Science in the early grades and in graduate school.
July 13th, 2009 by blackshamaDJB is in a crusade to bring back science as a distinct subject in the early grades of the basic education curriculum (BEC). Since 2002, science has been integrated with Makabayan and English. For Makabayan there are these subject areas: Social Studies, Music and Arts, Technology and Livelihood, and Values Education.
DJB’s current crusade should let us think about the problems of teaching science in basic education. Dina Ocampo et al’s paper (2009) (also a UP Centennial lecture) on reforms that don’t transform in the DepEd should be a requisite backgrounder on dealing with the problem of basic science education.
Despite the extensive discussion on the various surveys on Philippine educational reform and the vexed issue of language of instruction, one important point in this paper is that we haven’t effected a shift from structure based to constructivist based approaches to education. Here lies the nuts and bolts of the post-modern debate on science education. What is better? Content based sci-ed (structure based) or inquiry based sci-ed (constructivist)? Recent pedagogical approaches in the US and Commonwealth countries point to a concept based approach that rapidly moves on to an experimental hands on based approach. This is supported by some research but remains controversial.
Obviously the latter choice will require extensive infrastructure in the provision of science labs in elementary and high schools. Even in the USA, there has been a trend to de-emphasize science in basic education by reducing the core subjects to earth/physical sciences, biology and chemistry. This is partially due to the expense of providing these programs. There is also a trend to integrate the sciences along a more humanistic and social studies theme. In the UK upper level basic education programmes may have 21st science as an option for their school leavers certificate.
I am quite aware of this first hand when I taught at Lousiana State University. Thus the concern that the United States is losing its competitive edge in science has some basis. In the USA, the integration of science along humanistic lines occurs in junior high. Physics has been the first casualty here and universities and colleges are quite worried that students get into science and engineering with not much physics to begin with!
I am no expert nor a practitioner in basic science education but we in higher education get the products of basic education. The leveling process in introductory college science courses includes removing out misconceptions due to previous thinking or views of the world. In my Philippine experience of college science teaching these misconceptions often have a religious and cultural/superstition basis. This BTW cuts across social classes. The rich have their own unscientific ideas and the poor theirs. The common between these are religious in origin and class based misconceptions persist especially on human biology and health. The recent study by Professor JR Torres of Rizal Technological University on astronomy concepts is proof that these misconceptions persist.
It is certain that inquiry based science should include factual knowledge since it is impossible to do experiments on all basic science concepts. A good grounding on both the experimental and factual bases of science is necessary in metacognition in which students begin to integrate and form their own scientfic theories. This starts in high school and further developed in college/university. In the MSc and PhD levels, this is further honed. However we notice that even at the MSc level, we have to teach science the undergrad way since students haven’t developed the basic metacognition competencies!
In the US, UK, EU, Japan, and China, science is taught as a single subject from the early grades to at least in high school where the basic sciences are taught as separate subjects. The trend to teach science along humanistic and social studies lines risks it being tainted with ideological bias. This is something that isn’t part of a scientific culture and will retard scientific development Teaching basic science in Makabayan risks this and may not develop thinking skills for a globalized technology driven environment.
The question for the Philippines is “What do we need science for?” There is much more to the mantra that science is needed for national development.
Cross posted on Philippine Commentary
July 13, 2009 at 4:18 pm
i’m curous about djb’s notion that opus dei had a hand in this in the first place. is there any truth 2 that, as far as you know?
July 13, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Ask DJB. I haven’t seen the evidence.
July 31, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I agree, but if you will carefully read elementary science books, the contents are just the same as what we studied in elementary way back 1970 – 1980.. Most updates are not yet indicated in these texbooks. So students would resort to surfing the internet for latest updates and innovations in relations to science.
July 13, 2009 at 5:09 pm
As a parent, I’m disappointed that so far the wisdom of people like you, Ocampo et. al., and Professor Torres seems to be falling on deaf ears. This school year I’ve gotten the dubious honor of being the Parents’ Association president at my 6th-grade stepson’s school, and what I’m learning is disheartening to say the least. The usual cop-out seems to be, “well, we can’t worry about curriculum because we have all these other more practical problems, such as maintenance, books, etc.” Am I right in perceiving that as a general trend, that it’s easier to focus (if it all) on the little things, rather than something substantial like the basic curriculum?
I think you’re on the right track. I think you should worry about the fundamental stuff first. The best-equipped school in the country is still no good if what is coming out of it is outmoded, superficial, or just plain wrong.
July 13, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Ask a parent who I believe pays a hefty tuition for your child, I believe your concerns should not be dismissed that lightly. A progressive school should be able to reevaluate their curriculum and teaching strategies. Private schools have more leeway in here. Public schools under DepEd are burdened by bureaucratic obstacles but as Dina Ocampo et al write, there are bright spots here.
