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PART VI
Accomplishing Curricular
Changes Institutional
Barriers
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~7
Educational Reform? Are We Serious?
No, but We Had Better Be.
JOHN ~ MOORE
In a recent editorial, Koshland (1988) had this to say:
The nation is intoxicated with huffing, puffing, and crocodile tears as a substitute
for policy in the war on drugs.
With minor modifications, that cn de coeur characterizes our problem:
The nation is intoxicated with huffing, puffing, and crocodile tears as a substitute
for policy on educational reform.
The general solutions to our problems are obvious and have been for
years. We know what needs to be done, but so far there is a pervasive un-
willingness to make the necessary changes in the educational establishment
to achieve the ends said to be desired. The welfare of the nation requires
students with a willingness to learn; teachers fully capable of stimulating
and supporting that learning; excellent textbooks, educational equipment,
and facilities; political leaders with courage, vision, and ability; and, above
all, a society willing to make the sacrifices that will produce the educational
system the nation deserves.
But every segment of the educational establishment is inadequate to
some degree, and that means that every segment is to some degree a barrier
John ~ Moore is professor of biology, emeritus, University of California, Riverside. He led
the team that developed the yellow version of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS)
biology text in the 1960s; is a director of the Science as a Way of Knowing project of the American
Society of Zoologists; and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
245
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HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
to educational reform. It also means that acceptable and sustainable reform
will require a fundamental change in us for we are an integral part of the
educational system.
We are all well-meaning, of course. We gather regularly in meetings
like this and issue ukases on what should and must be done. The fact that
we repeat again and again what a series of similar committees have been
saying for years reassures us that we are "on the right track."
Although there has been a tireless and tiresome listing of what should
be done, little effort has gone into doing it. Our task should be to bridge the
gap between rhetoric and response. And we have a chance-we are asked
to advise the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which has the resources
to take effective action.
This long history of huffing and puffing raises an interesting question:
Are we really serious and willing to work for educational reform, or are
these many meetings just another example of one of academe's favorite
devices- study the problem until it goes away or until the next problem
takes its place?
I am not at all sure that the academic community has the stomach
to undertake what must be done. Really effective reform would be so
difficult and so pervasive that many will elect to settle for the appearance
of action, rather than demand action itself. Reform will threaten every one
of us and it should.
What will reform require? I mentioned the main goals at the start, so
let me briefly outline the problems as I see them.
· Our students are undereducated. National tests and international
comparisons find our precollege students poorly informed in science, math-
ematics, geography, and whatever else the testers choose to test. Some
students in Texas are unsure of what lies south of the Rio Grande that is,
if they know about the Rio Grande. Others cannot place the United States
on a blank map of the world. We hope to educate these young souls so
that our nation can remain a world leader, but this may be difficult if they
are not all that sure where the world is.
· And why are they ignorant? It cannot be a deterioration of their
genetic makeup, so it must be a combination of how they are raised and
how they are taught. We can do little about how they are raised, but we
must do much more about how they are taught at all levels. How do the
teachers stack up? Some are surely among the most wonderful, dedicated,
and competent members of society. At the same time, many are poorly
trained in the sciences, and many high-school biology classes are taught
by former majors in home economics or physical education. Salaries and
working conditions for teachers are often such that few of the most gifted
undergraduates would consider a teaching career in the precollege grades.
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EDUCATIONAL REFORM? ARE HE SERIOUS?
247
· Should we blame the teachers? No; and now we reach the crux
of the problem-we should blame the colleges and universities. It is they
which select, educate, and certify the teachers-to-be. If there is something
wrong with the teachers' education, the universities cannot escape a major
responsibility. (I am excluding from analysis all the other factors, about
which we can do little, that tend to lessen the effectiveness of teachers:
salary, working conditions, position in society, etc.~.
How do we scholars in the great universities the flagships of educa-
tion, so to speak go about educating the teachers-to-be for what is one
of the most critical tasks in society? For the most part, we ignore these
young students, rarely encourage them to undertake what should be a noble
career, and at times actively discourage them by suggesting that they will
be wasting their lives.
I know of no disciplinary department in a great university that would
consider it acceptable to encourage and help to educate an outstanding
student for a career of teaching in the schools. The goal of the education
we profess has Stockholm, not the Little Red School House, at the end of
the road.
And why does this (to me) intolerable situation exists The answer
from the typical university professor in science is that one can get away
with such behavior, and in fact there is strong encouragement to do so.
The criterion for advancement and reputation is research, but even that is
being replaced by the size of one's research grant.
Gone are the days when fine scholarship and fine teaching were
demanded by the system. The view now seems to be that any fineness
devoted to teaching must mean less fineness in research and grantsmanship.
