Science for all

In his Endpoint article, Professor Jenkins (see Educ. Chem., 2006, 43(1), 28) makes a plea for the separate sciences to be taught in secondary schools. Here I put the case for the opposite scenario, believing that chemistry, physics, and biology are pre-eminently subsets of science and not the other way round. Science is the big picture and the narrowing of options is undesirable. In the UK, this narrowing or premature specialisation manifests itself in the closing down of other options so that the other sciences, the arts, the languages are in competition instead of being complementary to each other. What all students deserve is a rainbow of opportunities to understand the world we live in.   

A new paradigm 

In this debate about the ends and means of chemistry I would suggest that the opponents of the ‘general leading to the particular’ are Luddites opposed to any change and anxious mainly about their jobs. Such an attitude is a major obstacle to a better appreciation of the extraordinary achievements of the Age of Science and of its profound implications for mankind. Can chemistry teachers overnight become exponents of the history, philosophy, the technology and the sociology of science? I believe the answer is ‘yes’, especially now given the support the Internet provides. This, the greatest learning tool ever, now bestrides the educational landscape and, quite apart from science and its subsets, has changed the face of learning forever. Gone is the necessity to absorb and regurgitate explicit knowledge. Problem-based learning and case studies provide a new paradigm for learning.   

The teacher is no longer the sage on the stage and becomes instead the guide by the side. He or she has no need to intone at the front of the class but can simultaneously view the same texts, the same illustrations and the same simulations. What a wonderful time to be a teacher, with an Aladdin’s cave of information at everyone’s fingertips. 

If the memorising of facts, figures and theories is no longer the object of education, then what of the tests and examinations which remorselessly follow these activities. Do they have to go in the bin also? Again, I believe the answer to be ‘yes’. This is so because the object of education has always been to develop the interests and talents which define the persona. This is the realm of skills to be acquired by training and practice. They can be generic skills (writing, reading and reasoning), vocational skills (computation) and occupational skills (chemistry) in that order. Together, they represent a lifelong tool-kit of capabilities and job worthiness. Students know this and vote with their feet in abandoning the unrelenting effort of the hard sciences.   

It was the poet Alexander Pope who reflected long ago that the proper study of mankind is man. We are nothing without our human sensitivities. When science, including chemistry, parades its objectivity it is deluding itself in supposing that the human dimension is an inferior quality. As human beings, we are mainly interested in other human beings. We learn best from narrative accounts of our activities even in science. Every lesson should start with the electrifying phrase – ‘Once upon a time’. 

The world of knowledge is much larger than the world of science, just as the world of science is much larger than the world of chemistry and the world of chemistry much larger than that of genetic engineering. All such knowledge can be hard and it can be soft. It can be bereft of context and it can be entirely defined by its context. It can be the ‘know-what’ of Mode 1 or the ‘know-how’ of Mode 2. But nobody admires an encyclopaedia on legs and it is to the eternal shame of current education and of we scientists that success is seen as just that. Explicit, scientific knowledge is a means not an end of education. It is the language and content of abstract knowledge and no more.   

The appliance of science 

Our humanity therefore rests on the experience of how we apply knowledge to solve real problems. We can best do that with the largest tool-kit available, ie our implicit knowledge of how to get things done. This means that chemistry does not need to be a main stream subject. Indeed I would argue that the instrumentation and the theoretical basis of a professional chemist are beyond the capacity of schools and probably also of undergraduate studies. The time and place for acquiring the professional skills of modern chemistry, including the details of nanochemistry for example, are a graduate school. Like engineering, medicine and law, chemistry must delay its introduction into the field of education. Easing the pressure of specialisation will then allow science, including chemistry, to become generally accessible and generally enjoyable for everyone.   

At the same time, a more broadly educated person is likely to be a better scientist. There is no reason to narrow options at any time in life. Single subject disciplines still need broad foundations. All chemists need some physics, some mathematics, some biology, some computer science, some history, some music, some literature. It is also necessary for those studying the humanities to feel comfortable with science, including chemistry. Another poet of another generation, Rudyard Kipling, in his complaint about the narrowness of patriotism, remarked: ‘What should they of England know who only England know?’ 

That being so, the ideal of secondary education would be to embrace an even wider set of generalities, the language and literature, the science, the history, the arts, and the rhetoric of our time. This is the equivalent to the liberal arts of the US and an earlier Scotland. We have therefore a long way to go but broadening science by broadening chemistry would be a good beginning. 

Professor Sir Graham Hills can be contacted at The Coach House, 2B Strathearn Road, Edinburgh EH9 2AH.