82 SCIENTIST 



Very, very fortunately, American students are today liv- 

 ing through what amounts to a revolution in the presenta- 

 tion of science and mathematics. Partly because of growing 

 dissatisfaction among schoolteachers themselves, partly be- 

 cause of parental worries, partly because certain university 

 teachers became increasingly restless about the distorted 

 scientific outlook of the pupils who come to them, and 

 partly, I fear, because of Sputnik, schoolteachers and uni- 

 versity scientists are working closely together to produce 

 new courses. It is much too early to say just how good these 

 courses are. But there are many good things to say about 

 the process itself and the side effects it has generated. In 

 the first place, the psychological barriers that separated 

 schoolteachers from university professors are rapidly break- 

 ing down. The professors are turning out to be much less 

 snobbish and unrealistic than the teachers had feared. The 

 teachers, far from being the complacent, unimaginative 

 functionaries many scientists had pictured, are proving 

 themselves more than anxious to find out what modern 

 science is and to do a much better job of transmitting it 

 to their pupils. Many of them are devoting their entire 

 summers and weekends and evenings throughout the year 

 to attending specially developed institutes that bring school 

 and college teachers together. 



Some of the very best scientists in the country have de- 

 voted two or three years to the development of new courses 

 for secondary schools. The physicists were the first group, 

 but they have been followed by two groups of chemists and 

 three groups of biologists. The physicists began by asking 

 themselves what they felt were the most important things 

 to know about physics at the present time. Clearly a high 

 school student should not be asked to learn all of physics 

 in one year. On the other hand, it seemed undesirable to 

 expose him to a smattering of knowledge in each of the 



