Certainty is overrated.

[In response to the idea, posted in another teacher's blog, that "science teaches us how to question"]

I'm a little affronted by the assertion that science teaches us how to question. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but my fear about the plight of science education makes me short-tempered. If the "natural skill" - and I absolutely agree that it is NATURAL in the truest, most innate sense - of questioning disappears, then it is because it is schooled out of us. Science classes don't teach us how to question any more than they teach us how to breath. We educate our students to question less - to follow without question, and to depend on us for answers. It is the time-honoured way to wrest control out of students hands. The fact that students don't care to question, or don't think to, is the most disturbing evidence we have that our classrooms are broken.

Humans learn, humans question. If that innate ability that is so fundamental to our species has been deadened, teachers bare a large part of the responsibility. If through our "teaching", we must reawaken that skill, we had better start with an awareness and respect for the FACT that it is merely dormant. Too often, we supplant a student's natural inquiring instinct with some artificial structure or system - sometimes misnamed, "the scientific method". In the process, we retain the balance of power in the classroom, but we also strangle the brave creativity that is unique to each student and essential to real learning. Our goal should not be to encourage students to arrive at the same conclusions as we do, but to arrive at some completely unique destination of their own. And how does this look? It looks chaotic and disordered. It feels even worse - confusing and scary, it takes courage to learn this way. By the way, it takes courage to teach this way, and in my classroom it is more a goal than a reality, but I'm working on it.

When I begin one of my science classes, I tell students that more than anything, I want them to be WRONG. I point out how often the path to amazing science has been almost completely blind, misguided or wrong-headed. Great discoveries are made by those who don't cling to their assumptions, hold their minds open, willing to be proven WRONG. Through demonstrations, I show them how much more fun WRONG can actually be than RIGHT. RIGHT is a brief self-satisfied nod of the head and move on. WRONG is shocking, surprising and exciting, sit back and reevaluate. WRONG stays with you, while RIGHT is long forgotten. Over time, students learn that what I look for is thoughtful educated guesses, even sudden rash insights. I don't want them to hold their tongue until they are certain.

Certainty is overrated.