In the quest to define and advance ”scientific literacy,” SEED Magazine has hosted an essay contest for the best answer to the question: ”What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st Century?” Both the first and second place winners are worth a read. Both have relevance for leaders in the arts.
In the winning essay, Thomas Martin untangles the confusion between facts and process. Says he:
We frequently hear the refrain that if our nation simply raised the level of science courses, taught our children more subjects, and/or gave them more hands-on lab work, we could ensure the production of a citizenry capable of understanding an increasingly complex world. They would then be prepared to make the difficult choices of the 21st century, etc.
But Martin, who teaches science and science history at an honors college, routinely engages students with impressive factual knowledge of both science and history, who nonetheless refuse to challenge their own foundational beliefs. To him, therefore, it’s the process of scientific discovery that defines scientific literacy. The foundation of science education, he says, should involve direct student experience in the challenge and clarity of exposing theories to peer review and opposing evidence. Says he, again:
In an era in which we tremble at offending the sensibilities of our neighbors, students must comprehend that it is not only possible but absolutely vital that we criticize each other’s ideas firmly yet civilly. They must do this despite clear cases of prominent scientists falling into petty, acerbic (and therefore counterproductive) exchanges. The responsibility for fostering scientific literacy of this sort–that is, literacy construed as an ongoing commitment to evidence over preconception–falls upon all of us in our discussions both formal and informal, both public and private. When scientific celebrities fail to set a good example for students, it is especially incumbent upon the rest of us to set them back on the proverbial right track, rather than to reflexively hasten their derailment.
I’d suggest that the same debate is vital to the purpose and goals of cultural literacy — also known as ”arts education.” As we ”ask for more” arts education in our public schools, we should also clarify ”more of what?” More factual study of cultural history? More structural knowledge of traditional art forms? More expressive opportunities for students to make art together and on their own? We can certainly ask for more of ”all of the above,” but even then a vision for what ”cultural literacy” looks like would help define our choice.
Perhaps an essay contest on a similar topic might advance the conversation: ”What does it mean to be culturally literate in the 21st Century?”
As a former high school chemistry teacher and as someone who works in the arts, I find it fascinating that other people have issues with the dichotomy but to me these are two poles of the same continuum. I am currently teaching a course at the Corcoran on “Art & Science” and the trust of the class is to understand the different modes of inquiry, habits of mind, if you will, that the arts and the science engender. My goal is to help the students understand, not that one is better than the other, but that each comes with a different set of assumptions about truth, knowledge, experience.
I think truly a culturally literate society will only come through a rigorous investigation of ways in which knowledge is constructed and propagated. Like the democratic process, my goal as an educator is to cultivate learners who can think for themselves, make their own assessments of information, facts, and truths.
Your proposal for an essay contest related to the arts is a sound one, but you err when you equate “cultural literacy” and “arts education,” since the concept “culture” encompasses much more than the arts. In “From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life,” for example, cultural historian Jacques Barzun covers topics ranging from anthropology and mathematics to politics and religion. Better to limit the essay contest to just the arts.
You are right to suggest that “as we ask for more arts education in our public schools, we should also clarify ‘more of what?'” More debate over just what “art” is to begin with I would suggest. Or, rather, just “debate,” since there is little, if any, on that topic in academia or in the critical press. More opportunities for students to learn that there are two sides to the controversial question What is art? — that not everyone subscribes to the prevailing notion that the concept “art” (the “fine arts”) is open-ended and cannot be defined objectively.
Louis Torres, Co-Editor
Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts)
http://www.aristos.org
Last year when I was taking education classes, it really struck me that the way the arts and sciences are taught in schools are completely different, at least the way I was taught them.
In my K-12 science classes I was taught: a) a set of facts to memorize; b) various thought processes (including mathematical formulas) which people before me had developed to explain the behavior of the natural world; and c) the names of the people who had decided on these facts and processes, along with a little bit of the history that was behind them. It was always implied that everything being taught was factual, true, immutable, and a part of something that had occurred in the distant past.
When I moved on to college and became a physics major, everything completely changed. While the information I had been taught previously was necessary, it was nowhere near sufficient to develop the skills that I needed. A scientist’s job is to question everything, not accept “facts” as they stand. How we think about the world is constantly changing and we need an mental framework that accepts these changes not as exceptions, but as a crucial part of the scientific process.
Contrast this with the education I received as a musician. Every music class I took as a child culminated in a performance – Christmas concerts, musical productions, solo and ensemble competitions, private lesson recitals…in many ways these experiences mimicked what it is that professional classical musicians do. Further pre-professional education as an adult consisted of taking more private lessons, playing in more orchestras, and participating in more master classes. My early music education was much more satisfying than my early science education in terms of learning what it means to be a professional in that field.
How any of this education has helped to turn me into a scientifically or culturally literate individual is certainly up for debate. Challenging and criticizing current scientific thought (as Thomas Martin proposes) is what scientists are trained to do, and what I agree a literate public needs to do more. Analogously, does being culturally literate mean that we should have the skills that professional artists have?