In a zero-sum game, it cannot be otherwise.
This state of affairs exists because those who lead the universities and
those who lead society make little effort to promote or demand a deep
commitment to quality education. In fact, one can maintain that there is
no national leadership in education. The educational system costs more in
money and manpower than does the Pentagon yet we have no generals.
The educational system works on the principle of letting 1,000 cowers
bloom, but too many of those flowers have withered.
Let me give a specific example of how one segment of leadership
works-or does not work. A mandate of the National Science Foundation
(NSF) and the National Institutes of Health is to support science. This
is normally interpreted by the agencies and the scientific establishment to
mean support of scientific research. One most promising way to do this is
to support the work of first-class scientists. An equally important activity
would be to support first-class education for the K-16 years. A generation
ago, NSF did gallant and effective work in science education, but then
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HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
reaction to "Man, a Course of Study" (MACOS) and pressures from far-
right politicians soured the educational programs. But don't blame NSF
entirely. When all this was going on, both the scientific and educational
establishments tended to look the other way. Only recently has NSF again
shown a deep interest in educational reform. Let us hope that a balance
will be reached and that the agencies will be equally concerned with the
production of good science and of good scientists.
NSFs basic concern with the support of research has a negative effect
on education. Consider this: One can include in a research proposal
requests for funds to hire someone to do the teaching of the principal
investigator, so the principal investigator can get on with the real work
research. Could there be a clearer message of the relative importance of
teaching and research? How bankrupt can we get?
This attitude pervades the administrations and faculties of the uni-
versities. Excellence in research confers status and prestige for both the
individual and the institution, but must that result in the acceptance of
less-distinguished or even mediocre teaching? The futures of science, soci-
ety, and the universities all depend on quality education. If we forget that,
surely we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
But what can be done? All that needs to be, if we so wish. Nothing
new has to be discovered, should we decide that education must be re-
formed; furthermore, a great deal could be accomplished even with existing
resources. Let us assume that our goal really is to prepare our students to
be able to make informed decisions about themselves, their communities,
their nation, and their world in the on-rushing serious problems that have
a scientific component.
The first thing that we have to accept is that the minuscule amount
of science that our students receive is inadequate. We have been told that
there is only a trivial difference in knowledge of biology between students
who have taken a biology course and those who have not.
I suggest that our goal can be achieved only if the percentage of school
work devoted to the sciences is increased to about 20-25% of the curricu-
lum, instead of the 2-5% that now prevails. And I am most certainly not
talking about a 10-fold increase in the sort of science now generally taught.
We all know the sort needed: hands-on activities, inquiry orientation, inter-
disciplinary approaches (including the nonscience disciplines), emphasis on
concepts, and the avoidance of a plethora of unneeded and unused facts.
Most important, science education must begin with young children,
and they must be partners with teachers who will help them uncover nature
and not stifle that sense of wonder and joy in living things that is every
child's birthright.
The science taught must be organized to accomplish the most with a
minimum of repetition. If the elementary-school years could be devoted
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EDUCATIONAL REFORM? ARE WE SERIOUS?
249
to learning about nature-animals, plants, and the environment and the
middle-school years to ourselves and our place in that environment, the
young student would reach the high-school years with an understanding of
biology considerably better than that held by students who have had only a
year of tenth-grade biology.
That would mean that high-school biology could be set at a level that
would allow serious and informed consideration, not only of important
human problems that biology and the other sciences have something to say
about, but also of selected areas of modern biology that are providing such
deep and exciting insights into the phenomena of the natural world.
Such a plan would make meaningless that recurring question: How
can we cover biology in a single year, when we have to include all those
current major advances in this major field of science? It is astonishing that
we ever thought we could, or should.
All this will require a revolution in the way biology and the other
sciences are taught, and such a revolution must involve the entire nation;
and above all it demands direction and leadership. I suggest that such
leadership must come from a highly respected, nongovernment organization
that will support reform of the teaching of science at all levels: seeking
to increase the fraction of the curriculum devoted to science, improving
the teaching force, demanding adequate resources from local and national
governments, seeing that fine textbooks are available, encouraging the
colleges and universities to take seriously the education of all students
(including those seeking a career in teaching), and providing models for
appropriate science for the various grades. One of the most important
functions for such an organization would be to make suggestions for a
sequence of topics appropriate for each grade level. There must be more
science in the curriculum, and there must be nationwide agreement on
what this should be.
If we accept that far more science must be taught, a common weakness
in our standard approach will be avoided. Whenever we assemble to
tale about what should be taught in high-school biology, we make our
recommendations on the assumptions that students have had no biology
before and that we need not lay a basis for any that might be taken in
more advanced grades. The goal should be to establish what biology is to
be taught in each grade, not which grade is to receive the single massive
dose.
