Page 382 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

Chapter 31
On Critical Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge
and Raisins Floating in Soda Water

Christopher Darius Stonebanks

With few exceptions, my experiences within biology classrooms served primarily to stifle
my inherent interest in what was to me a fascinating subject. Talking with my students in
the biology lab classes I teach, I have found that my experience is far from unique.
Kellog 1998, P.ff 212

Introduction

In the same spirit of Kellog’s autobiographical approach to capturing the general
impression of science education, let me be completely honest at the outset of this
chapter on my own forays of these classrooms: As a primary school student, I
enjoyed moderate success receiving second prize in a science fair, an attempt at
animal behavior science. The experiment was an unsuccessful attempt to train
my one-eyed hamster to push a button for food. Upon retrospect, it is pretty clear
to me that I probably won the fair through a rodent that evoked both sympathy
and adorable appeal from the fair judges. In secondary school, I plugged along
with varying uninspired successes, finding myself in advanced biology only
through a probable timetable schedule error. From primary to secondary educa-
tion, my science education experience was noteworthy only in that it was so
unremarkable.
However, this trend changed in CEGEP (a college system in Quebec, Canada
designed to act as a buffer between secondary school and university), thanks to one
professor who did not even teach in the (traditional) science department. My interest
was sparked through a political science professor, of (east) Indian origin, who

C.D. Stonebanks
Bishop’s University

D.J. Tippins et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 357
Cultural Studies of Science Education Vol. 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3929-3_31,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010