By
Kim Weaver
Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, a science evangelist and
science lecturer, is passionate about getting kids of all ages excited about
science. Ramirez shatters the science stereotype as a scholar, inventor and
revolutionary innovator in her role as director and host of Yale’s “Science
Saturdays,” an award-winning series fashioned to introduce children to
scientists. She’s written Save Our
Science (TED Conferences, 2013) and Newton’s Football (Ballantine Books,
2013).
Here’s a glimpse of our Q&A with Ramirez:
CG:
What is science education?
AR:
Science education is more than just the memorization of facts, as you and I
might remember it to be. Memorized facts alone are not really useful in the 21st
century when we have things like Google. Those facts are just a mouse
click away. Science is the art of asking questions and figuring things out. To
do that successfully, we need to nurture skills like creativity, encourage
curiosity and give students opportunities to learn that failure is not
something to be feared, but part of the process of learning and
innovating.
Currently, we are in an age of testing. I would dare
say there is too much of it or rather we are undergoing a paralysis of
analysis. I liken it to having a patient on a gurney and we are too busy
getting all the data we can about them, instead of just treating the
patient.
All this testing is encouraging skills that are
counter to what we need in the 21st century. Children are afraid to
try new things because they are scared to be wrong; tests don’t drum up
interest in a topic when all the passion has been replaced by anxiety to do
well on exams, and tests do nothing to instill creativity. So the crisis does not lie solely in science
information but in cultivating passion for learning. That is the biggest tragedy of all.
CG:
Why is it so important to you that young people feel passionate about science?
AR:
I want young people to know about science because it is a tool to exercise the
brain. In this age of big data, we need individuals that can ask questions and
know how to make decisions based on the things they find. The scientific
mindset is the key to being successful in the future. This gives children the
ability to be makers and creators of the 21st century and not just
consumers of it. A science mindset allows children to be more engaged in the
world as citizens, too. They can see the issues that are at hand and, more
importantly, science gives them the tools to solve them.
Another thing that science does is it gives kids a
chance to be kids. While children may act like adults, they are still growing
and many of the stages they need for human development are not being honed by
tests. Science teaches children about patience, creativity, trial-and-error,
persistence, asking questions and other important skills, all in the context of
doing science. We learn in science that things don’t happen overnight
(patience), things break and you need to try again (persistence and trial
and error) and questions often lead to other questions (curiosity).
Learning science makes us more human.
CG:
Whatever happened to the science classes of 30, 40 years ago?
AR:
I’ll tell you what a science class in the 1890s looked like. Girls were the
majority, and in some classes, there were more girls than boys. This sounds
like science fiction, but while researching my book called Save Our Science, I stumbled onto a book called What Happened to Our High Schools? by
John Latimer, which had tables of science and math class enrollments. I was
blown away to know that at one time girls were the majority and there was no
discussion that girls could not do science.
So this begs the question: Who let the girls out of
science classes? It was a combination of the home economics movement, the
substitution of classics classes for science, which were needed for college
admission and gender discrimination. Now, gender discrimination is an old and unwelcomed guest, but the other
factors tell us that the reason why girls left science was based on a cultural
mindset, not their ability. We need to let girls know they can do science
and used to be in the majority.
As for under-represented groups, the numbers have
been alarmingly low for decades. More recently, there has been a modest
increase over the last few years, but it is no way close to the percentage
represented in society. This is an untapped population. Society loses when
everyone cannot participate. Imagine all the inventions, discoveries and
companies that never happened because a part of the population never got a
chance to make them.
CG:
You have said there is a crisis in science education. What do you say to those
who believe differently?
AR:
I would tell them to look at the back of their cell phone and tell me what
country it was made in. Then, I would let them know that most of the innovation
that originally created the cell phone came from the U.S., so we were ahead of
the race, but in a very short time we are now lagging behind the pack.
CG:
What do you hope to see in the future regarding science education in the
schools?
AR:
Long term, we need more than education reform; we need a revolution. We need
subjects taught in an integrated way showing their complexity. We need children
to get their hands dirty and learn by doing. We need to change how we
teach, and what we teach to match what the 21st century holds. It is
hard to predict the jobs of the 21st century; we do know we
need creative and curious thinkers that look at the art of failure as part of
the discovery process.
Short term: To give children the opportunity to
exercise these thinking muscles, we should rely on the opportunities outside of
schools. Science museums, after-school programs and even spending a night at
home with your kids taking things apart, gives children the opportunity to get
their hands dirty and discover. I spell out in Save Our Science how everyone can help provide engaging science
learning for all children. Science Outside Schools (SOS) will feed our kids
what they need, and in turn, create a demand for engaging science classes. Just
like diamond can be created from charcoal with outside pressure. Schools will
become a diamond, too, with some outside help. That is my wish anyway.
