Santa Fe Children’s Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1/10/2014
Ellen Hall- Welcome
I am delighted to be with all of you at the 6th opening of the exhibit, “Cultivate the Scientist in Every Child: The Philosophy of Frances and David Hawkins.” During the first year of its journey, this exhibition has traveled from the Bio-lounge of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder Colorado, to the University of Wyoming Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center, to the Resource Area for Teaching in Denver to the University of Colorado Denver School of Education and Human Development to this wonderful venue in Santa Fe. And its second year itinerary has already been mapped out. From here, it will travel to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque and then on to the University of Nebraska Lincoln and Lied Lodge in Nebraska City and finally to Chicago. The Canadian based Reggio Professional Learning Collaborative replicated the exhibit and opened it in Toronto in October, and it will travel to Nova Scotia in June.
The exhibit’s journey is part of a larger journey that a small group of educators embarked upon in 2005. This followed a year of discussions about the importance of teacher-led professional development- teachers exploring ideas and issues relevant to them.
Our small group of educators created Hawkins Centers of Learning because we believe that Frances and David’s ideas are ideal springboards for this approach to teacher learning. We developed into an organization whose mission is the study, translation and articulation of the Hawkins’ ideas.
Hawkins Centers of Learning has offered us opportunities to meet and share ideas and experiences with incredible people – people like Karen Worth, who I will formally introduce soon, Susan McIntosh, who is a champion of quality science education, inquiry education consultant Barry Kluger-Bell, who worked with both Frances and David at the Mountain View Center for Environmental Education at the University of Colorado, Alex Cruickshank, a mentor teacher at Boulder Journey School, who as a child lived at the Capital Children’s Museum inspired by David Hawkins, and so many more child advocates worldwide, who understand the importance of curiosity based education for the children and adults of the 21st century.
We think that given the many rapidly-paced changes our world is currently experiencing, we must reexamine how we educate both our children and ourselves. We need to design educational experiences around our natural curiosities about the world. This is education that engages our hearts and minds,
that stimulates inquiry,
that stimulates critical thinking,
that stimulates problem solving
that stimulates ongoing research,
and that fosters collaboration.
Frances and David Hawkins understood this, and created and facilitated learning experiences that have inspired generations of educators.
The exhibit on display here gives visibility to four of the Hawkins’ ideas:
Eolithism: the educational use of existing resources, both physical and relational. Children’s creativity and learning flourish as they develop their own functions for materials.
I, Thou, It: The child, engaged in her own curiosity-based explorations, is joined by an adult, equally fascinated in the endeavor. This validation of her explorations contributes to the child’s development of a true love of learning.
Messing About: Unstructured time is allowed for these explorations, sufficient for the child to make and revise hypotheses regarding his work. Children are not told what to think. Rather, their thinking is supported.
Teacher as Learner: The teacher who has himself “messed about” with materials, and is excited about learning, transmits this heightened engagement to the child.
And there are more ideas. We hope that as the exhibit travels, other panels will be added to the original seven. At University of Nebraska Lincoln, plans are underway to add a panel on David’s ideas surrounding the learning and teaching of mathematics. We would also like to add experiences that include older children and children from diverse cultures and contexts. We envision the exhibit as a catalyst from which to build a network of educators, parents, grandparents, scientists, leaders, change agents, legislators, and advocates worldwide. We invite you to join us.
And now, please join me in welcoming Karen Worth, Chair of Elementary Education at Wheelock College. Karen teaches courses in elementary education and science education for both pre-service and in-service teachers at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She has done extensive development work in science education. A current focus is developing teacher skills in the use of language in science as a critical tool for scientific reasoning. Karen has been the principal investigator on a number of National Science Foundation projects in which she developed and published science curriculum materials for early childhood and elementary classrooms and led large-scale efforts to support the implementation of inquiry-based science programs in schools.
She was part of the development team for the National Science Education Standards, chairing the Working Group on Science Teaching Standards. She consults nationally and internationally on the implementations of inquiry-based science programs for children at pre-school and elementary levels and has served as an advisor to several informal science organizations, public television stations, and national science reform projects.
Karen is a recipient of the Exploratorium's Outstanding Educator Award for her work in science education, the international Purkwa prize for improving the scientific literacy of the children of the planet, and the NSTA Distinguished Service Award.
