democratic science teaching: a role for the history of science

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Democratic Science Teaching: A Role for the History of Science JAMES W. GARRISON Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and KENNETH S. LAWWILL Virginia PolytechnicInstitute and State University ABSTe.ACr: For John Dewey, democracy meant the opportunity and the ability to partici- pate in the continuing conversation of the community. To participate effectively, educa- tion must free the intelligence to creatively reconstruct the community. Dewey traced logic back to its etymological roots in dialogue. The history of science is the history of a conversation of an international community, To participate in it effectively, students must free their intelligence. Logically, this is best done by creative and disciplined democratic classroom dialogue instead of the monologue common to so many schools. We recommend a dialogical model of science teaching. KEYWORDS: democracy, history of science, science teaching, logical, dialogical, dialogue, question, inquiry In a chapter of Democracy and Education titled "Science in the Course of Study," Dewey concluded that "ultimately and philosophically science is the organ of general social progress" (Dewey, 1916, p. 230). Rightly or wrongly, Dewey expressed his social meliorism in terms of the Enlightenment ideal of progress secured through scientific rationality. Earlier in the same chapter Dewey had declared: Human life does not occur in a vacuum, nor is nature a mere stage setting for the enactment of its drama. Man's life is bound up in the process of nature; his career, for success or defeat, depends upon the way in which nature enters it .... Whatever natural science may be for the specialist, for educational purposes it is knowledge of the conditions of human action .... One who is ignorant of the history of science is ignorant of the struggles by which mankind has passed from routine and caprice, from subjection to nature, from efforts to use it magically, to intellectual self-possession. That science may be taught as a set of formal and technical exercises is only too true. (Dewey, 1916, pp. 228-229) Interchange, Vol. 24/1&2, 29-39, 1993. 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 29

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Page 1: Democratic science teaching: A role for the history of science

Democratic Science Teaching: A Role for the History of Science

JAMES W. GARRISON Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

and KENNETH S. LAWWILL

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

ABSTe.ACr: For John Dewey, democracy meant the opportunity and the ability to partici- pate in the continuing conversation of the community. To participate effectively, educa- tion must free the intelligence to creatively reconstruct the community. Dewey traced logic back to its etymological roots in dialogue. The history of science is the history of a conversation of an international community, To participate in it effectively, students must free their intelligence. Logically, this is best done by creative and disciplined democratic classroom dialogue instead of the monologue common to so many schools. We recommend a dialogical model of science teaching.

KEYWORDS: democracy, history of science, science teaching, logical, dialogical, dialogue, question, inquiry

In a chapter of Democracy and Education titled "Science in the Course of Study," Dewey concluded that "ultimately and philosophically science is the organ of general social progress" (Dewey, 1916, p. 230). Rightly or wrongly, Dewey expressed his social meliorism in terms of the Enlightenment ideal of progress secured through scientific rationality. Earlier in the same chapter Dewey had declared:

Human life does not occur in a vacuum, nor is nature a mere stage setting for the enactment of its drama. Man's life is bound up in the process of nature; his career, for success or defeat, depends upon the way in which nature enters it .... Whatever natural science may be for the specialist, for educational purposes it is knowledge of the conditions of human action .... One who is ignorant of the history of science is ignorant of the struggles by which mankind has passed from routine and caprice, from subjection to nature, from efforts to use it magically, to intellectual self-possession. That science may be taught as a set of formal and technical exercises is only too true. (Dewey, 1916, pp. 228-229)

Interchange, Vol. 24/1&2, 29-39, 1993. �9 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 29

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This passage allows us to see how, according to Dewey, the history of science could contribute content - - cultural content - - to science teaching and how sound science teaching would contribute to the meliorist pronouncement con- cerning human progress with which he concludes the chapter.

