By Tom

A new report, commissioned by CSTP, was just released on science education in Washington State's elementary classrooms. It was conducted through interviews with 34 experienced teachers, many of whom are NBCTs.

The title speaks volumes: Science Education in Washington's elementary Schools: A System at Risk. Among the findings:

• It takes time and money for school districts to build a strong science program in the early grades.
• Most districts are investing in kit-based curriculum and providing appropriate professional development.
• Literacy and math instruction trump science education, in terms of both district and teacher priority. Teachers spend as little as 45 minutes per week teaching science.

I wasn't personally involved with this survey, but I see evidence of the findings all around me. After a huge literacy renaissance two years ago, my district adopted a new math curriculum this year, and the two subjects seem to be consuming everyone's attention. In many classrooms, science is the first "horse thrown off the ship."

So what?

Obviously it's hard to argue against the importance of literacy or math instruction in elementary education. And furthermore, it's probably fair to say that most grade school teachers weren't science geeks when they were growing up. Those were the kids who are now designing buildings and nanobots.

I was an exception; I loved science as a kid, even though the only hands-on experiment I can remember was boiling a pan of salt water under my mother's supervision until there was only some wet salt at the bottom. It took forever, wasn't very compelling, and ruined a perfectly fine piece of Revere Ware. Nevertheless, I went on to major in Science for Elementary Education at the UW, with the hopes of becoming a grade school science specialist, only to discover after graduation that PE and music teachers had pretty much cornered the market in regards to elementary specialists. I rebounded nicely, though, snagged a job as a third grade teacher and found that the state of science curriculum in the mid '80s was atrocious. Kids were expected to learn how to do science by looking at black and white pictures of kids from the fifties doing science.

I also found that once I put those books away and had my student actually "do science" they loved it. Especially the kids who weren't all that motivated during literacy lessons. I developed a theory back then that went something like this: Most grade school teachers love to read. And they always loved to read. For many of them, that's a main reason for their career choice. They love to teach kids how to read. It gets them up in the morning. Some children love to read. Some don't. Since people tend to bond more quickly with people who share their interests, it stands to reason that kids who love books will eventually feel more connected to school than their classmates who don't live to read. It's only a theory, of course, and I'm a living exception to my own theory. Nevertheless, I think there's something to it.

That might explain, at least partly, why elementary science education is a "system at risk." We have a book-loving teaching corp that generally isn't wild about science. On the other hand, we have students, who for the most part, are. We also have great science materials in the schools these days, way better than the junk we had as kids, and we have districts willing to spend on professional development. That gives me hope.

And there's one more thing. I increasing see good teachers leveraging their students' love of science to get them to read. Not only does it save science from the last-half-hour-before-we-go-home wasteland, it might just be the best way to teach reading. They realize something very important that's best communicated in a nine-minute video that I found on our good friend Nancy Flanagan's blog, Teacher in a Strange Land. It's called Teaching Content is Teaching Reading. You should watch it.