Decolonizing Science
Decolonizing Science Education
The Next Generation Science Standards, and most individual state science standards, are based on specific ideas.
These main ideas include:
Conservation of Mass/Energy
Kinetic Molecular Theory
Laws of Thermodynamics/Motion/Gravity
Big Bang Theory
Plate tectonic theory
Theory of Evolution/Adaptation vs Learned behaviors
Carrying capacities
Ecological Diversity
And quite a few more standards match up to specific laws/theories/ideas in a specific subject. These ideas are meant to be foundational knowledge that can be applied in a variety of ways.
Many teachers teach how they were taught because it's what they know as an example of what a teacher should do or should act like. This leads to a narrowing of vision of what good instruction looks like or the specific content that should be covered. It also leads to students who do not feel successful, because they have difficulty memorizing specific facts, while other students do not seem to struggle in this area. Teaching like this leads to teaching outdated content, and biased education by design, and without intention.
Our current education system is a result of colonial-style education that has been brought to our country. Before this colonial style of education spread throughout the world, most people learned through watching or interactions with family and community members, personal experiences, or reading. A lot of information is passed down through generations of experiences, leading to generational knowledge.
Our current colonial system was designed for white men, but later other races and women were allowed to attend. This system was intended to be a factory style of education that readied people for work in factory settings. The instructor is meant to deliver as much information as possible, while the student is meant to absorb as much as possible while getting used to working with other people, schedule changes, compliance with authority figures, and much more. It was intended to reward the academically inclined while purposefully removing people who were not so inclined. This intention was to keep specific types of people from going to universities. This leads to an obvious division of the level of education among the people in a society, which we see today in America. Although many strategies claim high rates of success in increasing engagement, grades, or graduation rates, they are rarely a fix to the underlying issues of colonial-style education, so we see the same issues persist.
I'm not suggesting that we change the ideas or standards because they are good in the sense, that they can be and are applied to many different situations, career fields, and people's everyday lives. I think that we need some set of standards to help guide teachers and focus instruction to meet a wide variety of needs.
I think the real issues arise when teachers interpret what students need to know differently. For example, I have taught many different subjects over the years, and in my first few years of teaching many teachers were focused on details around the law or theory of the standard. So they would ask questions like who developed this theory, when was this theory developed, what are the first two steps of the process, what's Law one, what's Law 2, kinds of questions. This leads to the memorization of extremely outdated ideas, and it leads to only learning about rich white men who have made socially accepted contributions to science.
This cuts out many different nations' stories, many different scientists' contributions, and almost all women who have made contributions to science. I think more importantly, it cuts out all of these avenues of knowledge and ways of learning and implies that these are the only right ways of learning, these are the only correct things, and you should only focus on these types of things or this kind of knowledge.
When I first began grading according to the standards, I began noticing that on another teacher's test, the questions above were the kinds of questions that were asked. I was expected to use their assessments as a form of common assessments so we could begin analyzing the data and increase students' grades. I began fighting back against this saying that, these topics are not in the standard. The name of the person who developed this idea isn't written in the standard. Often the name of the law or Theory isn't in the standard. I quit lecturing and testing over these topics.
I began to develop an interest in reading historical biographies about scientists and learning how many of the scientists that we idolize had their faults and their own stories that may have been acceptable behavior at the time but are not acceptable anymore. It felt wrong to continue teaching students about these specific kinds of things and these people. I began asking more questions and doing more activities that were an application of the standard.
Questions like:
What happens to each object when they Collide in an elastic Collision?
I have a 100g log and after burning have 80 g of ashes. Where is the other mass going?
Or, If green moths and white moths landed on the snow, which one is going to be easiest to see and be eaten first?
Questions like these show students and show students understanding of the content without having to know the specific name of a theory or its components, or who developed it or when? What are the specific steps of a specific theory? Memorization like this is extremely hard for many many students, but on the other side, students can understand some basic ideas and understand how these ideas are applied without having the vocabulary to express it in academic language.
If you are going to do a traditional style of teaching then I strongly advise you to teach applications of these ideas and not the details around these ideas.
In my experience, learning specific standards forces children to learn specific things. This can lead to power struggles or the teacher wanting the obedience and attention of students, while students struggle to stay focused on seemingly irrelevant content. This makes the teacher do increasingly drastic things to maintain this sense of obedience and attention through punishment and rewards so the students will engage with prescribed content, at the same time the teacher is increasingly anxious or developing negative feelings about self or for the apathy the students have in their content area. I hear teachers say often that students just don’t care about content or their grade or what the teacher is doing.
The student however feels that they are being forced into learning something, that has no real impact on their life, and are not naturally curious about so find it more difficult to pay attention, and without connection, struggle to see the relevance of their learning. In the students' minds, it is not as important as the teacher's.
This is key to throwing away the incentive or punishment style of teaching. Allowing students to explore their interests, and the teacher catering to those interests, the students are more likely to engage on their own, while bringing in their own prior experiences and knowledge.
Now as time went on I read more and more books about how to decolonize my classroom and there were many many things that I have found and many helpful tips. I want to share some of those with you.
teach application and supplement with details or language, but do not make them the focus of assessments.
think about the layout in your classroom and determine who is the focus. is it you as the teacher in front delivering information? is it students? is it the board that you write on?
Look around your room and try to see if the students feel their work is important and has value and is displayed? or is it posters of what you want them to learn or how you want them to behave?
Do not focus on teaching academic language. The function of language is to communicate, however they can and in whatever terms they can to describe the relationships and connections of ideas.
Open your classroom to the student's interests and experiences. Make what the student already knows important and find ways to bring it into the classroom and extend their current knowledge.
