IBSE Final

Epilogue Science Teachers as 21st-Century leaders

tHE tEACHING OF SCIENCE: 21 st-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES 169

Providing leadership in science education can begin by assuming the

responsibility of improving your own science programs. Most science teachers

do this on a continuing basis. But what is your vision? Where are you taking

your students? What should your students be learning about science? I must say

that even though you have a responsibility to provide leadership, it is not easy. I

will also say that in the end, it is worth the effort.

Confronting the Paradoxes of Leadership

Science teachers assuming the responsibilities of leadership will inevitably

confront persons, situation, and actions that are apparently contradictory. These

are, by definition, paradoxes. A paradox is a statement or situation that on the

surface seems contradictory. Earlier I mentioned an often-heard paradox in

education—equity for all students versus excellence for a few students. Para-

doxes can be resolved. For example, a leader must maintain continuity with past

science programs while initiating changes with new curricula. Leaders often

express paradoxes as tensions, contradictory directions, or conflicting issues.

However, the forces seen as countervailing elements of a paradox may not be as

diametrically opposed as they seem; in fact, the apparently contradictory goals

may reinforce each other. Leaders must master the paradoxes they confront. Let

me describe several paradoxes faced by education leaders.

Science Education’s Paradoxes

One of the classic paradoxes that science teachers may confront is encouraging

change in science programs and practices while simultaneously supporting

maintenance of past programs and practices. The resolution may center on

maintaining stability in the major concepts of life science while adopting a

new inquiry-oriented biology program or changing the sequence of biology,

chemistry, and physics courses to some we have termed physics first—that is, a

program of physics, chemistry, and biology, in that order.

A second example of a paradox that leaders face involves having a clear

direction while being open and flexible to suggestions for different directions.

The resolution here may center on ultimate and proximate goals. In the long-

term, the leader may have a consistent view of the goal he or she wants to attain.

However, in the short-term the leader may have to accept changes that only

partially represent the final goal. In the interim the leader remains flexible and

open to new ways of achieving the vision.

In prior discussions for the five themes, I suggested some issues the leaders

may confront as paradoxes. Achieving higher levels of scientific literacy may

be presented as a choice between teaching science content or teaching social

contexts such as climate change or energy efficiency. Changing school science

programs may be presented as the difficulty of bridging theory and practice.

Teaching science as inquiry has consistently met resistance from those who see