IBSE Final

Epilogue Science Teachers as 21st-Century leaders

tHE tEACHING OF SCIENCE: 21 st-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES 163

Several facts ought to be made clear about the responsibilities of science

teaching. First, the science teacher’s responsibilities cannot be delegated. There

is no place or person to turn to for the delegation of responsibility for students

learning science. The classroom is the single channel through which students

flow with their myriad needs, wants, disabilities, interests, misconceptions,

naïve theories, and social agendas. Science teachers cannot wait for agree-

ment on what must be done; they must make the many decisions that result in

lessons being more or less effective, engage the learners, and maintain a posi-

tive climate within the classroom and school. Because most science teachers are

alone in their classrooms, they can neither abdicate nor delegate responsibility.

Other teachers, school administrators, and parents cannot assume the tasks of

science teaching.

Second, the science teacher’s responsibility is to all the students. Students

come through the classroom door with a variety of challenges. From these

students, science teachers must draw their strength and respond to the challenges

with accurate and constructive strategies that enhance learning. If the science

teacher constantly reassures a student with misconceptions that all is well, if the

teacher answers all parents’ concerns with an air of infallibility, or, worst of all,

if the science teacher is not informed, he or she has failed the students. Science

teachers cannot yield to the difficulties of diverse student groups; they must

overcome, inform, and educate. Sometimes educating students requires risk,

trying something new and unique with the hope that students will benefit.

Third, the science teacher’s responsibility is to the community as well as the

students. As though the duties of classroom teaching were not enough, science

teachers must in many cases assume duties that require educating colleagues,

administrators, school boards, and parents about science and science educa-

tion. To do this, one must have an understanding of frontiers of science and

trends and issues in science education, as well as some awareness of the political

dynamics of the schools, communities, and nations.

Few in the contemporary reform of American education have realized the

basic fact that what makes education work is inside the classroom: the sound

development of science teachers as responsible leaders who can carry out their

duties. The final purpose of the exercise of reforming science education is to

provide science teachers with the means of doing the things that will foster the

scientific literacy of students and the highest aspirations of society.

Empowering Science teachers

Empowering science teachers is a prominent theme in the contemporary reform

of science education (Spector 1989; Nyberg 1990). Teacher empowerment is an

interesting contrast with the phrase popular in the 1960s: teacher-proof programs.

A teacher-proof curriculum was a set of materials designed to enhance student

learning independent of, or in spite of, the science teacher. As early as 1965, in