HUMANITIES
AND SCIENCES TALKING TO EACH OTHER
IN
THE CLASSROOM
Liliana Mammino
Department of Chemistry,
P/bag X5050,
Humanities and sciences constitute the two major domains into which
human intellectual activities are conventionally classified. At educational
level, the two domains have been increasingly separated, so that students’
awareness of their relationships and interactions is often scarce or
non-existing. The current paper analyses the main issues for which common
activities between science courses and humanities courses can be designed, and
the pedagogical benefits that can be expected. Major attention is given to the
roles of the incorporation of humanities-born components into science courses.
The negative impacts of the decrease of the relevance of humanities in the
overall educational project are also discussed.
Humanities and sciences are the two domains into which human
intellectual activities are conventionally classified. Their relationships are
attracting increasing interest in the last decades. As, in many contexts, the
emphasis of general educational projects and of public perceptions is shifting
towards science and technology, there is increasing perception/awareness of the
risk that a scaling down of the humanities might result in losses, whose
weights and long-term impacts are difficult to predict, but that are likely to extend also to the science domain and affect human
intellectual activities as a whole. The concern suggests the opportunity of
“prevention” options. The search for the incorporation of humanities components
into science and technology careers is already a declared objective in some
institutions. For example, the
The crucial question is how this incorporation can be realised in the curriculum design, in the pedagogical
approaches and in the classroom practice. The question appears difficult
because of two main causes. The first cause is the inadequate mutual knowledge
between the two domains: specialists are experts either in the sciences or in
the humanities, and mutual knowledge is not frequent. The second, equally
relevant cause is the attitude often determined by the dichotomy between
humanities and sciences. This attitude (that, in its coarsest version, is
direct derivation of fundamentalist empiristic views)
often prevents the very recognition of those humanities-born aspects that are
integral components of the scientific approach, or that are already present in
current science education, thus depriving further research of already existing
references.
The current paper aims at spotlighting the areas for which the
incorporation of humanities-born components is more relevant for the quality
and efficiency of science education and for the generation and development of a
creative scientific attitude. To this purpose, it considers:
·
the
disadvantages resulting from inadequate collaboration between the two domains;
·
the benefits that
can be expected from greater awareness of the presence of humanities-born
components and from more articulate implementation of their potentialities.
The discussion develops further to analyse the consequences of trends that advocate (and are
themselves based on) a decrease of the roles of some fundamental,
human-pertaining components, like the value of knowledge, of conceptual
understanding, of abstract reasoning (or, simply, of reasoning).
The issues are considered mainly from the perspective of science
education, both because it is the perspective that is currently of more
immediate interest at the University of Venda (in relation to the on-going
shift to become a “science and technology” institution) and because it is
closer to the professional field of the author. The discussion will be
substantiated by examples from classroom experience in science teaching – in
particular, chemistry teaching. The fact that chemistry is utilised as
reference science does not diminish the validity-range of the discussion
because, by its very nature, chemistry includes practically all the
characteristics that pertain to the scientific discourse and offers an ideal
ground to highlight their interplay (Mammino, 1999). Though the current paper
focuses mainly on the ways in which inadequate or missing intercommunication
between the two domains affects science education, it will not overlook the
fact that the education in humanities subjects is also affected, and some
examples will be mentioned. The conclusion is that integration options need to
involve a “coming together” of perspectives from the two domains, so that the
education within each domain becomes more effective and complete through optimised incorporation of components from the other
domain. That is why the core concept and leit motiv of the paper is that of humanities
and sciences “talking to each other”, i.e., fostering mutual knowledge and the pursue of common objectives and making this apparent in
the classroom.
On starting the aforementioned analysis, one could ask which specific
components can be considered humanities-born or humanities-pertaining. Though
the author rejects the view of humanities and sciences as two separate and
non-connected domains of intellectual activities, and considers that their
overlap-areas are so significant as to make any border-line highly blurred
(Mammino, 2005), it may be functional to the clarity of the discussion to
consider certain areas and features as pertaining to the humanities domain and
others to the science domain, according to the common views.
