The Relationship of Technology To Science and the Teaching of Technology
Rustum Roy(1)
INTRODUCTION
TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION NEGLECTED
"Technology" as parallel subject matter
to "science" has never found any major place
in our K-12 system. This is due to the enor-
mous confusion surrounding the question of
the relationships between the icon-words
"Science" and "Technology." In the American
public's belief system, "Science" is a uni-
form good. The American credo affirms "more
scientific research" is certain to be good
for the nation. In economic terms, it fails
to distinguish between a "consumption good"
and an "investment good." Without any thought
or reflection, the U.S. public and its lead-
ers base actions on the proposition that the
supply of new "basic science" is infinite,
that science leads to applied science which
in turn leads to technology and jobs. ALL of
which assumptions are now regarded as, almost
certainly, egregious errors.
The U.S. attitude toward technology, on
the other hand, is much more ambivalent. On
the one hand, "high-tech" carries the same
cachet as "science;" but technology as
polluter, negligent cause of adverse health
effects (from war to asbestos to
"chemicals"), conjures up powerful negative
images.
This situation was compounded by still a
further mistake. This is the fundamental er-
ror made after World War II in America when
victory was ascribed to the atom-bomb (less
than one in a thousand in the population re-
alized that Japan had offered surrender be-
fore the bomb), and the atom-bomb was hailed
and celebrated as a product not of U.S. tech-
nology, but of physics!!! Thus was "science"
ensconced in America's pantheon.
Finally, while "science" (now repres-
ented by its subdivisions of Chemistry, Phys-
ics and Biology) became firmly ensconced in
the school system, vocational education car-
rying many other connotations was the only
toehold which anything resembling
"technology" had within the school system.
Yet today it is possible that another his-
toric shift will allow technology to be re-
entered into mainstream K-12 education.
IMPENDING U.S. DECLINE
The accelerating economic decline in the
U.S. will provide this opportunity. And the
end of the American half-century is now
clearly in sight. The opportunity to return
to a measure of reality will never be
greater. The awareness that the present U.S.
"science-emphasis" approach has been a devas-
tating failure for U.S. technology and the
economy must be proclaimed and reinforced at
every opportunity by anyone concerned about
better technology education.
OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY
Those concerned with technology educa-
tion face an enormous challenge. First, they
must clarify the relationships between sci-
ence and technology, and clarify especially
the place of both in the context of the econ-
omy and the political life of the country.
Second they must re-think, "de novo," how and
what one would teach the AVERAGE CITIZEN
about technology, and secondarily what should
be taught about science.
The purpose of this paper is to describe
the muddle resulting from this linguistic
confusion, and to present some basic defi-
nitions and relationships among science,
technology and society. In addition, we ad-
dress the two questions of what average citi-
zens need to know about science and about
technology.
THE PRESENT MUDDLE
TECHNOLOGY RESCUES THE U.S. AND IS MISLABELED
"SCIENCE"
For 45 years since World War II, U.S.
policymakers have survived on a series of
historical accidents. Victory in war paid
totally unexpected dividends in its
aftermath. The U.S. was the only country
with an enormous industrial machine running
full tilt. This industrial momentum, with
its overcapacity and its energized youthful
leadership became the technological pioneer
and monopolist to the world. But it did so
on a strongly tilted (even if temporarily so)
playing field, and with no opposition. The
most significant policy impact occurred with-
out planning. The many brilliant scientists
-- physicists and chemists -- who had been
doing amateur engineering in Los Alamos,
emerged into the civilian sector with the as-
sertion that it was "American science (espe-
cially nuclear physics) which had won the
war." In the euphoria of the victory, no one
even bothered to challenge this utterly pre-
posterous claim. It was no time to point out
that Japan even had, in effect, surrendered
before the bomb, and it had surrendered be-
cause of superior U.S. munitions production
technology. The modern physics which was
needed for the bomb had all been done in
Germany. If such scientific advances had an-
ything at all to do with making bombs, virtu-
ally any country could make them. If science
conferred any advantage, Germany should have
won hands down. Making nuclear bombs was an
enormous technological achievement, based on
the U.S. enormous technology base in power,
people, and resources. Yet the historical
fact remains that just as Jacob stole Esau's
blessing by sleight of hand (Genesis
27:27-34), a much more serious stealing of
the birthright (the affection of the U.S.
public) of "technology" by "science" occurred
in the late forties. This misrepresentation
-- this golden fleecing a la Senator Proxmire
of stealing the kudos due to technology --
has, does, and will, until rectified, cost
the nation very dearly. Shapley and Roy
(1983) dealt with the impact on national pol-
icy. This paper focuses next on the impact
on education.
