Just where to start this post.... remembering that I want people to read it, but I'm not too sure if it will be read, or by whom, so how personal it needs to be is awfully subjective and random based on how I am feeling just now. Oh, the dilemma of the blogger, sitting in a darkened room, writing to a faceless, as-yet unidentified audience.
I am a 40-something woman. I have been married, I have a son and a step-son I adore more than anything on the planet. I have fewer formal qualifications than I should have at my age. As mentioned in the previous post, I found a brilliant job in the past year that I absolutely adore and it gives me such a feeling of self-fulfilment I never knew possible on a professional level. I have worked in many industries and situations, with my book-keeping and customer service background. Seldom have I had the pleasure of a working environment where my colleagues and 'customers' are so equally accepting, caring, patient, open and loving, or where the feedback is so fast with a quick lesson to be learned or instant gratitude to be felt. I have had the past two weeks off and I am missing my job like I have never missed a job before.
I love science. I F*ing love science, as the now famous facebook page declares. https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience It stunned me that the author's gender of this FB page came as a surprise to so many and that this was even the topic of conversation when she was interviewed, recently. ( http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50143686n) Aren't we past this? Obviously not. We are all born curious and full of wonder about the world and what we see. Regardless of what is concealed in our diaper, we are born explorers and experimenters. We are trying to work things out from the moment we can reach out, grab something and shove it in our mouths to see what it tastes like. We are brave explorers.
At some point, something must happen that encourages girls one way and boys another and I can't argue or point or even quote a study that has explored this one way or another and that isn't really why I decided to write tonight. I won't try to fathom or address that issue. Yes, we are different (and thank goodness, I think, sometimes). But, what I want to put forward here is:
'Why are the Sciences and Math still so removed from the Humanities.'
Recently, on NPR's Science Friday, a fantastic guest list on 29 March 2013 gathered to speak during the second hour of the show. http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/03/29/2013/gripping-science-tales-need-not-be-science-fiction.html They asked that very same question and had a short discussion about it. Having science writers that can personalise and humanise the curiosity behind the discoveries and add that awe-inspiring feeling that makes a person feel good and amazed and inspired is more important now than ever in our human history. Mass communication has made it possible to reach and motivate large numbers of people. Of course, this makes it possible to spread untruths and myths as quickly as what we know as real science. Cherry picking certain theories and ideas from science to support a particular theory about human behaviour or how the world works is not science writing and is not honest. The charlatans who are published in the 'new-age' genre and find a following mixing their own adulterated version of quantum mechanics and mumbo-jumbo is shameful. We need more science and less mumbo-jumbo. This needs to be addressed at several levels, but firstly, what I want to discuss; teaching people how to write about science. I want to learn and I want other, like minded, younger people, to learn too.
Why do we tell middle school kids that they have to take the art/literature/humanity courses OR the science and math classes to get them in line for their classes in high school? If someone had told me in junior high that there was a career option out there called, 'Science Writing' and I could meld my love of English and writing with my love and curiosity of science and the wonders of the world and cosmos, I may have taken a very different route. Instead I was told I would never be good enough in math to take the high school science classes, so I could, at best, think of the business courses as an option or consider becoming a teacher.
NOW, is the time to foster kids with a penchant for writing and communicating who can grasp science and logical reasoning and get excited about what is going on in the world of science and research. There is a broadening gap ... a chasm almost, between what needs to be understood and an almost prideful ignorance. Open, honest, understandable, persistent communication is the only answer.
Scientific curiosity is present in a 5 year old and age-appropriate exploration and learning needs to be encouraged. Science is not magic. Facts are not mystical but they can be wondrous We can be in awe of our world and know is it absolutely real and that makes it even better, I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g4d-rnhuSg
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