In most important ways, Dewey anticipated postpositivism, especially in his debates with Bertrand Russell. Dewey rejected what we would now call the metaphysics of objectivistic realism and representational correspondence theo- ries of truth. Instead he argued for "warranted assertability," or what we would call objectivity, as intersubjective understanding and agreement. In one impor- tant way, Dewey went beyond post-positivism by declaring that there was one set of social relations best suited for arriving at intersubjective understanding and agreement - - democracy. As Lewis Fuer found, Dewey "was the first philosopher who dared to read democracy into the ultimate nature of things and social reform into the meaning of knowledge" (Fuer, 1959, p. 568). For Dewey, science, when done well, was inherently democratic. He decried merely formal and technical exercises in science teaching not only because they were so instructionally inefficient, although they are, but even more so because they taught bad scientific method and practice - - that is, they were undemocratic.

Our purpose in writing this paper is to recommend a role for the history of science in democratic science education and, simultaneously, to suggest what we will call a dialogical mode of science instruction that captures what Dewey thought most crucial to democracy - - completely open communication.

Democracy and Science Education

In another chapter of Democracy and Education, titled "The Democratic Con- ception in Education," Dewey observed that "education is a social function, securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong" (Dewey, 1916, p. 81). To pro- claim this sociopolitical truism, according to Dewey, "is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life which prevails in a group" (p. 81). Dewey believed that democracy contributed more to the quality of community life than any other sociopolitical structure.

Dewey felt that we must "extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement" (p. 83). He found that "in any social groups whatever, even a gang of thieves, we find some interest held in common, and we find a certain amount of interaction and cooperative intercourse with other groups" (p. 83). From these two traits Dewey derives two standards for an "ideal society." First, we must ask- "How numerous and varied are the interests which are con- sciously shared?" Second, we ask: "How full and free is the interplay with other forms of association?" (p. 83).

Predictably, Dewey concludes that the "democratic ideal" satisfies these standards more fully than any other. Dewey wrote:

The two elements in our criterion both point to democracy. The first signi-

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fies not only more numerous and more varied points of shared common interest, but greater reliance upon the recognition of mutual interests as a factor in social control. The second means not only freer interaction between social groups ... but change in social habit - - its continuous readjustment through meeting the new situations produced by varied intercourse. And these two traits are precisely what characterize the democratically constituted society. (1916, p. 86)

Dewey also observed:

Upon the educational side, we note first that the realization of a form of social life in which interests are mutually interpenetrating, and where progress, or readjustment, is an important consideration, makes a demo- cratic community more interested than other communities have cause to be in deliberate and systematic education .... A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of con- joint communicated experience. (p. 87)

The last sentence of this passage represents not only a penetrating insight into the true character of democracy but also a profound clue about how we may construct more democratic classrooms. Democratic science education is primar- ily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It need not mean such relatively superficial things as students' determining the curricu- lum, voting on test content, or doing only what they want. The discipline of sci- ence may be taught democratically without teachers' necessarily relinquishing primary control of the classroom, although on some occasions they surely should. Let us see how.

Near the end of his discussion of the democratic ideal, Dewey remarks: "But after greater individualization on onehand, and a broader community of interest on the other have come into existence, it is a matter of deliberate effort to sus- tain and extend them" (p. 87). Elsewhere Dewey develops the ideal of science as resolving a central difficulty of democratic social relations - - that is, the dialectic between the needs of individuality and autonomous freedom, and between authority and community. In Intelligence in the Modern WorM, Dewey wrote: "Science has made its way by releasing ... the elements of variation, of invention and innovation, of novel creation in individuals ... who freed them- selves from the hands of tradition" (1939, p. 358). Still, while respecting the freedom of individual inquirers, the warrant of scientific findings lies with the authority of the community. Therefore, Dewey concluded: "The contribution the scientific inquirer makes is collectively tested and developed and, in the measure that it is cooperatively confirmed, becomes a part of the common fund of the intellectual commonwealth" (1916, p. 358).

