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An
attempt to let pupils decide what to learn
My
Ghanaian Experience
Adapted
from an article in LSMTA Science and Maths News, Volume 25, November 1992
Teaching
at Bishop Herman College, Kpandu, Volta Region, Ghana
In
1967 I started as a beginning Physics teacher in this Roman Catholic boarding
school for boys. Initially I was given the examination classes, because I was
considered the “highest qualified” teacher, in spite of my lack of
experience. The boys passed their examination, but I still struggled with two
common problems:
1.
Why don’t the pupils understand what science is really about? and
2.
Are the topics I have to teach relevant to the pupils?
As
a survival technique the pupils expected notes from me, which they could cram
for the examinations.
Only
after I had proved myself as a teacher, I had the courage to insist on teaching
the lowest classes. I hoped that I could provide them with a good foundation, so
that they should find learning Physics easier in the higher classes. That would
solve my first problem, but what about the relevance of the topics?
At
that time the school followed a General Science Syllabus up to O-level, which
integrated Biology, Chemistry and Physics topics. The school had decided that
the first three years were meant to lay the foundation of understanding science,
while the examinable syllabus was studied during years 4 and 5. There was a
syllabus for the first three years proposed by the Ministry of Education,
divided into seemingly relevant topics: Water, Air, Sun, The Universe, Life and
Force & Energy.
But
still the pupils saw science as a strange body of facts to be memorized. I
decided to change my approach and allow the pupils to be the decision makers.
I
asked the pupils what they wanted to learn
Because
those young pupils were still full of curiosity, I expected they would be
interested in scientific problems.
Therefore,
I decided to start by explaining to the pupils what kind of questions science
tries to find answers to, such as: Why can I see my face in the mirror?
What causes rain?
Then
I asked them whether they had any similar questions. They reacted quickly and
each of them came up with a great number, which we all recorded on the
blackboard.
We
categorized them under 4 headings: Water, Light & Sound, Heat and
Electromagnetism.
We
then decided to start with their questions related to the category of Water.
I
asked the pupils what they know about water, but.... they must prove it!
The
pupils came up with many “facts”, such as Water is wet; Water boils at
100o; and All animals need water. I then asked them to
prove their answers, saying: I don’t
believe you easily!
This
lead to interesting discussions:
How
do you prove that water is wet? We came to the conclusion that
something is wet when it feels cold, after you have removed your hand
from it. This lead to experiments on evaporation and latent heat, but we
did not use these technical terms.
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To
prove that water boils at 100o the pupils asked for a
thermometer and found it boils at 98o (the atmospheric
pressure is lower at the equator!) They had learned at Primary School
that it boils at 100o. This was, therefore, an important
discovery: In Science the only judge for “truth” is what nature
tells you. You should not just believe your teacher or books.
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The
statement that all animals need water, lead to discussions about:
What is an animal? Can we do experiments with all animals? Why would
they need water? At the end we did not do any experiments, because
pupils thought it cruel to take an animal and let it die of thirst. This
lead to discussions on the ethical side of scientific experiments.
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The
pupils used books, but they didn’t just believe them: they did experiments.
The
school did not have a first class library, but there were encyclopaedias and
various books on Science. The problem was: which books can be trusted? We
decided only to use those books, which described some experiments, which we
could repeat ourselves. If those experiments worked out, then we could be
confident that the other facts in the books could be correct too.
The
lessons took place in a laboratory, so that we could quickly assemble the
experiments, the pupils asked for.
The
pupils developed their own experiments. One example:
When
dealing with the topic sound, the pupils wanted to prove that sound travels
through glass. I thought about using an electric bell inside a glass bottle.
Fortunately, I resisted this temptation and the pupils proposed to put inside
the bottle a cricket, which they caught just outside the laboratory. We heard
no noise, so I asked them: Does this prove that sound doesn’t travel
through glass? The pupils had their doubts and said: How do we know
that the cricket is making noise? They decided to go out again and
collected another male cricket: Because they will fight! And soon a
horrible shrieking noise from the bottle filled the room. You should have seen
their smiles: they were real scientists now DOING Science and drawing the
conclusion that sound can travel through glass.
The
pupils found the answers to their own questions.
After
we had discussed, proved or disproved, the “facts” they thought they knew,
we used that knowledge to find answers to their own scientific questions. The
pupils had learned by now how to use books and experiments. They found their
own answers.
After
their questions in the category Water were dealt with, we moved to the other
categories.
Short
term result: In Science the only judge for “truth” is what nature tells us
As
a teacher, I did no scheming or lesson planning. I had to be flexible, creative
and trust the natural curiosity of the pupils.
At
the end of the year the examination time came, while we were still in the middle
of an experiment about how light makes starch in the leaves of plants. I said: We
have no time to finish this experiment, therefore, I will tell you what the
result will be. The whole class protested: You said that we should only
trust our own eyes, so how can we accept what you tell us now? Great!
Medium
term result: in one year we covered the nearly the whole three-year syllabus
It
was interesting to compare what we had done during that ONE year with the
official syllabus. I found that we had covered most of the topics of the
three-year syllabus. The pupils had, however, not learned the technical science
terminology. They had invented their own words and I did not see any reason to
change those at this stage, as long as they could communicate their findings. In
examinations too much emphasis is put on terminology, because it is easier to
test than the understanding of science.
Long-term
results?
The
results were very encouraging, but one long-term effect was bad:
I
left the school the next year to come to Lesotho. Quite a number of pupils wrote
to me, complaining that the science they were doing was so boring.
Yet,
when I visited Ghana again after 20 years and met some of my old pupils and
colleagues, I was told that the science examination results four to six years
after I had left were very high. That was when those Form A pupils did their O-
and A-level examinations. Would it be immodest to feel some satisfaction about
that?
Conclusion:
we can trust learners to shape their own studies
This
experiment has given me the courage to trust learners to be in control of their
own studies.
Gerard
Mathot
Chairperson
of the Steering Committee
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