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Science Education in the Maltese Curriculum development, factors in learning how to learn, human social interactions and collaborative resolving civic problems, human diversity, quality of life, real-life problem solving, changed images of science, unsolved problems in science/technology, judicial issues, contemporary science and public policy, food and agriculture, life skills, public
5/26/2013 Gilbert John Zahra
Abstract
In Malta, the 1999 National Minimum Curriculum is in the process of being replaced by the new National Curriculum Framework, with science education receiving a considerable emphasis in both documents. This article aims to critically engage with the political and philosophical assumptions underpinning the constructions of science in these curricula. It will be argued that Malta, as a member-state of the European Union, has been greatly influenced by the views of science that the European Commission has promoted. These views which overlap with similar constructions of science articulated within such international studies as the Programme for International Student Assessment - are in this article portrayed as being underpinned by a strongly neoliberal ideology, altering not only how one interprets the meaning and value of science in contemporary society, but also the goals for science education as well as the pedagogy that is to be deployed to further those goals. The article presents a brief historical analysis on the basis of which it will be argued that there are multiple ways of viewing and teaching science and to suggest a critical re-evaluation of the fundamentals of current science education approaches and practices.
Introduction
Through this article I aim to critically unpack science education as constructed in Maltese curricula and how it has been shaped by some historical events and supranational organisations, mainly the European Union (EU). I will argue how modern science education, ontologically, epistemologically and methodologically, became profoundly imbricated with neoliberalism. It is inaccurate to look at science exclusively as a school subject and, although this will serve as a fixed point of reference in this writing, I hope that the discussion will evolve to become more meaningful. The centre of modern nations and the depths of our minds might well be places where science, in the form of civilisation (Murakami 1993, 1997), is found as a value. Anderson (1991:6) defined a nation as an imagined political community where most fellow-members will have never met or even heard one another, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. Nations are limited, Anderson argues, by set national boundaries which, according to Warf (2012), are also imagined. As the EU pushes forward the concept of being European, boundaries change and a new imagined community is created above the nation state (Field & Murphy, 2006). Europe remains, nonetheless, a construct that provides a reductionist view of fragmented and pluralistic societies (Thomas, 2007:216) within it. Has science education been linked with the creation of this new imagined community? Neoliberalism is not merely policy. It is, additionally, a means of governmentality steering at a distance (Hursh & Martina, 2003; Larner, 2000) marked by interest, investment and competition (Read, 2009:29) and an ideology based on five pillars: the individual; freedom of choice; market security; laissez faire, and minimal government (Larner, 2000:7). While it will be argued that the EU bears and drives a neoliberal agenda, it must be noted that the EU does not encompass all of Europe and any reference to something as European must be critically analysed within its respective context.
income of CEOs increased, compared to the median salary of workers, from 30:1 in 1970 to 500:1 by 2000. Kaplan et al. have shown that wider income differences are associated with numerous social variables likely to affect health, including poorer educational attainment, violent crime, welfare dependency, and unemployment (Wilkinson, 1997:1504). While these are not the only contradicting homilies within EU, Dale and Robertson (2006:24) note that not all discourses have the same weighting, with competitiveness being the master discourse. It is argued that social cohesion and stability are more likely to advance economic growth than social unrest (Perthes, 2011; Sultana, 1995). Economic arguments can be formulated for most, if not all, of the EUs sermons in education. For example, the increased number of women studying science (Sultana, 1995) is related to women being the most obvious source for increasing human resources for science and technology in Europe (Gago et al., 2004). The individual is a very important concept in neoliberalism (Larner, 2000) where, re-quoting Thatcher, there is no such thing as society () people must look to themselves first. Individualism, along with and job instability encourages workers to see themselves not as workers in a political sense, who have something to gain through solidarity and collective organization, but as companies of one. They become individuals for whom every action, from taking courses on a new computer software application to having their teeth whitened, can be considered an investment in human capital (Read, 2009:30). To acquire skills, Personal responsibility and self-development are important (European Commission, 2011). Within such contexts, learning becomes an individual responsibility (Magalhes & Stoer, 2006; Ure, 2006) and the individual becomes blameable for his/her employment or unemployment (Stuart & Greenwood, 2006; Kuhn & Sultana, 2006). Although a higher level of education means higher earnings, better health, and a longer life (OECD, 2008:1), such education-employment barter is not guaranteed. Learning for employability is an investment that involves risk-taking. This makes the individual worker an entrepreneur (Hursh & Martina, 2003), blurring the distinction between the capitalist and the working classes, thus creating a society of capital, capitalists and entrepreneurs (Read, 2009). In fact, the spirit of enterprise (European Commission, 2004:2) features as an important part of LLL for human resource development in EU (Hingel, 2001:14) and other neoliberal documents (Armstrong, 2001). Bearing these arguments in mind, I shall consider the main aim of schooling and LLL, as preached by EU documents, to fit a neoliberal agenda.