WHAT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DO WE NEED?
During the last year or two, all policy
analysts have agreed that U.S. technology is
in deep trouble. Yet, without exception, the
national response to the failure of U.S.
technology is to demand more "science." This
obviously assumes the absurdity that more or
better science in K-12 equals better technol-
ogy in the U.S. Paul Hurd (1989), dean of
U.S. science education, in an elegant analy-
sis of what is wrong with the myriad analyses
of what is wrong with American science educa-
tion, goes down all the alleged failures of
the American schools, point by point, to show
that in almost all cases it was the
allegation that was incorrect. And soon,
therefore, we shall be correcting mistakes
that had not occurred. His central claim is
that the American society's "contract with
the schools" was for certain "services." It
was not that the schools had failed in that
contract, but that American society had
changed radically and now wanted entirely
different "services." Instead of better do-
ing what was apparently required in the old
contract, he suggests that the prior question
is "What does American society want from its
school system?"
In today's economic and political cli-
mate, my view of the tasks which society
would like to have its schools help with, if
not "solve," includes, at least, the
following:
1. Maintain the U.S. living standards,
as perceived by the public and expe-
rienced by a majority of the popu-
lation, as being "the highest in the
world." WHATEVER education is cor-
related with that, will be accepta-
ble to the electorate.
2. Produce recognizably high achievers
in all fields of learning: technol-
ogy, art, humanities, sports, and
science, who will contribute to a
sense of national pre-eminence.
3. Help in the "socialization" of the
minority populations, especially ur-
ban blacks and the new Hispanic and
Asian immigrants; i.e. find meaning-
ful work for them and thereby inte-
grate them into American society.
4. Help in management of the social
crises attendant upon major national
failures -- widespread use of drugs,
family structure dissolution, and so
forth.
5. Educate a sufficient number of citi-
zens to participate in, manage, and
lead a complex technology-overlain
society.
Hurd's point is that many of these are
NEW goals for the school system, and the old
school system cannot possibly "succeed" at
them. In any case, no school system can con-
tribute much to their solution.
All this bears directly on the issue of
science and technology education because the
#1 issue to confront the American populace
and it's leaders in the next decade will be
the economic issue. Most analysts agree that
the speed of decline of the U.S. in terms of
gross national product per capita, world eco-
nomic hegemony, and so forth can only accel-
erate for the next several years. (See
summaries in Roy, 1989; Roy, 1987). Without
question the most significant immediate new
task for the schools (and colleges and
churches) is to prepare U.S. citizens, ON THE
AVERAGE to LOWER THEIR EXPECTATIONS, while
keeping hope alive. This may also, of
course, require the upper third of the popu-
lation to be "schooled" to accept even
steeper declines to restore some equity after
the Reagan years. Even the most enlightened
political leadership cannot get elected on
such a platform of managing economic decline,
even if the alternative is catastrophe. But
they can lead, if and when the groundwork has
been laid in schools and churches to create a
constituency. This is the magnitude of the
task confronting ALL educators. But it does
have a specific bearing on science and tech-
nology education.
EDUCATING AMERICANS IN TECHNOLOGY (AND SCIENCE)
This imminent national economic decline
will present all educators with a tremendous
opportunity because, for the first time in 50
years, the citizen will turn to new sol-
utions. Among these solutions, there is a
chance to rationalize the gross imbalance in
the U.S. in interest, funding, and so forth
favoring "science" at the expense of engi-
neering and technology. But these educators
also face an immensely more difficult
question: What should be the goals, sequence
and scope of content in technology and sci-
ence?
WHAT NEW GOALS?
It is astonishing, as Hurd (1989) points
out, that there is so little agreement on
what the goals and priorities of science and
technology education should be. It is our
view that the broadest goal surely must be to
educate citizens to cope with their present
world. This means that the core of the cur-
riculum must include TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY
(as described below) for every citizen.
Another goal at the other end of the
spectrum would be the preparation of the pro-
fessional college educated scientist and en-
gineer workforce (about 10-15% of the
population). Their curriculum would resemble
most closely the present college-bound sci-
ence tracks in our schools.
In the middle there should be radically
new curriculum options which would combine
much more hands-on practical learning -- not
far from present Technology Education curric-
ula, but with more science. This would put
technology alongside more abstract science in
a new "Applied Science" emphasis. And this
option should be perceived as an equally
prestigious and difficult option as any col-
lege preparation curriculum.
WHAT NEW CONTENT?
CLARIFY DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOGY, AND STS EDUCATORS.
