This was a nice choice for a final reading assignment. The authors summarized ”contemporary” definitions of scientific literacy to include an understanding of: basic science facts, science practices and methods and finally interrelationships among science, technology, society and the environment (STS or STSE). Of course, there are nuances and details missing, but that is a great summation.
Then the article took us full circle to a discussion we had the very first day. Dawn asked us in the first class to define literacy and we spent some time talking about reading and writing as a definition of literacy and haven’t spent much time on that simplistic definition since. The authors, however, cleverly bring that literal and fundamental aspect of literacy back into the mix with the expectation that it will assit the students attain the broader literacy we expect. Since news accounts (in various media) will form the bulk of what citizens encounter after school, it should follow that teachers (and policy makers) would recognize their importance and include these types of literacy events in their classes.
This study of teaching practices in Alberta, Canada showed common usage of news accounts in the classroom, with the most common reasoning for doing so being demonstration of relevance. Many teachers seemed to be missing the greater implication that giving students the opportunity to read, discuss and otherwise analyze articles gives them valuable literacy skills for both impending exams and future experiences.
Not suprisingly, teachers listed time constraints as the most common barrier to using news accounts in the classroom. The authors suggest that when policy makers specifically state the need for using current “popular” literature in the classroom, this constraint may be lessened. In fact, they make the statement that “policy lags behind practice” in some classrooms. And it was that line that led me on many tangents…..
I will spare you all the trip down memory lane with me as I spent a long drive yesterday thinking mostly about this article and the how it related to my evolving teaching practices over the years. It was when I realized that I finished my first year of public school teaching exactly 20 years ago that my mind began to wander to all sorts of tangents (must be old age!). I will share this one story though in regards to policy and practice:
I was hired in 1986 to teach in a small district in the Catskill Mountains of NY (512 students K-12). A major science issue in the news at the time was AIDS. The brand new Health teacher and I were brought into the Vice Principal’s office that first fall and asked to come up with an AIDS curriculum for the school. He handed us a list of words and terms that were NOT allowed to be used in the classroom. I no longer remember all of them, but we couldn’t even MENTION condom, homosexuality, anal sex, etc. This was back in the day when the term “gay cancer” was still being used by some as a term for AIDS. Well, we rebelled. But remember, we were first year teachers and had no clue how far we could push this. We got the VP to agree that IF a student asked a question and we needed to use one of the “forbidden words” to answer the question, we could do that. And that is where news article accounts came in. In this case, the Health teacher would get around the ridiculous policy by having the students read an article and then answer the questions that arose. For me, I just stood up in front of class one day and said “I can’t talk about condoms unless one of you asks me about them.” and one of the kids said “Why do you want to talk about condoms?” and I didn’t stop talking for 40 minutes…….
I remember they simply had no clue about the whole fluid transfer thing. That many of them thought it was the act of drug use or giving blood or having certain kinds of sexual contact that simply caused some Lamarckian (take that spellchecker!) creation of AIDS. But more importantly, that is the first time I worked with the Health teacher. We ended up finding out we had a lot in common. We have been together ever since. Now you know the rest of the story……
Thank you Paul Harvey. Good story!
Yes, I kind of stopped talking about definitions of literacy and scientific literacy in order to lead up to our very final attempt to define both. Kachan et al. (2006) do provide a nice summary of what scientific literacy is as well as a way to circumvent teaching to the text. I like your story of resistance as a first year teacher…that took moxie (I believe that’s the term?). Nice way of relating the article to classroom practice.