Science Teaching as a Dialogue – Bakhtin, Vygotsky and some Applications in the Classroom

Science & Education (2005) 14: 501–534 DOI 10.1007/s11191-004-8046-7

Springer 2005

Science Teaching as a Dialogue – Bakhtin, Vygotsky and some Applications in the Classroom FRITZ KUBLI Ba¨ulistrasse 26, CH-8049 Zu¨rich, Switzerland E-mail: kubli.fritz@smile.ch

Abstract. The theory of dialogism, developed by the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895– 1975) with regard to literature and everyday communication, can be used to improve the teaching of science. Some of Bakhtin’s conceptual instruments are helpful in analysing the teaching process, and it is interesting to compare them with former ideas about teaching and learning, especially with the points of view of other constructivists. Together with Lev Vygotsky’s analysis of thought and language, Bakhtin’s dialogism shows how teachers can support students effectively by addressing them as producers of a meaningful picture of the world. The differences between ‘dialogic’ teaching and the well-known ‘Socratic’ method are shown and analysed, as are Bakhtin’s discussions of a ‘carnivalistic’ approach to the students.

1. Science Teaching as an Art, and How it can be Improved Teaching, especially science teaching, is a complex process, and many observers consider it an art. Teachers have to present a given subject, must generate interest and motivate students to strive for an adequate understanding of it; they must give help and finally confirm that the subject has been understood by the students in accordance with official standards. This activity is so complex that the question arises as to whether teachers can simply be trained to perform it, or if they need a special gift. Of course, there are born teachers who intuitively do the right thing at the right moment, but nevertheless the response among students to science courses is often rather cool. A better understanding of the teaching process is therefore required, and several theories of teaching, as well as theories of students’ learning and understanding, have been developed in order to improve the situation.

Theories can influence teachers’ behaviour, and the more closely they match the complex reality of the classroom, the more real help they can provide.

A modern approach to science teaching has been suggested by the philosophical movement known as constructivism. This starts from the basic assumption that learners have to construct the meaning of the subject being taught, and this approach has proved to be very fruitful. It has led to a great

502

FRITZ KUBLI

variety of contributions. A comprehensive account of the discussion has been given in Constructivism in Education (Steffe and Gales 1995), and an overview of the current trends has been edited by Michael Matthews in Constructivism in Science Education (Matthews 1998) and in some articles published in Science & Education (January 1997 and November 2000).

Unfortunately, some of the issues discussed are relatively far removed from the classroom and are on a rather abstract – or philosophical – level.

For us teachers, it is often hard to transfer such discussions to the level of our everyday problems, so that we can develop methods which will allow us to perform our educational tasks. However, a theoretically sound basis for practical approaches and reflections is urgently needed. At least, this has been shown by my own experiences as a physics teacher at secondary school level.

In order to develop a good theory, there should be closer contact between teachers and educational theorists. The following remarks aim to give an account of a theory which is helpful in this respect. It is based on a promising theory of dialogue, called dialogism, which was developed by the Russian linguist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, whose ideas might fruitfully extend our pedagogical horizons.

2. Bakhtin – An Unknown Pioneer of Dialogism Michail Bakhtin was born near Moscow in 1895 and studied classics, philosophy and linguistics. The study of contemporary German philosophers, mainly neo-Kantians, generated the nucleus of the so-called ‘Bakhtin circle’.

This included, among others, Bakhtin’s friends Valentin Voloshinov and Pavel Medvedev, whose names later became closely intertwined with Bakhtin’s, and who produced some of the circle’s most relevant texts. In 1929, Bakhtin was arrested, probably in connection with his activities as a member of the underground church. He escaped being consigned to a death camp on the grounds of his poor health, as he suffered from a chronic bone disease, and was instead sent into exile. For thirty years, he lived and worked first as a bookkeeper in distant Kazakhstan, and then as an educator of teachers in Saransk. He died in Moscow in 1975.