The intellectual scientific community is a global example of the most "varied points of shared common interest" where the dialogue is in the international lan- guage of logic and mathematics and other symbol systems, where social groups freely interact and "where we meet new situations produced by varied inter- course." The international practice of science is by necessity democratic regard-

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less of the political regime of an individual nation. It is no accident that in oppressed nations it is often the scientists who first speak their minds - - they are used to doing so. Something close to the above dialectical tension exists in the science classroom in relations between the authority of the teacher as the representative of the social, political and economic interest in public education and the free inquiry of the individual student, and something like the same dialectical solution should suffice.

We would like to propose a dialogical model of science teaching that sup- plies a valuable role for the history of science. The cause of democracy is also served when students become used to speaking their minds in democratic social contexts.

A Dialogical Model of Science Teaching

For Dewey, logic meant methods of inquiry, and of the various methods of inquiry those found within the large family of scientific methods had, for him, reached the highest level of intelligent integration thus far achieved in the evo- lution of human experience. In his Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (the subtitle is significant), Dewey insisted that his theory of logical method was, among other things, "progressive," "naturalistic," and "a social discipline." Of the latter he asserted:

One ambiguity attending the word 'naturalistic' is that it may be under- stood to involve reduction of human behavior to the behavior of apes, amoebae, or electrons and protons. But man is naturally a being that lives in association with others in communities possessing language, and there- fore enjoying a transmitted culture. Inquiry [including scientific inquiry] is a mode of activity that is socially conditioned and that has cultural con- sequences. (Dewey, 1938, pp. 26-27)

Since education, especially science education, is the transmission of culture, the social character of the methodological forms of science itself should surely find expression in the methods of science teaching. Dewey's anti-reductionism was the reverse reflection of his holism. In the present case, Dewey's holism renders human nature continuous with nature. It also clears the way for connecting the logic of science with democracy, at least when the latter is conceived as "con- joint communicated experience." Dewey wrote:

The final actuality is accomplished in face-to-face relationships by means of direct give and take. Logic in its fulfillment recurs to the primitive sense of the word: dialogue. Ideas which are not communicated, shared, and reborn in expression are but soliloquy, and soliloquy is but broken and imperfect thought. (1954, p. 218)

Unfortunately, too much science teaching consists of recitation or lecturing from a text that provides what Dewey called "inert information," the sibling of A. N. Whitehead's "inert ideas" - - in short, a pedagogical soliloquy emblemat-

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ic of broken and imperfect pedagogical thought, logic, and method. In a typical science classroom, the year begins with the students being taught

the "scientific method." Usually fltis includes an emphasis on public communi- cation of research results and there may even be mention of conferences and journal publication to help make the point. Ironically, as soon as the students begin to actually perform laboratory exercises, communication is all but extin- guished. Rather than sharing ideas and reaching conclusions collectively, an individual is threatened with cheating if ideas, data, or interpretations are shared with others, sometimes even a lab partnert Instead of the class interacting and striving to reach consensus, individuals "communicate" only with the cenlral author i ty- that is, the teacher. Even this is not a real dialogue since a student's answer is always considered against some predetermined "objective standard." The thoughts of the student, rather than being evaluated for creativity and appli- cation of methods to a course of scientific inquiry, are largely ignored. Not only does this limit genuine dialogue, but it misrepresents the dynamic and dialogical nature of scientific inquiry. Small wonder that, in their desperate attempts to achieve the one predetermined "right" result or interpretation, so many students "dry lab" or "fudge" experimental reports, turn them in, and receive fine grades. The ideas in the reports are not only inert, they are fraudulent; but who is really at fault? Having defrauded our students they then defraud us. The result of not attending to the first, foremost, and freest logic of science - - that is, dialogue is even worse than being merely undemocratic.

Remarkably, the logic of dialogue has, until relatively recently, remained almost entirely undeveloped and certainly unapplied. In the remainder of this paper, we would like to develop one form of the logic of dialogue. We have in mind erotetic logic, the logic of questions and answers. We will conclude by assigning a practical role for the history of science in our democratic dialogical construction.

