ABSTRACT
Much of school science is devoted to helping students understand the principles and theories of science. Much of educatibnal research into school science has been devoted to trying to understand how children learn the principles and theories of science. And yet we do not seem to be very successful in achieving this goal (Adey et al., 1994). Are we, perhaps, aiming at the wrong goal in school science? Ought we not to be aiming at something more appropriate, more useful to our students, whether potential scientists and engineers or just (sic!) potential citizens, and to employers? Ought we not to be taking more note of helping our students to build up their skills, their attitudes and their personal knowledge in such a way that it will be useful to them in their future life and employment? David Boud and his colleagues (1993), when reflecting about the learning in higher education, said: ‘Most of what is written about learning makes us uneasy, as it neither reflects our felt experience as learners nor the issues that we have come to see as important in our lives and work’. I have the same sense of unease about the learning, and the theories of learning, that purport to be going on in schools. Learning science is not as objective, detached, clinically cognitive as we pretend. It is much more messy, much more individualistic and has much more untapped potential than we are currently realising. It involves much more commitment, much more of the personality of the individual learner. In Boud’s words again: ‘We have come to recognise that ideas are not separate from experience, learning is not unrelated to relationships and personal interests, and emotion and feelings have a vital role to play in what we may later come to identify as intellectual learning.’