Another thing that a central organization could do, in contrast with
what most committees do, is recognize that many people throughout many
years have been dealing with the same basic problems. There is a body of
information and experience that is valuable and should not be ignored by
each new committee as it often is. A central organization could not only
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HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
synthesize what is known, but also coordinate the efforts of all toward the
improvement of science teaching in the schools.
Such an organization should be headed by the most vigorous and
visible leaders of our great universities, scientific institutions, and public
and government organizations. I am talking about powerful people who
care and who are effective in making a clear distinction between activity and
accomplishment. Such leadership could supervise the permanent staff and
associated committees that would attempt to translate goals into programs
and products. Such an activity would have to involve real teachers and
close working relations with state and local school districts, publishers, and
the institutions that prepare students for careers in teaching.
Will society, and especially the educational establishment, buy this?
Probably not, without considerable pressure. But is there any alternative,
if we are to achieve our stated goal? There must be a national group
that will set standards and offer advice. There cannot be a nationwide
reform unless there is an organized nationwide reform effort. Surely we
have enough evidence to recognize the nearly total ineffectiveness of this
seemingly endless stream of committees bent on educational reform that
merely promulgate, and then disband. There is no longer a need to analyze
what is wrong; we know what it is and in a general way what the remedies
must be. In fact, there may be merit in proposing a moratorium on reform-
minded committees unless there is a firm link to a planned program or
product. Maybe we can help to make something very worthwhile happen.
We had better. We recognize that our educational system is short-changing
the nation and that the system is our responsibility. But even more serious
is the fact that we are short-changing our young people and those who
teach them.
We must change the system so that students will understand and take
joy in the natural world and protect it, as it in turn provides for them. They
must be able to deal with the many serious problems that affect all of us
and wild nature as well. And we must change the system so that teachers
can take joy in their profession and what they profess and will be allowed
to hold the position that they should in society- because they are doing
the basic work of civilization.
Sustainable reform of high-school biology will require far more than
tinkering with the high-school biology curriculum. That approach has
been tried repeatedly, and the problem is, if anything, more serious than
ever. Sustainable reform will come only when the colleges and universities
effectively educate those who will teach in the schools. The high-school
science-curriculum course must be a culmination of the students' rich
experience in biology and the other sciences throughout elementary-school
and junior-high-school years.
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EDUCATIONAL REFORM? ARE ~ SERIOUS?
251
We must also explore mechanisms for developing greatly improved text
and laboratory materials.
This would be a radical reform and realistically would require imple-
mentation over a period of years. Thus, an interim solution would seem to
require two sorts of high-school programs. The first, and transitory, course
would take the students as they are now and provide a single-year course
as good as possible so good that the students would know more biology
at the end than those who had not taken the course.
The development of a second type of high-school course should become
the main thrust of our efforts. It would be the culminating and synthetic
approach mentioned before and would be based on a good knowledge
of science obtained in the elementary-school and middle-school years. It
could be taken in the tenth grade. If this ideal K-10 program could be
achieved, it is more than likely that many students would profit from a
more advanced course in the twelfth grade.
1b make all this possible, we should explore the possibility of encour-
aging the formation of a new, permanent, nationwide organization or the
modification and energizing of an existing one, to catalyze the reform.
In the conditions of modern life . . . the race which does not value trained
intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not
all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day
we maintain ourselves. I7o-morrow science will have moved forward yet one
more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be
pronounced on the uneducated. [Whitehead, 1929~.
REFERENCES
Koshland, D. E., Jr. 1988. Thinking tough. Science 241:1273.
Whitehead, A. N. 1929. The Aims of Education, pp. 22-23. New York: Macmillan.
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28
Institutional Barriers to School Change
PETER W. AIRASIAN
INTRODUCTION
Identifying institutional barriers to meaningful educational change re-
quires consideration of schools at No levels. First, schools as a group
must be viewed as social institutions that interact with and are influenced
by an array of other social institutions. Schools are not free to operate
independently of these external social agencies and institutions, which look
to the schools to foster a variety of desired personal and social outcomes
in pupils. Second, schools and school systems must be viewed as entities
unto themselves, each with its own bureaucracy, personnel, budget, clients,
and resources. The dynamics existing within and among these bureaucratic
factors create inherent barriers to change.
At both levels, schools are best thought of as conservative institutions;
their inherent impetus for change is not great, and their programs, policies,
goals, and agendas are determined largely by groups external to the schools
or the school system (Cremin, 1961; Fullan, 1982; Nyberg and Egan,
1981~. Schools do change, but changes typically are imposed by external
institutions or groups. If we consider significant, large-scale educational
reform movements of the last quarter century such as mandated state
Peter W. Airasian received an A.B. in chemistry in 1964 from Harvard College and has taught
high-school chemistry and biology. He received an A.M. and Ph.D. in educational testing and
evaluation from the University of Chicago. He is professor and chair of the Educational Foun-
dations Division, Boston College.
