All the talk about science illiteracy makes Jeffry V. Mallow smile momentarily before he eagerly launches into an explanation of why so many people are ignorant about science.
The reason is fear of science, which in its worst form can become
”science anxiety,” said Mallow, professor of physics and dean of mathematics and natural science at Loyola University, Chicago.
Signs of science anxiety in college students may include cold sweats, stomachaches, ”freezing” on exams and/or asking a question twice in class and still not comprehending the answer, Mallow said.
Science anxiety is similar to anxiety about math, but it hasn`t been as widely identified, although at least as many people have it, he said.
The fear might have begun when a poorly educated junior high school science teacher transmitted to his students his nervousness at teaching a subject he didn`t know too well. Or it might have been triggered by a cocky instructor whose modus operandi was ”I know it all, but you`re not going to know it.” (This type seldom gives A`s, Mallow said.)
In the case of a woman or minority, the fear might have taken hold when that person was told he or she was just not smart enough to understand science.
However it developed, adults who have learned to fear science are at a great disadvantage because science is all around us, Mallow said. Without a basic understanding of the field, he cautioned, ”it is difficult to function in everyday society.”
How can citizens make decisions regarding pollutants and nuclear reactors when they perceive science as intimidating and look on professional scientists as ”weirdos”? he asked. Just look at how negatively scientists are portrayed-or rather caricatured-on Saturday-morning cartoons, Mallow said.
Even the media perpetuate the image of scientists as alien beings, he said. ”Look at newscasters: They giggle at reports given by scientists. If people were to stereotype any ethnic group the way they do scientists, there would be rioting in the streets.”
The average person ”thinks either you`re a scientist or you`re not;
either you have a science mind or you don`t. Science is even perceived as evil: We`re the people who gave you the Bomb.”
In addition, scientists-whom many nonscientists endow with supernatural powers-are revered to the point where nonscientists can`t imagine themselves capable of understanding science, Mallow said.
By the time students-both nonscience and science majors-reach college and face their terror of science, their fear has grown to gargantuan proportions. Mallow, who wrote a book called ”Science Anxiety; Fear of Science and How to Overcome It” (H & H Publishing, 1986), shows Loyola students how to overcome this anxiety in an eight-week clinic that runs once a year, which provided the model outlined in his book. The free clinic is led by a science instructor and a therapist, and is offered in the counseling center at Loyola`s Lake Shore campus. It is the only one of its kind in Illinois and adjacent states, Mallow said.
The next nearest institution to deal formally with science anxiety is Minneapolis Community College, which offers ”Science Without Anxiety,” a two-credit elective class based on Mallow`s model.
In both, students are coached in three areas:
– They are taught the skills needed to study science, such as how to read a textbook (slowly, Mallow said).
– They are encouraged to explore the roots of their anxiety and arrive at techniques to cope with it.
– They are given relaxation techniques that ”desensitize” them to science-related situations that produce anxiety.
Mary Ellen Smajo, 25, found herself in Loyola`s clinic as a freshman science major in 1981 when she began panicking during physics exams.
”In high school I always got A`s,” she said, ”but as a senior I was devastated by a high school teacher who told me I wouldn`t do well in physics at Loyola, probably because my high school`s physics program wasn`t up to par. And when I got to Loyola, I started doing really awful.”
(The field of physics, she and Mallow said, causes the greatest fear because it is a ”pure science,” meaning it`s more theoretical. It is considered to be the most difficult discipline when compared with biology and chemistry.)
”Every time I`d sit down for an exam,” Smajo continued, ”I`d think, `I can`t do science. I`ll fail the test. I`ll fail physics. I`ll fail life.` All based on one question on one test.”
Smajo, who graduated from Loyola magna cum laude, is in a doctoral program in medical physics at Rush University Graduate College and credits the clinic with easing her anxieties.
A student majoring in science at Loyola who attended the clinic last year said her anxiety didn`t start until she decided to pursue science as a career, which meant she would face heavy competition to get into professional school. (She did not wish to be identified because there is a stigma attached to science anxiety, she said.)
The year she developed science anxiety, ”I had three big exams, and the final exam was cumulative,” she said. ”The pressure got worse. I was ready to explode. I felt isolated. But everyone in the clinic was very supportive. I thought, `I can`t believe people understand me here.` ”
That feeling of ”everyone knows more than I do” is extremely common to the science-anxious, said Mallow, who suffered science anxiety as a college student. The majority of those attending the Loyola clinic are majoring or minoring in science, he said.
Lorrie Kohler, a biology instructor who has been teaching the Minneapolis Community College class for two years, said the majority of class members are majoring in nonscience subjects. Many of them are continuing-education students who need science courses to fill graduation requirements.
