United
Conservative Party Uses Straw Men to
Attack Alberta's
Curriculum Reform
- Dougal MacDonald -
Alberta's United Conservative Party (UCP), run by former
Harper federal Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney, has released
its political platform for the Alberta provincial election. One
of the platform statements about education reads: "End the focus
on so-called 'discovery' or 'inquiry' learning, also known as
constructivism." Not surprisingly, this is complete
disinformation, not to mention verbal nonsense. The UCP
platform-makers are either being deliberately obtuse to push
their own agenda or they know very little, if anything, about
teaching and learning.
The context for the UCP's attacks on education is the
current
process of curriculum reform by the NDP government. This reform
is an urgent need; with a number of curricula now well beyond
their best-before date. The elementary science curriculum for
example is 23 years old. The elementary art curriculum is 34
years old. This is the result of 44 years of Conservative
governments that continuously starved education of funds and
directed public money as pay-the-rich schemes to the mostly
foreign-owned energy companies, which continue to dominate
Alberta.
For starters, "discovery," "inquiry," and
"constructivism" are
three
different things. Discovery and inquiry are teaching strategies.
Constructivism is a theory of learning. The reason the UCP is
referencing discovery, inquiry and constructivism in its attacks
on education is that they serve as convenient "straw men" for the
UCP claim that education in Alberta is in a terrible state
because irresponsible teachers are not doing their job properly
and that the "cure" is to turn teaching into straightforward
indoctrination, the very thing they accuse others of doing.
The term "discovery" came to the fore in the 1960s when
North
American science curricula were undergoing major changes sparked
by the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik satellite. This led
to the ruling elite being concerned about "being behind." As a
new focus for science education, "discovery" science emerged in
the 1960s in reaction to the dominance of behaviourism in
educational learning theory, which had conceived of students as
passive assimilators of what they were taught. The main proponent
of "discovery" was Jerome Bruner who was also known as "Dr.
Discovery."
Bruner conceived of the learner as an active
sense-making
participant instead of a passive recipient of knowledge. This was
an advance, a part of the slow transition from behaviourist to
more cognitivist views of learning. What became important was not
just what students could do but what they thought. It soon became
clear that "discovery" science paid too little attention to the
role of the teacher in introducing students to important
scientific ideas and hence was long ago discarded by most science
educators. As one science educator, Charles Anderson, put it: "Left to
their own devices students may
discover many interesting things about plants or light, but they
will develop scientific ideas about photosynthesis or vision as
rapidly as the human race. In other words, not in a single
lifetime."
"Inquiry" or "scientific inquiry," not "discovery," is
currently the
main teaching strategy in science education. It did not fall from
the sky but is based on what practicing scientists actually do to
pursue scientific investigations. Students are encouraged to act
like "little scientists" and to conduct scientific investigations
using methodologies similar to what scientists use, e.g.,
controlled experiments. Conclusions about the world of nature are
based as much as possible on student findings, which are
discussed and interpreted using arguments based on evidence and
reason, often first in a small group setting then as a whole
class.
Again, when carrying out "scientific inquiry," students
do
not
discover everything by themselves as teachers play an active
role. Teachers participate by organizing lessons, assisting
student learning, introducing students to current scientific
knowledge and so on. The guiding slogan is not just "Hands-on"
but, "Hands-on, minds-on." Currently, a strong consensus exists
among science educators and many scientists that at present there
is no better strategy than "scientific inquiry" for teaching
science to students.
"Constructivism" is a theory of learning that became
popular in
the 1980s. "Constructivism" is based on the premise that students
make sense of what they are taught in light of what they already
know. Many science educators now include a lesson stage where
they formally survey the ideas about the natural world that
students have before the teaching takes place, i.e., students'
pre-existing ideas. This is because research has shown that
students (and adults) are likely to have non-scientific ideas,
which can impede their learning of scientific ideas, again in
contrast to the behaviourist notion that the mind is a blank
slate to be written upon. An example of a pre-existing idea could
be, "Gravity in space is zero."
"Constructivism" has its weaknesses but has led to
important new
science teaching strategies that take into account students'
pre-existing ideas, which have proven to be more effective than
previous strategies in terms of students advancing their
understanding of scientific concepts. As one educator said, it
helps teachers "make the science plausible in the context of a
meaningful experience."
Teachers' implementation of "constructivism" has not
weakened
science learning but strengthened it. Of importance in this
regard is to keep in mind that ideas about teaching and learning
are always works in progress. They are tested in practice and
upon implementation can be revised and/or discarded based on the
evidence gathered from trying them out with students in the
classroom.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number
13 - April 13, 2019
Article Link:
United
Conservative
Party
Uses
Straw
Men to
Attack Alberta's Curriculum Reform
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