252
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INSTII~(J77IONAL BARRIERS TO SCHOOL CHANGE
2~3
testing programs, school finance reform, teacher promotion ladders, and
opening of schools to a variety of special-needs pupils it is clear that
the reforms were initiated, championed, and eventually enacted by groups
external to the schools, usually state-level elected officials, businessmen,
and the courts. Even though the reforms influenced important aspects of
teachers' and school administrators' activities, the reforms did not originate
in the schools or educational community. In fact, many educators opposed
these reforms when they were proposed initially. Historically, educators
have been charged with implementing reform programs that they have had
little influence in creating or enacting.
The purpose of this discussion is to consider some of the external
factors that influence the nature of social mandates for school change and
the internal realities that place limits on the responses to these mandates
that schools can muster. Because it focuses on barriers to change, this
presentation may be perceived to be pessimistic. The intention is not
pessimism, but realism. It is hoped that the discussion will counterbalance
the promises of reformers who inevitably will be enthusiastically optimistic
and exclaim broadly about the many beneficial outcomes of their reform
proposals.
The bulb of the paper is concerned with general barriers to large-scale
school change; the discussion is not focused on a particular curriculum
area or grade level. First, I describe the genesis of change movements and
how they are shaped and influenced by the status of schools and schooling.
The consequences of this status for large-scale, mandated school change
are considered. Then I describe internal, school-based factors that inhibit
change. The factors discussed represent a view of the American educational
scene that points out the difficulty of effecting real educational change
without a substantial commitment of resources and a substantial amount
of patience.
EXTERNAL BARRIERS TO SCHOOL CHANGE
Change efforts arise when a crisis is perceived to exist in a social
agency; reform is not spontaneous, but responds to a perceived need.
For example, the reform of science curricula in the 1960s and the more
recent push for higher academic standards in schools were the result of
the unexpected launch of Sputnik and 10 years of publicity about the poor
test performance of American schoolchildren, respectively. It is not clear
how such crises emerge, why some capture the attention of the public while
others do not, and why attention typically shifts to another crisis after a
relatively short period. What is clear, however, is that a prerequisite for
large-scale reform is a public sense of urgency about a social or educational
problem.
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try
Different Schools: Same Barriers
GRACE S. TAYLOR
Before coming to the Education Department at Brown University last
year, I taught biology for 18 years at a comprehensive, urban high school
of 2,600 students. This is a personal reflection about a profession I love.
I borrow the documentation for my remarks from my experience and the
experiences and insights of colleagues around the country.
High schools throughout the United States are remarkably uniform in
organization and In their approach to teaching biology. Here and there,
some creative administrators and gifted teachers manage to offer a real
science experience to their students, but for the most part, biology is
rote learning and cookbook laboratory experiments. Thus, the window of
opportunity to help students to make sense of the living world is closed. In
this discussion, I am concerned with the question: What is it that inhibits
change in the biology classroom?
SCHOOL TRADITION
It is because of tradition that change in high schools is slow and difficult.
As Ted Sizer traveled around the country visiting schools, he particularly
Grace S. Taylor is a clinical professor of biology (education) at Brown University. She received
a B.A. in biology from Emmanuel College and an M.A. in biology from Wellesley College. In
1969-1987, she was a biology teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, in Massachusetts.
She was chosen an outstanding biology teacher in 1984 by the National Association of Biology
Teachers.
278
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DIFFERENT SCHOOLS: SAME BARRIERS
279
focused on observing biology and history classrooms. He comments, "It
got so when I visited biology classes, no matter what school it was, I could
almost predict what would be taught depending on what month it was.
It was so similar. They were following the textbook" (T. Sizer, Brown
University, personal communication, October 3, 1988~.
Structure of the Day
In many schools, classes are run in the same time block year after
year. In a seven-period day, teachers are scheduled for five classes, each
of which meets at the same time each day, usually for 45 minutes. Only
the honors and upper-level sciences may have a weekly double period for
laboratory activities. For maximal efficiency, each classroom is scheduled
for use each period, so the teacher who is "free" for a particular period
must go elsewhere. The classroom is not his or her own, nor is it available
for a student to finish a project. For the biology teacher, this necessitates
setting up laboratory experiments before or after school. But in many city
schools, teachers are not allowed to stay after school, for safety reasons.
All these factors lessen the ability of the teacher to give quality instruction.