The exhibit’s journey is part of a larger journey that a small group of educators embarked upon in 2005. This followed a year of discussions about the importance of teacher-led professional development- teachers exploring ideas and issues relevant to them.
Our small group of educators created Hawkins Centers of Learning because we believe that Frances and David’s ideas are ideal springboards for this approach to teacher learning. We developed into an organization whose mission is the study, translation and articulation of the Hawkins’ ideas.
Hawkins Centers of Learning has offered us opportunities to meet and share ideas and experiences with incredible people – people like Karen Worth, who I will formally introduce soon, Susan McIntosh, who is a champion of quality science education, inquiry education consultant Barry Kluger-Bell, who worked with both Frances and David at the Mountain View Center for Environmental Education at the University of Colorado, Alex Cruickshank, a mentor teacher at Boulder Journey School, who as a child lived at the Capital Children’s Museum inspired by David Hawkins, and so many more child advocates worldwide, who understand the importance of curiosity based education for the children and adults of the 21st century.
We think that given the many rapidly-paced changes our world is currently experiencing, we must reexamine how we educate both our children and ourselves. We need to design educational experiences around our natural curiosities about the world. This is education that engages our hearts and minds,
that stimulates inquiry,
that stimulates critical thinking,
that stimulates problem solving
that stimulates ongoing research,
and that fosters collaboration.
Frances and David Hawkins understood this, and created and facilitated learning experiences that have inspired generations of educators.
The exhibit on display here gives visibility to four of the Hawkins’ ideas:
Eolithism: the educational use of existing resources, both physical and relational. Children’s creativity and learning flourish as they develop their own functions for materials.
I, Thou, It: The child, engaged in her own curiosity-based explorations, is joined by an adult, equally fascinated in the endeavor. This validation of her explorations contributes to the child’s development of a true love of learning.
Messing About: Unstructured time is allowed for these explorations, sufficient for the child to make and revise hypotheses regarding his work. Children are not told what to think. Rather, their thinking is supported.
Teacher as Learner: The teacher who has himself “messed about” with materials, and is excited about learning, transmits this heightened engagement to the child.
And there are more ideas. We hope that as the exhibit travels, other panels will be added to the original seven. At University of Nebraska Lincoln, plans are underway to add a panel on David’s ideas surrounding the learning and teaching of mathematics. We would also like to add experiences that include older children and children from diverse cultures and contexts. We envision the exhibit as a catalyst from which to build a network of educators, parents, grandparents, scientists, leaders, change agents, legislators, and advocates worldwide. We invite you to join us.
And now, please join me in welcoming Karen Worth, Chair of Elementary Education at Wheelock College. Karen teaches courses in elementary education and science education for both pre-service and in-service teachers at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She has done extensive development work in science education. A current focus is developing teacher skills in the use of language in science as a critical tool for scientific reasoning. Karen has been the principal investigator on a number of National Science Foundation projects in which she developed and published science curriculum materials for early childhood and elementary classrooms and led large-scale efforts to support the implementation of inquiry-based science programs in schools.
She was part of the development team for the National Science Education Standards, chairing the Working Group on Science Teaching Standards. She consults nationally and internationally on the implementations of inquiry-based science programs for children at pre-school and elementary levels and has served as an advisor to several informal science organizations, public television stations, and national science reform projects.
Karen is a recipient of the Exploratorium's Outstanding Educator Award for her work in science education, the international Purkwa prize for improving the scientific literacy of the children of the planet, and the NSTA Distinguished Service Award.
Karen Worth- Keynote
Keynote at the Opening of the Hawkins Exhibit at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum by Karen Worth, Chair, Elementary Education Department
Wheelock College
January 10, 2014
I am very pleased to be here for the opening of the Hawkins Exhibit. I have a number of connections both personal and professional with the Hawkins’, as well as with this part of the country.
I came to Los Alamos when I was a year old with my family. My father, Victor Weisskopf was a physicist there. The families lived in wooden buildings - four apartments in each, two on the ground floor and two on the second floor. We were on the second floor, and Frances, David, and Julie were beneath us. My parents had come to the US in 1937. Frances became my Danish mother’s first close American friend, and David and Frances became my second parents. The Hawkins’ and we left Los Alamos in 1945 after the war. We came to Boston, and they went to Washington, DC before ending up in Boulder, Colorado. For the first 20 years of my life, my relationship with the Hawkins’ was a very personal one. We would visit in Colorado, and they spent time in Boston.