To ease their anxiety, Kohler has her students keep a journal to help them gauge their feelings. They record when they feel anxious and any negative statements they tell themselves at the time. Then she helps them replace those negative thoughts with positive ones, a form of cognitive therapy.
Kohler agreed with Mallow that science anxiety stems from students in lower grades receiving ”negative messages” from teachers. Her proof comes from her school experiences and those of her students, who write an autobiography of their experiences in science classes. ”They all talk about the instructor who screwed them up along the way,” she said.
Leona Peters, a science teacher at Spring Hill Elementary School in Roselle, agreed that many elementary teachers ”feel inadequate” about teaching science. ”They`re so overburdened in everything that science gets pushed to one side,” she said.
Peters, who never has had science anxiety but who wanted to make science more relevant to her students, participates in a program called Teaching Integrated Math and Science. The program is one of several in the Chicago area on how to teach science and, in the process, help teachers overcome their anxiety.
As teachers gain confidence in such programs, they are less likely to pass science anxiety to their students, said Philip Wagreich, a professor of mathematics, statistics and computer science at the University of Illinois-Chicago who helped create Teaching Integrated Math and Science.
Such programs also are designed to supplant what Mallow calls ”gee-whiz science”-taking the easy way out by doing demonstrations without teaching underlying scientific principles.
The 3-year-old program, designed by Wagreich and Howard S. Goldberg, a U. of I. physics professor, trains teachers and supervises them in teaching students basic scientific methods. It is funded with a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, and is used in grades 1 through 8 in 13 public and parochial Chicago-area schools.
Temporarily throwing out the textbooks, which Wagreich said are often
”just plain wrong” and ”atrocious,” teachers focus on ”the important ideas and concepts of science”: length, area, volume and mass. In
specifically outlined experiments, students draw a picture or diagram illustrating these variables, collect and graph data and find a pattern in their data that will help them make predictions about the outcome of similar experiments.
One such experiment is called ”Spreading Out.” Students make a dot of color on a paper towel with the aid of an eyedropper, then figure out the area of the stain.
Next they make two drops to form a larger spot on another paper towel to figure out the relationship between the number of drops and the area of the stain. Because the drops do not always form a perfectly circular stain, students have to figure out the area using principles, not mere memorization, Wagreich said.
”It`s amazing that math has not been integrated into science before this” in elementary schools, he said. ”In 1911, (educator) John Dewey said science teaching should incorporate concepts, not just facts. Unfortunately, scientists usually are not involved in writing textbooks,” which treat the subjects separately, Wagreich said.
Having relied on textbooks for so long, ”some teachers initially are resistant to rulers and bouncing balls, but eventually they become very enthusiastic,” Wagreich said. ”The major challenge (of the program) is to overcome teachers` science anxiety.” It`s easy to cure science-anxious students at this age, he added.
Another program to improve science and math teaching is the 5-year-old Amoco Scholars Program, funded by the Amoco Foundation, Chicago. The program was designed for 7th and 8th grade teachers in Chicago schools. Teachers volunteer to take 16 hours of course work in either math or science, taught at the Loop campus of the National College of Education. The course work may be applied toward graduate credit.
More than 100 teachers have gone through the program, said Susan L. Annis, director. ”They say they feel more comfortable teaching science and are willing to do more hands-on experiments,” she said.
”I have had students and their parents tell me they now enjoy science,” said a teacher enrolled in the program.
”I am more motivated, in that I have more tools and ideas to pass on to my students,” another said.
A less formal program is ”Science and Toys,” a 2-year-old summer workshop offered to elementary school teachers in North Shore locations, primarily the Kohl Teacher Center in Wilmette.
Its creator, Vito M. Dipinto, said the program has yielded amazing results in ”liberating” science-anxious teachers.
Dipinto, a science teacher at the Baker Demonstration School on the Evanston campus of the National College of Education, said the program subscribes to the theory that ”the best kind of science (happens) when you fail.”
When an experiment fails, a student must ”problem-solve and brainstorm with others; there has to be failure for questions to occur,” he said. And when students start asking questions, ”then science becomes a student-initiated inquiry rather than a teacher-directed discipline,” he said.
Initially, teachers look skeptically at his dime-store equipment:
magnetic marbles, wind-up toys, tops and Slinkies, Dipinto said.
The program does not use textbooks. As the teachers begin playing with the toys to learn basic physics concepts, they say, ”I don`t know the vocabulary,” he said. ”They`re remembering scary experiences they had in college.”
”What does the top do?” he asks. ”It turns round and round. It slows down. It stops. These are all appropriate terms.
Kids and teachers need to have concepts in mind before they begin learning the language of science.
Making science fun is Dipinto`s goal. ”Whenever I walk into a lab I think of it as work and play. They`re synonymous. The wonderment somehow has been trained out of us.”
But as Dipinto, Mallow and others attempt to put it back in, science anxiety could become a thing of the past.
