Only two days ago we had a conference in which we decided that we don’t have to teach a course in elementary quantum mechanics in the graduate school any more. I don’t want to interfere with the system it is very good. I am not going to berate you for the bad work you are doing and indicate how it can definitely be improved that is not my intention.Īs a matter of fact, we have very good students coming into Caltech, and during the years we found them getting better and better. In some way you are always being lectured on how things are not going too well and how you should learn to teach better. The other is I think that most of you (because there is so much talk and so many papers and so many experts in the field) have some kind of a feeling of lack of self-confidence. In the first place, from the way that I am preparing to give this lecture, it may seem that I am trying to tell you how to teach science–I am not at all in any way, because I don’t know anything about small children. But I would like to say that I think that “what is science” is not at all equivalent to “how to teach science,” and I must call that to your attention for two reasons. The subject “What Is Science” is not my choice. I am sure that you who are real teachers working at the bottom level of this hierarchy of teachers, instructors of teachers, experts on curricula, also are sure that you, too, don’t know how to do it otherwise you wouldn’t bother to come to the convention.

I have much experience only in teaching graduate students in physics, and as a result of the experience I know that I don’t know how to teach.

DeRose for the opportunity to join you science teachers.

313-320 by permission of the editor and the author. Presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, 1966 in New York City, and reprinted from The Physics Teacher Vol.

What is the definition of science