The
media has been recently debating the issue as to whether primary school
teachers are equipped with the necessary skills to teach science. Science is deemed by some to be a ‘specialist’
subject; one which ‘generalist’ primary teachers should not be teaching in the
classroom. Science is not purely a subject in which fun experiments are
conducted, but it develops students’ skills of questioning and exploring, as
well as their natural sense of curiosity, in a safe and supportive environment.
Due to the poor academic performance of Australian schools in the science area,
specialist teachers are being brought in to teach science as opposed to the
regular classroom teacher. The short answer is that primary teachers are primed
and equipped to teach science in their own classroom and they certainly should
do so.
Why? Well,
firstly, primary teachers know their students. They know what engages them, how
they learn best and how to manage them. If a specialist teacher were brought in
with the sole purpose of teaching science, then they would not understand the
students as well as the regular classroom teacher. Additionally, there would be
no integration of science into other areas of the curriculum, such as maths and
literacy, as the specialist teacher would have no knowledge of the content been taught in other subject areas,
while the regular classroom teacher would have no knowledge of what was being
taught in science.
Secondly,
teachers and students do not need a high level of maths knowledge in order to
teach or learn science. Dr Desmond Murray (2013) states that ‘the fact is in
most of science people don’t use much more mathematics than a grocery store
clerk’. Teaching science is not outside what any literate adult already knows
or understands. Science is not about using maths to solve complex problems, but
is more about questioning and investigating the world around us. It is not
merely for ‘smart’ people, but for everyone. However, if a specialist science
teacher is brought into the classroom to teach science, then the idea that only
smart people can teach science is implemented in the minds of the students. If
their own teacher is not ‘smart’ enough to teach them science, then are they
smart enough to learn it?
Yes of
course they are! Why? Because, thirdly, students are naturally curious and it
is the role of the teacher to build upon these curiosities. Teachers do not
need to have a PhD in physics or a Master’s degree in Chemistry in order to
teach a subject that is designed to nurture the valuable human trait of
curiosity. Scientists themselves are not geniuses, they are just simply,
according to Dr Desmond Murray (2013), ‘equipped with the powers of innate curiosity
like every other human’. In the subject of science, the students take the lead,
often investigating their own questions and explaining results and outcomes in
their own words. In fact, the very first aim in the Australian Curriculum (2015)
for science is to expand the students’ ‘curiosity and willingness to explore, ask
questions about and speculate on the changing world in which they live’. The
job of the teacher, therefore, is not to stand out the front of the classroom
and lecture about the laws of motion or the life-cycle of a butterfly, but to
merely act as a facilitator as the students take charge of their own learning.
It is the students who do most of the teaching, not the teacher.
Finally,
teachers have multiple high quality teaching resources at their disposal to
assist them in their confidence to teach science. One of the many reasons
primary teachers do not teach science in their classroom is a lack of
confidence in their own ability. Often this lack of confidence arises from the
teacher’s own science experiences in their schooling days, such as them having
a poor teacher, or even not being taught science at all. For some, it is merely
the fact that they have not been taught science for a number of years. I am
lucky in this regard as I loved science in school and studied it all through my
high school years. Furthermore, there certainly
seems to be a strong focus on the ‘more important’ subjects in the school
curriculum, such as maths and literacy as a result of the NAPLAN testing. As a
pre-service teacher, I certainly find this to be true as I have one semester on
science, combined with design, while I have several which focus on teaching
mathematics and literacy. To combat this, the Primary Connections series was developed by the Australian Academy
of Science to support teachers in teaching science. The series is fully aligned
with the Australian Curriculum and aims to enhance the teacher’s science confidence
and competence. The series focuses on the Foundation to Year 6 science curriculums
with a total of 34 units available. Each unit includes detailed lesson plans as
well as all the necessary resources needed for the topic. It also contains
ideas for integration into other learning areas; something that you would not
get if there were a ‘specialist’ science teacher. Furthermore, every teacher
(In service and Pre-service) will have easy access to the Primary Connections series as every Government school was given a
full set of the units and they are also free to download off of the Scootle website.
Primary school teachers certainly have the necessary
resources and ability to teach science in their own classrooms. What they are
missing, however, is confidence in their ability; something which will
certainly be boosted thanks to the Primary
Connections resources. You do not have to be a genius in order to teach
science, but you do need to understand your students and how they learn, which
I believe every primary school teacher certainly does. In the end, it is from
providing the best educational environment for your students to thrive which
achieves the best results. I, for one, feel confident and competent to teach
science in my very own classroom one day.
References
Murray, Dr
Desmond (2013) ‘The Myths of Teaching Science and Their Consequences’. Benton-Michiana
Spirit Newspaper August 13,
2013 pg.7. Retrieved on September 16 2015 from http://flo.flinders.edu.au/pluginfile.php/1472323/mod_resource/content/1/Myths%20and%20Consequences%20of%20Teaching%20Science.pdf
Australian Curriculum (2015) ‘Science Curriculum Aims’. Retrieved on
September 22 2015 from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/science/aims