has penetrated all countries because there are multiple ways of understanding LLL (Green, 2006; Keep, 2006) and the knowledge society (Green, 2006). In Malta, the new 2012 National Curriculum Framework (NCF), successor of the 1999 National Minimum Curriculum (NMC), has been criticized for swapping the emancipating discourse on lifelong education with the neoliberal one on LLL and for failing to deliberately state concerns for social justice (The Times of Malta, 2012). The NMC contained a section dedicated to lifelong education with an emphasis on social and personal needs: In a world that is changing rapidly, the educational community must realise that the idea that students can emerge from the compulsory educational system with a body of knowledge that can serve them for the rest of their lives is simply unrealistic. () An educational system that promotes this idea is not capable of satisfying one's personal and social needs beyond the compulsory schooling period (Ministry of Education, 1999:20). The 2012 NCF agreed that aims of social justice were not made clear enough in initial drafts and adjusted by including social justice as an additional aim. With regards to the other critique, the NCF stated that: In a global environment that is increasingly becoming more complex, knowledge-based, and intrinsically intertwined with information, communications and technology the education system cannot be divested from the importance of the ability of Maltas future adults to successfully make the transition not just into employment, but into value-added employment. The development of Maltas vision as a high value-added knowledge and service base economy, as well as becoming one of the leading Member States in implementing the EU 2020 Strategy, will not be achieved if the NCF isolates itself from the nations economic aspirations and goals. () Studies show that foreign and local employers consider Maltese workers to be hardworking, flexible, intelligent, adaptable, trainable and diligent but caution that potential dangers lurk: entrepreneurial spirit, discipline, work ethos, self-development in young and emerging workers are perceived to be regressing when compared to workers who are 30 years of age and over. () Securing the values, knowledge, competencies and skills to enjoy employment is, also, a form of social justice as it ensures that they do not run the risk of becoming dependent on the State for their well-being because the education system would have failed them. (Ministry of Education and Employment, 2012:7) The repetition of key terms reveals the message put across by a text (Tonkiss, 2004). On performing and analysing word search results in the 1999 and 2012 curricula (Figure 1), it is suggested that economic aims fused with social justice and cohesion, as used in EU or other neoliberal documents, have become fashionable in the new curriculum. The EU, adopting the Open Method of Coordination, aims to have countries broadly moving in the same direction (Hoskins, 2008; Huisan & Van Der Wende, 2004) and this seems to have been successful in the case of the Maltese curriculum. In the NCF there is also an increased emphasis on science education and on inquiry learning as a methodology for teaching science. However, why should a curriculum entrenched in neoliberal Gilbert John Zahra
beliefs emphasize science education? Are there links between science and the knowledge society/economy? Is a child-centred, inquiry-based pedagogy imbued with capitalistic aims?