Teacher Schedule
In most school districts, the maximal number of students a teacher
may have in a class is 30; therefore, he or she may be responsible for a
total of 150 students. Some school systems realize that this is untenable,
particularly in a laboratory setting, and have lowered the number to 25 or
even 20 per class. Experts in education know that in order for students
to learn most effectively they must be actively engaged. Authentic inquiry
laboratory exercises where the students are involved in the process of
experimentation and investigation often cannot be implemented within the
rigid timeframes of the day and the teacher's schedule.
Think of a single teacher conducting a pond study with 25 students
at 25 microscopes (if she is lucky enough to have a microscope for each
student). Of course, she wants them to make their own wet-mount slides
from the water she and the class have brought in. She wants them to
have the thrill of seeing live paramecia and vorticellae. But there will be
constructive chaos in the classroom, and 3 minutes after the bell rings
another teacher's class will be coming into the room. In thinking about
this lesson, the teacher must make a choice between original discovery and
static learning from prepared slides. The latter will fit into the confines of
the day easier.
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HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
Teacher Isolation
The structure of most high schools means that teachers do their work
behind closed doors. Exciting ideas and methods may be born, but generally
stay behind those doors. The bell rings, the teacher does corridor duty, and
then the next class comes in. There is rarely any attempt to organize the
schedule so that teachers who teach the same subject can have common
planning time. Even in schools where there are department examinations,
teachers usually do not discuss together what is essential for their students
to know. Instead, someone may make up the examination this term, or
each teacher may send in questions on a specific area. The synergistic effect
of many stimulated teacher minds working together is lost. No common
goals of the biology curriculum are debated, no consensus reached.
There are actually subtle institutional disincentives to collaboration.
If one spends a period talking to a colleague about what is happening in
class, one is taking time away from preparation, planning, and correcting
for the next class, the next day. Yet it is necessary to have horizontal
(departmental, 9-12) and vertical (districtwide, K-12) articulation in order
for curriculum change to be discussed and eventually implemented.
Teacher Instruction
Most high-school students find biology "boring, because you have to
memorize too much stuff." The curriculum is so overwhelming that it
seems to dictate the pedagogy. Faced with feeling that he or she has to
deliver too much content in as efficient a way as possible a 700-page text
in 180 schooldays the teacher resorts to lecturing. Depth is subjugated
for breadth, and coverage is confused with real study. Large conceptual
themes, such as relationships among living things, tend to be ignored in the
pursuit of specific structural terminology.
And who are the students to whom this barrage of information is
directed? College-bound students eager to learn biology in detail? It may
be surprising to hear that there is a good chance that more.students who
took freshman science will, 8 years later, have spent time behind bars than
will have a bachelor's degree in either biology, chemistry, physics, earth
science, or science education (Leyden, 1984~. Teachers must know who
their audience is and teach appropriately.
The tradition has been the teacher talking, not the student doing the
work The kind of instruction that is needed is one that engages students'
minds, builds their skills, and helps them with problem-solving strategies.
This may require both restructuring the schoolday and viewing the teacher
in a new way as a helper, not a dispenser.
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DIFFERENT SCHOOLS: SAME BARRIERS
Artificial Separation of the Sciences
281
There is too much specialization in the high-school science curriculum.
The typical high-school sequence is earth or physical science, biology,
chemistry, and then physics. It is as though each science teacher is preparing
the students for a career in one of the sciences, instead of helping them
to gain the knowledge and skills that they will need in order to understand
science in our society. In biology, we teach the parts of the eye; in chemistry,
the binding of molecules, such as the visual proteins; and in physics, the
action of light waves. Because we teach every aspect separately, students
keep it separate in their minds, and thus necessary connections are not
made and real understanding is lost. An interdisciplinary curriculum would
reduce the "I can't do science" refrain that is often heard in high schools.
State Certification
Certification requirements encourage future teachers to specialize in
only one of the sciences and thus perpetuate the separation. Most biology
majors do take college courses in chemistry, physics, and mathematics
and thus could, with the help of some innovative materials, teach in an
interdisciplinary way. Some, of course, do just that. (Note that the English
language-arts curriculum is composed of five elements: oral language,
active listening, composition, grammar, and literature. Each has a separate
body of skills and some would say a separate scope and sequence; yet
English language-arts teachers are expected to, and do, teach all elements
in each of their courses.) The sciences overlap as well. Can one really
separate biology and chemistry? Should change involve science teachers
as generalists? Interestingly enough, the one science certification that
is interdisciplinary is general science, the course that is lowest in the
hierarchical scale and is usually taken by the non-college-bound.
