Firstly, thanks for all your essays - we'll get them back to you as soon as we can. I look forward to reading them.

This session acted partly as an introduction to the topic of school-science, but also as a revision of key issues in the history of thought on the Public Understanding of Science, which is important as we approach the exam.

We discussed the introduction of this new GCSE, and the general movement in school-science to build a curriculum based on what "everybody needs to know" rather than just what people training to be scientists should learn. A move away from training and towards PUS, or thinking about science "consumers" rather than the "producers". That last metaphor is from Martin Hollis at the QCA, see handout on WebCT for reference, please note he means engaged, 'empowered' consumers, not passive, manipulated ones. Specially, we were talking about English school-science, but the issues involved are applicable abroad.

We discussed how infrequently children are asked their own opinion as children, especially on science issues, but that the change in curriculum was going to involve bringing opinion into the classroom, moving to teach more about science than simply scientific content, training people up to be able to "engage" in all the PEST-based dialogue places such as the Dana centre run.

The second half of the class was an activity where groups in role as local business, the university sector, patents teachers or students considered what a change in school-science might involve. I asked each group whether they wanted to change or not, and although there were some very thoughtful pros and cons, overall you seemed against the change.

If anyone's interested in the interactions between stakeholders in education, it's worth looking at this report (n.b. links to pdf).