Figure 1: A comparison of the jargon used in the 1999 NMC and 2012 NCF
NMC Lifelong Education/Learning Community Economic Employability Employment Knowledge Society/Economy Entrepreneur (or related) Risk-taking (or related) Competition Social Cohesion Social Justice Science 8 (Education) 74 21 0 5 0 0 4 0 0 7 42
NCF 51 (Learning) 43 37 18 38 1 26 10 2 7 36 57
Inquiry 1 23 Table 1: A comparison of the jargon used in the 1999 NMC and 2012 NCF Gilbert John Zahra
The main aim of compulsory science, it is argued, cannot be to educate the very few who eventually become professional scientists, but to train all those consumers of scientific knowledge (Osborne & Dillon, 2011; Millar, 2008; Roberts, 2007). This dual-aim has been echoed locally (Vella, 2000; Chetcuti, Pace & Ventura, 2000). The NMC had adopted the aim of ensuring science literacy for all in order to achieve a more widespread knowledge of science (Ministry of Education, 1999:62). This dual-aim had sparked a debate between the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. The Faculty of Education, supporting and driving these changes, argued against having a curriculum based on the world of work and the production of scientists: one of the main aims of education is to prepare individuals to lead personally fulfilling and socially responsible lives. () The pursuit of scientific literacy therefore aims to equip both future citizens with a basic understanding of science as well as future scientists with a basic understanding of the relationship between science, the individual and the community (Chetcuti, Pace, & Ventura, 2000). However, these were the times of the NMC which, as indicated earlier, was more emancipatory rather than neoliberal. The argument for scientific literacy has been recycled and re-adopted in the NCF: Competence in science is the ability to use a body of knowledge and methods to explain the natural world, in order to identify questions and draw evidence-based conclusions. Competence in science also involves an understanding of the changes caused by human activity and the responsibility of individual citizens. Through their study of science, learners acquire inquiry and critical thinking skills which enable them to ask appropriate questions, devise methods for answering them, obtain and interpret evidence and communicate the conclusions and reasoning that led to them (Ministry of Education and Employment, 2012:35). Basic skills in science & technology are deemed, by employers, to be important aptitudes (European Commission, 2011). In Malta, the time allocated for primary science was two hours a week, even though most primary teachers allocated between thirty to sixty minutes for science (Vassallo & Musumeci, 2012). However, the emphasis on science education has increased with the Minister of Education and Employment proposing that the time for the subject in primary schools be tripled (Times of Malta, 2013). The emphasis on mathematics and science inevitably deprives children from other important subjects, such as the arts and physical education (Robinson, 2006). While in the NMC religious education, specifically Catholicism, enjoyed a recurrent prominence, the NCF adopts the term religious and ethics education while suggesting that this subject only takes up 5% of school time. Geography has also been broken down as a subject with a few of its concepts being included in other subjects (Times of Malta, 2011). On the other hand, it is suggested that science contributes 15% of the curriculum in primary schools, the same amount as mathematics. The move from science to science literacy is not neutral: It involves the recognition that all citizens need science education to be worthy members of society. The value of science literacy to a nation is based on the assumption that a science literate citizenry contributes economic prosperity (Champagne, 2009:4). Economic arguments are present in, sufficient to thrust, and able to predict
outcomes of educational reform in science education: Neoliberal thought has become omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient.
employers provided by Coll, Zegwaard and Hodges lies in agreement with lists provided by various other researchers and is reproduced below. Ability and willingness to learn; teamwork and cooperation; initiative and analytical thinking; concern for order, quality and accuracy; computer literacy; and written communication skills.
The EU echoes a similar view while arguing for some hard skills, called generic hard skills, required for employability. These soft skills and generic hard skills are skills with high transferability across sectors and occupations and can be identified as transversal skills. () What employers look for is an employee able to do the job and do it well. In this respect, transversal skills that range from problem solving to interpersonal skills are considered important (European Commission, 2011: 9, original emphasis). The following pictorial representation of the skills needed by human capital is presented:
Figure 2: Structure of skills profiles (designed with regard to skills transferability) (European Commission, 2011:18)
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Overtoom (2000) reiterates this argument and refers to Bailey (1997) who recommended clear instructions on how employers needs could be attended to in schools. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Remove the separation between knowing and doing; More active learning as a process of discovery; Deeper understanding and problem solving; Emphasis on collaboration and thought, rather than looking for a single right answer; Learning in context.