Bakhtin’s complicated career – which shows similarities with Dostoyevsky’s biography – explains why he remained unknown for most of his life. It was only in the early 1960s that a group of young Russian scholars who admired Bakhtin’s works discovered that he was still active and persuaded him to start publishing again. It was only then that he achieved international fame and was generally recognised as a leading philosopher of language.

A characteristic of Bakhtin’s working method was his intense exchange of ideas with his friends (or disciples) Voloshinov and Medvedev. In their pioneering biography Michail Bakhtin, Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

503

describe Bakhtin’s collaborative approach very colourfully, comparing the production of his books and papers with a Renaissance artist’s studio, where ‘‘the master, Bakhtin, would draw the main sections of the canvas, while his disciples did some of the less important painting, following his directions.’’

(Clark and Holquist 1984, p. 150) They assume that some books published under his friends’ names were actually written by Bakhtin, but admit, however, that these friends were more than mere epigones. All of the members of the Bakhtin circle used a kind of notebook method, putting down the ideas that were stimulated by discussions with other members of the circle. Thus, Bakhtin and his friends not only promoted a theory of dialogism, but they actually used dialogue as a practical means of creating new ideas. It is therefore correct to envisage Bakhtin surrounded by helpful and devoted persons who influenced his theories, whilst his wife was another irreplaceable source of support and encouragement.

Bakhtin’s ideas have been formulated in numerous books and articles. For our purposes, however, we can restrict ourselves to the following papers: 1. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. This book brought fame to Bakhtin when its second edition was published in 1963. It provides evidence of the concrete relevance of several of his concepts by referring to the works of Dostoyevsky. The first edition appeared in 1929, just before Bakhtin was arrested and exiled, and an English translation of the much enlarged second edition appeared in 1984.

2. Rabelais and His World. This is a colourful analysis of Gargantua and Pantagruel, a pioneering literary work which inspired the tradition of the European novel. Bakhtin’s critique of Rabelais’ writings was his first book to be published in English. It was written in 1941 and earned its author an academic degree in 1947. It appeared in Russian in 1965.

3. Discourse in the Novel. A shorter – and more abstract – summary of some of Bakhtin’s ideas was written in 1934–1935 and published in 1975. A translation appeared in The Dialogic Imagination in 1981.

4. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. This book appeared under Voloshinov’s name in 1929 and was translated into English in 1973. It shows all the signs of Bakhtin’s co-authorship, and it is even widely suggested that Bakhtin was actually the sole author.

5. Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art. Again, this paper appeared under Voloshinov’s name in 1927, as an appendix to his book Freudianism, a Marxist Critique. The English translation appeared in 1976.

Although some of the above-mentioned works appeared under a different name, for the sake of simplicity I attribute the ideas described below to Bakhtin, even if it would be more accurate to refer to ‘Bakhtin’s circle’ or even to ‘Voloshinov’. On the other hand, we can assume that some of the ideas presented in works with Bakhtin’s explicit authorship were actually

504

FRITZ KUBLI

suggested or inspired by his friends. This is not surprising, for important issues which emerge from discussions have several fathers: in a congenial development of thinking, it is sometimes impossible to attribute the ideas created to only one of the participants. This is an obvious insight which follows from Bakhtin’s dialogism, a theory which defines consciousness as a social network, since it is based on the exchange of ideas with others.

3. Consciousness as a Social Construct Despite Bakhtin’s geographical isolation, he developed his theory in a stream of thought that produced valuable results elsewhere. Bakhtin started with a profound knowledge of German neo-Kantian philosophy, one of the most fruitful intellectual movements of the beginning of the 20th century. It illuminates not only scientific discourse but also everyday talk and, especially helpfully for our purpose, communication in the classroom. It would therefore be unwise to restrict oneself to Bakhtin’s works, without also considering other contributions, such as Jean Piaget’s or Lev Vygotsky’s analysis of thought and language. These authors were both acquainted with neo-Kantianism, in the same way that Bakhtin was. It is very interesting for modern readers to see that Bakhtin’s conception of dialogue and narratives is a logical continuation of this school of thought.

