Whitehead and a new look at teaching elementary science

Abstract

If Whitehead is right, science teachers who try to increase student interest by making the science they teach more “pure” and by “covering more material” are going about their work in just the wrong way. Science, for purposes of precision in measurement, translates the dynamic world of feeling and force, of “causal efficacy” (for example, the San Francisco earthquake), into a static representation spatialized and given “presentational immediacy” (for example, the Richter scale). But notice that the Richter scale isn't very interesting (even as abstract art) apart from its connection, via “symbolic reference,” to the earthquake. Such reference is essential to give both a sense of reality and a feeling of interes to the subject, but it makes the science less “pure,” and it takes more time to “cover the material.” An example of teaching “pure” and “impure” formal logic is given as a case study.