Sex Roles
Sixty-three percent of biology teachers are male (Champagne and
Hornig, 1987, p. 215~. The blatant "I don't hire women science teachers,"
as one principal said to me in 1969, has been replaced with more subtle
forms of discrimination. The only female teacher on the science staff in
a high school outside Boston is "locked out of the stockroom." The first
female science teacher hired in a high school in New Hampshire (in 1986)
left after a year of isolation and was replaced by two men. There are few
examples of women scientists in the texts or in the curriculum. If the ideas
of women teachers are not held in high regard by their male colleagues,
any dialogue involving change will be difficult.
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2~82
HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
liacking
Homogeneous grouping makes assumptions that are not true. It as-
sumes that students cannot all learn the same curriculum. It assumes that
in a heterogeneous classroom one has to teach to the middle, and the top
group is bored and the bottom one is lost. It assumes that it makes it
easier for the teacher to teach appropriately, whereas, in reality, he or she
has three levels of biology in three textbooks, with three preparations every
night and, possibly, three laboratories the next day.
But as long as teachers believe, and thus the students do too, that only
certain students can really learn and do biology, there will be no impetus for
change. College-bound students know what they have to do, and they will
do it, even if they are bored. The advanced-placement level of performance
is very specific and is geared to the outcome desired. If students in a lower
track are lucky, they may have a teacher who puts emphasis on relevance,
process, and skills; but more often than not, the less-able teachers get the
supposedly less-able students, and more trees are sacrificed to satisfy the
dominant method worksheets!
TEXTBOOKS
For many teachers, the textbook Is the syllabus, with a resulting over-
reliance on the textbook in most biology classrooms. Those of us who
have read the literature over the years are aware that the vast majority
of teachers of biology and other subjects feel that most of their teaching
problems would be solved if only they could find the ~`right', textbook. With
the exception of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) series
(whose latest editions look more and more like the traditional ones, with
fewer and fewer open-inquiry laboratory experiments), most of the texts
are interchangeable.
It is naive to assume that, should a new and innovative biology ap-
proach be proposed, publishers would be interested. Witness the fact that
a new social-studies curriculum, Man: A Course of Study (MACOS), was
rejected by publisher after publisher in 1967. "They told the MACOS de-
velopers that their stress on inductive methods, small-group instruction, the
teacher as participant rather than authority, and multimedia design were
formidable obstacles to adoption by teachers" (Lazerson et al., 1985, p. 36~.
We cannot assume that things have changed in schools or in the publishing
industry.
The demands of state textbook-approval boards also limit teachers
in selecting texts that they feel are appropriate for their students and
consistent with their goals.
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MONETARY CONSTRAINTS
283
Whenever change is suggested, the "what will it cost?" question is
usually the first one asked, and the answer to it alone determines whether
the change will be implemented.
Resources
A set of textbooks for a class of 25 students may cost over $400.
There is the additional cost of laboratory books, supplies, and perhaps
new equipment. The cost of implementing a biology course of study is
considerable, and other departments in the school watch the proportional
allocations of funds closely.
Time
The old adage, "time is money," is applicable in education as well.
In order to look at the curriculum or pedagogy in new ways, it will be
necessary to offer teacher training during the schoolday with class coverage
by a substitute. This may need to be a continuing process. A colleague gave
a 1-day in-service session to biology teachers in his city during which he
introduced an original 2-week unit that he had written, exploring land use
and decision-making. The teachers were interested in the new approach,
but monetary constraints were such that there was no time available for
them to practice together and work through the unit. Thus, no real
implementation could be expected, nor was it achieved. 1b the school
district, the cost is not merely that of the substitute, but also the per diem
of the teacher who is away from the classroom.
Average Teacher Load
The average teacher load is carefully calculated by assistant superin-
tendents in charge of finances to determine the cost-effectiveness of the
teacher-to-student ratio. Teachers are expected to teach a full load, at least
100 students and 25 class periods per week. My class schedule was 22
periods a week, because my advanced-placement class met seven periods a
week. The principal informed me that I would have to take study hall three
times a week to bring me up to the required load. My arguments included
the time needed to correct the many essays that are part of the course,
the time needed to set up laboratory experiments, and the philosophy that
advanced placement should be considered as a double course. They were
in vain, and I was assigned to a study hall in the cafeteria three times
a week. The irony is that my advanced-placement course and the results
achieved in it were often used by the school in public-relations forums.
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HIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
Classes with fewer than 12 or 15 students are not considered to be
cost-effective and are dropped from the schedule. A graduate student
in English in our teacher-education program took a field biology course
during her senior year in high school. She was very excited by her first
taste of real science and said, "Although my project wasn't that original, I
really learned a lot. But they didn't offer it again the next year, because
not enough students signed up." (It will be interesting to see whether this
course, which involved authentic inquiry, will be reinstated, now that its
teacher is the superintendent of schools in this district.)