Some of Bakhtin’s basic ideas are presented in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language – an interesting book which was first published in 1929 under Voloshinov’s name, but which was strongly influenced by Bakhtin and might even have been written by him. It provides us with a general view of Bakhtin’s thought which, in many respects, remains relevant to this day.

This fundamental analysis starts from the very beginning with a declaration concerning thought and consciousness – a declaration which fits into the framework of modern social constructivism. The author states that, for him, ‘‘the only possible objective definition of consciousness is a sociological one’’ and that ‘‘consciousness takes shape and being in the material of signs created by an organised group in the process of its social intercourse.’’ (Voloshinov 1986, p. 13) This declaration is obviously more of a statement of belief than a general conclusion, and the question is not whether it is true or false, but how it can be developed to create a concrete and convincing picture.

In this theory, the sociological analysis of consciousness does not mean that individual consciousnesses do not exist, but the author emphasises that ‘‘the individual consciousness is nurtured on signs, it derives its growth from them; it reflects their logic and laws’’ (p. 13) – and signs ‘‘can arise only on inter-individual territory.’’ (p. 12) This is especially true for the reality of the word. The latter ‘‘resides between individuals’’ (p. 14), but it can at the same

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

505

time perform the role of ‘‘the semiotic material of inner life – of consciousness (inner speech).’’ (ibid.) What is needed ‘‘is profound and acute analysis of the word as social sign before its function as the medium of consciousness can be understood.’’ (Voloshinov 1986, p. 15) Bakhtin and his friends place more emphasis on the analysis of the social dimension of consciousness than many other representatives of social constructivism. For them, the consciousness of any human being is socially constructed. This also applies to the minds of the readers and authors of their (or any other) books, to students and to teachers. All of these minds are socially constructed and must be considered in a social framework, as they have been developed by social exchanges. This approach also leads to a special relationship between Bakhtin and his readers.

It is interesting to read Bakhtin’s arguments in the light of one’s own experiences in the classroom and to ask whether this social dimension can be observed or not. How can we say that the mind of the teacher and those of his students are socially constructed? How does this construct manifest itself during a lesson? These are questions that will be investigated in the following discussion. The excellent Dictionary of Stylistics (Wales 2001) gives helpful definitions and hints for those who want to follow Bakhtin’s arguments more closely and to understand his concepts more clearly.

4. Inner Speech in the Production of Sense and Meaning Bakhtin closely relates consciousness to social exchange and especially to language as a system of signs. Yet, informed educators would probably attribute these ideas rather to another Russian philosopher and psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), whose seminal book Thought and Language (1962, Russian original 1934) presents a profound and much admired analysis of the relationship between language and consciousness. Since some aspects of it deserve to be compared with Bakhtin’s ideas (which were developed independently), it is worth digressing briefly to summarise Vygotsky’s contribution to the subject, before going on with Bakhtin’s analysis.

The similarity between Bakhtin’s and Vygotsky’s approaches is amazing.

Only one year younger than Bakhtin and, like him, a genius in the field of the theory of thought, Vygotsky proceeded along similar lines, so that it is hard to believe that the two never met. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in 1896, Vygotsky was, like Bakhtin, the acknowledged leader of a small circle of high school students before he entered Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1917. Besides his studies in medicine and law, he took a profound interest in philosophy and displayed an in-depth knowledge of philosophers as diverse as Descartes, Hegel, Marx, the neo-Kantians, Husserl, and William James. He became famous for his analysis of thought processes

506

FRITZ KUBLI

in children. When he died of tuberculosis in 1934, at the age of only 38, he left a very inspiring description of children’s thought and learning in his famous book Thought and Language (Vygotsky 1934, engl. translation 1962) which was published posthumously in the same year.