Explanation is perhaps the most "logical" of teaching acts. Scientific expla- nation is perhaps the most "logical" of science teaching acts. In the philosophy of science, the most powerful form of explanation has traditionally been the "deductive-nomological" or "covering law" model made famous by Carl Hempel. 1 In this explanatory model, existential propositions descriptive of empirical phenomena (the explanandum) are explained by general universal propositions or laws (the explanans) that cover the particular descriptive propo- sitions. A poor pedagogy that is, unfortunately, quite popular with all too many science teachers is to convert the explanandum into an assumed student prob- lem, predicament, or question by simply adding a "why" onto the explanandum. For example, a student's descriptive sentence, "The amount of water in a puddle on a warm, sunny day decreases," becomes "Why does the amount of water in a puddle on a warm, sunny day decrease?" The science teacher's task then becomes simply a matter of providing the appropriate covering law(s) and car- rying out the concomitant deduction thereby explaining the explanandum. The result of this pedagogical practice is a deductive-nomological pedagogical solil- oquy. If at first glance the above conversion seems "natural" to you, it only

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illustrates the seductiveness of bad science teaching that we have all succumbed to at some time or another. We will develop this example further below.

In examining a number of leading secondary school science textbooks, we were struck by the excessive emphasis on getting it correct, doing so immedi- ately and in the one correct way. For example, one prominent textbook tells the teacher: "Listen carefully as students verbalize their thinking, in order to identi- fy flaws in their thinking." The text then goes on to tell the teacher: "Use a series of How, Why and What-if questions to redirect the thinking of a student who has proposed flawed reasoning." By implication the same pattern would hold for students' descriptions of natural phenomena. The questions to be answered, along with the reasoning that answers them, are largely that of the teacher and not the student. One is led to wonder whose questions these are any- way. The questions are essentially the curriculum objectives (e.g., describe, explain, define) listed in the textbook by section or chapter with a "why" added, and where the answers are not the students' answers but the textbook's answers that the students learn to recite mindlessly.

Textbook curricula objectives are, in effect, the explanandums for explorato- ry soliloquies that became students' questions or problems by merely adding a "why" to them. They are only the students' problems insofar as they must be solved to receive the requisite external reward - - for example, a grade, a pass on an examination, or a gold star. A glance through several texts will illustrate the dilemma. One common chemistry text lists 145 objectives of which only one involves a topic that is controversial. For all the others, there is an "accept- ed" correct answer. This text advocates that value judgment and ethics be included in teaching of science, but then provides only four questions concern- ing them. The text contains over 1,500 questions. A life science text has over 380 objectives but only seven refer to attitude and the communication thereof. Could it be that there is no need to resolve issues or have dialogue in science? In another biology text, with over 600 objectives listed in the teachers' guide, there was not a single value judgment or communication-based objective.

The ideal that we can explain anything, any natural phenomena, in totally objective isolation is an idol of the positivistic theatre. Postpositivistic philoso- phy of science has taught us that we do not just explain something, rather we always explain something to somebody. Converting the positivistic idol into a model of teaching is a double irony. First, because as we have just seen, even in natural explanation we do not just explain something, we explain something to someone. Second, students' questions about some natural phenomena may be entirely different than what results from simply adding a "why" to a natural description of the phenomena. Said differently, it is the student's description that is decisive in determining the question, and it is decisive in two ways.

