Science Magazine Editor-In-Chief Talks On Educational Challenges

Bruce M. Alberts ’60, editor-in-chief of Science magazine and past president of the National Academy of Science, called for a cultural change in science education during a packed lecture in Sever Hall yesterday.

According to Alberts, the main issue in science education is that elementary and high school students are taught to simply memorize and recall facts instead of thinking critically about scientific problems.

During his tenure as President of the National Academy of Science, Alberts played a major role in developing the National Science Education Standards, designed to emphasize inquiry-based education to foster effective problem-solving skills applicable in the workplace and in life. However, as Alberts noted, states were allowed to produce their own set of educational standards and consequently “paid little attention” to the standards. The results, he said, are inconsistent learning standards across the nation which persist today.

Prevailing learning formats and pre-medical school course requirements stand in the way of reinventing science education, Alberts said.

Some audience members said they agreed with Alberts’s critique.

“To delve into one discipline, explore and learn and understand it, you have to feel like you’re not going to be screwed because you’re not going to get an 800 on the SAT biology,” said John J. Clore, a Harvard Graduate School of Education student who attended the talk.

To effect change, institutions should undertake in-depth research about education and implement an inquiry-based teaching method, Alberts said. This cultural movement—which Alberts said is of “highest priority”—must be initiated by colleges, which can then affect high schools and elementary schools. Alberts called on Harvard in particular to initiate this change, saying that the University is “synonymous with education excellence.”

Alberts has experience as an innovator in education, according to University President Drew G. Faust, who introduced the talk and noted Albert’s integral role during his time on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, “prodding us to think more assertively and ambitiously about undergraduate education in science, and to break down boundaries between schools and disciplines.”

“When you’re dealing with all these different groups of people with different interests, getting to work in one direction isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” Harvard Professor Irwin I. Shapiro, another audience member, said.