I entered Radcliffe College in 1960 and eventually majored in biology. But those were the 60’s, and many of us were deeply engaged with social and political causes. As I began to look to the future after college, Frances and David became my mentors, guiding me into education. Once I was there, they also became colleagues, and I connected with them on many parts of their journey and mine - particularly those years in which science education was their and my main focus. They were a constant powerful presence in what I did. I visited the Filmore School in the mid 60’s with Frances and Claire Ulam Weiner, seeing Frances at work with the children she wrote about in her book, Logic of Action in the mid-60’s. I was a frequent visitor at Educational Services Inc. (ESI) in Boston when David was director of the Elementary Science Study (ESS) from 1962-6. I spent a year in Leicester, England in1964-65 thanks to their arrangements. This was a very progressive school system then – in many ways, in terms of its impact, it was the Reggio of that time. I learned about what the Hawkins’ had seen when they were there and the influence it had on them and visa versa. I was in Africa for 3 summers in 1965-1967 (not with but after them) with the African Primary Science Program of which they were both inspiration and participants. When I taught in NYC from 1966-1970, Frances came with her wisdom to my classroom. And, I was in and out of the Mountain View Center during summer visits as well as an avid reader of Outlook Magazine.
All this came full circle in the 80’s when the National Science Foundation (NSF) began again funding elementary science curriculum development, and I became the Project Leader of one of the several NSF funded elementary science curriculum development projects – Insights. This and others – STC and FOSS that you use here – draw directly and are built on the foundations of the programs of the 60’s.
So, from 1943 until Frances and Dave passed away I saw and experienced many threads of their lives and the rich and changing tapestry they created - that tapestry hangs somewhere in my mind’s eye continuing to influence the work I do.
But this event is about them not me. There is much here in this exhibit that speaks to the philosophy and their ideas about children, teaching, and learning that is part of their legacy to us. I would like to share a few reflections about them and some other lessons I think we can and must take from their work that hopefully add to what is here. I think of four - they are not really separable but I have separated them as a way to think and talk about them.
The first reflection is about their working relationship. This was a remarkable professional partnership. It was an extraordinary combination - two people who brought different intellectual underpinnings and experiences to their work in education and blended them in extraordinary ways. There was Frances with her depth of understanding of young children both theoretical and practical, her years of classroom experience, and her profound ability to analyze children’s behaviors and reflect on her teaching. And there was David, a philosopher, historian of science, deeply knowledgeable about science and mathematics and many other things, with an intense interest in just about everything.
Their work together in education – science education in particular - was founded in this partnership. David wrote the following about their working relationship. He was for the first time teaching physical science (not philosophy) to a group of freshman/sophomores. The class and working with the ideas of squares and cubes – something they had studied before and was astonished at their lack of understanding. He shared this with Frances. And here I quote from the introduction to his book, The Roots of Literacy (p. viii), published in 2000.
“Since those times we have been collaborators, in one way or another, and much of my writing owes a major debt to her insights about leaning and teaching….
My strongest impulse is always to theorize, hers to look at the scatter – sometimes the wide scattering – of ways in which children actually do learn. There are fields in which the best practice is well ahead of the prevailing theory and the field of early education is one of them…
So one lesson is about the power of true collaboration. Today we have too little of this kind of partnership or collaboration among subject matter academics, practitioners, researchers, and community members, and certainly too little respect for the classroom teachers and the outstanding practice that takes place in some of our classrooms.
My second reflection is about Frances and David’s profound belief that teaching children is a complex, creative, and highly intellectual endeavor. Frances, the teacher, brought a deep theoretical and intellectual perspective to her work, as well as the influence of literature and, she would say, her grandmother. In her introduction to Journey with Children, in a brief section titled Practice and Theory (p.12), she writes about her writing.
“In reflecting on this pattern [in her stories about children] I have come to understand how practice and theory have been interwoven all along, a weft and warp that belong in all my stories.”
And David writes the following in the ESS Reader (1964) about them but also about others who worked on ESS.
We who have been involved in the study of science and children have ourselves been changed in the process – in some ways not easy to express, we have been liberated. Those of us who knew children before science have now seen the former (and ourselves as well) in a new light- as inventors, as analysts, as synthesizers, as home lovers, lovers of the world of nature. Those of us who knew science first and children after have an altered and more childlike view of science - more humane, more playful, and even at its most ‘elementary’, full of the most unexpected delights.