July 13, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Cazart! I knew someone would make the assumption…
The sixth-grader is a public-schooler. Although the opportunity to send him to private school is certainly within our grasp, we have our reasons for not doing so. That may change at some point, I have to admit, and we still haven’t decided about the two younger kids, but for now, however, we share the same concerns about public education as most of the population. The way I see it, public education is the tool that can break the feudal structure of this society, and allow the country to start catching up to the rest of the world — if only the people in charge of it (and, I have to say, the people whose lives and whose children are most affected by it) would regard it with the seriousness it deserves.
And I may be a bit of a crusader, but I’m also realistic; the kid gets supplemental lessons in computers, math, and English, and he also benefits from his mother being a former teacher and yours truly being a multiple degree-holder. If we didn’t have our particular resources and strengths, the arrangement would be quite different, obviously. The people who don’t have our options are the ones I worry about.
July 13, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Regardless, you should talk to the principal or better yet transfer your child to a more progressive Public school. There are a lot in this country some of them are in the NCR. Also breaking the feudal mode in education involves real redistribution and no solution is that simple as reforms do not always deliver. Recall that when the Jesuit trained Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, the first act of educational reform he did was to shut down Cuba’s version of Ateneo de Manila and kick out the Jesuits! The rationale is that these elitist schools perpetuate the feudal structure.
July 13, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Oh, and as a p.s., I think that was one instance in which Castro was right.
July 13, 2009 at 7:09 pm
ben, whats your problem with the curiculum?
July 13, 2009 at 7:44 pm
@blackshama: Fortunately, my tiny bit of authority this year has given me the opportunity to get involved with the teachers and the administration of our school. I don’t regard them as the real problem — they are doing their job by the book, as best they are able. Problem is the book, so to speak, is seriously flawed.
I like my neighborhood, and my neighbors, and my neighbors’ kids. I try to help by offering a different, constructive point of view, and since I am the “president”, I try to help the other folks articulate their concerns as well.
@GabbyD: My specific problems with the curriculum are three. First, the catch-all of Makabayan, which blackshama has explained (and what caught my attention when I was casually browsing earlier, despite having actual work I need to be doing). The course attempts to cover too much ground in too many different subjects in too short a time. Second, I see the schools falling into the same sort of pattern here that we did back in the States, where too much of the focus of the teaching is on the eventual taking of assessment tests. The circumstances and significance of those tests is different here, of course, but the result is the same: too much rote-learning and not enough critical thinking skills.
And third, and I will admit to some personal bias here, I am not pleased with the language instruction. I would obviously prefer the medium of instruction be English, and I think that is eminently more practical, but as a non-citizen, I could understand the choice of Tagalog, provided that A)that was a consistent choice, B)instruction in the Tagalog language itself [i.e. grammar, composition, etc.] was sound, and C) there was an equally sound course in a foreign language, most likely English, but that wouldn’t have to be a given — any language, just do it right, for Pete’s sake. None of those three things are really happening.
The local school administration has made some policy decisions to try to promote consistency and quality, and in that they are somewhat maverick, it seems. They have adhered to the Tagalog medium of instruction for the past couple of years, for example, in spite of DepEd not being able to make up their minds about it; and I can’t argue with that, because it’s what the school feels is the most practical for their constituency. Some other things they’ve done are probably not exactly kosher with respect to DepEd regulations and guidelines, but they’ve helped the kids, at least a little, and so I’d back them up on it if it ever came to it. But there’s only so much they can do, even stretching the envelope as far as they can get away with. They’re told to dig a well, and then they’re given a spoon to do it with.
July 14, 2009 at 1:22 am
That it always changes. As Ocampo, Bautista and Bernardo said in their UP lecture, we can’t complete the whole basic education cycle since bright DepEd guys keep changing the curriculum.
July 14, 2009 at 1:38 am
That’s really the worst part. My wife and I have a hell of a time trying to maintain some kind of progressive learning with one kid, I couldn’t imagine what the teachers must think when they’re faced with 30+ (or lots more – we at least don’t have a crowding problem here).
July 13, 2009 at 9:28 pm
no worries about jesuits ousted from state-run education system of cuba.
UP is trumping Castro by having more Caliban professors in UP :)
July 13, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Science has always been passion ever since starting out in my elementary years. Even now that I’ve shifted to the social sciences, I cannot help but get irked knowing that science is slowly being set aside in education.
If this continues, where would this country go? Back to the middle ages?
July 13, 2009 at 9:29 pm
back to the middle ages?
did it even get out of the middle ages? :D
July 14, 2009 at 1:30 am
We had a bit of the Renaissance with Jose Rizal. BTW I overheard a UST student attending a Philosophy student symposium at UP saying that “they (UST students) are banned from reading Kant!” Now talk about getting out of the Medieval ages! I sincerely hope that the UST student is wrong. But then again as Elmer Ordonez writes, people from the Royal and Pontifical University once they get under the acacias of Diliman, start expressing themselves!
