In addition to building a coral reef and studying the ocean in 7th grade, the 6th and 8th graders are into physics. My all time favorite physicist is Richard Feynman. He has been called the great explainer in that he was able to put physics into concepts understandable to all lay people. I told my students that my high school physics teacher used to leave class and smoke cigarettes in the hallway and my college professor would blast classical music, talk rapidly and not take questions. I hated physics until I was introduced to Feynman. In his book, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” he speaks to the idea that every child is a scientist and that it is my job, as a science teacher, to nurture this innate trait. The following was an argument in his book:
When we read about this in the newspaper, it says, ‘The scientist says that this discovery may have importance in the cure of cancer.’ The paper is only interested in the use of the idea, not the idea itself. Hardly anyone can understand the importance of an idea, it is so remarkable. Except that, possibly, some children catch on. And when a child catches on to an idea like that, we have a scientist. These ideas do filter down (in spite of all the conversation about TV replacing thinking), and lots of kids get the spirit — and when they have the spirit you have a scientist. It’s too late for them to get the spirit when they are in our universities, so we must attempt to explain these ideas to children.
It is my hope that in some way all my students catch the “spirit” to make them a scientist. This doesn’t necessarily mean they will end up in a lab doing research but that they will be citizen scientists ready to take on City Hall if need be. That they will have not only the vocabulary, but also the connections necessary to understand the concepts behind what they find their passion or outrage to be.