SAGAN SAYS STUDENTS NEED TO LEARN THAT DUMB QUESTIONS DON'T EXIST

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 18, 1993                   TAG: 9301160330
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: TOM SIEGFRIED KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: PHOENIX, ARIZ.                                LENGTH: Medium
SAGAN SAYS STUDENTS NEED TO LEARN THAT DUMB QUESTIONS DON'T EXIST
Between the first and the 12th grades, something horrible happens to American children, says Carl Sagan. And he doesn't mean puberty.
Sagan, the Cornell University astronomer famous for his books and the TV series "Cosmos," has from time to time ventured to elementary and high school classrooms.
"If I go to teach the first grade, I always find a class full of scientists," Sagan told journalists last week at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "They are enthusiastic about asking things, they know what are important questions . . . they're not concerned about peer pressure."
But enter a classroom of high school juniors or seniors, and it's a different world, as similar to the first grade as icy Pluto is to torrid Mercury.
"Then kids come with questions written out," Sagan said. "They read the questions and that fulfills their obligation - they don't actually have to hear the answer. . . . Kids are very concerned about peer pressure, so they're looking around to see if the other kids approve their question."
The difference in attitude toward science between first and 12th grade is "absolutely stunning," Sagan said. "Something terrible has happened to these kids in the interim."
What's happened, Sagan believes, is kids learn something they shouldn't have - that there's such a thing as a dumb question.
They learn this ugly falsehood in many ways, he said. Such as by asking a good question in class and having a grouchy teacher order them to look it up in the book. Or by asking a deep question that sounds stupidly simple: Why is the moon round? Why is grass green?
Too commonly, the response from adults is something like, "What did you expect the moon to be, square? What did you expect grass to be, purple?"
Many better answers are available, Sagan insists. Like, "That's a good question, let's look it up in the encyclopedia." Or, "Maybe nobody knows - maybe when you grow up you'll be the first person to find out the answer."
Discouraging the natural scientific curiosity of kids is just one of the causes of scientific illiteracy, which afflicts the United States like drought in Death Valley.
Correcting this condition is important for many reasons, Sagan said.
For one thing, science feeds a fundamental human craving for information about the origins of things.
"Every human community has somehow or other tried to understand . . . deep questions of origins. Origin of our group, whatever it is, origin of our species, origin of life, origin of the Earth, origin of the universe," Sagan said. "I think you have to be made out of wood not to be interested in these questions. And there's no way to understand even the questions, much less the answers, without understanding science."
For those who prefer practicality to profundity, there's economic competitiveness.
"The general competence in and understanding of science is in steady decline, and the economic consequences are very severe," Sagan asserted. "If the United States wishes to be a world leader in manufacturing and high technology, it must have a citizenry that understands what that's about."
Even more important, he declared, is the need to instill a better understanding and application of scientific ways of thinking - in particular, scientific skepticism.
"Science . . . looks skeptically at all claims to knowledge, old and new. It teaches not blind obedience to those in authority but vigorous debate, and in many respects that's the secret of its success. This sense of general skepticism . . . I believe we could use much more of in our social and political and economic institutions."
Impediments to improving scientific literacy pervade society, however. Sagan sees problems everywhere, from unwillingness to raise taxes for improving education to the lack of network TV series with scientists as role models.
"You have people called science correspondents for the major networks, but they never talk about science," Sagan said. "Virtually every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly science column?"
Well, some do, but not enough. And the societal problem runs deeper - it's not just science that suffers, but intellectual activities of all sorts.
"There is an uneasiness about thinking, about intellectual endeavor . . . that permeates the society, and that is clearly extremely dangerous," Sagan said. "If these issues are to be faced, if these problems are to be solved, the changes have to go up and down the society. . . .
"I think it is an essential aspect of the national health and well-being to have not just professional scientists who are happy and healthy, but to have a broad population of citizens who are comfortable with science and ask tough questions and make informed decisions."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB