While teaching a Primary School Science lesson recently, I had the opportunity to observe the quality of Science we currently offer our school students, as well as to discern something of the true status of Science as it currently operates in our world. I was struck deeply by the omission of building upon children’s natural and vital sense of awe and wonder.
The lesson itself was ‘textbook’ best practice and ticked many boxes from the perspective of what is considered as good Science teaching. It was a hands-on activity with a sound theoretical foundation: students would be engaging in real life experimental design, manipulating only one variable – they were to work in teams of three with clearly assigned roles, and were outside the confines of the classroom. In addition, the students would be sharing their findings in a report.
The topic under investigation was the effects of tidal action on beach erosion, an issue common in our local area, and we had previously viewed this phenomenon at length, online.
Each group of students had constructed a model in a plastic box of how the land is eroded by the wave action of the ocean and each group was actively engaged in pushing water towards a 20cm bank of sand, using a small piece of flat plastic.
The students were having great fun with the activity but, as I observed them ‘making’ the sand bank in the tray collapse, I became acutely aware of how far short of the truth this ‘model’ of the wave phenomenon actually was.
Water contained thus in a box cannot be said to faithfully replicate the rhythms and movements of water in the oceans. Moreover, accurate measurements of beach erosion can only typically be made by a longitudinal study over an extended time period – observations naturally offered by those who have lived on a coastline for many, many years. On an even grander scale, we know that shorelines, and even landmasses, change monumentally over longer periods of time – on occasions, even disappearing completely.
A single point in time measurement of a controlled model, like this one here, is an extreme example of reducing down the truth and the grandness of Nature’s cycles quite literally, into a box.
Moreover, where was the science of the moon’s effects on the waves, or the acknowledgement that the moon’s effects are actually the Sun’s effects? Where was the understanding of the blessing of this solar gesture, or, indeed, the reasons behind intense land erosion? What about the Science of the origins and movements of the intense winds that usually accompany this activity and their purpose? Where was the sense of this synchronous interconnectedness? In short, where was the sense of awe and wonder readily felt by observing this phenomenon, an awe and wonder that children easily connect with when inspired to do so by adults?
Reducing down such a multi-faceted phenomenon to a box, as well as excluding its relationships with what lays beyond the Earth, falls far short of the Science we could be offering our children in school, a Science which could easily build upon their natural sense of awe and wonder. It is this sense of a much bigger picture, this feeling of a universal magnificence in life that we are all a part of that, as a teacher, I know children resonate with deeply.
Why does Science in general and Science in Primary Schools insist that our world and its wonder always be confined, reduced and constricted into controlled, measurable laboratory settings, whilst outside the box we observe the intricate grandeur of the Universe with an innate awe?
What are we teaching our students in Science? Is it to unfold our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of? In spite of the fact that we cannot measure it…? Or is it how to reduce life to whatever can be measured singly, in isolation to everything else (1)? If we constantly reduce life, what effect does it have on us, given that we are part of the life that we are reducing?
Are we schooling children to cut themselves off from the wonder of themselves in relationship with an awe-inspiring Universe? Have we ever stopped to consider investigating this mentalisation of children’s innate impulses and are we avoiding the possibility that:
“An awe-willing outlook is just as important if not more so than what we call and or consider having an open mind, for an awe-willing outlook may further open one’s mind.” (‘Time, Space and all of us; Book 2, Space’, Serge Benhayon, p. 297)
Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in childhood is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection? This is a discussion we educators and parents must have.
By Coleen Hensey
References:
Further Reading:
The True Purpose of Education – One Size Fits All or Evolution?
Science is beauty
The true foundations of education – our future
This is Science
353 Comments
An awe-willing outlook, what a great subject. That is what I had as a child, it disappeared and now is resurfacing again. I realize it’s choice to have such an outlook, I choose that.
‘ Is it to unfold our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of? In spite of the fact that we cannot measure it…? ‘ I love this appreciation of wonderment not being something we can tie down, compare and measure. When we try to pin it down to a formula or to something concrete we miss how it’s not something static to be owned and displayed. It’s like trying to put a ray of sunshine into a matchstick box and capturing it – it doesn’t work.
Awe and wonder is such a beautiful quality to be with, as if offers us the opportunity to deepen our awareness of the magnificence of the rhythm, cycles and magic of the universe which inspires us to reflect and deepen our awareness of who we are, all that we are connected to and to appreciate our own innate magnificence and our inescapable part in it all.
Such a great question my sense is that we are educating our children in the most limited way. With devastating consequences.
So to turn the question round – how can we expand horizons and encourage, teach and inspire each other to look outside of the box?
Great call to foster the ‘awe-willing outlook’ of all children young and old so that we never lose our sense of being part of the universe and how we are within it. When we reduce anything by putting it in a box we lose far more than we gain.
How do we foster and nurture that sense of awe that kids naturally experience is a great question. I think in general the way we educate kids tends to switch off our awe-button by making the world seem incredibly 2d and flat rather than turning it their awe by letting them explore just how incredible the world is…
At the moment there is a lot of media discussion around the amount of money and funding a school receives and if it is adequate or not, the question is political and is quite heavy. To me the real answer is in the quality and space we re able to give our children – deny them who they are and no amount of money will be able to offer them a ‘better’ education.
Encourage them to be who they are, and the very air we breathe becomes a true education, along with the sun, stars, nature, people, and everything that is around us and going on in the world. When we come into relationship with all of that, there is an infinite number of lessons on offer.
Beautifully said Simon – if our innate sense of wonder, awe and fascination is fostered from a young age our exploration and understanding of who we are would be in a very different place right now.
This is a great question Coleen; ‘Why does Science in general and Science in Primary Schools insist that our world and its wonder always be confined, reduced and constricted into controlled, measurable laboratory settings, whilst outside the box we observe the intricate grandeur of the Universe with an innate awe?’
We are all the losers when science is reduced away from the grandeur of its innate relationship with every aspect of the universe and our lives within that.
Coleen, this is a great article. Reading it makes me realise that when I was at school science seemed to be about testing different metals and doing measured experiments – none of which I understood or found interesting and so I wrote science off as being dull and complicated. Now I read this I can feel how amazing science and nature and the world we live in is and how this awe and amazingness is what inspires children.
You are asking a fabulous question at the end of your article pointing out that we are the ones that also are reduced when science is reduced. It feels like you are touching on a very crucial point. Could it be that our quality and understanding of life is also reduced when we reduce science?