In ALL the sets of options, a major em-
phasis must be placed on correcting old mis-
takes in the national perceptions of what
science is, what technology is, and how they
are related.
A very effective way to make the dis-
tinction is to point out the three rather
sharply separated human communities and their
separate activities; scientists, engineers,
and science-technology teachers. These dis-
tinctions have been well made by Harrison
(1989). Similar distinctions must be made
between the goals of science and technology.
Baruch (1984) put it very well. For stu-
dents, a tabular apposition of the character-
istics of science and technology often
achieves a firmer grasp of the distinctions
than any argumentation. (See Table 1)
TABLE 1
SHORT FORM COMPARISON OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Human study and understanding Human use of human and natural
of nature (natural philosophy) resources to attain a desirable
goal. Obviously, technology is
Observation and reflection was as old as human society: pottery
the main tool in classical bows and arrows, jewelry.
science (partly for religious/
philosophical reasons). Modern
science (300 years ago) added Empirical cut and try is the time
added experimentation tested method of technological
advance. Technology is always
Science is inherently reductionist part of nature + human +
(i.e. ilolate the portion of the artifact system with manifold
universe for study) and can be feedback.
done in complete isolataion
with no feedback loops.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
MODERN SCIENCE MODERN TECHNOLOGY*
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Universal Strongly influenced by local
environment
Precise Fuzzy
Simple truths, equations Complex aggregate of complex
concepts information
Transfers all content a Takes years, and is pointed at
light, to all parts of the world targeted audience
A single individual can understand Needs an entire system (=culture)
and utilize new advances to utilize new science or
technology
Transfers relatively easily Transfer is very complex
Many cultures do it well MIGHT be highly tuned to cultures
that value cooperation and community
over individuals
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Gestation periods are 10-20 years
DEVELOP CLEAR PICTURE OF RELATION OF
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.
Next we must deal with the RELATION of
science to technology. It is imperative to
undo the flat-earth ("science leads to tech-
nology") syndrome all the way through. It
must be made clear with dozens of examples,
starting with Galileo, that technology more
often leads to science than the other way
around. The accurate description of the sci-
ence and technology relation is:
1. Technology leads to science more of-
ten than science leads to technol-
ogy.
2. Technology and science are not in
the same hierarchical plane in human
learning. Technology integrates
science's results with half a dozen
other inputs to reach a goal.
3. Teaching technology and about tech-
nology is important for all citi-
zens, while science is an equally
important addition for a small
(10-15%) subset.
This topic has been developed in detail in
other papers (See, for example Roy, 1989;
Shapley & Roy, 1983).
STRATEGY: PEDAGOGY FROM THE OBVIOUS, INSTEAD
OF THE OBSCURE
From time immemorial, communicating
"techne" was the passing on from generation
to generation of the most important stored up
knowledge and wisdom about the most obvious,
most common, most often encountered human
contacts with those parts of reality which
affect humans the most.
Each generation learned as much as pos-
sible about food, shelter, security, and so
forth and passed it on to the next. For the
last century, and rapidly increasingly over
the last fifty years, school systems have at-
tempted to teach ALL students ABOUT reality
viewed from the particular formalism and
stance of abstract science. This science is
characterized by two key parameters; ab-
straction and mathematicization. These fea-
tures are responsible for the power and rapid
growth of science. They are at the same time
responsible for its unintelligibility to, and
lack of interest for, the vast majority of
the population. Moreover, common sense and
widespread human experience shows that the
vast majority of citizens do NOT need much
abstract science, and only modest
quantification, to function very effectively,
even in a highly technological society. The
last President of the U.S., the chairpersons
of most of our largest corporations, the
leading playwrights, poets, and university
presidents have very little knowledge of the
level of science some now demand of ALL stu-
dents.
A technology-focused curriculum would
eschew abstraction for obviousness. Every
citizen would be expected to know about those
parts of contemporary human experience which
are obvious to all, which affect ALL in daily
living.
A simple algorithm to guide the choice
of what to know, which can expand and deepen
with advancing grade simply by going into
greater detail, is to follow the activities
of an average pupil through an average day.
From the alarm clock, to the light switch, to
the clothes worn, the rubber in the sneakers,
to the stove heating water for coffee, to the
car being driven to work, there is an infi-
nite opportunity to use these objects and ex-
periences for teaching technology and applied
science, and DERIVATIVELY basic science.