The information that is transmitted within science education pertains to
the science domain. But science education does not mean solely the transmission
of an ensemble of information and techniques. It means the stimulation of an
attitude (the inquiring mind), the acquisition of an approach (the scientific
method), the mastering of a variety of diverse abilities, the most important of
which being the following:
·
logical
abilities;
·
the
ability to recognise the starting information
available and to design a procedure to utilise it to
answer specific questions;
·
the
ability to analyse results and build interpretations;
·
the
ability to questions one’s own results and interpretations, and to imagine and
evaluate alternative interpretations;
·
visualization
abilities and the ability to transfer visual information into
language-expressed information and vice versa.
These aspects obviously contribute to the development of the person as a
whole. It appears natural to question whether they pertain only to the domain
of science, whether their stimulation and development involve only information
from the science domain, or whether they pertain to a human domain that is the
characteristic and legacy of the intellectual activity of our species, without
boundaries. Once they are considered cross-boundaries features, these same
aspects assume the role of references for the interactions between humanities
and sciences.
Methodological reflections and classroom practice enable the
identification of the major educational components (or activities) that are
fundamental to the pursue/attainment of the
above-mentioned attitudes and abilities:
·
extensive
language education, to achieve adequate language mastering;
·
philosophical
literacy, to enable the understanding and discussion of the fundamental aspects
of the scientific method;
·
historical
literacy, to enable the perception of the historical development of the
sciences as an integral part of human history and the recognition of its
relationships with the development of the method;
·
ethics
literacy, to enable reflection on ethical aspects in science practice;
·
adequate attention
to emotional aspects and their educational implications.
These components will be discussed individually. When appropriate, the
discussion will also take into account the fact that science education has
different objectives and different scopes at different levels. At
pre-university level, it is meant to contribute to the overall formation of the
person, to the development of his/her abilities and potentialities. At
university level, within the science and engineering faculties, it is meant to
prepare future specialists. The presence and roles of humanities-born aspects
may be different for the two levels. Greater attention will be here devoted to
pre-university education, as the one setting the basis for all further
education and, to a large extent, determining students’ future attitudes
towards the various disciplines and their relationships. Fundamental aspects
like the familiarity with the language of science or with the scientific method
play essential roles at all levels of instruction, but it is important that the
familiarisation starts at pre-university level, to
reach an adequate degree of internalisation. Ideally,
it would need to start since the students’ first encounter with science subjects,
so that the perception of science develops in a more complete way. This also
means that the incorporation of the features responding to the interactions
between humanities and sciences, needs to start since
the beginning.
The essential role of language in any educational areas is immediately
evident from the consideration that language is our (human) major expression
tool. It is the only tool capable of conveying relationships between different
pieces of information and, therefore, it is the only tool that enables both the
development and the communication of trains of thoughts linked to each other.
Adequate language education since the primary level is essential to the
fulfillment of any educational objective at all levels of instruction. An
example is offered by the following major formative objectives of
pre-university education:
·
fostering
the ability to think, what implies the ability to reflect on available
information, to identify relationships between different pieces of information,
to make inferences, to design approaches to the purpose of answering identified
questions;
·
fostering
the ability to collaborate with other persons in intellectual and practical
activities;
·
equipping the
student/person with relevant information and knowledge (both those pertaining
to the community where the student lives and those pertaining to the human
community in general).
The pursuing of these objectives is based on the possibility of
communication. Communication requires language. Developing a train of thoughts,
as well as following/understanding a train of thoughts while it is being
communicated, or expressing the thoughts that one has developed, require
adequate levels of language mastering. Language education is traditionally
assigned only to the humanities domain. Its current prevalent exclusion from
the science classroom misses important possibilities and impoverishes both
science education and language education.
With specific reference to science courses, inadequate language
mastering hampers students’ performance through the combination of various
mechanisms:
·
It
prevents full understanding of the material presented.
·
It
prevents full reflection on that material, both because of the incomplete
understanding and because of the role of language in the very development of
thoughts (Bruner, 1975).
·
It
prevents full expression of what the student has learnt (the comment “I know
it, but I am not able to express it” being very frequent in science
classrooms).
