According to Wellington and Ireson, the school curriculum has evolved over a period of more than a century. At the start of the twentieth century it was a subject for a privileged few, mostly male; in the twenty-first century, in many countries, it is seen as a subject for all pupils, all abilities and both sexes. Today the curriculum still evolves, as new generations of students come along, and part of its process are debates between opposing views to make the curriculum better. Should the aim of science education be focused on training future scientists or on all citizens developing their scientific literacy? How broad should science education be? Should there be integration or separation of disciplines? Should teachers give more importance to process or content in science? Is practical work still relevant and how significant is the role of ICT in science education?
I grew up in the old curriculum where I view science as a subject that entails great memorization skills to excel. Though I find them relevant as well as interesting, I remember having the “Oh! That’s why” moments when a concept ticks on something I’ve experienced and triggered my curiosity. My idea was I need to read a lot to be in the know. I often hear that most schools don’t get to cover everything that is required and if they do, they were done hastily, because there was just a lot of topics to teach. Back in my college days, the debate breadth versus depth of curriculum was very popular. I wonder if anyone sided with breadth because it was no debate that depth in the curriculum is more essential. But in reality, most if not all teachers still teach as if going from one topic to the next is like crossing a lake by leaping from stone to stone. We only touch the surface but not go deeper.
It was surprising to learn from the resource by Swartz, et al. that the argument for these two opposing views had been present since time immemorial and has become one of the most controversial and most debated issues in the academe. The roots for ‘breadth’ in the science curriculum could be traced way back the classical age from Aristotle who believed that a person must come to know everything that there is to know about the natural world (Perhaps because there were few ideas to learn at that time compared to today) and this broad curriculum had been adopted without question until the 19th century. Advocates of ‘depth in the curriculum ‘ argued that success lies more to mastering a few than not mastering any. This view was strengthened in America by the AAAS or the American Association for the Advancement of Science which later in the decade produced an educational reform in science with the NRC (National Research Council) authoring the National Science Education Standards. It is indeed surprising to know that there was also breadth and depth in this debate.
Another thing I remember back in my student-teaching days was the debate in education between content vs process-based learning. Practical work (Dillon, 2008), includes learning experiences in which students interact with materials or with secondary sources of data to observe and understand the natural world. Robin Millar also pointed out that when using the term ‘practical work’ he referred to ‘any teaching and learning activity which at some point involves the students in observing or manipulating the objects and materials they are studying’. I do believe that practical work or termed laboratory experiments and science activities as well as collaborative work is a must in planning one’s lesson. I think there is no argument in the roles practical work in students learning science. It aims to encourage accurate observation and description, make phenomena real, arouse and maintain interest and promote a logical and reasoning method of thought according to all three studies. When well planned and effectively implemented, science education laboratory and simulation experiences situate students’ learning in varying levels of inquiry requiring students to be both mentally and physically engaged in ways that are not possible in other science education experience (Dillon, 2008).
When I was in college studying education, great importance was given on process-based and practical work in the teaching of science that it played a big role in shaping my principle as a science teacher. I did not have a hard time going from teacher-centered, traditional science education which was the practice during my student days into a more effective student-centered approach unlike other science teachers I encounter who would rather give a lecture to easily breeze through a topic than prepare and deliver an activity that would develop the students’ science skills.
Now that I am already part of the academe, the highly significant curricular issue that I believe worth debating and considering is ‘discipline vs integration.’ When the K12 curriculum came along, science curriculum, particularly in the secondary levels, changed from discipline-based to spiral based. The perennial problem of overcrowded science curriculum was addressed. We were introduced to a framework that treats science as a whole unit integrating ideas and concepts from different disciplines. At least that would have been the goal. But it was not taken seriously, in fact, I know schools that went back to the old discipline-based curriculum. Some schools still continue the discipline-based approach since educators are more specialized and would not easily adjust to the spiral curriculum. It is my dream to have the science curriculum in the Philippines be integrated which would cater a more student-centered classroom. Unfortunately, it would be hard to do so because that would entail a shake up in the system and difficulty to adjust for the teachers but that would also pave way to revolutionizing science education.
pre2ci's EdJournal 