There is considerable overlap between employers needs and the outcomes of IL. Hmelo-Silver, Duncan and Chinn (2006:105), on arguing against Kirschner, Sweller & Clarks (2006) criticism of IL, make it clear that one should include not only learning content but also learning softer skills () that are not measured on achievement tests but are important for being lifelong learners and citizens in a knowledge society. The increased emphasis on IL can thus be grouped as a neoliberal discourse for employability. The two tables below summarize the overlap between the new pedagogies and the needs of employers. The three most important skills according to employers Coll, Zegwaard & Hodges (2002) Ability and willingness to learn Skills achieved by inquiry learning Chu (2008)
Research skills, Self-management skills, selfdirectedness Teamwork and cooperation Collaboration, Communication skills Critical thinking skills, Information and data Initiative and analytical thinking analysis Table 2: There is clear overlap between employers needs and the outcomes of IL How the needs of employers can be attended to in schools Bailey (1997) cited in Overtoom (2000) Remove the separation between knowing and doing. More active learning as a process of discovery. Deeper understanding and problem solving. Attributes of Inquiry and Problem based learning Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn (2007) students learn () through () solving problems, reflecting on their experiences, and engaging in self-directed inquiry engaging in investigations; evidence-based explanations students learn () strategies, and self-directed learning skills
Emphasis on collaboration and thought, heavy emphasis on collaborative learning and rather than looking for a single right activity; communicating their ideas answer. Learning in context. relevant, authentic problems or questions Table 3: Attributes of inquiry seem to intertwined with the needs of employers
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himself into artificially governed and controlled state. Nature, as far as left wild, is only savage and uncivilized (Murakami, 1993:63). Science became modern once it was scientized or civilized (Murakami, 1993, 1997). Modern science, it can be argued, involves a dogma of blind faith in empiricism, accuracy and progressivism (Harding, 1994) and it might have been successful in proselytizing Western society. There exists a dynamic relationship between science, technology and capitalism (Hawkin, 1999), as the disenchantment of nature allowed for great shifts from the medieval to the modern mentality, from feudalism to capitalism, from Ptolemaic to Galilean astronomy, and from Aristotelian to Newtonian physics (Harding, 1994:316). House et al. (2004), describe one American value as rational over aesthetic, religion or superstition (cited in Thomas, 2007:217). Equivalently, the scientific literate citizen Distinguishes evidence from propaganda, fact from fiction, sense from nonsense, and knowledge from opinion (Hurd, 1997:413) and challenges pseudo-scientific information (Laugksch, 2000). It is only with a conviction that objective measures of the world are possible and better than subjective ones that objectification of people and their knowledge becomes possible. The knowledge economy profits from this: Only once knowledge becomes secular and dehumanized can it be moved like money to create advantage and profit (Bernstein, 2006). Never in recorded history has the need for continuous learning taken on such an economic slant (Kaske, 2006:105) thus becoming individualized, personal and less social (Seddon & Mellor, 2006) with qualifications becoming the main motivation for learning (Rasmussen, 2006; Keep, 2006; Broadfoot, 2000). Qualifications act as forms of objectified and institutionalized culture capital, which can be converted into economic capital (Bourdieu, 2006). The power exerted by scientization (civilization) can be linked to that exerted by money, a central pinion of neoliberalism (Harvey, 2005:73) and European institutions (Perthes, 2011:78): Science and money are the same kind of power: the power of abstraction, measurement, quantification (Mumford, 1934, cited in Hawkin, 1999:71). As humans pursue their search for better employment through education, one queries whether we have entered what Foucalt (2006:134) calls the age of the infinite examination and of compulsory objectification. Objectification, disenchantment, scientization and civilisation constitute deeply intertwined terms underpinning modern society.
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In the post-war period, public attitudes towards science varied from adulation to hostility (Miller, 2001; DeBoer, 2000). With the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union, the Wests competitor at the time, science education had to be shaken from its very foundations with the aim of producing better scientists (Elkana, 2000; DeBoer, 2000) and ameliorate the public opinion of science (Laugksch, 2000). The concept scientific literacy was coined in this era, probably by Hurd in 1958 (DeBoer, 2000; Laugksch, 2000; Hurd, 1997) along with the recognition of the dual-aim of science (DeBoer, 2000). However, since the emphasis of science education before the space race was not solely technical, it seems that science literacy, as basic science education for all, was hindered or stopped rather than commenced during the space race. Elkana (2000:465) argues that Until the days of the first Sputnik, the tradition in science teaching was to feed the student with huge amounts of information about objective facts, and proved laws of nature, and after the law had been memorized, the teacher performed a demonstration in class. However, new scientists had to have less firm belief in theories as true, in line with the postpositivistic (Guba & Lincoln, 1994) or positivistic-instrumentalist perspectives that developed from Einsteins refutation of classical