The difficulties in reading science books, in understanding a science
text on reading it, have all been traced to inadequate mastering of the
language of science (
The education to the language of science requires the detailed analysis of texts, the discussion of why certain words or mode of expressions (and not others) are used in statements and descriptions, and the identification of the details of the logical construction of sentences. All these aspects require the collaboration between the two domains. The consideration of few examples can help illustrate the nature and roles of this collaboration. The first example considers a basic classification of operations in relation to the nature of their objects, i.e., whether such objects belong to physical reality or to our interpretation models. Some verbs have a meaning only with respect to some categories of operations (Mammino, manuscript), e.g.:
· to observe is usually related to qualitative studies of what is in nature or qualitative diagnoses on experimenting;
· to determine can be related both to the identification or to the measurement of something that is in nature and also to the calculations that we can perform using measured values as starting values;
· to calculate is related to mathematical operations that enable us to obtain values of quantities that have not been measured directly, starting from values obtained through measurements;
· to define is associated with the introduction of a new concept and its operational characterisation (Mammino, 2000-c).
Errors in the use of these verbs have been diagnosed rather frequently,
at various levels of instruction (Mammino, 1995 and manuscript). These errors
testify not only to inadequate mastering of the language of science, but also
to inadequate familiarity with the method (since the nature of operations is
part of the method). On the other hand, in current curricula there is no space
devoted to the study of the analysis of words and their usage in science
communication. Language education within humanities courses does not include
the language of science (though it often includes a variety of other
“languages”, from cinema to sport to adverts). Science teachers are often not
aware themselves of the role of language aspects, or not adequately prepared to
explain it. In this way, students’ attention is never attracted to the roles of
rigour in the expression, to the need that the
messages conveyed by sentences should be consistent with all the aspects of the
objects or phenomena concerned, including the method-related ones. This
decreases not only their ability to correct expression when they express
science, but also their possibility of grasping all the messages conveyed by a
text (many of these messages being conveyed by the selection of individual
words).
The situation is even worse in those contexts where instruction is
carried out through a so-called second language, i.e. a language different from
the students’ mother tongue. Then, inadequate language mastering practically
prevents any deep consideration of concepts, automatically setting restrictions
to the depth and completeness of the understanding and interiorisation
that students can attain [Case, 1978; Prah, 1993 and
1995; Nanga, 1994; Mammino, 1998 and 2000). The
aspect that suffers most heavily is the realisation/awareness/interpretation
of the logical connections between different pieces of information, with heavy
impacts on the possibility of understanding entire themes. In most cases, the
second language is such also for the teacher, and the situation results in
scenarios like the one described by Y.I. Rubanza
(2002):
When teachers and learners cannot use language to make logical connections, to integrate and explain the relations between isolated pieces of information, what is taught cannot be understood – and important concepts cannot be mastered.
Experience shows that analysing the logical
framework of sentences in the science classroom can significantly improve
students’ understanding, by highlighting connections that would otherwise be
missed. An example in which the analysis has proved indispensable is offered by
the following statement of the third law of thermodynamics (Atkins, 1986):
If the entropy of every element in the state stable at T=0K is taken as zero, every substance has a positive entropy which at T=0 may become zero, and does become zero for al perfect crystalline substances, including compounds.
The statement is extremely rigorous and complete, but an adequate degree
of language mastering is needed to understand all the information it conveys.
On several occasions in two second-language contexts (the National University
of Lesotho and the University of Venda), chemistry students taking a physical
chemistry course have been asked to read the sentence carefully and to try to
explain its meaning. They have all failed to identify the first clause as a
hypothesis (i.e., as the formulation of a condition whose realisation
leads to the consequences expressed by the subsequent clauses) and,
consequently, they failed to understand the meaning of the statement. This has
shown the necessity of a detailed analysis of the sentence in the classroom.
The analysis has been developed along the following lines:
·
We make a
starting hypothesis, i.e., we assign zero value to the entropy of elements at 0
K (considering – for each element – the state that is the stable one at 0 K).