July 14, 2009 at 3:41 am
why settle for Kant when there’s also Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard
July 13, 2009 at 8:20 pm
What is science? The dissection of reality into its factual components so we might understand how things work, and then apply the knowledge to something that aids mankind or makes us rich?
Knocking up the curriculum for the sake of some bland idea such as “science” gets nowhere, seems to me. No one gets excited over it, teachers, kids, parents.
Abrupt right turn: I tend to doubt the US is falling behind in science. The US advances science on four applied fronts: space, war, profit (including health and medicine) and earthwork (environment, ecology, and the like). I regret to say all four are vibrant drivers of new techniques today.
The Philippines does not manufacture war tools, is not in space and has a lousy commercial/technology base. However, it is at the center of the ecological storm, as it were. Oceans, weather, changing climate.
A brilliant leader would say, “we are at the center of the climate storm; we will be masters of our fate”. It does not have the ring of Kennedy’s “we will put a man on the moon”, but, hey, work up the language a little. With that as a national commitment, the curriculae will fall into place.
Make the value clear, relevant and EXCITING to teachers, parents and young people. Fund it. Stand back and watch. Id wager you’ll create a core science that drives all kinds of technological and humanitarian improvements.
While you are at it, make English the definitive language of future opportunity. You can’t relate to the world in Tagalog, and everything scientific should be “world class”. Chinese would be better than Tagalog, if lingering colonialism is driving you up the wall.
Joe
Joe
July 13, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Joe:
A very large number of the homeland pinoys can’t differentiate between their right hand and left hand, much less, elect leaders who can generate a consensus on scientific education.
If ever a consensus will be generated on science education it will be how much money can be stolen from the science education budget – how much goes to each layer in the heirarch. By the time the actual budget for a chair is released, the money left is enough to buy one washer.
Then, that becomes an opportunity for a company owned by local economic elite to flash some crumbs and morsels and press releases about corporate social responsibility. Household budgets for meals and books end up in the hands of prepaid phone card retailers.
July 14, 2009 at 1:25 am
English should be the language in teaching science in tertiary education. In many non-English speaking countries, this trend is getting much support.
July 14, 2009 at 2:24 am
While Beijing is importing all our college graduates as teachers of English, we are using tagalog to teach our students science? Our only competitive advantage (ability to speak English) being thrown down the drain?
I would call this regressive education. Actually we should keep using English as the medium of instruction and add Chinese and Spanish as optional courses if we want to produce world class graduates.
July 14, 2009 at 2:28 am
I agree – teaching science in English, the lingua franca of business and science is a good thing. it also increases the competitiveness of our graduates.
note that China has invested heavily in getting native English speaking persons to teach English in their universities. it is just a matter of time when Chinese English-speaking call center operators will give the Philippines and India a run for its money.
it is ironic that as China ramps up its effort to be more fluent in English, the Philippine curriculum is going in the opposite direction.
July 14, 2009 at 2:45 am
We just had a re-union of Saint Louis University of Baguio alumni. English has been drilled into our heads from grade 1 in the Montanosa. I am very happy to say that a lot of the graduates (mostly engineers, accountants and nurses) who are newly arrived here in Calgary have found very good jobs mainly because we easily pass job interviews due to faliliarity with the English language. I am sure they have experience and credentials but the first thing the HR check is the ability to express oneself clearly and intelligently which is a product of a lengthy English immersion environment.
July 13, 2009 at 8:30 pm
dang,
the philippine public schools circa 2009 are a joke.
my kids are in a jesuit school where science is still a separate subject, and classrooms and books are not an issue.
on perception of the dwindling of scientific competitiveness – try going to MIT and UCLA-JPL instead of settling in a university of what is perceived to the most corrupt state in the union.
July 13, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I think the US is falling behind in science. Maybe not at the university level, but in the primary and secondary schools, definitely. Which as blackshama said, hurts later on. But that’s the US’ problem (mine too, in a way, since I have a high-schooler back home to worry about).
When I say I can’t argue with the school’s choice of Tagalog, I mean just that. Doesn’t mean I necessarily agree, but I am who I am and my opinion has limits. English would be a much better choice for practical reasons — personally, I think it’s really stupid not to focus on it, and then on the other hand to push enterprises like BPO and tourism. Just don’t see it working.
