I was watching ITV the other day – there is an unsubstantiated rumour that the programme I was watching was the ‘Xtra-factor’. And that is just what it is, a rumour and an unsubstantiated one at that! Anyway, I digress I was watching ITV and an advertisement, probably funded by some government agency, trying to boost the number students choosing to study science came on. On its own this piece of news is as unremarkable as an unremarkable object sitting in a grey room surrounded by other unremarkable things.
But when this is taken with the news (I was watching BBC Breakfast the following morning) that health and safety fears are forcing science teachers to stop children participating in experiments - urging them to watch experiments on the internet instead, then the news suddenly became as ridiculous as Tom Hank’s hair in ‘The Da Vinci Code’!
So the best way of getting children interested in science is to remove as much hands on experience as you can from their lessons and bore them with endless theory? Quick, someone catch me, I think I’m about to faint from the thought of all that excitement. Now this kind of gets my goat on a few levels...
God isn't it lucky that the Health & Safety experts are here to ensure the survival of the human race. I mean it’s not like humans managed to exist for millions of years before they began helpfully pointing out every potential harmful chemical, situation or routine for us. Seriously, I read a report the other day that said children shouldn't be allowed to play in parks because there is lead in the soil. LEAD IN THE SOIL!!!! That’s the whole reason? When I was a kid I’m pretty sure I ate a lot of mud, and guess what I’m still here and I don’t have a foot where my ear should be!
I mean why try to eliminate the practical element of learning when surely it’s one of the best methods of teaching; not only by engaging students but by also teaching them the basics of handling laboratory equipment? That’s an important skill that will be required if they decide to continue in their scientific studies or careers – surely Lab Technicians started somewhere?
I remember when I was studying A-Level Chemistry and even at GCSE Chemistry, we were encouraged to develop a respect for the laboratory and its chemicals, something this ruling would rob from budding scientists. Any really dangerous experiments were done by our teacher or the lab assistant behind a screen – but we still got to experience them!
Honestly, I find it difficult to fathom why we as a society have become so afraid of everything causing us damage. Obviously there are risks to everything we do but if we all lived our lives according to those risks, none of us would leave the bloody house – simply sitting in our padded living rooms, slurping liquidised meals through ergonomically designed straws that disintegrate upon with anything other than our exact genetic material.
Don’t worry though; they would have been designed by scientists that learnt how to do it from the internet!
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