Conferences
In many school systems, not only are teachers not reimbursed for
conferences attended, but they are not allowed to go during schooltime.
This short-sightedness remains, even though many teachers affirm that
conferences are exciting, stimulate creativity, and are more directly relevant
to their teaching than further coursework. National Association of Biology
Teachers meetings include workshops that are led by teachers and are
therefore rich in practical ideas. Yet districts still require only coursework
for incremental wage increases. Often, it is not even necessary that courses
taken after a teacher has been granted tenure be related to the teacher's
subject area.
STANI)ARI)IZED TESTING
Another factor that drives what is taught in biology classrooms around
the country is state tests, College Board tests, and high-school departmental
tests. The rationale for each may be different, but the end result is
conformity and a lack of "open-endedness." In Massachusetts, science tests
were given to students in fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades, and the scores
were later published in the Boston Globe. The results caused some measure
of consternation among the science staff in my former high school. They
asked: What sorts of things were on the test? What did they have to teach
so that the students would do better on the test? It is a classic case of the
tail wagging the dog standardized tests determining the curriculum!
Duckworth (1984, p. 19) stated, "What is dreadfully missing from a
standardized test of biology, say, is any real conception of what the study
of biology is: there is no way to tell whether a student has a sense of the
questions that biologists ask, how to go about exploring them, how they
relate to each other, how mistaken hypotheses can be productive."
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UNIVERSITY PREPARATION
285
There is often more than a grain of truth in axioms, and "teachers teach
as they were taught" is truer than most. In college classrooms throughout
the country, Biology 101 students are trapped in a maze of facts and a
haze of terms. They become passive learners, recipients of information,
whose habits of thought and inquiry are underdeveloped. Thus, we should
not be surprised when our biology student-teachers teach in the same way.
Where have they been exposed to dynamic teaching? Where have they
learned to pose authentic questions? This summer, as my candidates for
the master's degree in teaching were getting ready to do their first teaching
at Brown Summer High School, it was clear that they thought of their role
as dispensers of information. Lecture, laboratory, and oral question and
answer were the only teaching techniques with which they were familiar In
the science classroom.
PRESERVICE EDUCATION
If the teaching in university biology classes has been less than inspired,
it behooves teacher-education programs to develop teacher methods that
are student-centered, are interactive, and serve as catalysts for student
thinking and problem-solving. Unfortunately, teacher candidates are often
taught by professors who are decades away from actual classroom teaching
and who lack first-hand knowledge of the current school populace. There
is a substantial incongruence between the way we are teaching science
today, with our emphasis on reading a polysyllabic textbook and answering
laboratory workbooks with packaged questions, and the learning styles of
the students we teach. Is there too much emphasis on the well-written
lesson plan and maintaining classroom control, and too little emphasis on
developing methods to help students to use their minds well?
Teachers often take for granted that their students are like them in the
way their minds work, in the way they think and feel. "When teachers are
working with students who are very much like themselves, there is relatively
little to learn about teaching, at least insofar as technique is concerned, that
is not supplied either by common sense or by the knowledge of the material
to be taught. But when teachers and students are not alike in important
ways . . . the knowledge called for under those circumstances is genuinely
knowledge about teaching per se" (Jackson, 1986, p. 26~. Preservice work
with a multicultural component is imperative.
There is much that educational research can offer both the new and
the experienced teacher, but the researcher and the teacher often do not
speak the same language. As a colleague so aptly put it, '`There is a need
for translators."
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lIIGH-SCHOOL BIOLOGY
PROFESSIONAL IN-SERVICE EDUCATION
lbo few school systems set aside release time for teacher collaboration,
updating, training, or visiting other classrooms and schools. After teachers
have supervised homeroom and taught approximately 125 students, it is too
much to expect that an after-school meeting to discuss change in the biology
curriculum will be productive, let along innovative. Even when release time
is available, teachers' attitudes may be negative, as past experience has
shown them that they will not be involved in setting the agenda. What will
transpire will not be relevant or meet their needs.
When teachers are fortunate enough to go to an all-day workshop,
such as the ones held by the Institute of Secondary Education at Brown,
they say, "I come back to the classroom feeling invigorated." The students
can only benefit from such a recharged teacher, but new content must be
linked with new teaching techniques. As a colleague said, "We must not
only use that knowledge, but make it sing!"
There is no doubt that the success of the BSCS curriculum was aided
by workshops sponsored by the National Science Foundation. If such an
initiative is begun again, those who plan the scheduling must take into
consideration the varied roles of women, so that as many women teachers
as possible will be able to participate.