Rely on other ways of learning or knowing than just the teacher telling, or reading the text. Show students how to create things, learn through experiences, or use their family as a resource of knowledge if possible.
Allow the students to be creative in how they express their knowledge. Do not limit projects to poster boards and slideshows. Allow students to make sculptures or songs or through acting or the endless options there are for students to show their understanding.
Allow students to pick topics to learn individually, and as the teacher find ways that those topics connect to the standards. Use this curiosity and prior knowledge to increase engagement and deepen the knowledge that already exists.
Make a community setting so that students feel they have a sense of control and individuality.
Lead the students to the goals you both want to achieve, instead of being an authority on what students should and shouldn’t know. This leads to teachers pushing, while some students get left behind and only some reach the goal.
Use various styles of assessments. Having only multiple choice or written tests can be a time of extreme anxiety for the student. Projects can help minimize this anxiety. Or if a student has difficulty reading or with the language, then you may only be assessing their reading and language level, not their true knowledge.
Lecture in small group settings and keep it to less than 10 minutes, unless students continue and extend the conversation. As the teacher with all of the knowledge, you want to be able to give it to the students, but in front of the class is nonpersonal, and it is difficult to maintain a connection with the students. This leads to distractions and off-task behavior that the teacher feels the need to correct. If the students are doing more individual topics, then it can be difficult to do a general lecture for all students. Make your lectures individual to that student or that small group and make it a personal conversation. Allow discussion and questions and exploration of their curiosity, but steer the conversation towards your goals. You can lecture in much more meaningful conversations that deepen understanding than you can by standing in front of the class with students who are afraid to ask questions and are so busy writing notes that they do not absorb the information in a way that allows them to process it.
Stop telling students that college or university types of careers are the only versions of success. Farming, HVAC, Middle Management, Plumbing, Cosmetology, and Carpentry are all careers that students can make a successful life without higher education degrees.
Lastly be cognizant of other people's cultures and lives. Read about and experience different cultures as much as possible. We are not all the same, and those differences should be accepted and celebrated.
As a school:
Stop discriminatory attendance policies. Attendance policies started with forcing native children into white schools. People should not be punished for personal circumstances.
Offer varied schedules instead of the traditional 8-3 schedule.
Offer more avenues of graduation in high schools, like GED, or promote programs like JOBCORP.
Offer a wide range of applicable classes, instead of the traditional class setup. You can teach math and science in the garden, you can teach literacy by reading about individual plant needs, as well as interactions of those plants with other organisms.
Stop punishing students for misbehavior and get those students needed help. Students need help and guidance in learning socio-emotional skills. Students who are using or selling drugs, alcohol, or vapes in school, have defiance issues, have violent outbursts or many other issues can be solved in ways that are constructive and keep them in schools. Steps like these can break the school-to-prison pipeline.
Grade should be PASS/FAIL. Any system that grades on levels of passing will inevitably lead to students having negative feelings about their learning. Most students who fail, understand that they have not completed very many assignments compared to the other students, and understand why they are failing. A student who barely passes, should not feel negatively about not knowing as much as a student who would get the highest grades, but this is what happens. Feeling negatively about their grades does not motivate them to get higher grades. Learning does not work this way. Negative feelings about the student's abilities to learn will lead to a lack of motivation to learn. They begin to think they are not capable so it is not worth the effort.
Have support systems for students in need. That could be food to take home, parenting classes, daycare services at the school for student parents, personal care products, access to programs in your area that help with various issues that come like homelessness, offer counseling services in schools for students, and having all students mental health evaluated during each school year by a person who can diagnose them with any disorders or issues they may be having to refer them to proper services.
Stop standardized tests, and comparing scores of those tests, as well as stop funding based on these test scores. Again this does not motivate learning.
Make culture and diversity inclusivity a priority, and make it clear that all students are welcome. Observe various cultural holidays, and have events like culture days to allow students to celebrate and experience different cultures.
Electives should not be required credits to graduate. These were made to make certain students fail, and not want to attend universities. Electives should be offered as classes students want to take if they are interested. It does not matter if a student gets credit or not, they will still take classes because they are interesting.
Schools should not be charging fees. Too many fees are overwhelming for many families, and even small amounts of fees can be impossible for other families. Schools should make available all needed supplies for all students. Students will often want to bring their own supplies, because of personal preferences.
No Native American related mascots, unless they are respectful and the school has permission from the tribe to teach about the tribe and beliefs as part of the learning in the school.
Teach about aspects of racism in professional developments. In my experience, people understand overt racism like saying racial slurs, but many people do not understand other aspects of racism. Like how a disagreement about what disrespect looks like can lead to a student being suspended. Or how saying things like "your accent is great," "People from your country are always so intelligent" "Black(or other) people are...." Many of these things are micro-racism statements. Not all will be viewed as racist by all people or in all situations, but many of them can, and the person who said it has no idea. I once heard a British man tell an Indian student that the student who had an American accent should have a more British accent, while I being Native American, was sitting there. The other teacher saw this as a harmless joke and didn't mean anything by it. But both of our ancestors were colonized by his, and this is a slight poke to everything that has been taken or changed by the colonization. Again I know the person who said this had no intent in mind, but the person also had no awareness of what is being said. Many teachers that do not understand how other cultures do learn; try to make all students learn in a very particular way. This is a form of systematic racism because it leads to people of certain cultures not being successful in the classroom. Simply changing teaching styles to meet learning needs can make a huge difference, but only if you are aware of the differences. I think this kind of awareness needs to be at the forefront of schools' professional development to ensure that all students feel welcome.