Page 386 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

31 On Critical Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge and Raisins Floating in Soda Water 361

their knowledge had to be corralled on a reserve, whereas teachers from powerbloc
origins are allowed to be universal purveyors of a true knowledge?
In communicating these anecdotes to Joe, and as a prelude to my “Live Animals”
lesson, I commented that although dialoguing with Cree students about the differences
in the value of knowledge between indigenous and nonindigenous contexts is one of
experiences for them, the conversation is altogether different with preservice teachers
who are entrenched in the powerbloc themselves – a struggle that Joe knew all too
well. In my curriculum development class, we discuss these concepts of knowledge
and truth and their relationship to power early, with writings of Kincheloe, Steinberg,
and Apple taking center stage. Although, superficially, many students take quickly to
the Kincheloe and Steinberg position of “teacher and student as researchers” (as this
rightly does much to elevate the status of “teacher”), the arguments regarding the
ethnocentrism of knowledge, especially its relationship to power are often the greatest
challenges for both explanation and understanding. Apple’s work, in particular, with
his analysis on conflict as it relates to hegemony and science curriculum can cause
considerable apprehension; for it is a subject that these students’ experiences dictate
has been and should be presented in the most “textbook” of fashion:

One of my basic theses is that science, as it is presented in most elementary and a large
portion of secondary classrooms, contributes to the learning by students of a basically
unrealistic and essentially conservative perspective on the usefulness of conflict. Scientific
domains are presented as bodies of knowledge (“thats” and “hows”), at best organized
around central fundamental regularities as in the many discipline and inquiry-centered cur-
ricula that evolved after the “Brunerian revolution,” at worst as fairly isolated data one
masters for tests. Almost never is it seriously examined as a personal construction of
human beings. (Apple 2004, p. 82)
Using science education as example in which eurowestern schools far too often
detach the process of scientific discovery from the struggle and conflict in humans
who exist in a time and space, Apple questions why these characteristics of science
are so often absent from the science curriculum. The “context” of the knowledge
that Kincheloe refers to, is absent from the inquiry, leaving students with the type
of rote memory engagement in science subjects that serve only a few.
Epistemologically speaking, science is a field dominated by empirical research. Yet, within
science classrooms, students are not often encouraged to participate in the process of mak-
ing knowledge through the application of scientific principles (i.e., through their own
research). Rather, science is often taught by the transmission model of teaching, in which
students are bombarded with vast quantities of information produced by experts. (…)
Student success is then determined not based on their ability to ask careful questions by
applying the method of science to problems within society or their own lives, but by regur-
gitating predigested and decontextualized facts and by reproducing predetermined results
in contrived laboratory settings. (Kellog 1998, p. 213)
Some students will protest these ideas, perhaps arguing that “true knowledge”
does exist and is absent from the trappings of human subjectivity, while others state
that their classrooms will be open to constructivist learning, in a secure environ-
ment that allows children to question everything (even if it contradicts the teacher’s
intentions). In repeating these experiences with preservice teachers, Joe nodded in