Vygotsky strongly challenged one of the first attempts to analyse thought processes in children given by Piaget in his early book The Language and Thought of the Child (Piaget 1926). Piaget had noticed that a considerable proportion of the utterances of children in kindergarten were not ‘social’, i.e. directed to a real person in their group, but ‘egocentric’; that is, such utterances consisted of seemingly idle words spoken by the child to himself.

Egocentric language is related, however, to the children’s current activity and helps them to interpret their present situation, to ‘endow it with meaning’, as Jerome Bruner (1990) might say. As children grow older, the incidence of egocentric speech declines, according to Piaget, and eventually gives way to normal social speech, i.e. speech addressed to others.

Vygotsky’s point against Piaget is that egocentric speech does not die away, but becomes silent ‘inner speech’. In his book, he describes an interesting experiment which justifies his conclusion: In order to determine what causes egocentric talk, what circumstances provoke it, we organized the children’s activities in much the same way as Piaget did, but we added a series of frustrations and difficulties. For instance, when a child was getting ready to draw, he would suddenly find that there was no paper, or no pencil of the colour he needed. In other words, by obstructing his free activity we made him face problems.

We found that in these difficult situations the coefficient of egocentric speech almost doubled, in comparison with Piaget’s normal figure for the same age and also in comparison with our figure for children not facing the problems. The child would try to grasp and to remedy the situation in talking to himself: ‘‘Where’s the pencil? I need a blue pencil. Never mind, I’ll draw with the red one and wet it with water; it will become dark and look like blue.’’ (Vygotsky 1962, pp. 29, 30)

For Vygotsky, it is clear that egocentric speech, when it disappears, becomes silent inner speech – which can be re-transformed into audible speech in special situations. However, for Vygotsky, this seems to be primarily a tool for problem-solving, even if some experts in this field, such as James Wertsch (1985), have subsequently generalised his ideas. One of the reasons might be the realisation that if we equate ‘inner speech’ with ‘problem solving’, this interpretation narrows down our perspective, even if it can lead to a good understanding of some mental processes. Consciousness embraces a much broader spectrum of elements than just activities related to problems and their solutions.

Bakhtin’s ideas fit into this framework, even if he deals with the relationship between inner speech and consciousness in his own specific way. It is interesting that he enlarges the medium of language to include the medium of meaning and compares this view with a branch of psychology which he

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

507

attributes to the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey. Dilthey’s concept of the human psyche is presented in a positive light: It was not so much the matter that subjective psychic experience existed, the way a thing may be said to exist, as that it had meaning. When disregarding this meaning in the attempt to arrive at the pure reality of experience, we find ourselves, according to Dilthey, confronting in actual fact a physiological process in the organism and losing sight of the experience in the meantime – just as, when disregarding the meaning of a word, we process of its articulation. What makes a word a word is its meaning. What makes an experience an experience is also its meaning. And only at the expense of losing the very essence of inner, psychic life can meaning be disregarded. (Voloshinov 1986, p. 26)

Psychological developments, and inner speech in particular, must be seen in this context. They are essential in providing a given situation with meaning.

Meaning is not restricted to an individual mind, as it cannot be separated from the realm of signs, including words, which are exchanged with other members of a community. Meaning is a social category, and this also holds true for Vygotsky’s analysis of thought. For him, thinking is embedded in its social environment.

5. Meaning in the Classroom This inner language, as analysed by Vygotsky, and its function during the lesson are also important in the classroom. In fruitful discussions with some of my former students it has emerged that, during a lesson, they are sometimes confronted with the feeling that they cannot attribute an appropriate meaning to the teacher’s comments, even if they strive to do so. They cannot integrate the events taking place on the demonstration desk, or the equations worked out on the blackboard, or the teacher’s explanations, into their inner language, into their own meaningful system of thought. Very often, this is the reason why they become disinterested and sometimes even bored. Human beings want to make sense of the situation they are in – by integrating the events around them into a system which is centred in their person and their immediate (or not so immediate) desires and needs.

