Decolonizing Science Teacher Preparation

Decolonizing Science Teacher Preparation

by Doron Zinger
Director, UCI CalTeach

My understanding of decolonizing teaching in math and science for K-12 is evolving and likely closer to its infancy than maturity. I think of decolonizing work as a process and an instructional approach rather than a skill or set of tools, though these are useful to guide decision making. I also need to acknowledge that I am a cishet white male and the position of privilege that I hold, as well as acknowledging how I have benefited from colonization, and cause/d harm with my own practice. It’s important to define what decolonizing is to begin with and the work of education researcher and indigenous scholar Eve Tuck grounds some of this for me. I understand decolonizing as an approach to combat settler colonialism, the move of valorizing white western, mostly male world views. This manifests itself in two main ways, cultural erasure, and cultural appropriation, both of these are underpinned by a combination of historicizing (ie. talking about native Americans in the past tense) as well as historical erasure (ie. ignoring contributions by some, and ignoring crimes and violence by others).

With that premise, the work of decolonizing math and science teacher preparation requires multiple paths that address settler colonialism: Acknowledging settler colonialism and white western dominance in science.

1. Desettling settled power hierarchies of privileged knowledge and knowing.
2. Broadening perspectives of what counts as knowledge and knowing.
3. Developing curriculum and instruction that works toward decolonizing.
4. Teaching and reflecting on instruction that moves to decolonize (learning cycles).

Acknowledging settler colonialism and white western dominance in science
I begin each course and talks I give with a land acknowledgement. I use a map to acknowledge that we live on unceded land, that indigenous peoples have lived on and have cared hundreds of years, and continue to live on today. I express my gratitude for what indigenous people have done and continue to do, especially in light of wildfires and other destructive events created or accelerated by the white western approaches.

Early in the first methods course I teach, we engage in a number of activities designed to surface the extent of colonization in math and science. We look at how numbers are written and math operations function. We consider the Aztec counting system with a 20 base to show the arbitrary and cultural nature of math and counting. We begin to talk about cultural erasure by putting up what looks like Newton’s first law of motion, and then revealing it was actually proposed by an Indian philosopher more than 1000 years earlier. We also do a number of identity activities that may not be directly related to decolonizing, but begin to help future teachers grapple with erasure of their own cultures under white western hegemony. For example, we look at census forms over time to see who is recognized and who is not by race/ethnicity. Again, not necessarily directly related to colonization we also look at how women have been written and robbed out of science history (ie. Rosalind Franklin), and how white men are valorized in academia and popular discourse. We also introduce and examine what indigenous science is.

Desettling settled power hierarchies of privileged knowledge and knowing
As the future teachers progress through the course of study we engage in reading and discussion designed to desettle power hierarchies of science knowing and doing. We begin this with scholars who center social justice and equity in science education, such as Angela Calabrase-Barton, and Megan Bang, who perhaps has developed the most resources for decolonizing science. We discuss students’ developing scientific ideas, push back on the idea of “misconceptions,” and discuss questions like “is water a living thing?” We also use model lessons to play some of this out and show that home-based knowledge has value and counts as science (ie. the infamous how do you keep bananas fresh longer lesson). These instructional choices allow me to create a classroom environment that values students’ knowledge and decenters whiteness.

Broadening perspectives of what counts as knowledge and knowing
Some of this process overlaps (especially with this and the next step), but in general we work a bit on desettling and acknowledging before we transition to lesson design. We initially focus on culturally responsive focal phenomena. For example, asking student-generated questions like, “Why does the pond across from school smell funny and have a green color, and can we do anything about it?” We use several STEM teaching tools from the University of Washington Institute for Science + Math Education(specifically 2, 10, 11, and 57 ) to focus attention on students, their communities, and their histories rather than start with “settled” science. As we transition to lesson development and instruction we begin to talk about Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), we recognize what they afford and how they improved from the previous California Science Standards, but we also acknowledge scholarship, such as Alberto Rodriguez’ that asserts the standards are steeped in whiteness and limited. Resources such as Learning in Places offer exemplars for place-based instruction that centers local knowledge. We also begin talking about instructional components such as homework, individual work vs. group work, ways of participating, and asking questions about how these practices may be colonizing and how they might be decolonized. For example, providing students with multiple and different ways of participating, such as socratic seminars, online forums and discussions, as well as doing work individually or in small groups.

Developing curriculum and instruction that works toward decolonizing
As the future teachers work on their lesson plans, they articulate how these models connect to readings by moving towards a decolonizing approach to teaching. As they work to analyze curriculum to be adapted for their own classrooms, we integrate frameworks that center culture and social justice to desettle the NGSS and dominant discourses. For example, the Alaska Culture in the Classroom curriculum includes rubric and evaluative tools that guide our reflection. The future teachers discuss these ideas with one another and provide each other with feedback on lesson design by focusing on whose knowledge counts, and how their students can present and represent knowledge and ideas.

Teaching and reflecting on instruction that moves to decolonize (learning cycles)
An important component to my instruction relies on an iterative approach, reflection and changes over learning cycles focused on decentering white, western ideas and settled approaches to science. We focus on acknowledging that multiple perspectives here are critical, that western discoveries or western science is not inherently bad or good, but that we must tackle the serious problems of our time relating to environmental issues and justice with perspectives from multiple and different cultures.

Finally, I have a few other considerations about modeling decolonizing instruction that includes reading BIPOC authors and having guest speakers that decenter whiteness in the classroom. This also means acknowledging and reminding students about various activities and practices that we engage in such as Circles, and origins of conservation, and their indigenous roots.