How Scientists Can Support the Profession of Teaching

On Tuesday night I sat in an auditorium at the Academy among many motivated high school science teachers, all eager to improve the quality of their teaching and level of professional satisfaction. We were there to hear Sheila Tobias present “Science Teaching as a Profession. Why it isn’t. How it Could Be.”, a summation of her two-year study on the needs of science educators. Sheila asserted that improvement of classroom education will follow if teachers are more satisfied in their careers. Many issues were addressed this evening but I was there donning my PhD cap to specifically participate in a dialog on how scientists can work with teachers to help elevate the profession of teaching.

Several strategies emerged from these roundtable discussions between scientists and teachers. One approach is for grad students, postdocs, and PIs to give  guest lectures in high school classrooms to help not only students but also the instructors become more aware of exciting, cutting edge research. (It was noted at my table that scientists would too grow from the experience of having to learn how to communicate to less advanced audiences). Another is for scientists to assist teachers in the design of educational teaching modules that are appropriate and suitable for the high school lab. Yet a third option, teachers voiced that they could benefit greatly from opportunities to visit labs and do experiments, possibly even pursuing independent research projects over summer break.

What I applaud about these tactics is that they focus on the teacher’s development. While not a panacea for the many challenges faced by secondary school teachers, it makes sense to me that interacting with local scientists could at least help them feel both more connected to the subjects they teach and better equipped to instill enthusiasm, interest, and capacity for science in their students.

Anecdotally, my high school biology teacher spent her summers as a research assistant at the USDA agricultural research facility near my hometown in WV and this had a significant impact on my decision to pursue science. In fact, she actually arranged for me to work in the same lab throughout my senior year in high school and in the summers before and after. (And after having pored over the pages of Jurassic Park as a teen, being in a lab doing genetic engineering (on plants) was like a dream come true... yes, I am and always will be a science geek at heart).

While I am quite sure that these kinds of activities already exist on a small scale, as my high school teacher proves, a formalized program that facilitates robust communication and collaboration between teachers and interested science PhDs is needed to extend these opportunities to the broader community of educators. Hopefully something like this will emerge in the near future.