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Towards critical constructivistteachingMike Watts a & Zelia Jofili ba Roehampton Institute, London, UKb Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife,BrazilPublished online: 24 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Mike Watts & Zelia Jofili (1998): Towards critical constructivistteaching, International Journal of Science Education, 20:2, 173-185

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INT. J. sci. EDUC., 1998, VOL. 20, NO. 2, 173-185

Towards critical constructivist teaching

Mike Watts, Roehampton Institute, London, UK, and Zelia Jofili,Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

The notion of 'constructivist teaching' is discussed as it features within debates on constructivistresearch in science classrooms. An argument is then made that constructivist teaching itself shouldbe superseded in favour of 'critical constructivism', an approach which undertakes a broader critique ofthe relationships between teacher and taught, between learner and subject matter, and between school-ing and society. Some data are presented from a study of Brazilian teachers moving from constructivismtowards critical constructivism through an in-service professional development course and a series ofaction-research projects. The summary comments broaden the debate from this single context to drawwider implications for science education.

Introducing the debate

In science education the term 'constructivist teaching' has fomented some con-troversy. Some writers (for example, Driver et al. 1994, Duit et al. 1991, Fenshamet al. 1994) use the expression as shorthand for teachers who try to foster con-structivist perspectives on learning through particular systems of classroomorganization and method. Mathews (1994), on the other hand, echoes Millar(1989) in arguing that there are no classroom techniques which are exclusive toconstructivism, and that the extension of constructivist principles of learning tocurriculum and pedagogy is not only inappropriate but unnecessary. A third grouptake the middle road so that, while they hesitate to acknowledge specific charac-teristics in constructivist teaching, they suggest that it is possible for teachers toadopt a fairly general constructivist approach - described by Bliss (1995), forinstance, as 'constructivist inspired teaching' and by Bell and Gilbert (1996) as aconstructivist 'mind-set'.

While the debate is, in part, about what characterizes a 'constructivist class-room' over more traditional instructional settings, it also surrounds the commondenial that it is possible for teachers to 'construct' knowledge for learners, or forlearners to have conceptual change constructed for them. In that specific sense,many see the notion of 'constructivist teaching' to be oxymoronic: 'to teach'becomes synonymous with 'to instruct', and the terms construction and instruc-tion together are misallied. In part, too, the debate concerns the validity of con-structivist perspectives in general and their capacity to influence broader aspects ofeducation.

The debate concerning constructivist teaching has surrounded four mainarguments:

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(1) the extent to which it is possible for any teacher to intervene in the thinkingof a learner;

(2) the purposes and value of any possible intervention;(3) the means by which such interventions might be achieved;(4) the relative effectiveness of forms of intervention.

Given the usual constraints, this paper can make inroads into the first two only.While inevitably brushing over the third and fourth points, both really deserve fulltreatment in their own right. Moreover, in our view the 'means-effectiveness jury'is still out — contemplating scant evidence at best.

While it is important to define, 'deconstruct' and defend what might be meantby constructivist teaching, the intention in this paper is to forge a further distin-tion, beyond what has been called 'pragmatic' constructivism (Rieber 1993)towards a view of critical constructivism and - in particular - to aim for a discus-sion of critical constructivist teaching. Pragmatists, in Rieber's context, are typi-cally teachers and researchers whose disposition, reading and professionaldevelopment have led them to broad and general constructivist deliberation, butwho have a fairly narrow interpretation of this in classroom practice. In contrast,the suggestion here is that critical constructivists have a much sharper awareness ofthe liberatory powers and principles of constructivism, and adopt a politicized andemancipatory stance towards learning and teaching. The latter parts of this paperdraw on the outcomes of recent research to characterize teachers and researcherswho might be seen to be moving towards this category.

Though touching on a number of concerns, the substantive agenda of thepaper, then, is to:

(1) explore critical constructivism;(2) delineate critical constructivist teaching;(3) examine data, and their context, from our current research projects;(4) present some summary comments.

