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 - I think you hit on something there, Chuck. We have been trying to reform for a long time, and there are several reasons why it appears we aren’t making progress. The article seems to suggest that there is maybe one, basic way to teach science that we are somehow missing.  The NGSS is a good example.  This started as a measure well-founded in research on the best studies we have on how people learn science.  Big Ideas, supporting tenets, contextualization, cross-disciplinary, etc.  But no good deed goes unpunished – now the States all vote to accept all of it, part of it, or none of it.  Even for those that accept the whole ball of wax, they may not have the resources to give their teachers the PD – as Joe mentions -  that will be required, and there will be others who will “interpret” the NGSS in their own way.  And  how will state/fed governments change testing (if at all) to show improvement?  Sometimes it seems, just like with Energy Transitions and Climate Change, we tend to look for the silver bullet to get us to the goal.  And by the way, what is that goal?  50% of kids getting it by some measure?  70%?  If there were only one ‘way’ to teach STEM, we’d be golden.

Being there are different demographics that learn very different ways--cultural difference, intellectual differences, all the way down to variation in stress at home, time allotment, etc.—coming to consensus on how to best teach science when there are such disparate needs for various demographics, and just as disparate views on how that should be done (I’m particularly thinking of those who publish textbooks in, say, Texas?), it ain’t easy.

Having said that, I do believe that, after 30 years of trying, we should and could be doing far better than we are.


Carlyn S. Buckler, Ph.D.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Science Museum Studies
Cooperstown Graduate Program
5838 State Route 80
Cooperstown, NY 13326

"Suspended judgment is the greatest triumph of intellectual discipline”.  W.R. Brooks



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