Every September, I work with a new cohort of preservice elementary teachers learning to teach science. I begin by asking questions that are at the heart of John Rudolph's newest book, How We Teach Science. I ask candidates to describe their experiences of science in school, to recall what it meant to be considered “good at” science, and to consider the possible aims of teaching science in schools. We also reflect on questions that Rudolph's book does not raise. I ask candidates what they learned from their experiences of science in schools, to recall if they were ever counted among the students who were “good at” science, and to think about their hopes and worries as future science educators.
To the first set of questions, preservice teachers offer responses that resonate with touchstones marking the eras of US science education detailed in Rudolph's historical account. Preservice teachers describe reciting vast amounts of information while occasionally moving into an apparatus-filled laboratory to conduct experiments that seemed to have foregone conclusions. In chapters 1 and 2, Rudolph details this early history of science education in the US as instructors began teaching about natural sciences first as an “information” subject and later as an empirical method of carrying out precise laboratory research techniques aimed at disciplining the minds of learners.
Almost without exception, preservice teachers argue that at the center of their science education was a goal of learning the “scientific method” by engaging in step-by-step problem-solving and investigation. My preservice teachers do not describe experiences of genuine inquiry into puzzling phenomena but instead depict using a stepwise method to arrive at well-established scientific truths. Their folk theories of science and science education have deep roots that Rudolph details in chapters 3, 4, and 5, as he describes how the increased influence of psychology on the practice of education provoked a shift from a set of laboratory-method exercises to an idealized image of science as personal problem-solving grounded in a scientific method. John Dewey may not have intended the scientific method to become a regimented step-by-step formula for arriving at truths; nevertheless, this oversimplification took hold in schools, as Rudolph illustrates, and this remains a prominent feature of teachers’ conceptions of school science to this day.
Preservice elementary teachers describe a variety of additional aims of science in school. They argue that science education is necessary to prepare people for future employment in science and engineering careers and to maintain a steady flow of innovations in industry, and they highlight that science in school serves as a way to identify an elite group of intelligent people who can become scientists and engineers. Importantly, my preservice elementary teachers do not see themselves as part of that group. Without knowing it, these future teachers are touching upon themes that come into focus in chapters 6, 7, and 8, as Rudolph examines important shifts in science education during and after World War II.
Finally, as my preservice teachers consider their future roles as science educators in elementary schools, I am struck by the prominence of the “standards” as a foundational heuristic for their image of how we teach science. My candidates have never experienced school without heavy reliance on academic standards and accountability, so they imagine that these frameworks and pressures have always been part of how we teach science. Rudolph turns his attention to the standards movement in science education in chapters 9 and 10, beginning with efforts in the 1980s and 1990s and culminating in the current ongoing effort to leverage Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to foster pedagogical shifts in science education.
Throughout How We Teach Science, Rudolph weaves together key threads from the history of schooling, the history of relationships between psychology and education, debates within science studies, and shifts in public sentiment regarding science, industry, and expertise. Interwoven histories such as these prevent How We Teach Science from becoming too narrowly focused on what happens within the four walls of a science classroom. However, when reading historical accounts that aim to describe teaching, there is a desire to hear more about the lived experiences inside classrooms. This poses a challenge for any history of teaching because vital aspects of teaching and learning may not leave visible traces.
Relationships and the dialogue that transpires between teachers and students, how teachers and peers mediate learning experiences, and how teachers create and adjust multiple forms of scaffolding are all essential for understanding how we teach and learn science in school, but these dimensions of teaching can be ephemeral. Instead we have more coarsely grained details about teaching, including named methods of teaching (e.g., the laboratory method, inquiry approach), curricular tools like syllabi or textbooks, scientific apparatus, films and media, and the records of decision-makers describing how teachers should teach science. Rudolph thoroughly examines such source material to craft the history of how we teach science, but the ephemeral sights and sounds of classroom life are left to readers’ imaginations.
This book is a valuable read for teacher educators and others in positions to guide science teaching in schools, districts, and states. In particular, I urge policymakers and curriculum developers who are all looking for the next big innovation in science education to grapple with the historical account Rudolph provides as they consider their aims, means, and possible pitfalls in light of previous science education reform efforts.
This book could also be useful in teacher preparation, particularly for prospective secondary science teachers. Dilemmas that Rudolph raises could spark fruitful deliberation for teacher candidates with deep roots in a science discipline and who have enjoyed academic success in the current state of how we teach science. Similarly, this book could provide food for thought for practicing teachers who, as Rudolph acknowledges, are always tacitly drawing upon folk theories of science and of science teaching that could be made more explicit by reading and discussing this book.
In How We Teach Science, Rudolph focuses his attention on a mainstream account of the predominant science education in secondary schools and higher education settings. As such, this account does not take up elementary schooling or the experiences of girls and women, nor does this book engage in a critique of power, privilege, racism, or other forms of marginalization and domination that are certainly present in both science and schooling. How We Teach Science opens doorways but does not follow pathways into histories of science education in Black educational practices or girls’ schools, for example, nor does it employ critical perspectives. In this way, I can imagine how a doctoral course in the history of education or a seminar on science education could use this text to launch doctoral students into a variety of research projects motivated by the doors that Rudolph opens through his account of how we teach science.
As we engage in another wave of standards-driven efforts to improve science education, I find it important to recognize echoes of earlier efforts as we once again try to define the aims, tools, curricula, and pedagogies that are part of how we teach science. As Rudolph suggests, caution is warranted amid contemporary enthusiasm, and this book demands that we ask ourselves how this time will—or won't—be different.
