Some of my fondest memories go back to my days studying Biology and Chemistry while at Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, PA. Many of those memories center on a man affectionately known to most of his students as ‘Doc.’ Doctor Calvin Freeman was, in the truest sense of the term, a Renaissance man. His undergraduate studies in Biology were at Calvin College, and his graduate studies ranged from Theology at Westminster, to Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, several years studying Biology in a European university, and finishing up with a PhD in Anatomy at Case Western. He was the pre-med advisor for years, getting hundreds of students into medical school, and had a long, successful career as an academician, dog breeder, and minister to developmentally disabled people.
I had the pleasure of first having him for anatomy, and quickly realized why he was so loved. I think in that whole semester, he gave only two or three lectures. Next, I couldn’t help but sign up for his higher-level Embryology course. I still remember sitting in his class on the first day. He told us that he doesn’t give notes. His explanation was that we just paid $250 for the best and most complete notebook. He was, of course, referring to the textbook. He gave us a 75-page reading assignment on a Tuesday, which we were supposed to have completed by Thursday. When we went to class on Thursday, he started randomly calling on students to go up to the front of the class and give lectures on their reading. Doc’s idea was simply that students have to learn a concept to be able to teach it. It was painful for all of us, but some hated it, while others thrived under his tutelage.
Our little walk down memory lane brings us to our primary question. What does the study of science look like in a classical, Christian environment? First, let me say that I am not entirely convinced that I have this fully figured out. What I offer here is a brief exploration of how I have attempted to marry some of these ideas in the LOS science classroom. Second, I do not think that Doc necessarily implemented a pedagogy based on a thought-out commitment to the classical Christian model. I think it is much more likely that he implemented something in his undergraduate classes that he experienced while studying in Europe. I do think that he found it to be fruitful, as did I.
I strive to focus on three simple ideas when trying to replicate some of that fruit in my LOS science classes.
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First, when entering the science classroom, especially in the classical and Christian environment, I want my students to, every day, be confronted with what is “true, right, and beautiful.” It is too easy to view the concept, law, formula, theory, data, etc., as an end in and of itself. Rather, as a study of God’s glorious creation, Science can point us to God, and although general revelation is marred by the curse, it still points us to The Designer, and ultimately, all that is true, right, and beautiful.
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Second, although many of my students are quite far along in their classical education, and as sophomores, juniors, or seniors, quite beyond the grammar stage, they may be studying something like chemistry for the first time. This means that time must be devoted to teaching some of the grammar of the subject. Too often, chemistry teachers may take a Junior and get caught in the details of the subject matter. The danger here is that it can be easy to memorize details without understanding what they mean. The student new to chemistry must learn the grammar, the jargon (vocabulary) of chemistry, before they can speak the language of chemistry, but the goal of the journey should be to not just learn the grammar, but ultimately be able to speak the language. At LOS, my science classes begin with the grammar, but we never stop there.
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Finally, in good Doc fashion, students exercise their newfound knowledge by explaining what they have learned to each other. Each week, we try to have a day set aside for recitation. On those Thursdays, students are randomly called upon. They can give a brief lecture or answer questions taken from topics which were discussed and taught during the week. This is not an arbitrary process that I put in place just to torment these poor students. Rather, it gives them an opportunity to experience the idea that “you don’t really know something until you have to teach it.” Saint Augustine once said, “I write because I have made progress and I make progress because I write.” It is my hope that one day the testimony of my science students is that they “gave recitations because they made progress, and they made progress because they gave their recitations.”
In the end, it is simply this. God has called us to be faithful stewards of what he has entrusted us with. I have been entrusted with young people who are studying science. I want to make sure I do everything that I can to be faithful to that calling and set them up for success by showing them these things. At the same time, these students have been entrusted with a unique opportunity to study God’s beautiful and awesome creation, and to study in a unique, beautiful, and awesome way. May we all be those who are faithful stewards with what He has given us.