Constructivist teaching

Constructivist views of learning intend that knowledge grows in such ways thatlearners organize and manage experiences so that their actions maximize desirableresults and minimize undesirable ones. The learner evaluates the viability of theseconceptual structures, tests and modifies them to a greater or lesser extent in orderto increase their utility. Their functionality relates principally to predicting,assessing and controlling future events.

Von Glasersfeld's (1991) analysis leads him thus: learning is a personal andprivate activity, teaching is public and social. The first operates implicitly or ex-plicitly within the cognitive domain of the individual, the second intentionally orunintentionally in the interrelationships between people. Given this, formal teach-ing can be seen as purposeful, designed, intervention into the process of learningthrough knowledge construction. The relation of the 'knower to the known'revolves around the active construction of conceptual structures which mediatebetween the learner, and his or her lived experience (von Glasersfeld 1993). Theteacher attempts to be a significant part of the learner's lived experience in order tomediate in turn both the shape and direction of the learning taking place.

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In terms of what might be called 'Standard Science Education' (Millar 1989),constructivist science teachers are the intermediate agents between learners andcurriculum science. A constructivist teacher works at the interface between learnerand curriculum, to merge agendas and bring the two together in a way that ismeaningful for the learner without diminishing the curriculum. The means bywhich teachers undertake this mediation between 'knower', 'known' and 'to-be-known' have been the subject of a number of metaphors (Fox 1983) of which'mediation' itself is but one. Some examples of these are: the theatrical directorwho directs and orchestrates learners' thinking; the tour guide who guides andchaperones learners; the scaffolder who provides structures and supports; the pro-vocateur who challenges and struggles with the learner; the negotiator who acts asbroker between learner and curriculum science; committee chair who reconciles,organizes and manages goals and agendas, and the modeller who shapes and mouldslearners' knowledge.

To this point, general, pragmatic characteristics of constructivist teachersmight be that they:

(1) value quality of learning over quantity, and place the focus on the learnerrather than the subject discipline;

(2) interact with learners closely in order to enhance social interactions, pro-vide a range of meaningful experiences for each learner, help learnersexplicate and elaborate their own prior knowledge;

(3) take a variety of roles in order to monitor and evaluate learning, and thenconstrain and structure learning environments to challenge what they seeas learners' non-viable constructs, and to channel learning in productivedirections through the negotiation of knowledge between knower andknown;

(4) encourage a plural, tentative and contingent view of (in this case) scientificknowledge.

Apart from the specific classroom strategies required to achieve this, there are anumber of difficulties inherent in this view. First, as both Bell and Gilbert (1996),and Watts and Alsop (1996) point out, this is a broadly cognitive perspective whichignores issues of learners' affect and conative action. Second is the deeply prob-lematic notion of the teacher acting at the same time as sponsor of science, as a'guardian' of classroom learning, and as 'honest broker' between the knower andthe known.

At the core, this is an issue of power: constructivism implies what might becalled 'mixed authority' teaching. It is a question of the primacy of educationalagenda - whose is paramount: is it that of the learner or the teacher? The responsi-bility of classroom teachers is to enact agendas from outside the classroom, toimpose the societal imperatives and the 'intended curriculum' which are dominantwithin educational systems worldwide. There are times when constructivistteachers must perforce be didactic and say what pupils should do in order toachieve certain aims. The agenda is clear: the teacher knows the way to do it. AsTobin and Tippins (1993: 5) suggest:

.. . if a teacher regards the constructions of any individual to be inviable in the largerset of contexts in which actions are to occur, it is the teacher's duty as a professional tostructure learning environments to facilitate the process of learning of what societyregards as having greatest viability at that particular time.

