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Volume 4 |
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Middle School Curriculum |
The Case. Albert Shubert is a prominent science educator who is the chief education officer of the prestigious American Science Commission on Education. In a recent international study it was concluded that Japan, China and the Soviet Union had a strong national commitment to science and mathematics education. Shubert, an advocate of a rigorous, compulsory, national science curriculum for American youth said, in a major American newspaper:
"The U.S. has no comparable commitment to science and mathematics education. To ignore the fact that these countries (Japan, China and the Soviet Union), whose history, resources, politics, economics and culture is so different, have made strong national commitments to science and mathematics, is to be left behind. To assume our ways are better is to be arrogant."
Shubert goes on to say that science education in the U.S. should involve national leadership, national planning and national policy making.
The Problem. Should the United States have a national science curriculum? Do you agree or disagree with Shubert? Why? Is the American decentralized system of education an ineffective model? Should the U.S. move toward a more centralized system?
The Case. Sarah Jenkins is the science department head in a large high school in an urban area. During the summer the new principal of the high school organized a two day retreat for all the department heads to discuss plans for the year, and curriculum changes. Sarah Jenkins, like all the other department heads wonders what the principal means by "curriculum changes." At the meeting the principal, a middle aged woman which a Ph.D. in curriculum and administration, leads the group in a discussion of how the curriculum could be changed to make it more interesting and relevant to students. When the discussion gets to the science curriculum, a proposal that emerges from the group is the possibility of integrating the separate subjects of biology, chemistry and physics into a single, unified science program, e.g. Science I, Science II, Science III, Science IV. The principal grabs on to this idea, and charges Sarah Jenkins to come up with a plan that might be implemented on a small scale starting this year.
The Problem. What should Sarah Jenkins do? Is this a valid approach to high school science? Is the principal justified in making this demand?