·
The
consequences (or implications) of this hypothesis are the following:
·
the
entropy of all substances, whether elements or compounds, is always positive;
·
At 0 K,
the entropy of substances may become zero. It actually becomes zero if the
substance is in the form of a perfect crystal.
It needs to be noted that this analysis is purely syntactical, i.e., it
is the type of analysis that could be carried out by a language teacher or,
conversely, that could be carried out by students, if they had received
adequate language training and basic training in logical relationships (like
the hypothesis-consequence relationship).
Having to express things demands reflection. Oral and written expressions have different
and complementary roles in stimulating reflection. Writing actually goes beyond
stimulation – it can help develop reflections, thus becoming a learning tool
(Castro, 1995). However, the training to expressing science is loosing space in
many contexts. Science learning is often reduced to the memorisation
of some definitions that will be repeated passively and to the memorisation of some algorithms that will be applied just
as passively (up to the point that most students are unable to solve problems
requiring the design of algorithms that are not exactly the same as the ones
they have memorised). Even the practical component,
that traditionally requires a report, is losing its role of stimulating
reflection and expression, when students are given pre-set forms in which to
enter some values of some simple words. Altogether, not
having to express science results in not needing to think of the topics
thoroughly: language abilities and conceptual understanding are simultaneously
undermined.
Observing, having curiosity and setting questions, searching for
answers, verifying the information attained – this is the essence of the
scientific approach, known as the scientific method. This is expected to become
an attitude of the mind, and science courses are expected to take the most
active role in fostering this attitude. Yet, too often, this does not happen.
The scientific method is hastily presented as a rigid set of steps (nearly
instructions or recipes) that students memorise and
repeat on request, without any discussion leading to insight of its richness
and complexity. In this way, the very nature of science is obscured. Students
cannot develop the perception of science as a continuous search that, at each
step, is able to reflect on the validity-extent and on the limitations of every
new “item” added to its body, whether experimental or theoretical.
The absence of contributions from the humanities domain further jeopardises
the understanding of the method. Inadequate philosophy literacy prevents the
very understanding of the significance of the question of knowledge, of the
debate that led to the formulation of a method. The absence of curricular
occasions devoted to the familiarisation with the
language of science excludes important opportunities for concrete-cases
discussions of the features and implications of the method,
that could enhance the awareness of its meaning.
The laboratory reports, that should stimulate reflections on the various
features of the approaches utilised, are often reduced to the filling of the
already-mentioned pre-set forms, as if we were doing the bureaucracy of
science, instead of nurturing an attitude. By reducing the need to express observations,
descriptions and inferences, those pre-set forms reduce the need to think and
to express thoughts; they end up being the antonym of the objective to develop
an inquiring mind.
The need that secondary school provides basic philosophical literacy is
currently being recognised in some contexts (e.g., it
is recognised by some proposals for the reform of
secondary instruction in
The relevance of the incorporation of the history of science and the
philosophy of science into science education is gaining increasing recognition
(Monk & Osborne, 1997; Niaz, 1998; Siegel, 1978).
Historical information by itself provides examples of the scientific approach
in such broad diversity of realisations as to give
full evidence of its not being a rigid pattern. The discussion of historical
information can thus easily link with the philosophical aspects of the method.
But, for this to enter classroom practices, there must
first be the recognition of the role that philosophy plays within the sciences.
Without this, the presentation of the history of science turns into something
totally different, as diagnosed in Chiappetta, Sethna & Dillamn (1991):
All of the chemistry textbooks deemphasize science as a way of thinking. Their authors do not stress the importance of how chemists discover ideas and experiments, the historical development of chemistry concepts, cause-and-effect relationships, evidence and proof, and self-examination of one’s thinking in the pursuit of knowledge.
Philosophy is humanities-pertaining; but, when science education does
not incorporate it, even the presentation of the history of science does not
contribute to the development of the enquiring mind. The incorporation of
philosophical aspects into science courses requires active and creative
collaboration between science teachers and humanities teachers: then, it can
constitute a wonderful example of humanities and sciences “talking to each
other”.