All questions have presuppositions. We can call these subject-matter presup- positions. Answers to questions must either satisfy the presuppositions of the question, reject the presuppositions, or modify them. Teachers must be very careful in interpreting students' questions; they must attempt to discern the true intent of the question. For example, suppose an angry elementary school student

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demands to know, "'Where is my puddle? I played in it yesterday and now it is gone. ''2 There are a number of possible responses to this question. Perhaps the student is reporting puddle theft. A caring response might be to take a bucket of water and reconstitute the lost object. In order to interpret this personal question - - and this context - - as pedagogical, it is necessary to resignify the situation, presuming, of course, that the student accepts the resignification. We might, perhaps, resignify the phenomena of the puddle's disappearance as a conse- quence of a natural scientific process called evaporation; only then does the stu- dent's question become one to be answered by the science teacher as science teacher.

Since we are assuming, as we should, that we are discussing students' ques- tions, then the presuppositions must come from the students' background of beliefs about the subject matter. Among other things, this means that the pre- supposition of students' questions may serve diagnostic purposes by communi- caring to the teacher the present state of the student's web of belief about a given subject matter.

Ultimately teachers' answers must satisfy the student's questions; in other words, teaching must always be centred on the unique individual student. This situation does not mean that teachers can ignore the subject matter, but it does mean that the subject-matter content itself must sometimes be modified in high- ly complex ways in order to satisfy a student's background presuppositions. For instance, answering an elementary student's questions about evaporation proba- bly does not mean even mentioning photons, Plank's constant, Maxwell's kinet- ic-molecular theory, or even that chemically water is 1-I20. Likewise the logical order of the structure of subject-matter may - - indeed almost assuredly will - - change to meet the requirements of satisfying the student's presuppositions and carrying on the dialogue. The logical order becomes guided by the needs of the teacher-student conversation; it is a diatogicat order, rather than a linear deduc- tive-nomological order or soliloquy. The desirable result is a dialogue between the free individual student and the authority of the teacher where the authority of the teacher is both that of the representative of institutional power as well as subject-matter expertise. In Experience and Nature Dewey wrote:

The fruit of communication should be participation; sharing is a wonder by the side of which transubstantiation pales. When communication occurs, all natural events are subject to reconsideration and revision; they are re-adapted to meet the requirements of conversation, whether it be public discourse or that preliminary discourse termed thinking. Events turn into objects, things with a meaning. (1981, p. 132)

This passage says and does many important things. First, it erases the dualism between human nature and nature. For Dewey, humankind was a naturally con- stituted kind, a participant in, rather than a spectator of, natural events within an unfinished universe. Second, it expresses the sense in which objectivity is inter- subjectivity. Third, it allows us to see into the depths of the meaning of democ- racy - - that is, how democracy should be read into the ultimate nature of things,

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and social reform into the meaning of knowledge. As we have already said, when done well science was, for Dewey, inherently democratic. All of the above possibilities are present in everyday classroom contexts even when they are concealed under undemocratic soliloquies. In order for genuine dialogue to occur, however, the subject matter must be re-adapted to meet the requirement of classroom conversation.

History is the record of the continuing conversation of humankind. The his- tory of science is the record of the continuing conversation of the international scientific community. It is the chronicle of how communities' understanding of natural events have been readapted to meet the requirements of the conversa- tion. A striking historical example is that of Galileo's famous dialogues with Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicio written in the vernacular and intended to teach any intelligent reader, not just the authorities of the church and state. For Galileo, those who would not engage in dialogue with openness and integrity would remain unscientific and ignorant. It shows how the preliminary discourse of often only one free autonomous individual may be shared with and accepted by the entire community through public discourse. For reasons like this, the his- tory of science provides an important cipher for readapting the subject matter of science for science teaching.

The historical order of discovery of some scientific subject-matter discipline say the laws of motion from Aristotle, to Philoponos, to Oresme to Galileo,

to Newton to Einstein - - since it is the record of how humankind originally learned to conduct comprehending conversation concerning some natural phe- nomena, is a heuristically useful place to begin looking for an appropriate peda- gogical order. We do not mean to recommend some simple recapitulation thesis that says that the historical order of humankind's original learning or discovery must always, or even usually, yield the appropriate dialogical order for carrying out good pedagogical conversations, although we suspect it would be more profitable than the linear deductive-nomological order of scientific subject mat- ter which usually is used for justification or explanation in the canonical text- books.

