I want to tell you about a book that was just published in the field of science education. It’s a book that I was asked to write the forward. I’ve never been asked to write a forward for a book. But I was honored, and I want to encourage you to examine this book, whether you are a science educator, a scientist or a citizen interested in public education.

The author of the book is Charles R. “Kip” Ault, Jr. Kip and I have collaborated over the Internet for several decades without actually meeting each other.  Like many of you, the digital world of email and social media is the mode of communication that brings us together in personal and productive ways.  Kip and I know each other from the science education research and writing we’ve done over the last 30 years.  I’ve discovered that our career paths have crossed in several ways.  We both taught high school and university courses in geology and the earth sciences, and designed science teacher education programs.  Kip was professor of science education at Lewis and Clark University for 24 years. There he developed and directed the science teacher education program. 

At the same time, I was professor of science education for 32 years at Georgia State University, where I directed the Global Thinking Project, and the TEEMS secondary science teacher education program. We are emeritus professors of science education at our respective universities.  Older professors don’t fade away, we just keep on writing.

In 2015, Kip published the book, Challenging Science Standards: A Skeptical Critique of the Quest for Unity. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which were developed in 1999, were uncritically endorsed and granted outright compliance by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), even though there has been a groundswell of teachers questioning these standards. And, very little criticism has been written from major research publications, until Kip Ault’s book Challenging Science Standards. If you haven’t read this book, you can use the link above to review it or read my review on my blog.

Kip’s New Book

So, now, in 2021, Dr. Ault has published a new book giving us an inside view of science teaching and learning. Instead of being about science teaching, this is a book for science teaching. If you are in a student in a science teacher education program, a practicing science teacher, or professor of science education, I think Kip’s book will augment your deep feelings about how students learn and why science teaching should be in the service of student’s lived experiences.

If you are science education researcher, this book will provide the theoretical rationale to design studies cutting across the spectrum of learning for all students. Kip’s four themes, Play, Art, Coherence, Community are big ideas from which studies can emerge.

If you are a classroom science teacher, I encourage you to apply any or all of Kip’s “stories” that form the substance of his book. He’s cast the stories into four themes: Play, Art, Coherence, and Community. You’ll find specific ideas that you can apply to your own classroom that I think you will find enthralling.

My Review

I worked for weeks reading Kip’s manuscript in order to write a forward to his book. Reading his book was a pleasure and took me on a journey into the field of science education of which I’ve been a participant since 1962. I started my forward to Kip’s book this way:

When I was invited to write the foreword to the book you hold in your hands or on your phone or tablet, I was honored. After I started looking at the manuscript, I realized I was reading a bellwether book in the field of science teaching. I’ve never read such a fascinating, beautifully written work such as this. Ever.  In my opinion this manuscript, Beyond Science Standards is a remarkable book which uncovers new ground upon which we can change the way we teach and learn science.

Creative Path

In my forward I spoke to the creativity that undergirds Kip’s thinking. In my mind, and supported by the writing of existential psychologist Rollo May, the writing of Kip’s book took “creative courage.” Kip has discovered and written about new forms, new symbols, new patterns upon which we can build a new view of science teaching. I wrote this about the creative path:

Kip’s book is a creative path to a new paradigm of science teaching and learning.  His book is an amazing journey of stories and experiences in classrooms that will be familiar to you.  The international science education community has embraced the importance of qualitative research.  Descriptions of people, events and situations are hallmarks of qualitative methods.  Kip has filled his book with playful, aesthetic, meaningful, and compelling stories about learning in which context and the needs of students reigns.   Kip’s book is a qualitative treasure chest of new paradigm learning examples.  His book is also fun to read. He names some of his stories Wavy Elephants, Binary Banjos, Skull Sockets and Crowned Molars, Hells Pig, Vivid Canyons, Flashy Plumage, Wicked Extinctions, and Caring Communities.

Leonardo da Vinci

When you read this book you are going to immersed into the mind of a science education writer who’s thinking is drawn from the science of Leonardo da Vinci. Kip has created a new paradigm that is rooted in Leonardo’s mind. I wrote this in my forward about why I think there is a link between Leonardo and Kip Ault. I wrote:

On Beyond Science Standards describes a world view that is holistic and ecological which is, according to Fritjof Capra^[1], not unlike Leonardo’s.  Leonardo had developed a solid body of science.  But his science could not be understood without his art, nor his art without science. Walter Isaacson^[2] and Fritjof Capra wrote separate biographies of Leonardo.  In their biographies, they explain that Leonardo’s scientific explorations informed his art.  Capra says that for Leonardo “painting is both an art and a science—a science of natural forms, of qualities, quite different from the mechanistic science that would emerge two hundred years later.” For Kip Ault, paleontology cannot exist without illustration, and he shows how art can be the center of methodology. Art can be the center of learning science. And it doesn’t have to be only paleontology. 

Purpose of Science Education

Kip Ault believes that the purpose of education is to:

prepare citizens for lives of social responsibility in a democratically governed polity.  Kip reaches out to the science education community to claim that our present practices of teaching and routines of selecting what to teach will not help our students achieve that end. He concludes that immersing students in “scientific diversity” can be a journey uncovering aspects of ourselves and the universe promising immense pleasure and joy. Kip Ault has written the book that I’ve been waiting for.

Kip’s book is important for the well-being of society. After four years of authoritarian rule, we need to think openly and democratically and work to prevent American democracy from failing.

^[1] Fritjof Capra, The Science of Leonardo (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007)

^[2] Walter Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017)