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On the other hand, a constructivist view of learning places the 'veto of viability'squarely in the learner's hands. As an individual, a learner's own agenda pre-dominates, the learner is encouraged to learn only as he or she sees fit. Thisposition can be seen in the writings of, for example, Hewson and Hewson(1991) who take the position that conceptual change can only occur when thelearner, rather than the teacher, decides that the necessary conditions have beensatisfied. Similarly, Dykstra (1991) talks only of 'initiating' conceptual change, aprocess which is then simply 'nurtured' by the teacher. He rejects teaching whichveers towards traditional forms of instruction:

A more effective approach is one that encourages pupils to question their beliefs, tocatch themselves in explanatory incoherencies and to engage in a process of changingthose beliefs . . . we do not see the function [of instruction] as the delivery of a moreaccurate picture of reality to the pupils or of leading the pupils to scientific knowledge.(1991:45, emphasis added)

In some respects it is a debate that was ever thus: between the traditions of'cultural transmitters' on one side and the 'learner-centred Romantics' on theother (Pope and Keen 1981). While the fomer tends to dominate, placing — inthis case — the content of school science centre stage, the latter reappear period-ically in what Laroche and Desoutels (1991) call the 'Epistemological Turn' ,periods when the urge returns to re-establish the actor within the act of learning.As Giroux (1989:181) points out, schools are:

. . . contested cultural sites, not simply places where instruction takes place and bits ofneutral knowledge are transferred.

In this instance, the contest is between the effective training and immersion ofpupils into orthodox science on the one hand, and generating free and nimblethinkers on the other. In the first camp are teachers and researchers who areconcerned to promote learners' operational performances which mimic those ofthe teacher—scientist, so long as they lead to a direct fit with consensual scientificthinking. In the second are those who seek free-thinking, experimental conceptualchange in the quest for the 'orientation' of learners' thinking towards the 'bestmatch', or conceptual affinity with scientific models of reality. Moreover, one ofthe teacher's roles (Bell and Gilbert 1996) is to devolve power to such free thinkersto act upon the knowledge which they acquire.

Such mixed-authority teaching, with shifts of intellectual jurisdiction betweenteacher and taught, is difficult for many teachers to countenance. Rieber (1993),for instance, seeks a compromise between what he describes as instructivism —'heavy, top down instruction' — and constructivism's 'instructional chaos' [sic].He is not alone: studies like those of Hand and Treagust (1944), and Jofili andWatts (1996) have found a number of teachers to be insecure about changing anysignificant part of their classroom practice towards a constructivist perspective,because of the fear of losing classroom control. Lemke (1990) and Woods (1992)illustrate one powerful mechanism for how such control is managed; how, forexample, teachers constantly encourage learner passivity through control of class-room questioning: pupils do not ask questions of science or its processes becausethey are inhibited from drawing control away from the teacher.

Huibregste et al. (1994) make the telling point that even teachers who considerthemselves to be constructivist and who favour an active role for learners can, atthe same time, still feel a need to maintain strong control over pupil learning

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TOWARDS CRITICAL CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHING 1 77

activities and direct them quite heavily. Huibregste et al. relate this seeming con-tradiction to conflicts between teachers' conscious approaches to the business ofteaching and learning, and their own experiences as learners and their own pre-ferred styles of learning. Such teachers appreciate the contribution they can maketo the personal development of their pupils but cannot shake off their own sub-conscious 'gestalts', created through their past experiences as — largely — passivelearners.

The view presented here is that 'pragmatic constructivists' fail to deal withnotions of 'mixed-authority teaching'. While such teachers may experience cogni-tive conflict and pedagogic dilemmas as they attempt a balance of power in theclassroom, in critical constructivism the broad balance of power shifts from the'teacher as socializing agent' for science towards 'teacher as agent of social trans-formation'.

Critical constructivism and critical constructivist teaching

Critrical constructivist teaching transcends concerns simply with the teaching ofcontent knowledge: a key feature is a manifest concern for pupils' independentcritical thinking. In broad terms, teaching such as this is seen as an agent of socialchange, as having emancipatory potential (Gilbert 1994). There is an underlyingtendency for critical constructivists to seek change in institutional structures,whether this is in a broad political sense (Elliott 1991) or in a specific learningsetting such as the PEEL project (Baird and White 1993).

