With or without these new SVT curricula in secondary education, history of sciences is little taught. During the Congress of the French Society of HST (SFHST) in 2004, a symposium called: «Teach the history of sciences today»
(organized by Danielle Fauque and Hélène Gispert) has given us the occasion to discuss about obstacles of the history of sciences teaching in the teachers training. I raised then 4 arguments regularly opposed to this introduction: lack of time, absence of need, opposition between letters and sciences, relegation within the general knowledge (Savaton, 2004).
My analysis of obstacles and oppositions is based on my experience as a teacher, as a training officer in IUFM and as a lecturer in Earth‘s sciences and in history of sciences at the university. It is also based on my recent experience in the constitution of new masters, intended for secondary teachers, and at least on my research about the curricula history of life‘s sciences and of Earth‘s sciences in the secondary for two centuries.
Two types of blockages are found, in secondary education as well as in university, in the syllabus as well as in individual discourses: structural oppositions (construction conditions of certificates syllabus, discipline sharing out, length of school and academic years, competences of the teacher) and epistemological oppositions (interest of the history of sciences in sciences teaching). But this simplified categorization should not conceal the complexity of resistance, inertia and obstacles which very often blend several factors. I would try to present this question in the case of secondary education.
1. The «feeling of incompetence»
Teachers often declare themselves unable to introduce elements of history of sciences in their sciences lessons.
Absence of an initial university training and lack of permanent professional training (hard reduction for several years) force teachers to form by themselves through readings. The schoolbook often becomes the only working source for teachers practice. Their treatment of HS is often limited to some pictures, some little text extracts or some dates in a discoveries chronology. Such sources don‘t push teachers to introduce elements of history of sciences; they only allow for adding a name or a date to the list of knowledge to be learned or to serve as motivation elements or attention trigger by their originality with regard to the class habits of the courses. When they present history of sciences, curricula official texts are instigations, not obligations. Pedagogical inspectors (ancient teachers) are not better formed in history of sciences and do not flourish either in this direction (their little support to the introduction of the HS in permanent training is eloquent).
This unpleasant feeling of incompetence can lead either to ignore instigations, or to protest against its introduction, according to people and contexts (establishment contexts, academy contexts, official texts comments). This opposition often relies on the argument of lack of time (not enough time to teach the whole syllabus) or of the pedagogical choice. This pedagogical choice can question the interest of HST by reporting absence of need (HST would be only a means among others), not enough pertinence (there are more efficient means) or ―counterproductive‖ effects (the study of HS with its doubts, its dead ends and its historical ―errors‖ would unsettle ongoing trainings).
2. The lack of time
The secondary syllabus is regularly reported as being overloaded, and the teachers first objective is often to finish the syllabus. Any pedagogical innovation requires more time and therefore leads to a slower progress.
Lack of time isn‘t an easy argument or a false argument in an educational system which cuts every discipline in a list of knowledge to acquire per year, and turns this knowledge acquisition into a condition of schooling success. Each pedagogical choice must take care of time. Study of historical texts needs time. The use of the historical method needs more time than the classical method, something between the dogmatic method and the inquiry method. Syllabus proposes the use of elements of HS in the inquiry method. This problem of lack of time has been regularly put forward, in the history of SVT teaching, against the introduction of an historical method. It is a time investment which requires that teachers are persuaded of the huge interest which there would be for their pupils to adopt it. It is one of the reasons why syllabus proposes to use historical elements in an inquiry method, and does not propose to use the historical one.
What can we do in two or four hours to study the history of Plate Tectonics Theory with sixth year pupils? No history –We don‘t have time to study texts and to understand their contexts. We‘ll just have time to present main ideas of one of the controversies which marked this history, and maybe to expose the conditions of its solution. School training time of is not the same as university teaching time, so we must test what kind of HS we can do in the time we have, and not project the time we need for what we want to do. Otherwise, we risk never having the necessary time to test an introduction of HS.