So a second lesson is about their appreciation of the complexity, the creativity, and intellectual challenge of teaching. Today, teachers are still seen too often as implementers of the knowledge of others – researchers/curriculum developers/test makers - rather than co-creators. I believe this leads directly to the heavy-handed accountability systems and programmed curriculum that can undermine our schools and are currently in the fore in many places.
The third reflection comes from Frances and David’s shared belief in the uniqueness and fascination of individuals of all ages, coupled with their passionate commitment to social justice and the role of education in achieving that justice. David would engage anyone in conversation with a genuine interest in who they were and what they did. Frances too, less tolerant at times of adults, found strengths and fascination in every child she encountered. One has only to ask the throngs of people of all ages who crossed the threshold of their Mountain View home what that meant and how it played out. Evidence lies in their work as well. Frances taught children and teachers in Head Start and the South End in Boston. They both worked at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation for a number of years, and I would suggest that one of the reasons for their deep interest in Reggio Emilia was that this wonderful environment, a response to the disruption of war, was for all children of all socio-economic levels in Reggio.
So another lesson is about the need for a high quality educational system based in practice and research that values learners and learning and teachers and teaching because it is a right for all and not because we need to compete with the rest of the world or serve our economy (although it might do that as well).
Finally I want to reflect on the science piece, not only for its lessons but to highlight David’s contributions in particular. (This is not to diminish Frances’ role, but David was the public face.) I start with a bit of history (my version). The late 50’s /60’s was a time of renewed interest in science education as a foundation for modern citizenship. Some key leaders in the physics science community took this on: Jerold Zacharias, Phil Morrison, and Kenneth Friedman at MIT; Robert Karplus at Berkeley; and members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS.) And there were cognitive scientists involved as well - Jerome Bruner and Jean Piaget. The latter influenced how we thought about learning; the scientists brought their views of the nature of science. The first step was the funding by NSF of a high school physics project – The Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC). And then came elementary curriculum. A lot of money came from NSF to fund projects that resulted in several curricula: Elementary Science Study (ESS) the precursor to Insights and Science Technology Concepts (STC), Science A Process Approach(SAPA), Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) precursor to Full Option Science study (FOSS). This was the world that Frances and David entered when they came to a summer workshop on science education in Boston. They stayed on when David became the first director of the ESS program at Education Studies, Inc (ESI) as Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) was called then.
I would argue that David was a remarkable director at a critical time. His leadership embodied all I have talked about. He built a culture of openness, collaboration, intellectualism, creativity, and experimentation. There was enormous intellectual and creative energy at the ESS workspace and, yes, 56 units were created, but more importantly the process made a tremendous contribution to how we think about how children learn science - a foundation we still build on today.
What did it feel like and look like? 1) There was a great deal of trial and error. If something worked – great. If something did not, fine too. The point was to learn, abandon, revise, or try again. 2) Ideas were pursued because they were scientifically fascinating, and tangents were valued just in case they might prove productive. But the work was not random – people were pursuing interesting ideas that were grounded in what they knew something about and thought might prove interesting. No standards and progressions here, but this was not trivial science. There was great interest in and discussion of the work of Piaget and Bruner, and David brought his profound knowledge and love of John Dewey. 3) Success was based not in content outcome measures but rather whether the materials worked and were rich in possibilities for inquiry, the ideas interesting, and whether kids were engaged in challenging thought, questioning, and investigation. Learning mattered - content specific outcomes had their place, but so did much more. And finally 4) collaboration was key. Teachers, science educators, cognitive scientists and scientists worked intimately together, and discussion was on going.
David’s writing, of course, in book after book and article after article speaks to what guided him and others during that time. Here is one example:
So offered to children, “science” is not an indigestible regime, though it opens books to them. It is not a standardized array of “processes” weighed out and calibrated in units of performance, though it opens the way to the disciplines of method. It is not a hierarchy of eminent “concepts” abstracted from currently fashionable synopses: it is watchful and respectful rather, of the conceptual powers of children, active or latent, when they are invited into play and observed responsively.
