This week in education news, teachers eye potential of virtual reality; schools zoom in on STEM equity; Louisiana considers new science standards; South Dakota’s antiscience bill is stopped; and Idaho teachers, parents, and scientists urged lawmakers to keep climate change in proposed new state science standards.

Teachers Eye Potential of Virtual Reality to Enhance Science Instruction

If you can’t afford a field trip to the International Space Station, donning a boxy black headset might be the next best thing. To take advantage of the latest in 3-D technology, teachers are increasingly expressing interest in using virtual reality to enhance science education. Click here to read the article featured on the EdSource website.

Schools Zoom in on STEM Equity

With the U.S. Department of Education doling out billions of dollars to promote diversity and to support low-income schools in 2017, administrators across the country are also working to better serve students of all backgrounds, abilities and interests. Two annual conferences this spring—the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)—will feature multiple sessions designed to help educators deliver more equitable curriculums. Click here to read the article featured in District Administration.

Louisiana to Consider New Standards for Teaching Science

Next month, Louisiana’s state board of elementary and secondary education is expected to vote on new science standards. A committee worked for six months to produce new standards for the state, which currently has some of the oldest science standards in the nation. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

New Data: New Science Standards Are Boosting Engineering in Schools

In honor of National Engineers Week, Change the Equation “crunched some numbers, and it looks like efforts to make engineering part of the K-12 curriculum are beginning to pay off.” They believe “that the NGSS are succeeding in their aim to integrate engineering and technology into science classrooms.” Click here to read the article featured on the Change the Equation website.

South Dakota’s Antiscience Bill Stopped

South Dakota’s Senate Bill 55, which would have empowered science denial in the classroom, was defeated in the House Education Committee on February 22, 2017. A motion to pass the bill was defeated on a 6-9 vote, while a subsequent motion to defer further consideration of the bill to the forty-first legislative day — effectively killing it — passed on an 11-4 vote. Click here to read the article featured on the National Center for Science Education’s website.

Parents, Scientists to Lawmakers: Keep Climate Changes in School Science Standards

Teachers, parents and scientists urged the Senate Education Committee Thursday to keep climate change as part of the state’s new proposed science standards. Many who spoke before the committee pleaded with members to go a different direction than the House Education Committee, which voted earlier this month for the new standards but deleted references to climate change. Chairman Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, held off a committee vote until Monday, so the Senate and the House could explore options on what to do next. Click here to read the article featured in the Idaho Statesman.

Why My Students are Real World-ready with Nothing but a Device

Just as few modern-day workers could function in their jobs without a cellphone, a laptop, or periodic trips to Google, Anthony Johnson wants his students to learn how to solve problems using devices that will likely be similar to ones they will encounter for the rest of their lives. Click here to read the article featured on the eSchool News website.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

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Evolutionary psychologists analyze human behavior for traits that evolved to increase the odds of survival and reproduction. They may then apply this knowledge to redesign aspects of today’s cultural institutions and practices—such as schools, workplaces, and child rearing—in ways that better align with human nature. Peter Gray is an evolutionary psychologist affiliated with Boston College. His area of focus is education, and he also writes the Freedom to Learn blog on the website of Psychology Today magazine.

Work overview.

As a retired professor, I now mostly research and write about how children educate themselves when they are free to do so. I also examine how education data fit with evolutionary analysis.

A typical researcher may try to figure out which teaching method increases test scores. But when you look at education from an evolutionary perspective, you start to ask more basic questions, such as: What is the purpose of education? One experiment will not answer such questions. Instead, it’s a scholarly approach that synthesizes knowledge from different fields, such as anthropology, history, and even animal behavior.

For example, diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have increased possibly because society no longer tolerates children’s normal unwillingness to sit still for long periods. Instead of adapting school to children, children are being adapted to school. It’s also plausible that depriving children of play is leading to more impulsiveness, because play controls impulsiveness.

Career highlights.

My biggest fulfillment has been writing for the public, first through the blog
and then through my book, Free to Learn. Many people find meaning in my writing, and it has led to speaking invitations and other opportunities.

Career path.

I went to college planning to major in physics. But then I started thinking that the world’s biggest problems are about human behavior, and I wondered how we could bring out the better aspects of people’s being. I became more drawn to psychology and biology. After getting my degrees in psychology and biological sciences, I accepted a job in the psychology department at Boston College.

Many of the introductory textbooks seemed superficial, so I wrote one that covered the usual topics (personality, development, and so on) but from a bio-evolutionary perspective. While I was writing that book, my young son was getting in trouble for questioning his teachers.

We found an alternative school called Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts, where children can follow their own interests. For him, it was a dream come true, but I had my doubts. So I studied the school’s graduates and learned that they went on to do well in college and in a range of careers.

I became intrigued by children’s burning curiosity and desire to play. I began to study education from an evolutionary point of view, wondering what could be learned about children’s natural instincts by knowing about hunter-gatherer cultures.

After surveying anthropologists, I learned that in every hunter-gatherer band studied, children played and explored all day long. It was basically the same philosophy as at Sudbury, where children were free to do what they wanted, to interact with adults who were not judgmental, and to play with children in a mixed-age group. This is how they acquired the skills they needed.

Cultures evolve, sometimes in ways that run counter to human nature. Today’s schools originated at a time when it was believed that children were sinful, and one of the main goals was to break their will and drive out that sin. Humans tend to hang on to cultural things even when they are no longer functional because we are creatures of social norms. Our strong tendency to conform can help us survive in the short term but can be harmful in the long run, unless we create more suitable norms.

Knowledge, skills and training needed.

To be a scholar and researcher is to be curious, to question, and to learn new things. There shouldn’t be any transition between learning and doing.

Advice for students.

Don’t decide what field to go into based only on how you’re doing in your courses. Think about what you like to do in your free time, and that will point you to the career you should pursue.

Bonus Points
Gray’s education: BS in psychology from Columbia College; PhD in biological sciences from Rockefeller University

On the web:
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn;
https://evolution-institute.org; http://bit.ly/Free-to-learn

Related occupations:
biologist, anthropologist, economist

Editor’s Note

This article was originally published in the February 2017 issue of The Science Teacher journal from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

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The Silver maple tree is flowering, early for the season in my region, but right on schedule for the way the season is unfolding this year. Although the flowers are tiny, the details can be seen with a magnifier. When children’s attention is drawn to the small happenings in nature, it contributes to their framework for later understanding of where seeds come from and the diversity of plant life.
Squirrels have bitten off, and probably eaten, the sections of the twigs just before the flowers which then drop to the ground. What are the squirrels after? Why do they do this? I see them nibbling but they aren’t eating much of the twigs.

When the maple seeds are fully formed in the fall, children and scientists alike are intrigued by their motion. Squirrels go out on a limb (sorry!) to reach the seeds that develop from the flowers so they can eat the inner seed and discard the hull. Sometimes in mid-chew they drop the cluster of seeds. I ask children to examine the cluster and we discuss why some of the “wings” are empty and others hold seeds. Next Time You See a Maple Seed, a book by Emily Morgan (NSTA Kids, 2014), will help your children learn more about these seeds. The short video that goes with her book is lovely, engaging without telling, allowing children to be intrigued to explore further. 

By following the growth of a single tree over the school year, children become familiar with the tree and begin to notice seasonal changes in other plants. They may not look forward to spring changes to a maple tree in the same way a squirrel does, but they begin to appreciate the interrelated lives of plants and animals.