And you know what, I don’t think the appeal of a particular subject should weigh on its value. If they made decisions based on what is ‘bland’, you might as well chuck grammar in any language, civics, math, etc… Like I tell my kids, if it was supposed to be ‘fun’, they’d call it that, and not ’school’. (and some of it is fun, anyway…)
July 13, 2009 at 9:58 pm
lagging in science is one problem. but there’s a bigger problem than science education – it is education itself:
from: http://www.moveonphil.org/resources/sorry.state.of.public.education.htm
July 13, 2009 at 10:01 pm
A nation’s strenght is dependent on its technical people. Without
technology. We will never prosper. It is not the total solution. But,
is one of the solutions.
However, if we have incompetent people running government programs.
We cannot advance. Look at our Rice Research program. Other countries
are sending people in IRRI at Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines. These
people learning from IRRI go back to their countries. They produce
good harvests of rice. Export the rice to the Philippines.
I cannot see any good explanation on this situation. A country with
a good Rice Research facilities, importing rice from other countries?
If this is not incompetence. What do you call it?
July 13, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Well, this will really turn your crank, Hyden: look up the IRRI website, and check out how under-represented the Philippines is in the organization. For instance: Only 2 out of 15 members of the Board of Trustees are Filipino, only 6 out of 32 staff in the Crop and Environmental Sciences Division, the Deputy Director General for Research is a German (as if Germany is a big rice consumer), and so on.
For a country that derives 40% of its caloric intake from rice, I’d think there would be a little more motivation to come to grips with at least this kind of science. It seems to me this is as good a thing to make their own as Joe A’s notion of being climactically-unique.
July 13, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Not a case of people in the IRRI. It is a case of utilizing the
IRRI Technology to solve rice shortage. Marcos solved the rice
shortage 40 years ago. Why did it came back? Maybe, Marcos had
more luck. I still say, it is a blatant display of government
incompetence. Why do Vietnam had surplus rice harvest to export
to us?
July 13, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Sure, but who’s in the best position to deliver IRRI’s technology to the Philippines? The people in IRRI. After all, are they not doing a pretty good job of delivering it to Vietnam, Indonesia, China, etc., etc.? Don’t get me wrong, I think you make a good point. But hosting an international research institution should indicate a certain superiority, for lack of a better word, in the particular field being studied, if for nothing more than a sense of national self-respect. Oh wait, I forgot. The Philippines already got that covered with their really good boxer, and that guy who got hired as the lead singer of Journey. Priorities, I guess.
July 13, 2009 at 10:57 pm
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVca0SIx0WievReshMjckl1KW-Aw
IRRI to help Philippines grow enough rice for itself
May 1, 2008
LOS BANOS, Philippines (AFP) — The Philippines on Friday signed an agreement with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to help it to grow enough rice to feed its own people within three years.
IRRI president Robert Zeigler said the institute would “join forces with the Department of Agriculture and the Philippine Rice Research Institute to ramp up Philippine rice production.”
The Philippines is one of the world’s largest rice importers. President Gloria Arroyo witnessed the signing of the broad-ranging accord at the IRRI headquarters in this town south of Manila.
Manila has been scrambling to boost stocks and supply cheap rice to the poor as rice prices soared to near-record levels in recent months amid increased demand, crop failures, a shift to biofuels production or other land uses, and poor investment in the farm sector.
Zeigler said the agreement would help steer Manila “towards self-sufficiency.” Manila says it now imports about 10 percent of its domestic rice requirement.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said collaboration with IRRI would cover all four million hectares (9.88 million acres) of farmland planted with rice.
The agreement encompasses irrigation, high-yield hybrid varieties, credit support, technical advise for farmers, and construction of storage facilities to address the country’s five percent-plus yield losses through spoilage.
“Pretty soon farmers would be able to access and breed seeds that are tolerant to certain diseases, flooding and dry spells” which are being developed by IRRI, Yap said.
Manila earlier announced fresh investments of 43 billion pesos (about one billion dollars) over two years to attain rice self-sufficiency.
Yap official said the government had already contracted enough rice for this year, and additional purchases would be made for buffer stocks.
July 20, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I agree that our basic science education should be inquiry-based and mathematics education should be problem-solving based. The two important ingredients to this endeavor are textbooks and teachers.
We need good textbooks and qualified teachers who can teach these the contents of these books well. To answer the problem of qualified teachers, our school had a project with DepEd twelve years ago to train public high school teachers in math and science for 1 and 1/2 years. Those who finished the program were granted an MS MathEd or MS BioEd degree. I think we only handled 8 batches with about 30 students per batch until DepEd stopped funding the program. Lucio Tan through his FUSE came to the rescue and supported about 4 batches. Instead of stopping the program, DepEd should continue it and engage the services of UP Diliman, UP Los Banos, UP Baguio, UP Visayas, DLSU, UST, MSU-IIT, Xavier U, San Carlos U, and other competent universities for multiplier effect considering that the Philippines has more than 600,000 teachers in more than 80,000 public schools.