28 August, 2024
Kishan Sinha
All ideas, discoveries, and inventions are products, in one way or another, of human curiosity, tenacity, collaboration, ingenuity, creativity, playfulness, passion, and struggle. This blend of qualities has driven our species throughout the ages, fueling our pursuit of meaning, purpose, and improvement in life. In the grand narrative of human progress, every disciplinary advancement is a testament to this relentless quest. The story of human progress is, at its core, the story of how these traits have empowered us to thrive despite the significant challenges and constraints imposed by Nature.
If the goal of education is to support students’ personal development and help them become capable contributors to this ongoing journey of human progress, doesn’t it make sense to teach them not just the technical aspects of concepts but also the stories of how those concepts were discovered or created? Wouldn’t this approach help young students understand, adopt and develop the values and traits that history has shown to be usually necessary for creativity? When we teach a concept without its history, without the human element—which, unfortunately, has become the norm—we may be depriving students of an essential opportunity to develop as creative individuals.
Sometime in the 19th century a shift occurred in the way scientists thought about the ideas in science: they began to prioritize ideas over their histories and, consequently, ideas began to acquire an existence separate and increasingly disconnected from their essential human origins. I like to call this process dehumanization of science. Over time, this shift led to textbooks that present scientific concepts in such an abstract and dehumanized manner that they often feel dry and completely unrelatable to human readers who aren’t already trained scientists. If the purpose of textbooks is to engage students and motivate them to invest their time and energy in learning complex scientific ideas, then I think it would be safe to say that most textbooks fail to fulfil this purpose.
However, people in the field of education have begun noticing and discussing this issue. One of the funniest things I have seen was when I was teaching a 100-level physics lab course to undergraduate students at a university in the USA. The physics practical journal was titled “Rehumanized Physics Practicals”. This title implicitly admits that physics practicals are dehumanized and this is identified as a problem and is being fixed. How did they try to “rehumanize” physics practicals? By making the practicals relatable and meaningful to students’ personal experiences and interests.
Making abstract and complex ideas relatable and meaningful is one of the primary challenges we face in teaching science to school students. As Ausubel and others have shown, the key to this is connecting concepts to students’ personal experiences, existing knowledge and interests. However, the fact that most school students haven’t yet accumulated a big enough repository of life experiences limits a teacher’s ability to make abstract ideas relatable by linking them to what students already know.
That said, we can’t simply avoid teaching abstract concepts, so each teacher must find ways to make these ideas concrete and meaningful. I believe this is where a teacher’s approach can significantly influence how students feel about and approach learning abstract concepts. For example, one of the ways I try to make a complex idea relatable is by sharing with them some interesting historical human-centric anecdotes and stories – shaped by factors such as inspiration, ambition, socio-economics, religion, friendship, politics, envy, loss, serendipity, circumstance, etc. – that led to the creation or discovery of that idea. This brings that abstract and complex idea into the domain of human experience that students can relate to which, in turn, may get them to want to invest their time and energy to explore the idea despite its complexity.
In conclusion, every idea, discovery, and invention is rooted in a human story. Understanding these stories is just as crucial for developing the mind as learning the ideas themselves.