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Science education in this country clearly does leave something to be desired. More disturbing to me however is the hostility towards science education, not just from students but from all sorts of educated people. It seems that there is a perception that a person can be almost entirely scientifically illiterate, and still considered themselves well-educated and scholarly. I cannot count the number of times I have heard adults and children, smart people whom I respect, explain that they "just aren't science-people." They say this with no hint of embarrassment or regret. Apparently, there is no shame in not being a "science-person." This is not true of other disciplines. Acceptable though it may be in intellectual circles to know hardly any math at all, can you imagine a well-respected scholar explaining that he "never bothered reading that Shakespeare crap anyway?" Certainly not if he expected to remain quite so well-respected. This strange separation between "science-people" and the rest of the world seems to imply that people who do enjoy science learning are simply a strange subset of humanity, and that scientific knowledge is just too much to ask of anyone who is not already inclined towards learning science. It is really a shame that science is viewed this way, because it only serves to legitimize the failings of science education.
The problem of reinvigorating science education is more complicated than simply teaching students to appreciate the fascinating body of knowledge that science has brought us. It is important to remember that science does ask an awful lot of a student, not just in terms of grasping difficult concepts, which will get you pretty far, but also in terms of their temperament. A student of science needs to exercise persistent skepticism, in order to keep asking questions and testing assumptions. Otherwise, what is the point in doing a laboratory experiment to verify a principle already widely accepted as true? This is a more difficult task than can be completed simply by maintaining healthy curiosity about the world around oneself. It is far too easy to take for granted that the answers in the book are all of the answers that we need. This is the crucial difference between scientific knowledge and the scientific process. It is easy to be excited about scientific knowledge, but great mental discipline is required to be excited about the scientific process. A first step in changing science education in this country would be to teach students why the scientific process is such a profoundly inspiring concept. Science education should teach a student that the answers to questions are not granted, they are created, and that by resolving to organize one's inquiries in a certain fashion, by doing a few things that may feel a little pointless or dull, the answers to new questions can be found.