To be critical constructivists, teachers must possess critical awareness: anunderstanding of themselves, their perspectives, their approaches to the construc-tion of knowledge, and ways in which their own consciousness has been shaped bysociety (and schools). They must understand the roles played by schools both indeveloping and in repressing this awareness; its roles in socializing thinking. Afurther aspect within this approach is that the learners, too, need to appreciate thenature of the innovation being practised upon them (Baird and White 1993). Thatis, teachers need also to foster critical awareness in pupils. Kincheloe (1993:118)describes critical constructivism as follows:

Critical constructivists . . . ask what are the forces which construct consciousness, theways of seeing of the actors who live in i t . . . . Critical constructivism concerns theattempt to move beyond the formal style of thinking which emerges from empiricismand rationalism, a form of cognition that solves problems framed by the dominantparadigm, the conventional way of seeing, [emphasis added]

A critical constructivist view of teaching, then, looks to full learner empowermentthrough knowledge appropriation. The concept of empowerment encompasses theimportance of making education meaningful so as to make it critical and, conse-quently, emancipatory. Such teaching implies a concern for independent thinkingand common social welfare. Such concerns, suggests Freire (1972), must always becoherently present in teachers' analysis of classroom contexts and decision taking.

A synthesis of views on critical constructivism (for example, Kincheloe 1993,McLaren and Leonard 1993, McLaren and Lankshear 1994) implies, then, thatteachers should:

(1) enable learners to express their understanding, to appreciate their own andtheir peers' understanding, and to undertake negotiations of knowledge

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towards an emancipatory construction of consciousness. This entailslearners being active subjects who question and transform, and that learn-ing is a means to re-create the way learners see themselves, education andsociety;

(2) present problems for inquiry relating to key aspects of the learner's experi-ence, not simply as theoretical exercises but as problems posed withinlearners' own experiences. Encouraging learners to pose problems andto ask questions is the key to stimulating the impatience and vivacitywhich characterize a search for creativity and invention. In problem pos-ing, academic material is the integrated into learner life; learners faceproblems which relate to their lives and society;

(3) lead the class in democratic learning processes as well as with criticalideas. Teachers must affirm themselves without thereby disaffirming thelearners. This means an awareness of the complexities of learning andlearning situations, and an understanding of the dynamics of power in socialsettings, and its use towards democratic social and educational change.

Inside a critical constructivist classroom, learners reflect on the lives they lead, askquestions to discover meanings and values. Their learning experiences nowinclude a self-reflective dimension around themes from daily life. With dialogicreflection among their peers, they gain critical distance from their conditions andcan consider how to transform them (McLaren and Leonard 1993). This aims topush them into becoming active partcipants in shaping the economic, social andcultural environment in which they live. These learners also become actively andcritically involved in controlling their own learning, and teachers need to worktowards the 'liberation' of learners, instead of their 'domestication'.

A report from empirical research

Our own work has been influenced by Paulo Freire (Jofili and Watts 1996, Wattsand Vaz 1996) and we have become increasingly concerned with complex multi-layered circumstances which encompass, for example, awkward or unresolvableissues which cannot be tackled easily: issues which are commonly combined withintangled and difficult situations. In such circumstances, situations involving con-ceptual change within the school science curriculum are part of the messy and ill-defined business of real everyday life.

The data we report here have been generated through a programme of research(Watts et al. in press, Jofili et al. in press) based in London and Recife, in north-eastern Brazil. On the statute books, education in Brazil is both free and compul-sory from ages seven to 14. This provision, however, is rather fairer in policy thanin practice: the majority of pre-schools are fee-paying so that the large percentageof parents with little means to pay face a fiscal bar to education. Economic dis-advantage is also educational disadvantage so that, at the point of entry to stateeducation (age seven), children commonly fail to be 'schooled' because they lackfamiliarity with formal education systems. Only 17% of children starting in Year 1(around seven years old) reach Year 8 (notionally 14 years old).

At the same time, the poor social status and low salary levels in teaching entailteachers working in two or three different schools each week in order to achieve abasic income. Working conditions at state schools are generally poor, including a

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lack of basic equipment and other facilities. Pupils come to lessons with widelydiverse educational backgrounds, and many teachers must commonly managebetween 40 and 60 children per class. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is commonlya classroom emphasis on exercises which stress memorization rather than concep-tualization, and heavy 'textbook emphasis' on factual information.

