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I agree with what you are saying Jennifer - but somehow I did make the decision to
go into science.  And whether it was my upbringing or whatever, I was always aware
that there wasn't going to be much money in it, but that didn't bother me.  I do
see though, that money is a big issue to most people, and I also see how 'science'
appears to high school students picking their GCSEs.  I have a brother who is 14
and will soon make these decisions, and it is all too clear how haphazard the
basis for decision making will be.

I might be an exception to the problem facing science; I am not only female, I
have completed a degree and will be starting a PhD in physiology/biochemistry, I
even have friends, wear make-up and goto clubs.  But I would love to see this as
not an exception.  I would really love to see the sort of intelligent, energetic
people I meet every day having made the decision to go into science rather than
business or other highly paid jobs...or more often, rather than having gone for a
totally different kettle of fish and decided there was no career suitable for them
and they'd rather float around the world feeling vaguely dissolusioned.

There has been so much talk about the problems science faces with lack of funding,
lack of appeal to young people, lack of public understanding.  Noone seems to have
any real suggestions about what can be done.  I may spend the odd evening trying
to stick up for it with people I meet, but I would much rather think there was
some way in which people who care could make a real difference.  Maybe there are
other people out there like me who have the advantage of being old enough to know
what they are talking about, but young enough, and 'in touch' enough to realise
the basic problems which science has in appealing to people.

Any ideas?

Anna Durrans


Jennifer Gristock wrote:

> > "R.W.D.Nickalls" wrote:
> >
> > "In my view, one of the most serious problems school children
> > face when trying to decide whether to follow a science
> > career is the difficulty if finding out what the financial
> > rewards are in different areas, arts, science, media, TV etc.
> >
> > "Is there a conspiracy of silence here? Why is this
> > information not easily available?"
>
> I'm sure it is true that school children aren't aware of the possible
> financial/career benefits they can reap by choosing to do science - at school
> or at college. (If they can afford it now- but that's another question).
>
> However, this is not the whole story. For a start, the fact is that UK
> children currently choose between an arts and a science career at 13 or 14,
> when they choose their GCSE options. This is hardly helpful. At that age, the
> majority of kids don't have the maturity to choose their lessons with their
> life at 24+ in mind. Most thirteen-year-olds think that the the day they will
> be old enough to drink alcohol and legally get into nightclubs is a lfetime
> away.
>
> At 13, lessons are chosen for all sorts of bizarre reasons. At my school, the
> rumour was that you could not get into Oxbridge without Latin. Hmmm. Girls
> were forbidden to do metalwork and woodwork. Boys did not do what was
> laughingly called 'Home Economics' (dictated notes about the correct way to
> fold socks were involved, I believe). My best friend chose not to do Welsh
> because she hated the teacher, who disliked her because she liked to put
> powder on her eyelids. Regrettably, I chose not to do biology because I
> believed I was too much of a wuss to be able to dissect worms, rats or
> anything else without passing out.
>
> My point is that no child of 13 has a perspective so well-developed they can
> make such life-changing decisions. If A levels to get broader, perhaps we can
> postpone the science/arts decision so that it occurs at an age when kids are
> ready for it.
>
> The school world is a bubble. Between the bells at 8.20 and 3.25, children
> cross into an alternative universe. The rules are simple. You have to be the
> same as everyone else, preferably slightly 'cooler' than most. If you are
> cool, you are skilled at an activity which is fashionable in the
> school-bubble, or is anti-authority. Perhaps you may be great at football,
> maybe you have an expert touch with an eye-pencil (oh, so very Eighties! A
> belly peircing might be the nineties version). Perhaps you smoke, perhaps you
> are female and ridiculously thin. This is the route to credibility. Children
> torture themselves because they do not rank well in such a hierarchy. It is
> pitiful but true.
>
> School grades are important, too. If you are a girl, low marks aren't very
> cool. For boys, high marks in certain subjects can be an embarrassment. Both
> sexes, boys especially, try desperately not to appear as if they have worked
> hard. It is uncool. This is planet secondary school in the nineties. If you
> want hurt a girl in this universe, criticise her appearance. If you want to
> damage a boy's reputation, expose him as 'caring' about anything.
>
> It is a very, very strange place.
>
> Pupils also know that it is easier to get an 'A' in an arts subject than it is
> in a science subject. If you want to do reasonably well, but appear not to be
> working constantly, small wonder that arts subjects are seen as just the
> ticket.
>
> > From: "Ian Russell" wrote:
>
> > I have a teenage daughter. She never ceases to tell me that I, and pretty
> > well everybody with whom I communicate and share common values, are
> > hopelessly out of touch.
>
> She's right. We are. And, of course, we look at her world, shake our heads and
> fail to understand why, 'cool' language, length of skirt or height of heel can
> cause such misery.
>
> To her, the school language and the school dress code (the real one that
> exists in children's heads; not the uniform in the propectus!) determines her
> place in school society, To us, the obsession with what we see as 'trivial'
> details exposes a peer system that is cruel, dumb and superficial.
>
> > So, there we have it, in a form which shouldn't embarrass my daughter:
> >
> > "Is science cool or sad?"
> >
> > But hang on, what do we mean by "science"?
>
> Great point, just the right question.
>
> Science at school is not cool. From a kid's perspective, it is taught mostly
> by men with poor dress taste who make little effort to relate the subject to
> real life (which has to be the child's life, because they have not
> experrienced anything else). Choosing it means choosing a lesson which is made
> up mostly of boys (ugh! what an environment from a girl's perspective), has
> the prospect of sweatier studying and for lower grades.
>
> Post-school science in the real world. Is that cool? How can kids tell? To
> them, it does not exist. Most children have no idea what a 'scientist' does
> for a living. Just as 'science' no longer exists as a career (replaced by a
> myriad of specialisms) so the public image of what a 'scientist' does has
> crumbled into the dust. It was replaced some time ago by the Holywood/Washing
> powder labcoat wearing version. But we all know that this variety does nothing
> but cause pretty-coloured liquids to explode/hold a clipboard and a white
> shirt whilst sporting a bad hairstyle and big glasses.
>
> Post-school science at university. Is that cool? Not in Fresher-world it
> isn't. Chat to a French student at college. How many hours a week? Four?
> Eight? A science or engineering student will be in lectures 20 hours a week or
> so. Maybe more. Plus labs. Don't forget labs. Experiments which are often
> laid-out so stiffly a parrot would fall asleep trying to follow them.
>
> Of course, by the end of their courses, most students have cottoned on to the
> idea that employers are falling over themselves trying to attract science and
> engineering students, but jobs for arts students are rather harder to come by,
> if a career in Macdonalds isn't your idea of fun. Ditto for further research.
> British Academy funding? You're kidding, right? EPSRC? That's more like it.
>
> This is rather late to discover the financial rewards of a career in science.
> But 13 is too early for the information to have any meaning. What we need is
> the right information at the right time in children's lives. Delivered in a
> form that has meaning to them.
>
> > "Is it cool or sad to be interested in why things happen the way they do?"
> >
>
> Another interesting question. Since the scientific method is widely accepted
> (you can see it being abused in cosmetics adverts and packaging, all over the
> world, for example) it has become lost. I did a whole degree in engineering
> before even discussing what the scientific process was. (With a philosopher.
> Reader, I married him.)
>
> If we don't teach science and engineering students about what makes scientific
> enquiry special, how can we expect the process to be associated with the
> subject?
>
> By that I mean, how can we create a situation where science is first and
> foremost percieved to be about "an interest in why things happen" as opposed
> to "an interest in green liquid in odd-shaped bottles".
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Jenny Gristock
> Writer, SPRU PhD researcher,
> University of Sussex, Brighton,
> UK.
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/prpk1/index.html
> _____________________________________________________________________





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