Question 3: What is the value of fostering holistic education in a Science classroom?
4.10 All adventures begin with a quest!
I have been in the education sector since 2010, having fallen into the profession by accident and as a means to an end. However, the more time I spent in the profession, the less I found myself looking for another route. My journey started in teaching and would end here as well.
In my years of teaching, learning, observing and growing, I have found that students (and teachers) have developed a series of characteristics or even a personality that equipped itself to the Science subject. I found that even teachers would drum up science to be dedicated, disciplined, difficult...I even found myself jumping on the same band wagon. I asked one of my students in my study group (a student I knew had no problem unleashing his artistic side) to draw Science for me as if it were a person. Needless to say, his rendition was nothing like what I expected.
Figure 4.8: Student “D’s” idea of how Science would look to him, if it were a person
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I sat down with student “D” on the 16th of August after class time. The class had just ended and students were exiting. There was a lot of noise and hype in the classroom and it signalled the end of a Science lesson and the start of a well-deserved lunch break. Firstly, student “D”
explained how much fun he had drawing his idea of a Science teacher. He explained it was challenging at first as he did not know where to start. However, with help from a friend and much brain-storming, he decided on a starting point. He explained the first thing you notice is the crazy hair...”it reminds me of a crazy, mad scientist…but the fun kind...not the world domination type”. I drew his attention to his hands. “Why do you think you drew his hands like that?” “It fits with the theme...he is crazy...think of when Dr Frankenstein created his monster...the joy he had at his creation...he held such power in those very hands”.
It led me to understand that student “D” like many of his fellow students, held Science teachers as responsible for creation...creation of knowledge, inventions, science, discovery...we are meant to be the crazy teachers responsible for stretching the boundaries until their elasticity gives way and a wave of “cool, sciency stuff” comes gushing out. It made me think about what my idea of my Science teacher or what I envisioned a Science teacher to be about. I reflected on my Science learning days in high school. From Grade 10 to 12 (2003-2005), I had the same Science teacher. My rendition followed suit and was modelled on my Science teacher, as when I pictured how Science would be embodied, he came to mind. It was uncanny that when I envisioned Science as a person, my Science teacher came to mind.
105 Figure 4.9: How my Science teacher looked to me
I remembered meeting my high school Science teacher for the first time in Grade 10 and thinking... “Oh no, I am definitely going to fail!” Three years later and with an A in my matric year for Physical Sciences, this was not the case. His method of teaching grew on me and it fit into my method of learning Science. My initial statement of my impending doom in Science was due to the visual I had in front of me. “Mr P” was anything but nice. Even before he spoke, we knew he would be mean. He would dish out one liners to us that would make our grandmothers ears go red, just for simply whispering. He had hair sticking out everywhere and his outdated apparel helped little in determining just how old he was. He was always muttering to himself, walking alone to the office, the classroom...almost like he was bargaining with some spectre to grant him more years to torture his charges. He would snap at the thought of a stupid question. I recall the one memory of him doing a practical in class, something that was new and exciting for us. He misjudged quantities and added more of one solution causing the entire block of classroom to reek of rotten eggs. That was when I learnt the distinct smell of a chemical called Hydrogen Sulphide. As we spent more time with Mr P, we learnt a great deal from him. His hard, no nonsense exterior was a result of family tragedy that saw him lose his wife and both daughters. By the end of my Grade 12 year, the Science teacher I first saw in 2003 became a master of Life Lessons to me. I would not have changed him for anything...not
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even the much younger Science teacher next door that seemed to have all the attention. My Science teacher was learned, witty, experienced and full of life.
I chose drawing as an arts-based technique that integrated history into my making. Drawings are time consuming, demanding attention for detail, a finer tune, and a lot of thought, especially when it is meant to excite a memory or tell a story (Knight, Bone, Cumming, Peterken &
Ridgway, 2015). Drawings can aid in understanding content, as well as initiate the thought of ideas and concepts not necessarily clear at the beginning (Knight et al., 2015). As reiterated by Pithouse (2011), drawings also allow reflection and reminiscence of the past with older, wiser, renewed vision.
On reflection upon my student’s drawing and my own, I vowed to be the teacher that had more to offer, had more to teach than what was expected in the curriculum. Hence, the journey started of how I had taken science and tried to change the way students saw it, changed the way they learnt, that made it more holistic, more receptive and less indoctrinating than it was led to believe. I began the journey with a quest. A quest to find a way of fostering holistic education in a Science classroom, eventually ending in a journey of self-discovery. I continued this chapter documenting how each of my targeted lessons were holistically delivered, the outcomes of such tasks, and the reflections after each lesson.