This "applied science" must become the NECES-
SARY CORE for all students, prior to being
exposed to ANY abstract science. The beauty
of using the same common human experience --
eating, getting dressed, driving -- is that
they can be updated at each successive age
level; and with increasing depth and sophis-
tication, can form the connecting introduc-
tion to any part of physics, chemistry and
biology. This is the technological literacy
necessary for all citizens; it is also much
better groundwork to make science more likely
to be attractive to larger numbers.
THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE OF TECHNOLOGY AND
SCIENCE
Larkin (1989) has stressed the hierar-
chical structure of knowledge within physics.
This author (Roy, 1986) has made the case
that many applied sciences, such as materials
research, do not lie in the same hierarchical
plane as the basic sciences like physics and
mathematics. In other words, materials re-
search cannot be sandwiched in between phys-
ics and chemistry. The integration of
several subject matters or disciplines, in-
cluding engineering disciplines, combined
with the purposive nature of the work, puts
applied sciences and engineering into a
higher hierarchical plane than the scientific
discipline. In analogous vein, technology is
not a subject alongside physics and chemistry
(See Figure 1). It includes science as one
among many inputs (See Roy's TWO TREE THEORY
in Shapley and Roy, 1983).
The idea that learning science is the
necessary pre-cursor to learning technology
is absurd. All of human history is proof.
Indeed the U.S. Department of Defense has
shown that specific, even "high tech" tasks
can be taught well, without any science. The
entry points into the system of learning
about technology are manifold. Figure 1
shows different routes which may be employed.
FIGURE 1. Hierarchical structure of know-
ledge, showing that technology is not on the
same level as the sciences.
For THE MEDIAN LEARNER, we believe that
the STS route -- entering via the interest in
the societal problem -- is best. Moreover,
it is the only innovation in CONTENT proposed
for alleviation of the so called math/science
crisis. For a 10 percent minority of the
population, entering via science (the present
tradition in the U.S.) MAY be the most effec-
tive. But for a larger minority, the entry
through hands-on technology may be the best.
The U.S. has been losing out on the "brains
in the fingertips" of the artisan the
"techne-ologist" by overstressing the ab-
stract conceptualization as the ONLY way to
learn the science which is related to tech-
nology, and technology itself. The next sec-
tion omits the traditional route of more and
better schools and improved BETTER SCIENCE
CURRICULA, and focuses instead on the new
options.
THE NEW PEDAGOGIC STRATEGY: STS - TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE
It is the author's contention that the
entire student body being exposed to STS will
benefit them in several ways:
1. Students will be much more informed
and aware of the most significant
current issues.
2. They will have been exposed to a
method of critically analyzing such
issues.
3. They will have been made aware of
how technology affects their lives,
and how they may interact with tech-
nology.
4. A higher percentage than at present
may choose to enter engineering,
some because they perceive it as a
means of controlling their own fu-
tures.
5. A higher percentage will become in-
terested in the scientific back-
ground behind the engineering, and
this could result in more candidates
for science degrees.
Thus the STS approach to "science" education
has two separate benefits; making better edu-
cated citizens and possibly increasing en-
rollments in science and engineering.
The STS route can be summarized by Fig-
ure 2.
FIGURE 2. The STS route.
At the conceptual level, this technolog-
ical literacy requires a knowledge and under-
standing of the key generalizations of STS,
all thoroughly explicated through numerous
examples involving national problems from
global climate change to liver transplant al-
locations to high-tech flight from the U.S.,
and so forth.
To acquire technological competence in
this culture, one can take the route through
high school science. This is certainly appro-
priate as a part of this POTENTIALLY deeper
understanding of technology culture for the
5-10 percent who will major in technical sub-
jects in college. How technologically liter-
ate typical science graduates actually are,
is not clear. Nor is it clear how much sci-
ence is optimal at this level. What has been
established as a result of the "new Math,"
"PSSC," and "Chemstudy" approaches, is that
having more and more sophisticated courses in
physics and chemistry in high school has been
counterproductive. Moreover, AIP data show
that the percentage of physics majors who
took no physics in high school is rising and
now approaching 25 percent. It would appear
that BROADENING THE BASE OF SCIENCES taught
in K-12, by requiring the applied sciences
(earth, materials, and medical) is a strategy
which has not been tried. Moreover, this has
the intrinsic pedagogic rationale that learn-
ing science through contact with applied sci-
ence is certainly invaluable in itself, and
may make much better basic scientists also.
Finally we turn to the citizens who will
use more technology and less science in their
life's work; the factory workers and the
repair/service persons of sophisticated ma-
chines from automobiles to copying machines.
What mix of traditional science and modified
technological education courses is optimal?
The need for students with this kind of
training becomes apparent when the U.S. is
compared, for example, with West Germany.