It is not, however, our purpose here to propose some strong recapitulation thesis for applying the history of science to science teaching. Instead we would like to suggest something else, something much closer to what seems to have been Dewey's original intent for the use of the history of science in science edu- cation.

In chapter twelve, "Thinking in Education," of Democracy and Education, Dewey indicated:

'Knowledge,' in the sense of information, means the working capital, the indispensable resources, of further inquiry; of finding out, or learning, more things. Frequently it is treated as an end itself .... This static, cold- storage ideal of knowledge is inimical to educative development. (1916, p. 158)

It is the context of inquiry that takes inert ideas, inert knowledge, out of cold

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storage and reinvigorates them for participation in what Francis Bacon some- where called "the chase of Pan." Scientific knowledge taught as an undemocrat- ic deductive-nomological soliloquy is a cold-storage model of knowledge; it results in "broken and imperfect thought." The history of science is the history of a conversation of and about scientific inquiry. If the curriculum goal of sci- ence teaching is to initiate inquirers into the process of disciplined inquiry as well as to convey factual knowledge or, more accurately, to convey factual knowledge, including methods, as means of continuing their education rather than as the end, then the history of science should be an essential element of sci- ence education. Furthermore, if we look upon the philosophy of science as "metascience" - - that is, as being like metacognition in psychology - - then the philosophy of science can be seen as reflection or inquiry into scientific inquiry and, as such, part of the conversation that goes beyond the narrow confines of scientific inquiry into the domains of science and technology in a democratic society.

We would like to conclude with a suggestion for integrating the history of science into an inquiry-oriented science curriculum. It has been commonplace to allow students to "perform" a sequence of inquiry into some subject matter while including a reasonable latitude for error. The idea is a good one when it teaches that not only the process but the product too is fallible. One suggestion is this: students could be provided an opportunity to conduct self-designed, and self-directed, experimental investigations based upon their questions and pre- suppositions. The students would discuss their results and interpretations with their classmates. Dialogical exchange would ensue with a progression of con- currences and differences of opinion being recorded for future consideration and reconsideration. At this point, the historical literature would be explored for the documentation of similar inquiry and understanding from the past. Needless to say, there is no single, definitive history of science, and the students will again be exposed to uncertainties. These findings from various histories of sci- ence would also be discussed. The learners would face questions concerning consensus historically and historical consensus. The manner by which "histori- cal authorities" legitimize "scientific authority" of antiquity is but another dia- logue demanding resolution by consensus. Students will then have a basis to critique the pattern of conjectures and refutations of the presuppositions of inquiry - - that is, the pattern of changes in the continuing conversation, the democratic dialogue of ideas.

These thoughts were inspired by Imre Lakatos' Proofs and Refutations (1976) which presents an imaginary classroom dialogue that recapitulates the actual history of the development in mathematics by means of proofs and refu- tations of an equation expressing the relation between vertices, edges, and faces of all polyhedra. We are proposing modifying the situation so that the actual classroom dialogue may oftentimes recapitulate the outline of the original his- torical dialogue. We are not saying that the classroom dialogue should exactly or even approximately recapitulate the historical, although in fact we suspect it sometimes will. By conducting personalized inquiry, participating in dialogue

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with their peers in the classroom community, and then using the history of sci- ence as an aid, students can learn the fallibility, tentativeness, and uncertainty of hypotheses by comparing their "mistakes," both individual and groups', with those made by the great scientists of the past. More importantly, the students will have learned, via participation, of the democratic mode of science.

