Science should not be enjoyable

[cococake]

Or so says my dd's science teacher tonight!

It was parents evening tonight and my dd's science teacher and form teacher are one and the same.

She is in yr 8. The teacher said all other teachers were very pleased with her, but he wanted to know why her last two science test results were so poor, when she was one of the most able in the class.

He said 'I can't understand what's gone wrong, so can't help fix it.'

So I said to dd 'What's the reason?'

She said 'The topics were boring.'

Teacher said 'That's not an excuse.'

I said 'No that's not an excuse that's her reason, how can we make the topic more enjoyable for you, do you need to write bullet points for revision, draw diagrams, how would you like to revise this.

The teacher said 'She's yr 8, science is not meant to be enjoyable, she just has to accept that she has to learn it.

He then finished the meeting by saying 'I can't understand why the test results were poor, so I can't do anything about it'.

Please any teachers or other parents, explain the other perspective, as I came out with my dd saying is this going to get worse. I said if education was meant to be unenjoyable no one would stay in FE. We'll make it enjoyable for you, and try new study techniques.

BTW she wants to do science at University, so certainly don't want her thinking it's meant to be unenjoyable.

'Even if it's finding those rhymes can't remember what they are called'

mnemonics. Also work well if tied into a kinaesthetic action or music.

That's the ones. Thank you.

I'm sure you can come up with a way to remember that... how about
Memory Needs Easy Method Of Nice Interesting Catchphrases.

Just keep encouraging her to do her best and hope she gets a different science teacher next year... my son has recently been told that triple science is "sad" and a waste of time

On the one hand, I (an academic teacher) love my subject to the point where I am usually humming little tunes to myself as I walk into the lecture room. Otoh it is a big problem these days that (some) students arrive at university expecting everything to be fun and the teacher to keep motivating them all the time, because they've never learnt to do it for themselves. They find it very hard to accept that there are parts of the course which are as dull (and necessary) as cleaning out the bathroom.

I think both the teacher and your dd are a little right and a little wrong on this one. He is perfectly within his right to point out that every serious subject will involve parts that are not instantly enjoyable, but he should be enthusing about the good bits in the same breath: she has the right not to love every subject under the earth, but should perhaps accept that some things you have to work at, love them or not- and that there are politer ways of telling somebody that you are not getting into his subject.

The two topics were sounds and magnetisim.

I can honestly say I was very surprised at this, because if I could think of two science topics that could be interesting I would include these two.

The drawings that can be done to illustrate sound waves, the way speakers work etc, and magnetisim the fun that can be had with iron filings.

Oh dear, if the teacher says that these two topics are not meant to be enjoyable, god help us when we get to the real dull stuff.

Unfortunately same science teacher for next 5 years.

I was surprised that she came out with bored and didn't say it was difficult. But have been drumming home to her the importance of honesty. She's not saying the subject is boring, she normally loves the subject, she was saying the last 2 topics (4 weeks work) was boring. Didn't get her normally high marks just average.

I agree Riven.

I accept that of course, there comes a point where they have to learn that sometimes, they need to just sit down and do something, and it might not be what you want to do, or the most enjoyable thing in the world. But to just say "science isn't supposed to be enjoyable" is wrong and ridiculous.

what Riven said

Takes us back to what makes a successful lesson: the amount of fun students have had or high achievement.

Of course we would ideally like both - and in many cases both can be achieved - but is that really where the emphasis lies? That all learning should be 'fun'? I feel some of that need for everything to be entertaining is a reflection of the entertainment-heavy society we live in.

I love learning too. So do my children. Riven, I don't think your statement is true at all.

I am a bit surprised you have given your DD the idea that people have a responsibility to make her work fun for her

you can distinguish between the material being fun in itself and having fun learning it.
I challenge anyone to convince me that Greek irregular verbs are inherently fun. But when I was an undergraduate we would get together and have Greek verb chanting parties at which a good time was had by all. Sometimes someone even brought a guitar

(I was an undergraduate learning Greek, obviously.)

Magnetism and sound are really fun topics. You get to play when learning these topics (I certainly do when I am teaching them).

Spiderpig8 - I wasn't saying that anyone had the responsibility to make her work fun for her, I was offering suggestions to her in which she could make the revision of a topic enjoyable. Such as colours, diagrams, charts etc.

BG - That's what I am meaning what appears dull can in different ways be made interesting by the student. Not necessary the teacher.