ADMINISTRATION
Leadership in the central office and in the high school is often myopic.
In a suburban high school, the science-department head is serious about
deleting double laboratory periods when he says that "smart kids don't
like to do labs, because they know what the results will be and, besides, it
makes scheduling difficult." It makes one wonder whether he thought of
changing the Apes of laboratory experiments the students did, rather than
the structure of the laboratory itself. In my former school, science teachers
are now required to babysit a homeroom, instead of having that time free
to set up for laboratory class, as they did before. Teachers yearn for creative
curriculum directors who have a knowledge of the discipline, its trends, and
the teaching strategies needed to encourage the students to true learning.
They want a leader with vision and the ability to excite the staff to work
toward shared goals. Alas, most are pedantic and have little knowledge of
good science education and so exert little or no direction. If any change is
going to occur, it may have to be teacher-initiated or teacher-directed.
But teachers are swamped with "administrivia" homeroom, late slips,
absence lists, cut slips, inventory forms, student grading-policy agreements,
substitute folders, study halls, etc. Organizing for a guest speaker or a
field trip can become so difficult (with forms needed to be signed by three
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DIFFERENT SCHOOLS: SAME BARRIERS
2237
different administrators) that many teachers just do not bother. Their
energies have been directed toward the wrong areas.
TEACHER ATTITUI)ES
The teacher is the crucial link in any conversation about change, but
change is both a challenge and a threat. Are a majority of biology teachers
convinced that there is a need for change, or are they in an "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it" mentality? Many feel overwhelmed by the explosion
of biological knowledge in the last 2 decades, as they try to keep up with
recent advances. They feel confused by the reports that suggest that they
must teach more and the data that show that American students understand
less science Education Week, September 28, 1988~.
Does the aging teacher population have a desire for renewal? From
where will the impetus for change come? In the 1960s, the reformers came
from the country's prestigious universities, and they modeled the curriculum
after the academic content of college courses, with little concern about the
realities of classroom teaching (Lazerson et al., 1985~. If, indeed, change
is in the air again, will it come from presentations at conferences like this,
where there appear to be only two active teachers on the many panels?
Teachers rightly rebel at the imposition of change, particularly from those
they feel are not cognizant of the realities of the high-school classroom.
"New math" was born, and it died. That could well happen to a new
biology curriculum that is initiated "top-down."
There are teachers who feel that problems in the biology classroom
are not the result of the curriculum itself, but occur because students
are unmotivated and "functionally illiterate." This seems to be a classic
"blame the victim" ploy. Perhaps one could ask whether the teachers are
"methodologically illiterate."
Historically, when curriculum change has occurred, there has been
insufficient teacher training. It would seem imperative that new curriculum
be linked with new pedagogy; but while teachers are open to learning new
facets of their subject, many consider professional development degrading:
"I already know how to teach!"
There are many reflective teachers who are uncertain about what is
best for their students how the students learn, what can be done to
motivate them, how to develop the skills they need. A 17-year biology
veteran with whom I work stated, "I'd realized the past few years that the
kids had changed, and what I used to do in class no longer worked, but
I don't know what else to do." It is the openness to change that must be
nurtured and developed.
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CONCLUSION
Reflecting on all these barriers to change has been, by necessity, a
negative exercise. Experiences and anecdotes from many schools validate
the barriers to change. In thinking about changing the curriculum, we must
ask not only what it Is that we want our students to know, but also how
it should best be taught. Change necessitates restructuring the day and
the teachers' schedules, modifying certification requirements, developing
creative administrators, improving curriculum models, rethinking teacher
education, and building In time so that teachers can have a true dialogue.
If change in the curriculum and, by necessity, in the pedagogy is deemed
necessary, then the crucial question to ask is: "What are the incentives
for districts, administrators, and teachers to change the way the biology
curriculum Is approached?" Get the incentives right, and the rest will fall
into place!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe special thanks to Ann Beachan, Jonathan Beater, Paula Evans,
Amy Gerstein, Judy Johnson, Gordon Mendenhall, Theodore Sizer, Nancy
Italian, Sharon Wolff, and Carolyn Wyatt.
REFERENCES
Champagne, A. B., and L. E. Hornig, Eds. 1987. The Science Curriculum. Washington,
D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Duckworth, E. 1984. "... what teachers know: the best knowledge base ...." Harvard
Educ. Rev. 54:15-20.
Education Week. September 28, 1988.
Jackson, P. ~ 1986. The Practice of Teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lazerson, M., J. B. McLaughlin, B. McPherson, and K. Bailey. 1985. An Education of
Value: The Purposes and Practices of Schools. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Leyden, M. B. 1984. You graduate more criminals than scientists. Sci. Teach. 51:27-30.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
school change