For decades after ESS, David became a powerful voice for this kind of elementary science education (really for a certain kind of education) that influenced NSF, the National Academy, and many scientists and educators here and abroad. He was not alone, of course, and that’s important to emphasize. He and Frances would have hated to see themselves put on a pedestal. We know many of the other giants: the physicists, Gerald Zacharias and Phil Morrison; Frank Oppenheimer at the Exploratorium; Eleanor Duckworth at Harvard; and countless practitioners whose voices in our society then and still now are rarely heard or acknowledged. But David’s writing and the talks he gave and the interactions he had were of a special kind, drawing people and ideas and action together across fields.
I will end by saying that what we all should be up to is not trying to reproduce what the Hawkins’ did. We live in a very different world. There are many changes for the better. There is again an interest in science, with an added emphasis on engineering. There is new knowledge on learning affirming much of what was known back then but adding to that knowledge as well. Technology is in the hands of even our toddlers. BUT there is also an educational environment where risk is problematic, tangents are seen as distracting, and play seems banished from schools. Lists of what should be learned come first, outcomes must be measureable, and teachers are evaluated on narrow test scores.
ESS is no longer on the shelves, and the writings of the Hawkins and others are no longer available or read by many. But there are descendants; curriculum programs, museum exhibits, classrooms and schools here and there, and this exhibit. We still have this legacy and must keep it alive. In the 80’s the values and philosophy was very much alive and built upon. Today it is certainly not the rhetoric we hear. But it is there to be built on again. Much will look quite different for good reasons. We grow more and more diverse, and the demands of society are changing. Some will look different because of the compromises we will have to make. But I would suggest that we must affirm and use the foundations of what the Hawkins’ thought and believed: the values they espoused especially those of social justice; the philosophy on which their work was based; the deep respect they held for teachers; the belief they had in the power of children’s thinking; and the openness and collaboration that was the hallmark of their personal partnership and their work with others.
Wheelock College
January 10, 2014
I am very pleased to be here for the opening of the Hawkins Exhibit. I have a number of connections both personal and professional with the Hawkins’, as well as with this part of the country.
I came to Los Alamos when I was a year old with my family. My father, Victor Weisskopf was a physicist there. The families lived in wooden buildings - four apartments in each, two on the ground floor and two on the second floor. We were on the second floor, and Frances, David, and Julie were beneath us. My parents had come to the US in 1937. Frances became my Danish mother’s first close American friend, and David and Frances became my second parents. The Hawkins’ and we left Los Alamos in 1945 after the war. We came to Boston, and they went to Washington, DC before ending up in Boulder, Colorado. For the first 20 years of my life, my relationship with the Hawkins’ was a very personal one. We would visit in Colorado, and they spent time in Boston.
I entered Radcliffe College in 1960 and eventually majored in biology. But those were the 60’s, and many of us were deeply engaged with social and political causes. As I began to look to the future after college, Frances and David became my mentors, guiding me into education. Once I was there, they also became colleagues, and I connected with them on many parts of their journey and mine - particularly those years in which science education was their and my main focus. They were a constant powerful presence in what I did. I visited the Filmore School in the mid 60’s with Frances and Claire Ulam Weiner, seeing Frances at work with the children she wrote about in her book, Logic of Action in the mid-60’s. I was a frequent visitor at Educational Services Inc. (ESI) in Boston when David was director of the Elementary Science Study (ESS) from 1962-6. I spent a year in Leicester, England in1964-65 thanks to their arrangements. This was a very progressive school system then – in many ways, in terms of its impact, it was the Reggio of that time. I learned about what the Hawkins’ had seen when they were there and the influence it had on them and visa versa. I was in Africa for 3 summers in 1965-1967 (not with but after them) with the African Primary Science Program of which they were both inspiration and participants. When I taught in NYC from 1966-1970, Frances came with her wisdom to my classroom. And, I was in and out of the Mountain View Center during summer visits as well as an avid reader of Outlook Magazine.
All this came full circle in the 80’s when the National Science Foundation (NSF) began again funding elementary science curriculum development, and I became the Project Leader of one of the several NSF funded elementary science curriculum development projects – Insights. This and others – STC and FOSS that you use here – draw directly and are built on the foundations of the programs of the 60’s.
So, from 1943 until Frances and Dave passed away I saw and experienced many threads of their lives and the rich and changing tapestry they created - that tapestry hangs somewhere in my mind’s eye continuing to influence the work I do.