BUT for the teacher to tell me it is not meant to be enjoyable, then I felt we were on completely different pages.

That's what I would of thought MB that the opportunity would of arisen, but not for this teacher as that would of made it enjoyable, and it's not meant to be enjoyable.

I agree with Riven, and an engaging teacher will cause greater results.

My DH is a Science teacher and is the head of key stage 3. He was chosen for the job at interview because of his love of the subject and his ability to teach it so that all abilities of pupils can enjoy the subject and learn it.

He was away this week on a corse at a university and as he walked down a corridor he was met with a "hello sir! how are you?" It was an ex-pupil from his previous school. He was at uni. studying biology and he attributed DH teaching of the subject to him going on to uni and studying it. DH was absolutly chuffed to bits.

He is away this weekend on another course but I will ask him when he is home if there is anything she could be reading on the web.

Thank you MrsGok

lol riven. "they loved learning, even maths"

I won't take it personally

at secondary school my Biology teacher didn't actually UNDERSTAND they systems she was teaching so hated any deviation in class from the text book.

She would regularly tell me I was wrong when I was right (because I UNDERSTOOD the topics and she only knew the systems in an 'off by heart' way)

my classroom grades dropped (but still got A in GCSE and B in A levels , because of a mixture of her only being able to give marks to answers that were word for word out of the text book, and my own frustration at the class being DULL (she discouraged discussion and questions because she didn't know the answers and wasn't able to say she didn't know!)

At university, science lecturers make the boring bits that have to be learnt off by heart interesting by talking about how they are applied - is that the kind of thing you are after?

I did my PGCE 15 years ago and the stipulation was that 50% of the degree had to be directly science-based.

I didn't do a science degree, but had to list all the modules I took to show that there was enough science content to enable me to get QTS in Science - Physics. You don't learn any subject content on a PGCE, so everything comes from your degree, fe qualifications, and continuing education.

However, once you are a qualified teacher, you can pretty much teach what you agree with the school, which is why there are lots of non-specialist teachers in the physical sciences and mathematics.

IMO, the difference between being a specialist and non-specialist teacher is not teaching the specification, but being able to add little anecdotes and illustrations, and then to give quality answers to questions the pupils raise. You build on this skill with teaching experience too.

Long post, sorry - I think this story raises some profound issues about our school system.

Here we go...

Learning stuff in any subject involves two types of fun; the extrinisic fun created by imagination, attitude, methods and personality (let's call that fun A) and the intrinsic intellectual fun of understanding something (let's call that fun B)

All subjects can be taught with greater or lesser amounts of fun A. If the government told me I had to teach the London phone book (say for an annual exam, the results of which would form the basis of the school's OFSTED report), I could make it fun by games, rewards, funny songs and so on. In a classroom, you can develop exciting and crazy ways of teaching the most mundane stuff. However, it would be extrinsic to the subject which (unlike physics) has little inherant delight.

Getting to grips with fun B is much more difficult, it depends on both teacher and student accessing the profound depths of a subject and the student starting to relish the thrill of struggling and understanding new ideas. This is intrinsic intellectual pleasure and it depends on the student's attitude, patience and ability - and the skills of the teacher too. And to get to it you do need to learn a lot of quite dull skills - hence the importance of fun A to keep you going. On the other hand, if a learner becomes addicted to fun A, they will never get to the point of fun B because it can be harder. Fun B is reached by wrestling and thinking, struggling even, and although it may be hard, the rewards are profoundly better and more satisfying than fun A.

In the context of the orginal post, I suspect you might have a teacher who is bitterly fed up with education in modern Britain, that expects all lessons to be full to the brim of fun A, led by an all singing all dancing teacher, who must keep every kid entertained at all times, and must make sure they all achieve fantastic test results at all costs. Our obsession with testing biases education towards fun A, as it's easier to get kids to learn stuff off by heart than wrestle with profound concepts they may not get. And the expectation is that if kids are not having fun something must be wrong with the teaching. Ironically, kids are getting more and more cynical about fun A and thus harder and harder to entertain.

As for your daughter, I would say that she needs to discover for herself the joy of fun B, and battling through the more dull bits of year 8 science will not hamper her in the long run. The suggestions of home reading, watching and experiments from other posters are excellent suggestions of how to motivate her.

Good luck to your daughter. I am sure she will be fine. I had dire physics teaching at school but still went on to study science it at Cambridge and am now a teacher.