physics (Elkana, 2000). The students had to actively participate in the re-formulating of science theories by, amongst other measures, adopting inquiry learning, which became the word that could describe the science education revolution following the 1950s (Haury, 1993). Notwithstanding the increased talk for scientific literacy, curricula in the era became increasingly content-based in order to select the best who could become scientists while the remaining population acquired enough knowledge to be sympathetic towards scientists and their work (DeBoer, 2000). The preferred pedagogy was an inquiry approach, not to develop independence of thought as 19th century scientists had argued, but to mirror and thereby appreciate the way scientists themselves did their work (DeBoer, 2000:587). This posits that IL can have a multitude of aims. Research on scientific literacy mushroomed in the 1980s (Roberts, 2007; Laugksch, 2000). This was when the American report A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform was published. This report adopted a crisis-talk (Schultz, 2009) explaining how America had lost its leading edge in science, squandering the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983:9). The curriculum was decreased to the essentials - English, Maths, Science, Computer Literacy, Social Studies and Foreign Languages - with new methods of assessment and accountability being introduced. Science was linked with economic competitivity and in 1989, in Project 2061: Science for All Americans, scientific literacy was related to ones long-term employment prospects (DeBoer, 2000:590). Gilbert John Zahra
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Neoliberal discourse in science education seems to have prevailed and is an acquis of EU documents and the Maltese curriculum. As opposed to the nineteenth century, science and mathematics have become the central forms of knowledge while At the far edge of this hypothetical universe are the arts and literature, but they, too, are subject to this force field of science (Kagan, 2009:246). What history ratifies is that economic competitivity and employability are not the sole possible aims of scientific literacy: DeBoer (2000) identifies nine while Laugksch (2000) identifies eight, most of which fitting an emancipatory or socio-political educational agenda. There are alternatives. Science education has much more to offer. It is a catastrophe that economic competitiveness has become the reason bolstering science education (Garrison and Lawwill, 1992, cited in Laugksch, 2000).
Conclusion
Neoliberal, economic arguments, rather than emancipatory and societal motives, have become canon in education, with organisations such as the EU acting as high priests of this new religion. The Maltese curriculum has been engulfed in this project. However, this does not necessarily mean that the majority of Maltese society has also been proselytized. First of all, schooling cannot be reduced to official documents (Herrera, 2004) and thus it cannot be assumed that neoliberal ideology has become normalized in schools: Teachers shape the curriculum that they enact (Osborne & Dillon, 2011; Fernandez, Ritchie & Barker, 2007; Testa, 2002; Borg & Mayo, 2002; Alexander, 2001). Additionally, even if such talk is normalized, the effects of schooling remain unpredictable (Herrera, 2004). Science literacy and IL, as envisaged in EU documents and adopted in the NCF, are imbued with strong economic driving arguments. Stating that science education is receiving more attention simply because of this argument might sound like a conspiracy-theory since many teachers, including myself, have adopted IL for improved learning of science. However, rather unfortunately, statements like the one reproduced below reinforce my argument: In addition, science and technology are thought to help teach complex problem-solving skills and practical knowledge that are essential to functioning in the labor market. () As for transversal skills, pedagogical reforms implemented worldwide have emphasized two main ideas: (i) the introduction of inquiry-based learning and (ii) the adaptation of teaching to the learning capacity of individual students (The World Bank, 2008:88). Gill (1999) argued how ones worthiness in the social order became defined by consumptive potential. Work has become more than just earning a living, but a definition of social existence (Read, 2009). Labour is now a defining characteristic of individuals whereby statements like I am a teacher or I am a scientist are accepted as powerful personal descriptors. The knowledge economy requires people who appreciate the value of money as a measure of power and success; qualifications as a measure of education and employability; and work as making them human and providing power and success. This can only be done once humanity is fragmented to individual entrepreneurs, ready to take risks and invest in themselves through LLL, convinced that objective measures are always possible and that rational, evidence-based ways of thinking are the most valuable, if not the only, options. Civilisation is the scientization of society. Gilbert John Zahra
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The increased neoliberal tone in education might be a result of changes in society - means of helping people, rather than attempts at shaping them. I am not arguing for the utter annihilation of workrelated skills and knowledge or for the abolishment of science education in schools. History confirms that science education, and schooling in general, can have a wider role. We need to be more critical with suggestions from international organisations. Studies such as PISA should not be allowed to blindly shape schooling if the emancipation of individuals in a truly democratic society lies at our hearts. If education had solely economic aims, then, yes, we would be going in the right direction.
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