In our studies, we have been particularly interested in the extent to whichteachers can engage pupils in critical thinking during the course of science lessonsof this kind. This entails first engaging teachers in critical thinking, to which endwe designed a two-week INSET course, congruent with constructivist teachereducation research of the kind Bastos (1992), and Hand and Treagust (1994)describe. In shaping our course, we began from four assumptions:

(1) It is essential to provide opportunities for teachers to experience con-structivism and critical thinking throughout the provision of the INSETcourse.

(2) Teachers need to apply their growing awareness through developing crit-ical action-research projects in their own schools.

(3) The cumulative effects of the course and these action-research projectsmust generate long-term change in their everyday classroom practice.

(4) The practice of critical constructivism will require teachers to confrontsocial, political and historical issues in the practice of education in thecontext of their community.

The course itself dealt broadly with constructivist principles, critical thinking andthe 'broad church' of constructivist writings. Sessions were taken up with epis-temological and pedagogic issues, particularly as these concern the teaching andlearning of secondary school science. Some sessions encompassed a range ofapproaches to educational research — with action research and case-study workin particular. During seminar and tutorial time the participants were required toshape individual action-research projects to be undertaken in the following weeks.The application of these projects took three months and at the end of this periodthe participants were asked to report their own progress at a collective feedbackseminar. The participants were tracked and interviewed again some 15 monthslater to explore the long-term effects of the course and projects.

While a wide range of outcomes have resulted from this research (Jofili 1997),we focus here on just three key issues:

(1) teachers' increased awareness of their role and — through their own 'metadialogues' - of what changes took place in their thinking and practice;

(2) their greater capacity to undertake critical constructivism, to contextualizeclassroom work within a social and political context;

(3) teachers' ability to induce pupils into critical thinking during the course ofa series of lessons.

Of the dozen or so participants in the course, we have chosen to illustrate theseissues through the responses of two teachers: Ana and Riso.

Ana

Ana recognized fairly dramatic changes in her approach to teaching over the periodof this in-service work. She came to realize, for example, that she had previously

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adopted a fairly authoritarian stance, and had paid scant attention to pupils ' ideasand prior conceptions of scientific phenomena. Nor had she commonly providedclassroom opportunity for these to be expressed or debated. She is a strong andcharismatic personality, and naturally made herself the centre of attention andauthority in the classroom. Dur ing the in-service course she articulated her ownideal that this attention should more properly be shared with the pupils:

Before my action-research project I felt the pupils were highly apathetic, giving theimpression that I was talking to a room of robots programmed to be silent, to ask andanswer certain questions and, at the end, repeat everything they had received.However hard I tried to stimulate them, the results were just not satisfactory.Probably their motivation was wrong. Just transmitting knowledge leads only tomechanical repetition. In order for meaningful learning to take place, it is necessayto create opportunities for pupils to build their own knowledge from the confrontationbetween their life experiences and scientific knowledge . . .

The pupils who took part in my experiment are no longer the same. They discov-ered their role in knowledge construction and have became aware that learning doesnot just depend on the teacher - whether he or she teaches well or not - but on theopportunity they have to build knowledge for themselves and on their sense ofresponsibility involved in carrying this out.

Through her project Ana created a more open pupil-teacher relationship, reducingthe interpersonal distance between teacher and taught, while at the same timemaintaining mutual respect. At no time was discipline or class control a real con-cern because all proved to be very responsible. As she herself observed:

. . . I changed when I started to see the pupils as part of a whole learning process.Indeed I became more tranquil when I realized that the responsibility for learning wasnot only mine. . . . Now I realized that learning depends largely upon the pupils'surrounding circumstances, the experiences they bring along and also involves theirphysical and psychological conditions.