EDUCATING AMERICANS IN TECHNOLOGY
If the foregoing is an accurate, albeit
necessarily qualitative and anecdotal de-
scription of the present situation of educat-
ing Americans about and in technology, it
would call for several radical reforms in the
entire structure and content of K-12 educa-
tion in technology and science.
The major and substantive change should
be in rectifying the gross and unnatural im-
balance in all formal education towards ab-
straction and away from relevance and
concreteness in all technical subject matter.
This kind of change is necessary. This de-
gree of abstraction from felt and experienced
reality is what has isolated the entire cul-
ture of science and technology from the
masses of U.S. citizens. Science must be re-
reified -- lemons and scrubbing ammonia must
be connected to pH, toasters and irons must
lead through fuses to amps, volts and watts.
The metals, plastics, and glasses every
human being uses must be the seedbed from
which the periodic table and thermodynamics
sprouts. Global climate issues daily rein-
force the reality of the earth as a system
from which can issue biodiversity, life
forms, evolution, and so forth. Every ill-
ness, every pill, every surgical procedure,
can serve as the "bait" for biology for an-
other fraction of the students who have not
responded to the abstract approach.
But, and this is of the utmost impor-
tance, it is not because one may entice more
students into entering technology or science
or "appreciating" them that this change must
be made. It is much more fundamental than
that. It is the re-positioning and re-
placement of science back into its place as
one among many human activities, potentials,
values, ideologies, and so forth. Moreover,
it is this that will ultimately rescue basic
science, which is quickly running out of
things to study at a price the public (the
only possible patron) is willing to pay. If
science is not to become baroque, besides be-
ing broke, the bridges to the everyday world
must be strengthened. Fortunately for the
world, the replacement of the British-
American Nobel-prize-dominated economies by
the Japanese economy as the dominant economic
force with its TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN SCIENCE,
will bring home the point to the masses.
Einstein once commented that if a culture's
pipes did not hold water, neither would their
theories. Yet thousands of graduate students
in physics, chemistry, and even regrettably
in electrical engineering, would be baffled
by Einstein's claim of the close connection
between our technology and our science, be-
cause the reductionist paradigm has held that
they can be paid from the public purse to do
theoretical physics without any concern for
their country's economic or technological
base.
It is not appropriate here to try to de-
velop and justify an optimum scope and se-
quence of the courses in science, technology,
and STS, which could optimally educate the
MEDIAN STUDENT. An appropriate mix of K-12
teachers, professors of education, and school
administrators needs to be assembled to do
just that. Yet, from the foregoing one can
summarize some of the elements which should
be present in any new curriculum for an STS
and applied science approach to education of
the median student. Listed below are some of
the key content which would be brought to-
gether under any such curriculum. And Figure
3 provides a VERY VERY rough sketch of the
kind of sequence one could imagine for edu-
cating Americans about and in TECHNOLOGY.
KEY ITEMS TO BE INCLUDED IN NEW CURRICULA
1. Require STS components throughout 6-12
a. Distinction between science and tech-
nology
Relation of science and technology to
Society:STS
b. Role of Science and Technology in the
interaction of Science, Technology,
and Global Society.
2. Introduce formal science via applied sci-
ence courses (Materials, Earth, and Med-
ical Science).
3. Require some "technology" of every stu-
dent in parallel to the science require-
ment in junior and senior high.
4. Shift emphasis of special programs from
very science-talented, to science-
alienated (a fraction of whom are also
talented).
IS STS OPTIONAL IN COLLEGE AND/OR HIGH
SCHOOL?
The place of STS in formal education is
slowly becoming clear. It is, as Figure 4
attempts to show, the interactive heart of
general education. For fifty years the
fissiparous dominant reductionist model,
based on a misunderstanding of good science,
has cut the heart out of general education by
dividing it up among watertight disciplines.
FIGURE 3. Possible STS and technology educa-
tion emphases in the new sequence
STS has emerged today as THE unifying
(across the two-culture divide of S/T and the
Humanities) force. It obviously also emerges
as that central core of general education
which is NOT handed over to a "discipline".
In that respect, STS is a re-invention of the
idea of the UNI-versity as a part, indeed the
very intellectual core, of the Multi-versity.
FIGURE 4. STS has become the CORE of
integrative general education, thereby taking
over the core function of the UNI-versity,
but doing it within the MULTI-versity.
----------------
1 Rustum Roy is Professor and Director of the
Science, Technology, and Society Program, The
Pennsylvania State University, University Park,
PA.
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article or graphic provided credit is given and
the copies are not intended for sale.
Journal of Technology Education Volume 1, Number 2 Spring 1990