But this event is about them not me. There is much here in this exhibit that speaks to the philosophy and their ideas about children, teaching, and learning that is part of their legacy to us. I would like to share a few reflections about them and some other lessons I think we can and must take from their work that hopefully add to what is here. I think of four - they are not really separable but I have separated them as a way to think and talk about them.
The first reflection is about their working relationship. This was a remarkable professional partnership. It was an extraordinary combination - two people who brought different intellectual underpinnings and experiences to their work in education and blended them in extraordinary ways. There was Frances with her depth of understanding of young children both theoretical and practical, her years of classroom experience, and her profound ability to analyze children’s behaviors and reflect on her teaching. And there was David, a philosopher, historian of science, deeply knowledgeable about science and mathematics and many other things, with an intense interest in just about everything.
Their work together in education – science education in particular - was founded in this partnership. David wrote the following about their working relationship. He was for the first time teaching physical science (not philosophy) to a group of freshman/sophomores. The class and working with the ideas of squares and cubes – something they had studied before and was astonished at their lack of understanding. He shared this with Frances. And here I quote from the introduction to his book, The Roots of Literacy (p. viii), published in 2000.
“Since those times we have been collaborators, in one way or another, and much of my writing owes a major debt to her insights about leaning and teaching….
My strongest impulse is always to theorize, hers to look at the scatter – sometimes the wide scattering – of ways in which children actually do learn. There are fields in which the best practice is well ahead of the prevailing theory and the field of early education is one of them…
So one lesson is about the power of true collaboration. Today we have too little of this kind of partnership or collaboration among subject matter academics, practitioners, researchers, and community members, and certainly too little respect for the classroom teachers and the outstanding practice that takes place in some of our classrooms.
My second reflection is about Frances and David’s profound belief that teaching children is a complex, creative, and highly intellectual endeavor. Frances, the teacher, brought a deep theoretical and intellectual perspective to her work, as well as the influence of literature and, she would say, her grandmother. In her introduction to Journey with Children, in a brief section titled Practice and Theory (p.12), she writes about her writing.
“In reflecting on this pattern [in her stories about children] I have come to understand how practice and theory have been interwoven all along, a weft and warp that belong in all my stories.”
And David writes the following in the ESS Reader (1964) about them but also about others who worked on ESS.
We who have been involved in the study of science and children have ourselves been changed in the process – in some ways not easy to express, we have been liberated. Those of us who knew children before science have now seen the former (and ourselves as well) in a new light- as inventors, as analysts, as synthesizers, as home lovers, lovers of the world of nature. Those of us who knew science first and children after have an altered and more childlike view of science - more humane, more playful, and even at its most ‘elementary’, full of the most unexpected delights.
So a second lesson is about their appreciation of the complexity, the creativity, and intellectual challenge of teaching. Today, teachers are still seen too often as implementers of the knowledge of others – researchers/curriculum developers/test makers - rather than co-creators. I believe this leads directly to the heavy-handed accountability systems and programmed curriculum that can undermine our schools and are currently in the fore in many places.
The third reflection comes from Frances and David’s shared belief in the uniqueness and fascination of individuals of all ages, coupled with their passionate commitment to social justice and the role of education in achieving that justice. David would engage anyone in conversation with a genuine interest in who they were and what they did. Frances too, less tolerant at times of adults, found strengths and fascination in every child she encountered. One has only to ask the throngs of people of all ages who crossed the threshold of their Mountain View home what that meant and how it played out. Evidence lies in their work as well. Frances taught children and teachers in Head Start and the South End in Boston. They both worked at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation for a number of years, and I would suggest that one of the reasons for their deep interest in Reggio Emilia was that this wonderful environment, a response to the disruption of war, was for all children of all socio-economic levels in Reggio.
So another lesson is about the need for a high quality educational system based in practice and research that values learners and learning and teachers and teaching because it is a right for all and not because we need to compete with the rest of the world or serve our economy (although it might do that as well).