During the process of the project Ana changed in her thinking towards ideas ofclassroom democracy: she began to appreciate differences between pupils as'people within' rather than as 'objects of the teaching-learning process. Shecould see increases in motivation and self-esteem as pupils were able to takeownership of knowledge and as they learnt to respect their own and their col-leagues' ideas. They become more confident and cooperative and — above all —began to voice critical concerns:

In this work, we were not afraid to say what we thought about the lesson, because wewere not frightened to make a mistake and even if we did someone else in the groupsupported us and we learnt more like that. (Roseane Cristina; pupil)

Now we have the opportunity to say what we think and little by little discover moreabout what happens. Not having to be worried about learning by heart, only thinkingabout understanding and discussing it in the group is much easier, because we compareideas and sort out doubts. I'd like our work to carry on like this. (Jose Felix; pupil)

Ana's analysis of her work allowed her to see the broader social and politicalcontext of her teaching world.

The construction of knowledge is a slow process. Because of this, the number of topicsstudied was far higher in my previous teaching unit than in this one. But in terms ofquality the opposite was true. The pupils themselves recognize that the learning hasbeen significant. According to their statements, they used to 'learn by heart but notlearn', forgetting everying a few days later, except for those subjects which were usedfrequently..

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To develop work like this, the teacher needs time to plan each lesson in precisedetail, to read the pupil's writings in order to systematize the pupils' previous ideas,and so on. Most teachers do not have that much time at their disposal because inBrazil they have to take on an unbearably full timetable simply in order to survive.Besides, work of this type becomes non-viable if there are more than 30 pupils in theclass and the Brazilian education system centres on content, emphasizing quantity tothe detriment of quality.

Riso

Riso's school is in a socially disadvantaged area of Recife and her pupils, despitetheir young age, are already informal wage earners to subsidize family incomes. Inone case her pupils attend evening classes because they work full time during theday. Prior to the in-service course Riso, too, was already a highly capable andenergetic teacher. Even so, as a consequence of her new experiences, she recog-nized considerable change in her planning and teaching - she was conscious of anincreased contextualization and politicization in her approach.

Her intention was both to investigate pupils' prior knowledge and to create theconditions for effective rebuilding in their thinking. During this time Riso was alsomonitoring her own thinking, and examining ways in which her own ideas, beliefsand commitments changed within the project she initiated. During her interviewsRiso also expressed her concern for developing pupils' critical thinking, mainlyrelated to citizenship, their rights and the development of a social conscience:

Step by step, we [teachers] are changing . . . the way we interact with the pupils . . .even if not planned, the dialogue is changing. When we do something wrong it stabs atour consciousness! . . . My most important task is to develop consciousness . . . criticalconscience. The pupils need to know what they are studying and how this will affecttheir daily lives as citizens, exactly what will be gained. I believe along these lines, thedevelopment of a social conscience, of rights. The other day we were beginning toform a view on space and a pupil asked: 'Why do I want to know about space?' So westopped to discuss things, chatted amongst ourselves, and gradually they began torealize . . . it was interesting, that it is important.. . . But planning situations like thatdoes not always work.

Later:

The number of hours I have to work is really bad. Each class has a different char-acteristic. In order to work well you should plan for each class. And I have not time. Iwork 120 hours monthly for the Council and 150 hours for the State: 270 hours ofteaching! Morning, afternoon and evening, 15 classes per day, Monday to Thursday.They pay for preparation time but it is not really possible. Only in the middle of thenight! I get very tired and worn out. With 46 pupils, you notice the one who talks themost and understand things as they are in his or her mind. Interesting things happenthat we do not have time to write down or make a note of . . . I do not begin a class theway I used to any more. I begin by talking, 'why this and why that' . .. many 'why's'.

Riso recognized that her approach was changing, particularly in her planning oflessons for a social and political context:

Now when I start, I select what I think is the most easily understandable topic. On theone hand, it is easier to contextualize concepts with Year 7 pupils where the lessoncontent is - say - 'water', 'air' and 'soil', because there is some very pollutant industryin the school neighbourhood. On the other hand, there is some content which is veryhard to contextualize because it is vey abstract, such as the 'atom'. It is abstract, evenfor me! In teaching 'air' I use the example of this pollutant industry. The pupils listthe diseases caused by pollution and I introduce the properties of air and ask about the

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composition of air. In trying to understand the composition of air they see that, apartfrom gases (which are the essential elements), there are other elements (dust,microbes...), depending on the area. So they can make conclusions on the relation-ship between industry and air pollution.

