The End of Science Education in East Asia?


The End of Science Education in East Asia?

The title of this chapter is intended as homage to Neil Postman’s (1995) The End of Education, which though written over two decades ago, on the other side of the globe, resonates with the chapters of this book. Postman decries the focus in US educational discourse on technical questions – such as how to train teachers, which instructional strategies work best, or how to construct assessments  – and the concomitant neglect of metaphysical questions about what education is for. “End” is of course polysemous, meaning both purpose (as in, “the ends of education”) and finish (as in, “the end of schooling as we know it”). Postman intends both meanings, suggesting that if we cannot provide students, teachers, and the public a convincing answer to the metaphysical question about the ends of education, then public schooling will be finished.

Postman casts this metaphysical question in terms of the stories we tell ourselves about education – “not any kind of story, but one that tells of origins and envisions a future, a story that constructs ideals, prescribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority, and, above all gives a sense of continuity and purpose.” Such stories give meaning to the educational endeavor and inevitably also shape the answers that we give to the technical questions as well. Following Postman’s lead, I examine here the metaphysics of science education in the East Asian countries discussed in the book through analysis of the stories offered in the chapters. I’m interested in both the stories the authors narrate  – their own stories, and those of the policymakers and public they describe – and, reading between the lines, the stories that are conspicuously absent.

The dominant story, which most frequently recurs in the chapters, is the global competitiveness story. Wu, Wang, Cheng, and Yang open the Taiwan chapter with this story: “National competitiveness and economic growth of Taiwan mainly relies on the development of its science and technology industries.” Similar statements (though not all so compact) appear in the chapters on Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The basic plot of this story is that (a) the global knowledge economy is changing rapidly; (b) to compete in this economy requires a scientifically and technologically adept, flexible, and innovative workforce; and (c) therefore, science and technology education are critical to national prosperity. Many of the chapters also emphasize the importance to their economies of human capital in light of their country’s lack of natural resources.

The global market rewards competitive advantage, so it is not sufficient to be good; each country needs to be better than all the rest (i.e., it’s a zero-sum game). As such, even the high performers appearing in this book display some insecurity about their capacity to continue to maintain their competitive edge. Wu and colleagues end the Taiwan chapter with the concern that, though Taiwan scored among the top ten in TIMSS 2011 achievement tests, their fourth graders scored below the top ten in interest and confidence in learning science. The authors call this outcome “a crisis but also a turning point”, i.e., an opportunity to improve the quality of primary science education in Taiwan in order “to be one of the top-rank countries in the world.”

Postman warns about the US version of the global competitiveness story, which he labels economic utility, in The End of Education. First, he points to the lack of evidence tying national productivity to educational quality – a point which is hotly debated among economists (see, e.g., Hanushek and Woessmann 2016, and, for a critique, Komatsu and Rappleye 2017). Writing from Israel, the so-called start-up nation, Postman’s assessment rings true: our current high-tech boom is more likely related to cultural, economic, and geopolitical factors than our mundane school science (we ranked 40th in PISA 2015 Science). Second, more fundamentally, Postman argues that “any education that is mainly about economic utility is far too limited to be useful, and, in any case, so diminishes the world that it mocks one’s humanity.” While individuals need to be able to obtain and perform a job, and nations need economies, such objectives make for a rather dreary and uninspiring education.

Global competitiveness is not the only game in East Asia. In half the chapters, a second story, which I’m calling scientific literacy for civic participation, appears alongside it. This story is captured best by So, Wan, and Chu’s opening of their chapter on science education in Hong Kong with the recent collapse of a primary school “green roof.” The authors use this event as an opportunity to reflect on the risks inherent in technological advances and the need for children “to be equipped with the necessary scientific knowledge and skills starting from primary education to assess everyday and social issues, to have good reasoning for making sound judgement, and to voice their opinions in an informed and constructive manner.” By equipping pupils with this knowledge and skill set, the authors hope to “prepare pupils to participate in public discourse in science-related issues.”

This emphasis on civic participation, which appears also in the chapters on Taiwan and Korea, is reminiscent of one of the stories proposed by Postman, entitled the “American Experiment.” However, whereas the ideal of scientific literacy for civic participation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea is presented as the relatively straightforward application of scientific knowledge and reasoning skills, in Postman’s version, the idea of democracy itself is problematized. “The American Constitution is not a catechism, but a hypothesis,” writes Postman, suggesting that the point of civic participation is to question the state and social order rather than consecrate them. For Postman, the American Experiment is about vigorous, continuous argument, about clashing with others over socially and politically charged issues. One wonders how such a story might play out in the more conformist East Asian societies – and in some of the more autocratic East Asian polities?

Alongside these two narratives, other possible stories are alluded to as the authors mention aims such as the “development of a healthy lifestyle” (Korea), “climate change and planetary ethics” (Singapore), a “zest for living” (Japan), “equal rights and chances to study science” (China), learning to think independently (Japan), and “enthusiasm in the potential of scientific inquiry” (Taiwan). But none of these themes are developed into a full-fledged story that might give meaning and depth to the study of science above and beyond becoming a scientifically literate worker and citizen.

By way of contrast, consider how Postman speaks about science and its study in his discussion of “Fallen Angel,” one of five alternative narratives he proposes. According to the “Fallen Angel” story, we and our knowledge are fallible, but we have the capacity to correct our mistakes “provided we proceed without hubris, pride, or dogmatism”:

Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry— is not even a “subject” — but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning.

In my mind, such a vision has the potential to inspire the learning of science for its own sake, as a topic which is an end in itself, since it is intricately tied to our humanity and its perfection. I imagine that this is the sort of “existential purpose… to which an education in science ought to be legitimately subsumed” that Lee referred to in his critical discussion of topics that have not received sufficient attention in Singaporean science education. In my reading, all of the educational systems appearing in the book would benefit from such attention to the ends of science education. East Asia appears to have adequately addressed the technical questions of science education (at least relative to the competition); such lofty standing at the top of the global league tables presents an excellent opportunity to engage in metaphysical reflection.


References

Hanushek, Eric A., & Woessmann, Ludger. (2016). Knowledge capital, growth, and the east Asian miracle. Science, 351(6271), 344–345. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad7796

Komatsu, Hikaru, & Rappleye, Jeremy. (2017). A new global policy regime founded on invalid statistics? Hanushek, Woessmann, PISA, and economic growth. Comparative Education, 53(2), 166– 191. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2017.1300008

Postman, Neil. (1995). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. New York: Knopf. https://archive.org/details/end_of_education