Finally I want to reflect on the science piece, not only for its lessons but to highlight David’s contributions in particular. (This is not to diminish Frances’ role, but David was the public face.) I start with a bit of history (my version). The late 50’s /60’s was a time of renewed interest in science education as a foundation for modern citizenship. Some key leaders in the physics science community took this on: Jerold Zacharias, Phil Morrison, and Kenneth Friedman at MIT; Robert Karplus at Berkeley; and members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS.) And there were cognitive scientists involved as well - Jerome Bruner and Jean Piaget. The latter influenced how we thought about learning; the scientists brought their views of the nature of science. The first step was the funding by NSF of a high school physics project – The Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC). And then came elementary curriculum. A lot of money came from NSF to fund projects that resulted in several curricula: Elementary Science Study (ESS) the precursor to Insights and Science Technology Concepts (STC), Science A Process Approach(SAPA), Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) precursor to Full Option Science study (FOSS). This was the world that Frances and David entered when they came to a summer workshop on science education in Boston. They stayed on when David became the first director of the ESS program at Education Studies, Inc (ESI) as Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) was called then.
I would argue that David was a remarkable director at a critical time. His leadership embodied all I have talked about. He built a culture of openness, collaboration, intellectualism, creativity, and experimentation. There was enormous intellectual and creative energy at the ESS workspace and, yes, 56 units were created, but more importantly the process made a tremendous contribution to how we think about how children learn science - a foundation we still build on today.
What did it feel like and look like? 1) There was a great deal of trial and error. If something worked – great. If something did not, fine too. The point was to learn, abandon, revise, or try again. 2) Ideas were pursued because they were scientifically fascinating, and tangents were valued just in case they might prove productive. But the work was not random – people were pursuing interesting ideas that were grounded in what they knew something about and thought might prove interesting. No standards and progressions here, but this was not trivial science. There was great interest in and discussion of the work of Piaget and Bruner, and David brought his profound knowledge and love of John Dewey. 3) Success was based not in content outcome measures but rather whether the materials worked and were rich in possibilities for inquiry, the ideas interesting, and whether kids were engaged in challenging thought, questioning, and investigation. Learning mattered - content specific outcomes had their place, but so did much more. And finally 4) collaboration was key. Teachers, science educators, cognitive scientists and scientists worked intimately together, and discussion was on going.
David’s writing, of course, in book after book and article after article speaks to what guided him and others during that time. Here is one example:
So offered to children, “science” is not an indigestible regime, though it opens books to them. It is not a standardized array of “processes” weighed out and calibrated in units of performance, though it opens the way to the disciplines of method. It is not a hierarchy of eminent “concepts” abstracted from currently fashionable synopses: it is watchful and respectful rather, of the conceptual powers of children, active or latent, when they are invited into play and observed responsively.
For decades after ESS, David became a powerful voice for this kind of elementary science education (really for a certain kind of education) that influenced NSF, the National Academy, and many scientists and educators here and abroad. He was not alone, of course, and that’s important to emphasize. He and Frances would have hated to see themselves put on a pedestal. We know many of the other giants: the physicists, Gerald Zacharias and Phil Morrison; Frank Oppenheimer at the Exploratorium; Eleanor Duckworth at Harvard; and countless practitioners whose voices in our society then and still now are rarely heard or acknowledged. But David’s writing and the talks he gave and the interactions he had were of a special kind, drawing people and ideas and action together across fields.
I will end by saying that what we all should be up to is not trying to reproduce what the Hawkins’ did. We live in a very different world. There are many changes for the better. There is again an interest in science, with an added emphasis on engineering. There is new knowledge on learning affirming much of what was known back then but adding to that knowledge as well. Technology is in the hands of even our toddlers. BUT there is also an educational environment where risk is problematic, tangents are seen as distracting, and play seems banished from schools. Lists of what should be learned come first, outcomes must be measureable, and teachers are evaluated on narrow test scores.
ESS is no longer on the shelves, and the writings of the Hawkins and others are no longer available or read by many. But there are descendants; curriculum programs, museum exhibits, classrooms and schools here and there, and this exhibit. We still have this legacy and must keep it alive. In the 80’s the values and philosophy was very much alive and built upon. Today it is certainly not the rhetoric we hear. But it is there to be built on again. Much will look quite different for good reasons. We grow more and more diverse, and the demands of society are changing. Some will look different because of the compromises we will have to make. But I would suggest that we must affirm and use the foundations of what the Hawkins’ thought and believed: the values they espoused especially those of social justice; the philosophy on which their work was based; the deep respect they held for teachers; the belief they had in the power of children’s thinking; and the openness and collaboration that was the hallmark of their personal partnership and their work with others.