3. The epistemological obstacle
French secondary education in the 19th century is dominated by the teaching of letters. The introduction of sciences curricula was made at the price of a conflict with classical letters. The importance of sciences and technologies in the development of industrial societies at the end of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth century reversed hierarchies and sciences became the determining syllabus for pupils‘ selection and career choice. In a system of hierarchy between school disciplines, life sciences and Earth sciences (the third in the order of sciences after mathematics and physical and chemical sciences) did not cease stressing their nearness with mathematical, physical and chemical sciences. This discipline changed its name in 1902, from natural history to natural sciences. It is not anecdotic.
Opposition between sciences and letters is very marked in the teachers discourse (and by impregnation in the pupils discourse), who distinguish those with a literary bent and those with a scientific bent. The first would be characterized by taste for detail, fancy and creativity, and the second, by taste for the essential fact and method. The history of sciences is received as an external view of letters about sciences.
Official instructions haven't ceased to remind teachers that they have to develop the scientific mind of their pupils but haven‘t added, until today, that HS could help to do it. Today, new SVT syllabus introduces history of sciences as a mean of scientific mind training for the critical detachment which it can bring. But, teaching practice depends of tradition, and changing the mind of official instructions is not enough to immediately change practice and representations by teachers.
Wishing today that sciences teaching include elements of history of sciences to correct misrepresentations, is conceding that sciences teaching in these last years neglected its contribution. It is citicizing the sciences teachers community, declaring today that an historical lighting is otherwise essential, at least useful to build a better representation of science. Many
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teachers don‘t understand the reasons why they would have to teach ―errors‖ and ―dead ends‖ of the past while they miss time to teach the results of an up-to-date science. They justify the social importance of their discipline by the role of sciences and technologies in the development of our societies. They don‘t wonder about the nature of scientific knowledge which they try to transmit to pupils, because of a kind of naïve positivism which push them to keep mixing up science and progress, science and truth, and to refuse linking science with human mind, with societies, with powers, with ideologies, etc. This obstacle is not the least that we have to overcome to change the practice.
Conclusion
To conclude in a perspective of teachers training, the introduction of some little elements of history of sciences in the new SVT syllabus of secondary education could be an opportunity for secondary teachers to think about the nature of the science they teach and about the way they teach it. But for that, it could be necessary that our whole teachers training system, from the university syllabus up to the national competitive examination tests and permanent training, question their own representation of the nature of scientific knowledge and try to introduce an historical dimension.
As long as the university syllabus of sciences don‘t introduce HST into the students training, I‘m afraid that this attempt of the secondary education syllabus to introduce elements of HS will be just one more invitation in the long list of never applied instructions. But introducing HS in science teaching needs to be discussed and specified. HST for what? For itself? For epistemological teaching? Who will teach HST in universities? Who will teach HST in initial and permanent teachers training? There are a lot of questions which should be answered before.
References
SAVATON, Pierre, (2004), Enseigner l’épistémologie et l’histoire des sciences et techniques en 2e année d’IUFM.
Prendre en compte les oppositions, Congrès de la SFHST, Poitiers, 20 au 22 mai 2004.
SAVATON, Pierre, (2005), Eléments d'épistémologie et d'histoire des sciences : Introduction dans la formation disciplinaire des PLC2 SVT, In. C. Pellois & J.-F. Thémines (coord.), Approche de la professionnalité des formateurs d'enseignants, Cahiers de la MRSH, Caen : MRSH de Caen, N° spécial, octobre 2005, 169-180.
SAVATON, Pierre, (2006), Enquête sur les formations initiales et continues en EHST dans les IUFM, Tréma, N°26, octobre 2006, 11-19.
SAVATON, Pierre, (2011), Histoire des sciences et démarche historique dans l'enseignement des SVT. Quelle histoire de la tectonique des plaques ?, Recherche en Didactiques des sciences et des technologies, N°3.