Science education versus science in the Academy:: Questions -: Discussion -: Perspectives

The paper seeks to address the troubling issues we, as science educators, encounter when coexisting with scientist colleagues. Significant disagreement exists regarding what constitutes an appropriate science learning experience, what constitutes legitimate research, how science should be structured and taught and even who should be allowed to teach or learn science. From a cultural perspective we should try to understand better ourselves and those we work with, from a historical perspective: identify the origins of the aforementioned issues, from a philosophical, epistemological, and ontological perspective: determine where the common ground exists between conflicting faculty, so that we may make more significant progress in our efforts to improve science teaching and learning as well as teacher education programs. We think that we should try to reflect on our own professional contexts within science departments or education departments. Ultimately, we should probe the institution of higher education, the very place where future teachers, scientists, and scientific literates learn science. This is where the most significant impact potentially resides for education reform. For this is where the foundations begin. If conflicts cannot be meaningfully resolved at the university level, the products of that environment will inevitably perpetuate the dysfunction we observe in schools, where the children of the present and future will be no different than of the past.