As mentioned at the beginning, it is not only science education to be
thwarted by inadequate intercommunication between humanities and sciences. The
information and reflection within humanities courses may remain incomplete
because of the neglect of the science-based insight. An example from the
author’s experience can easily highlight how this may happen. The separation
between the two domains is often so drastic, at education level, that, when a
philosophy teacher presents the history of philosophy, even conceptions that
are deeply scientific in nature may remain without motivations. The author
experienced this with the presentation of the theories of ancient Greek
atomistic philosophers within a secondary school philosophy course, where their
views were presented as the outcomes of purely abstract speculation. Only
several years later, further reading brought the realisation
that those philosophers had started from reflections and questions on specific
phenomena, first of all the mixing of substances, which cannot be explained or
interpreted without a particulate hypothesis of matter. Science and philosophy
were one in the times of those philosophers; if the philosophy course excludes
the science aspects, it fails in the objective to give a complete vision of the
investigation and thoughts-development approaches of the atomistic
philosophers.
History as a discipline is humanities-pertaining. But history as a
sequence of events and situations throughout time is a product (or the overall
route) of humankind, and its events and features do not pertain to separate
domains. The progress in science and technology, the scientific views of a
given epoch, impact on the economy, on everyday life, on the well-being of
people, on the approaches utilised in a number of practical activities. A
convincing example is offered by the discussion of the properties of different
building materials, and the consequent recommendations for their uses, that Vitruvius based on the four elements theory (the dominant
theory of the composition of matter in his time) (Vitruvius;
Mammino, 2002). On the other hand, the development od science theories occurs within historical contexts
and is linked to many aspects of those contexts, e.g.:
·
whether
creative thought is encouraged or discouraged;
·
the modes
adopted for the education/training of the youth;
·
the public
perceptions;
·
the
interactions and exchanges with other communities;
·
the requirements of
economy and production.
History offers innumerable examples, and their consideration would go
beyond the scope of the current work. For illustration purposes, only an
example illustrating the influence of the medium is recalled here, i.e., the
fact that the development of philosophy and the inquiring mind attitude in
ancient
The preparation of responsible citizens is a fundamental objective of education in all areas and at all levels. When education prepares to specific professions, professional responsibility adds to the general citizen’s responsibility. Responsibility is part of ethical behaviour, and ethics is an area traditionally pertaining to humanities (as part of philosophy). On the other hand:
·
Science
practice has ethical requirements, and the consideration of ethical questions
is part of the professional attitude.
·
Responsible
citizens need to have enough exposure to basic science to be able to make
informed decisions when needed.
Thus, science courses can incorporate the ethics discourse from two
major perspectives: by contributing to educating to ethical behaviour
and by providing information that enables citizens to make decisions with which
they can be ethically comfortable (it is here assumed as obvious that
uninformed decisions could not be considered ethically comfortable).
Collaboration between science courses and humanities courses can first
of all help place the ethical discourse in a more complete perspective, by
presenting the bases of the debate on ethics, of the search to find criteria
for a distinction between “right” and “wrong”. This will show that the ethics
question is a long-standing question, is a crucial component of the
intellectual development of humankind and, at the same time, has fundamental
roles in the life of communities.
All aspects of science teaching can be utilised to educate to ethical
attitudes and to responsibility, from conspicuous parts of the course content
to laboratory activities. The discussion of course components
regarding environmental issues and environmental protection, or of those
regarding medical related aspects, offer opportunities that are more
immediately understandable to students, because these issues appear frequently
in the media. E.g., the consideration of environmental damages and of the
need to prevent further damages transmits ethical messages in relation to the
uses of science and technology and to our responsibility towards future
generations (as clearly stated in the definitions of sustainable development).
At the same time, the provision, within the discussion, of scientifically sound
data highlights the relevance of being informed, what constitutes an additional
ethical message. The practical components of science
courses can also offer important opportunities for the education to ethics in
science practice (e.g., by making it clear that “cooking up” experimental
values is unethical, besides being un-scientific) and for the education to
responsibility (Mammino, 2004).
