Many will tell that experience is the best teacher. But it can also be a means to earn a point in recitation during class discussion. Science is known to be real, factual, conceptual and at the same time empirical. Abstracts were proven true because they were experienced by the scientists to formulate theories and laws that we really follow everyday to survive. Through experience, a person is able to see, feel , taste, smell and hear what is happening on a particular event. But not all people has an active experience so as the students for the reason that some of them are bookish while others are experiential beings.
The best thing about teaching Science is the teacher really acts as facilitator that helps the students to connect the ideas for the end result of learning. The problem is only few appreciates Science when others see it as a difficult subject. There is a day when class discussions become active not because of the terminologies that the teacher asked them to define for homework but because of what they have seen in news, what they have literally experienced, what they have actually experienced or what they’d smell before. Ask them what is their emotion when the fire is spreading on their neighborhood and their emotion when their mother is commanding them to relocate the heavy table and you will hear answers like when there is fire they will immediately wake up, run and bringing valuable stuff but when their mother is commanding them to relocate the table they can’t move faster since they are lazy enough as a result the mother will shout at them many times for them to follow the command until it is already afternoon and the table is not yet relocated. Therefore if the questions are “what will you do, what will happen if, what if” expect that many will answer even in chorus because the brain is so wired with many human experiences that even the answers may vary or they’ll all come down in one answer that the teacher expects.
The difference between terminologies and experiences is the former might not be accurate during discussion to present the concept as it is done at home with references like a site on the internet which can be edited and the students don’t have an idea of that definition and the latter is precise as Scientific laws are universally accepted and theories may apply on many conditions though some events are exempted but its precision can be made with two different experiences on similar events. This only implies that grades are not just about getting high scores in standardized and formative tests.
By: Ms.Ana Rosette S. Garcia, LPT | Jose Rizal Institute | Orion, Bataan
