There is always a first in everything! I had been writing personal journals since I was little but this is the very first time I’m going to do it as a blog. I’m very excited to begin though nervous about the content I will be able to make because I wanted it to be as informative or as inspirational as possible.
Module 1 Journal Entry
I remember a saying, “Those who can, teach!” When one is asked why they teach, the answer could be because they can. But really, why does one teach? Being able to know why one teaches a subject matter or having a clear goal in mind is very important, especially to a beginning teacher, because this will be one’s guiding principle once immersed in the teaching arena. Unfortunately, I graduated Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Biology fourteen years ago without having a clear perspective as to why I’m teaching Science. Now that I realized its importance, truly recommend adding Foundations of Science Education in the curriculum, if they have not added it when they revised the curriculum due to K12.
According to Millar (2004), “School science curriculum in most countries has two distinct purposes. First, it aims to provide every young person with sufficient understanding of science to participate confidently and effectively in the modern world – a ‘scientific literacy’ aim. Second, advanced societies require a steady supply of new recruits to jobs requiring more detailed scientific knowledge and expertise; school science provides the foundations for more advanced study leading to such jobs.” It is important science because to teach a knowledge of science is needed for citizenship in modern technological societies. In an industrially growing and technologically advancing society, learning science is a must. Citizens must be scientifically literate at least to take a critical stand in different issues regarding health, environment, power supply, wherever science is involved, which encompasses a lot of things and make sound judgement and decisions. And it is also important to teach science because of the need for future scientists, engineers, technologists, and others who will need a strong science background for their work.
When I started taking units of master education, I already ecountered of the term ‘scientficic literacy.’ Although, in hindsight, I do think I already had a grasp of the goals and purposes of science education. I just do not express it but when I prepare my lessons, I have this goal in mind. Application of science concepts is very important for me and I see to it that my student do science. Especially that I was assigned to teach in the elementary, my goal was to make my students enjoy learning to develop an appreciation and deeper interest in the subject that they may bring as they advance higher grades. I assume that my perspective was already in congruence with the actual goal of science education. What I think I needed to reevaluate is whether schools, particularly mine, have this goal in mind and are we doing the right things to accomplish such goal. Being a science coordinator in my school, I need to reflect whether my teachers have the same goal in mind.
Needless to say, these goals are laid down in the basic framework for science. I don’t think there is any problem with the goals of science education that were laid down in the science basic framework. The real problem is whether this is properly channeled to the right agencies and relayed to different institutions especially the ones involved in teacher education because I for one had only bumped into this framework while I was browsing science education articles and was never tackled, perhaps only in passing, when I was in college studying education. I could attest, being a science coordinator, that teachers are still teaching science under the pillar of learning to know, wherein they discuss concepts in science as if they are absolute and permanent. The nature of science is another important concept that science teachers should master for this will guide them in their pedagogy.
As an educator, I think I hold the greatest responsibility to achieve goals of science education to develop scientifically literate citizens of the country and the world. Reflecting on this had deepened my understanding of how impactful learning science can be and influenced me to take necessary steps to reevaluate the curriculum that we are following and make sure, as a coordinator, that my teachers and I work collaboratively towards a common goal. There are a lot of things to do. I’ve only scratched the surface. It will be a difficult job for me to change years of tradition in teaching science and making teachers take an active role in this aspect.
pre2ci's EdJournal 