Interactions between humanities and sciences on ethics issues can result
in interesting and innovative contributions, like the recognition of the moral
bases of green chemistry put forward and originally analysed
by a philosopher (Gaie, 2002). A text of this type is
particularly apt for presentation to students and as a starting reference for
classroom debates ideally involving science teachers and philosophy teachers.
The text highlights the basic questions of ethics and utilises
them to support science areas/practices that pursue benefits for the human
community. In this way, it also highlights how the “coming together” of
humanities and sciences can bring new insights that have practical relevance.
There are aspects like enthusiasm, the joy of learning, the feeling of
beauty, that pertain to the emotional domain and have fundamental roles in
people’s behaviour, perceptions and choices. They
have a role also in the effectiveness of teaching/learning processes and can
impact on their outcomes up to the point of determining a student’s choice of
future career.
It is not easy to stimulate enthusiasm in students. First of all, the
teacher needs to have it to an extent that is both visible and communicable. It
is more probable that a teacher can have and communicate enthusiasm if he/she
has that broad-perspective preparation and attitude that enables him/her to
catch and present the links between the various disciplines, between one
discourse and another, and make students perceive these links as if they were
new, continuous discoveries. Young people (above all the very young) are not compartmentalised. Their curiosity embraces everything. The
connections with everyday life stimulate enthusiasm because they are tantamount
to re-discovering familiar facts, viewing them from new points of view and,
thus, seeing more in them. The connections with other disciplines stimulate
enthusiasm by highlighting the relevance and fundamental unity of the various
human intellectual activities, by showing that courses are not isolated. All the
aspects discussed in the previous sections can also contribute to enthusiasm.
Presenting new information in the course not as a list of facts to memorise, but as discoveries, with their experimental
and/or method-related innovations, highlights the continuity of challenges that
is inherent to science. Discussing ethical aspects highlights the ethical
challenges posed to modern science. E.g., green chemistry is a scientific and
technological challenge that can reconcile students with chemistry because of its
ethical significance, that counterpoises the common
public perception of chemistry as something producing and utilising
only non-natural and polluting things (Tundo &
Patti, 2001).
The perception of beauty is in-born in the human being. We want our house,
or the objects that we use, to be beautiful. Also other things, not always
immediately tangible, stimulate perceptions of beauty. The beauty of language
and of the images it can create can transmit difficult concepts in a more
complete and effective way than other options. A famous example is the apologue
of the shepherd boy discovering always new musical instruments, through which
Galileo transmitted the concept that we shall never be sure of knowing
everything, that there may be areas and phenomena, of which we might not have
even the faintest idea by now (Galileo; Mammino 2003).
A broad-range education to beauty may enable students to recognise also the beauty of the products of pure thought,
like the beauty of a mathematical demonstration or the beauty of logic. It is
not unavoidably the privilege of mathematicians to be able to recognise it: others could be guided to it. Guiding
students to the appreciation of the beauty of a logical demonstration or a
fascinating theory would require collaboration between humanities teachers and
science teachers at a different sophistication level than what is needed for
the instances considered so far. A commonly perceived difficulty derives from
the lack of such appreciation from many humanities teachers, what, in turn, is ofter rooted in either of two factors:
·
frequent
lack of basic familiarity with the sciences;
·
memories of poor
success in sciences courses during past instruction (where the non-succeeding
was often the outcome of not having been sufficiently stimulated to consider
the sciences as interesting and worth the challenge of trying and understand
them).
This problem will continue perpetuating in a sort of cyclic fashion,
unless something is done. The design of courses for humanities teachers, with
the specific aim of highlighting the philosophical aspects of the science that
is taught at pre-university levels, as well as the logic aspects and the
motivational aspects, could be a viable option. These courses would not be
science courses, but courses aimed at “knowing each other” between the two
domains. Their contents and approaches constitute a whole area open to
exploration, as it has not yet been tackled sufficiently.
The “kingdom” of beauty in education pertains to the
history-of-the-arts-courses. These courses teach to recognise
and appreciate the beauty created by human beings. Science and technology have
provided the instruments for its creation. The collaboration between the art
courses and the science courses can highlight, e.g., the chemistry of painting
and the broadening of colour-options made available
by the discovery of new compounds, the chemistry of clay works, the role of geometry in the realisation
of beautiful architecture works. Thus, the history of arts course would teach
to recognise and appreciate beauty and also to
appreciate the mastery of the artist in using available materials and
instruments to create beauty.