The preceding is an idea for inclusion with a variety of instructional tech- niques not a panacea to be used exclusively. We believe that there will have to be times in which students must master material that requires a great deal of effort and discomfort! As in the performing arts, there are sacrifices necessary for improving accomplishment. A guitarist must work with discomfort to devel- op the callus, the hand strength, the flexibility, and the endurance to become a master. A ballet dancer withstands great physical pain developing the ability to remain elevated and dance on tip-toes. Similarly, a student must continually acquire, through personal exertion and mental anguish, an increasing command of the languages and practices of the sciences in order to perform even better disciplined inquiry.

Superficially, our suggestions could be viewed as an alternative to this hard work. Rather, we would propose that such an approach, due to its inherent appeal of personalization, community interaction, and historical reflection, may be an excellent motivator to stimulate the desire of students to empower them- selves so as to be more capable, prepared for similar experiences in their futures. Rather than mindless compliance for the extrinsic grade, the learners will feel the anguish of limitation of their knowledge, thinking, and ability to express thought to others. Thus, for intrinsic motives of self-esteem, self- expression, and community, more of a sacrifice may be made to comprehend that which requires great effort to master. Sometimes students must suffer the soliloquies of memorization and repeated practice. Their reward for mastery during soliloquy is greater satisfaction from more meaningful participation when the even more meaningful approach of dialogue is appropriate. Without dialogue, effort in soliloquy is pointless. However, without interceding solilo- quy, participation in dialogue will be limited.

Conclusion: Democratic Science Teaching, Dialogue and the History of Science

For Dewey, the aim of education was to enable learners to continue their educa- tion; we would say that it is initiation into, and the continuance of, the conversa- tion of humankind. This aim may meet deep-seated existential needs, for the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" may well be that the mean- ing of life is to make more meaning. The history of science is the history of a conversation, a record of the education, in the etymological sense of the term, of humankind. The democratic character of this conversation has existential impli- cations that require us to keep it open to all, especially in classroom contexts.

Appositic thinkers will provide numerous, immediate objections to our sug- gestion. For those concerned that such an approach will require more time and

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cover less material, we would emphasize that our goal is not a complete mastery of a list of course objectives, but rather an acquisition using a scientific and democratic process with which to continue learning. Merely memorizing facts and applying memorized formulas for no larger purpose is a meaningless and boring exercise in inert ideas. Reinvigorating the subject matter of science as well as those who teach it must be a priority for science educators. We believe this can be best done by personal involvement and dialogue propelled, in part, through the introduction of the history and philosophy of science into the sci- ence curriculum. We recognize that many science teachers are lacking any solid background in the history or philosophy of science. Still, they can develop such a background not only through the usual means of summer workshops and cur- riculum development seminars, as fine as they may or may not be, but also through working with their students in their investigations. What better model for learning the virtues of sound scientific practice for the students than for the teacher, the expert authority, also continuing the conversation of critical and creative, scientific, and democratic learning.

NOTES

1. See, for instance, Cad G. Hempel (1966, chapter 5) and Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim (1948 ).

2. We owe this example to John R. Sluder and Algis Mickuras (1985, pp. 32-36).

REFERENCES

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1939). Intelligence in the modern world. New York: Modem Library. Dewey, J. (1954). Thepublic and its problems. Chicago: Swallow Press. Dewey, J. (1981). Experience and nature. In Later works, Vol. L Carbondale: Southern

Illinois Press. Dewey, J. (1986). Logic: The theory of inquiry. In Later works, Vol. 12. Carbondale:

Southern Illinois Press. Fuer, L. (1959). John Dewey and the back to the people movement. Journal of the Histo-

ry of ldeas, 20,545-568. Hempel, C. G. (1966). Philosophy of science, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hempel, C. G., & Oppenheim, P. (1948). The logic of explanation. Philosophy of Sci-

ence, 15, 135-175. Lakatos, I. (1976). Proofs and refutations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sluder, J. R., & Mickuras, A. (1985). Meaning, dialogue and enculturation. Lanham,

MD: University Press of America.

Address of author: Professor James W. Garrison College of Education Virginia Polytechnic Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0313 U.S.A.