During her period of action research within her own classrooms, Riso createdopportunities to foster critical thinking in order to enable pupil empowerment -she wanted them to use critical thinking to help improve their life situations, to usetheir knowledge in order to change adverse social conditions:

In reflecting on my own educational experience, I know how quickly knowledgeescapes me. I think: 'Gee, I learned and I forgot several times. What knowledge ofmine has remained?' I learned that when teaching is contextualized and the pupils areactive, then learning is better. My aim is for them to understand what I am teachingand at the same tme to empower them in order to improve their life conditions.

Comments

It is always tempting to confine the need for 'democratic learning processes','critical thinking', the 'dynamics of power', 'empowerment', for approaches tocritical constructivist teaching, to developing 'majority world' contexts and notto robustly developed democracies of the west. However, there is an argument thatcritical thinking is even more necessary in the comfortable conditions of advancedeconomies. As a consequence of a study of 13 OEDC (Black and Atkin 1996)countries, Black (1996: 5) makes the point that:

Unchecked, [many social] changes may not be benign. So it follows that society willneed citizens who can take informed decisions about the continuing flow of new issuesraised by science and technology. It follows that schools should be helping students tounderstand and make decisions about those issues in their personal life and in society.There is widespread concern that school science and technology is not doing this .. .

One cause for concern might be the limiting confines of the UK's NationalCurriculum (DES 1995). This centralized curriculum in the UK has been extantin various forms for almost a decade and, quite naturally, has had a considerableeffect on the teaching and learning of science in schools. Parallel research to thisreported here (Watts and Vaz 1966, Watts and McGrath in press) describesteachers who find the National Curriculum for science a major hindrance andcan muster very little time, enthusiasm or need to explore issues of social orpersonal relevance with pupils. In this work with teachers we recognize the schoolof thought which maintains that, with the advent of National Curriculum - anddespite its requirements - there is actually little opportunity to develop such formsof liberating classroom activity.

Black (1966:5) portrays current practice to be where 'all too often dull,formulaic methods have produced students lacking interest or understanding'.He argues that changes call for teachers to:

. . . question their traditional practices and routines. They call for a change in theirroles from being authorities in the transmission of knowledge of subject matter tobeing guides who support and challenge their students to be more effective and moreambitious as learners. (1996:5)

The reports of our two teachers have been intended to illustrate how an increasedawareness of their roles markedly changed what took place in their classrooms.Their 'meta dialogues' chart alterations in their thinking and practice, in particular

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their greater capacity to move towards critical constructivism, to contextualizetheir classroom work within a social and political context. Their narratives alsorecord their ability to induce pupils into critical thinking during the course of aseries of lessons. An exploration of cases such as these is beyond a mere discussionof classroom techniques. It concerns the extent to which teachers can:

(1) countenance any shift in authority and power in the classroom;(2) 'radicalize' and 'politicalize' their constructivism towards crtitical con-

structivism;(3) embed this in classroom practice;(4) generate this in learning outcomes.

The extent to which teachers are able to realize critical constructivism is, of course,a function of their freedom of movement within the hegemonic practices of thedominant culture (Giroux 1989). As Tobin and Tippins (1993:10) say:

.. . too often, that which society regards as having greatest viability dignifies andreinforces a dominant culture in which certain ways of speaking are legitimate, othersare not, particular forms of knowledge are certified and specific histories taught.

We see discussions surrounding critical constructivist teaching in school science asa means of fostering debate about critical thinking in classrooms. From this it maybe possible to revitalize science teaching in a way which challenges standard ortho-doxies and which promotes social advance. We leave the last word with Black(1996:5), who seeks a consensus for change where politicians, administrators,the general public and educators in schools work out how they can support:

. . . not just any particular innovation, but the creation of the conditions and theclimate in which teachers and schools can become effective agents of change.

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