THE CONTACTS WITH HUMANITIES AND
THE APPROACHES TO SCIENCE TEACHING
As the role of humanities in education decreases or is made to decrease
(as is currently happening in a number of contexts), the approaches to science
education are changing to a direction that appears to be more and more
dogmatically (or even fundamentalistically)
empiricist. A major component of this trend is the declared shift of the
emphasis from knowledge to skills, or from understanding to “being able to do
things”. It is easy to realize the connections between the two phenomena, i.e.,
between the decrease of the role of humanities in education and the decrease of
the relevance given to understanding and to the acquisition of knowledge.
Knowledge and understanding are holistic aspects pertaining to human
intellectual activities, whichever area they are applied to. By their own
nature, humanities are not apt to a “skills only” option, because their nature
is that of knowledge and understanding. It is not easy to imagine, e.g., doing
philosophy or literature critics on a “skills only” basis, without knowledge
and without understanding. That the sciences have been regarded as more apt to
a “skills only” option is by itself puzzling, unless one hypothesises
factors like some misinterpretations of the roles of the practical components
in the sciences. These components (laboratory activities, the use of algorithms
to solve problems) are an integral part of science, but they are unable to have
an independent existence, separated from the overall body of a science
discipline. It is not possible to design a solution procedure without knowing
the theoretical aspects on which the design needs to be based and which it
needs to utilise, or to interpret an experiment
without knowing the available theory related to its nature and scope.
Where already applied, the “skills only” option is heavily penalising science learning. Skills without understanding
and without knowledge are unable to produce anything beyond the limits of the
repetition/reproduction of already encountered and memorised
cases. Students’ attitude changes deeply. Instead of being able (or trying to
become able) to discuss science concepts and solution procedures, they memorise what they call “formulas” (basic equations
relating quantities) and they try to apply those formulas mechanically. They
are often unable even to explain the meaning of the memorised
formulas. In extreme cases, they are not invited to analyse
or learn definitions, because definitions pertain to “knowledge”. Yet,
definitions are also the references providing guidelines for the identification
of the entities defined and for their utilisation
(Mammino, 2000). For example, chemistry students trained on a “skills only” perspective, are not put in a condition for which trying and
understanding the definition of mole
is a requirement. When asked to explain what we mean by mole they answer that “it is something that we use when we make
calculations on chemical reactions”. But not knowing the meaning of the concept
results in incorrect uses of the “formulas” containing it, in confusions
between the use of masses and the use of moles and, as final outcome, in
serious mistakes in those same stoichiometric calculations for which students
just know that the mole concept is meant to be used.
On broader terms, the “skills only” option results in complete loss of
the science perspective. It transmits a narrow and distorted vision of the
sciences. The body of science (concepts, interpretations, theories, open
questions) remains unknown to students. The inquiring mind attitude is not
given any chance to rise.
From the considerations in the previous sections, it is clearly evident
that the “skills only” option is not compatible with the incorporation of
humanities-born components that, by their own nature, stimulate conceptual
reflection and are associated with it. The consideration of the method, of ethics,
of historical development, is possible only if concepts are discussed, and such
discussion is the foundation of understanding and knowledge. This highlights
another role of the incorporation of humanities-born features in the science
course: that of preventing the proposition or implementation of options that
would penalise the future of scientific preparation
and, therefore, the future of science itself.
