human and spend far more time with the students with individual needs. The teacher is not just the giver of the information now, but a sharer in the process of mastering it. There is an interesting analogy from experience with an organization called the English Speaking Union here. After we sent students to spend a senior high school year in England, they came back and said they liked the British system because of the difference in the relationship with the teacher. During the senior year the students were taking national examinations, and the teacher would shift from being a knowledge giver to a coach because together they were trying to conquer the national examinations. They would comment on how they liked that because it took a great deal of tension away from their relationship to the faculty member. Mr. BROWN. Well, your statement reminds me of something that I referred to earlier. I read this in a little book about 25 years ago. It was on automation of education. The author projected some of what you have done here. He said the best teachers in the world have made available to every student the miracles of modern technology. That still hasn't happened, and I am wondering what it would take to make it happen in the next 25 years. Dr. HEUSTON. What it requires is steady and consistent funding, which is a difficult thing. One of our great problems in America is that we are starting to face 5- to 20-year problems, and we have a tradition in our culture of 1 to 3 year funding cycles, and that is simply not enough. I happen to know about this field because I traveled for 5 years for the Sloane Foundation out of New York City as an auxiliary to my educational studies where I reviewed the outstanding educational technologists in this country, and almost without exception at the very time the people were beginning to understand the problems, the grants would run out and funds would disappear, and they would go into a new research situation to try to get more grants and would switch their research to wherever the money was coming from. So we need some consistency, and my fear here is for some reason the Japanese structure seems to understand this far better because they can think in terms of 10 or 15 years. We at WICAT are having the same problems. We no sooner start getting deeply into research than we have to abandon all of our efforts because the funding which was available ran out at the same time. Mr. BROWN. Dr. Heuston, I think that you have demonstrated something of fundamental importance to the future course of education. It deserves a great deal more time than we have today, but you may have heard that we are planning on a longer workshop just on this kind of question, the impact of the new technology on education, for a little later on in the spring, and I very much hope that you can have some input into that. Dr. HEUSTON. I will be happy to, sir. Mr. BROWN. We want to thank you very much for this fascinating display, and we will continue. The subcommittee will be in recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon, at which time we will continue with some additional aspects of scientific education. AFTERNOON SESSION Mr. PEASE. This hearing will come to order. This morning, Chairman Brown referred to steadily growing expectations for science education. The Foundation's charter gives it a broad mandate and we heard from several witnesses on topics that reflect some of that scope. This afternoon we will continue the exploration of problems and opportunities that challenge the slender resources of the Foundation's science education director. Two of these subject areas involve the quality of science teaching in the public schools and in the colleges. At both levels, we have to meet the needs of the few who will go on to become scientists and also the majority of us who need sufficient literacy to deal with a world increasingly affected by technology. This afternoon, I intend to take the opportunity of this hearing to further explore the effects on science literacy of the very large discrepancy that exists between the science education directorate's verbal commitment to its statutory obligations, to strengthen science education at all levels, and its annual budget request. As our morning session demonstrated, this year NSF has requested less than 8 percent of its total budget for science education. Obviously whatever NSF says about supporting science education is not reflected in its fiscal year 1981 budget request. The 9.6 percent increase in science education compared with over 15 percent for all of NSF seems to me an irrefutable testament to NSF's priorities for fiscal year 1981. In fact, the inconsistency of words and deeds is made even more stark in the words of National Science Board Chairman, Norman Hackerman, uttered just a few weeks ago before this committee. I recall Mr. Hackerman emphasized that science literacy must be the foremost priority of the Foundation. Apparently, he has not looked at the budget. Another subject area is the underdeveloped potential of minority citizens and women. We have few women scientists and even fewer who are black or of Hispanic origin. It is in keeping with the democratic society to equalize the opportunities and it is commonsense to enlarge the base of science capability in this country. Most of the Foundation's efforts in that direction comes under science education. We have an exceptional group of witnesses today. It is a great pleasure to welcome all of you. First I would like to call upon Dr. Jerrold Zacharias, who for more than 20 years has set the example for the participation of working scientists in the education of our children. Mr. Zacharias? [A biographical sketch of Dr. Zacharias follows:] Dr. Jerrold R. Zacharias, Institute Professor and Professor of Physics, Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding trustee of MIT's Education Development Center, is widely recognized as a leader in the fields of nuclear physics and educational reform. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1905, he received the A.B. (1926), M.A. (1927), and Ph. D. (1932) degrees from Columbia University. From 1931-1940 he was an instructor and then assistant professor at Hunter College while continuing research on the molecular beam laboratory at Columbia. In 1940 Dr. Zacharias joined the staff of M.I.T.'s Radiation Laboratory as head of the division on radar transmitter components. He went to Los Alamos in 1945 to direct the engineering division on work on the atomic bomb. He returned to M.I.T. in 1946 as professor of physics and director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, which he organized to explore new phases of nuclear physics. This facility, which he headed for ten years, continues to be one of the outstanding research laboratories in the field. Dr. Zacharias was named 55 CHAPEL STREET NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02160 edc 2 Institute Professor in 1966 and director of the Education Research Center in 1968. He retired in 1970 as a member of As a continuation of research performed at Columbia, Beginning in 1948, Dr. Zacharias became a leader in several summer studies and projects important to national defense: Between 1952 and 1964 Dr. Zacharias was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee for a total of nine years. He was awarded the President's Certificate of Merit in 1948 and the Department of Defense Certificate of Appreciation in 1955. edc 3 An awareness of the out-moded methods of teaching physics in secondary schools prompted Dr. Zacharias to form the Physical Science Study Committee in 1956. Supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan A non-profit corporation, Education Services Incorporated |