From: Ronald Wong (ronwong@inreach.com)
Date: Sat Dec 16 2000 - 17:45:37 PST
Message-Id: <l03102800b661b5aabd09@[209.209.19.199]> Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 17:45:37 -0800 From: Ronald Wong <ronwong@inreach.com> Subject: re: Not knowing
shirleyb said:
>In my opinion, we would not explore nature at all if we didn't ask all kinds
>of questions. Example: I observe that there is a dark and light shadow
>when I hold my hand in the light. I wonder why? I explore. Then I form a
>testable hypothesis. If my students learn anything at all from me it is to
>question and seek answers.
Shirley:
My message regarding "Not Knowing" did not claim that we could explore
nature without asking "all kinds of questions." or that students shouldn't
learn "...to question and seek answers."
The very process of exploring anything - science, music, art, etc. - starts
with at least one question and quite often is followed by a string of
others.
In fact, if you are doing a good job of teaching science to your students
they will be responding with a steady stream of questions. So asking
questions and seeking answers is not the issue. Whether you are doing
science or teaching science, questions will abound.
At some point in time your students will come up with the kind of
questions/statements that I was commenting on in my message. I listed a
number of them and went on to point out that we, as teachers, shouldn't be
making such statements in our science classes unless we were trying to show
why such statements don't belong there.
There's no reason why our students can't pose such questions. In fact, if
they didn't, we probably aren't doing as good a job as we can in the
classroom.
It's when they make such statements, that we have an opportunity to bring
to their attention that there are limits to what science can do, that there
are issues that science cannot address, that, despite the fact that their
science book seems to have the answer to everything it investigates, there
are things in the world that just can't be brought to our understanding by
scientific means.
Put simply, science may be able to answer an extraordinarily large range of
questions but it can't answer all of them.
What determines which questions can't be answered is an important lesson
for them to learn. It was one of the points in my original message.
"...Then I form a testable hypothesis"
If this was in response to a question/statement then your
question/statement was a scientific one and can be resolved by scientific
means. Otherwise, the question/statement is not scientific in nature and
science lacks the wherewithal to answer it. It's important for our students
to understand this and that was what prompted my original message.
I think that when our students ask us questions that can't be resolved
through science, we should take the opportunity to discuss with them what
can and cannot be resolved by science. It is an important lesson for them
to know - and for us to remember.
ron
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