Parallel to the “only skills” option, another option, that starts being
proposed in a number of contexts, risks to jeopardize
the depth and completeness with which sciences are understood. This is the
suggestion that it might be functional to shift to second language instruction
for science teaching, where the “second language” would be the current lingua franca, i.e., English. The reality of the contexts where this
option is already the general practice because of historical heritages (mainly,
colonial heritages) is not sufficiently known beyond the boundaries of those
contexts. For example, the absence of mother tongue instruction is considered a
major factor hampering the development of Subsaharan
Africa (Prah, 1993, 1995 & 1998; Nangu, 1994; Rubanza, 2002), but
these studies are not known broadly outside
It is here hypothesised that the suggestion of
using a language different from the mother tongue in the first approach of
students to science concepts can appear only because of inadequate awareness of
the role of language in science, both at understanding level and at creative
level. This inadequate awareness, in turn, results from the dichotomy between
humanities and sciences being brought to extreme limits. Because of this
dichotomy, the whole issue of the language of science as a tool for
communicating and generating science information is ignored; the role of
individual words and of logical sentence-construction in transmitting the
wealth and depth of information that is inherent to science, is ignored.
Experiments where English has been utilised for the first approach to
chemistry, in countries where it was traditionally taught through the mother
tongue, showed that this implied dramatic simplifications in the material
transmitted. The instruction became necessarily done through simple, short
sentences, transmitting one idea at a time (Dall’Antonia
& Rosolini). With such limitations in the use of
the language tool, students cannot be expected to understand deeply, to
elaborate reflections, to attain a perception of the scientific discourse in
its entirety, including method-related aspects, to develop the inquiring mind
attitude. The student who is forced to approach science in this way at
secondary school is deprived of the possibility of coming into contact with the
world of science, with its approaches and its inquiries, its questions and its
investigations. No humanities-born aspect can be incorporated, because
expression abilities are not sufficiently sophisticated in a second language to
support the sophistication level of a discourse going beyond simple lists of
facts, expressed with the simplest possible terms and through the simplest,
shortest sentences. The real world of science, as well as its interactions with
humanities, will remain basically unknown to that student.
The two options discussed in this section (the “skills only” option and
the option of teaching science though a language different from the mother
tongue) have some common ground. As long as understanding is considered a
fundamental objective, the tools facilitating understanding are given paramount
importance. No option that could decrease the extent of understanding, or the
comfort with which it is achieved, would be considered viable. The possibility
of fully using all the resources of a language would not be denied to students.
Therefore, the suggestion of second-language instruction when students approach
topics and concepts is possible only within a perspective that does not
consider understanding as important. This obviously does not mean that students
should not learn to express science also through the lingua franca. It does however mean that the distinction between
the requirements of the “understanding moment” and the requirements of the
“expression moment” is fundamental. Understanding is easier and more complete
through the mother tongue (Mammino, manuscript). Once clear understanding is
achieved, the possibility of expressing the understood concepts through other
languages depends on the degree at which students master the given language,
and enhancing this mastering is an obvious task of language education.
It is also significant to note that neither of the two options discussed
in this section would have been thinkable or proposable as long as humanities
education was given paramount consideration. This fact is by itself a stimulus
for deep reflections. It hints to inferences for which a decrease in the role
of the humanities in education would make space to approaches that would
unavoidably result in sharp decrease of the familiarity with science, including
basic science literacy. Such reflections therefore suggest that scientists
should be the first ones to defend the presence and roles of humanities in the
classrooms, including the science classrooms.
The previous discussion aimed at highlighting the pedagogical benefits
of the interactions between humanities and sciences. The major focus was on
science education, as the area that is the object of increasing emphasis, also
in relation to the roles of science and technology in modern society. It is
concluded that:
·
The presence
of humanities-born components in science courses can contribute to a better and
more complete perception of science, its investigation methods and its roles.
·
A scaling
down of the humanities in the overall educational design may have serious
consequences for the whole ensemble of intellectual activities, and may make
space for approaches to science teaching that would heavily penalise
the understanding of science and the preparation of future scientists.
It is also believed that the expansion and refinement of the presence of
humanities-born components in the science classroom may play relevant roles to
address the current crisis of science vocations. Many countries in the
so-called
The consideration of the benefits for science education from the
incorporation of humanities-born components does not mean that one of the
domains becomes auxiliary to the other. Examples have also shown how humanities
courses can benefit from the incorporation of science-based information. The
main objective is that the two domains come to "know each other" in
the classroom, that common features are recognised
and nurtured as such, with all the enrichment that can result from the combination
of two complementary and integrating perspectives.
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