Ideas and messages can only be understood and assimilated if they can be incorporated into a personal system of meaning. This fact must be considered in any verbal interaction. Even in the classroom, it is essential that students are approached as autonomous creators of meaning, because meaning must be reconstructed individually. This is also true in the reading of texts. We have to recreate such texts by reproducing them in our own voice, and in so doing we generate a personal version of the text, a silently spoken version that we construct while we are reading or listening. The received text is always a reconstruction, and this reconstruction is not always identical with the presentation.

508

FRITZ KUBLI

This observation finally brings us back to Bakhtin’s thinking, and has been mentioned in an appendix to Voloshinov’s book Freudianism – a Marxist’s Critique, which includes an essay entitled Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art. Voloshinov describes the production of artistic texts and explains: Nothing is more perilous for aesthetics than to ignore the autonomous role of the listener.

A very commonly held opinion has it that (…) the position of a competent listener is supposed to be a simple reproduction of the author’s position. In actual fact this is not so.

Indeed, the opposite may sooner be said to be true: The listener never equals the author.

The listener has his own independent place in the event of artistic creation. (…) The listener normally stands side by side with the author as his ally. (Voloshinov 1976, p. 112)

Thus, we have to acknowledge the mental autonomy and individuality of our students’ analysis and text reproduction and to take these into account. In another essay, entitled Discourse in the Novel, Bakhtin emphasises: In the actual life of speech, every concrete act of understanding is active: it assimilates the word to be understood into its own conceptual system filled with specific objects and emotional expression (…). Thus an active understanding [by the listener, F.K.], one that assimilates the word under consideration into a new conceptual system, that of the one striving to understand, establishes a series of complex interrelationships, consonances and dissonances with the word and enriches it with new elements. It is precisely such an understanding that the speaker counts on. Therefore his orientation toward the listener is an orientation toward a specific conceptual horizon, toward the specific world of the listener. (…) The speaker strives to get a reading of his own word, and on his own conceptual system that determines the word, within the alien conceptual horizon of the listener, constructs his own utterance on alien territory, against his, the listener’s apperceptive background. (Bakhtin 1981, p. 282)

Teaching is an interaction with the listener’s mental activity, and the arena of this effort to influence students is the shared system of language. Teaching is possible if teachers are partners in the efforts to ‘‘assimilate the word into a new conceptual system.’’ Therefore, a teacher who wants to educate students in an atmosphere of dialogue has to take notice of their individual reconstructions or responses – which are regarded by Bakhtin as a necessary precondition for understanding. Indeed, he even goes one step further: an author – or the teacher, as we might say – has to develop a proper initiative to join the audience. He has ‘‘to strive to get a reading of his own words’’, and he must use words which create ‘‘a territory shared by both addresser and addressee, by the speaker and his interlocutor’’, and which can serve as ‘‘a bridge thrown between himself and another.’’ (Voloshinov 1986, p. 86) In order to do so, a speaker must realise who and where his listeners are.

In this respect, Bakhtin goes beyond the ideas of Vygotsky, who offers several important clues for the understanding of the classroom situation. In Thought and Language, Vygotsky emphasises that the imitation of an informed person is the essential element in education, because ‘‘what the child can do in co-operation today he can do alone tomorrow.’’ (p. 188) Imitation

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

509

can take place if the teacher has the function of a scaffold which gives the child or student support.

Scaffolding has even become a widely recommended method, ever since Wood et al. (1976) coined this concept. Just as a scaffold-like support can help a plant to climb and develop, a well-chosen form of assistance by a teacher can help a student to follow a certain line of argumentation and to develop his or her ideas. But is assistance enough? Bakhtin seems to feel it is not, and my personal experience has led to similar conclusions. Teachers have to join their students if they want to help them as a scaffold they can rely on.

6. Addressivity and the Production of Meaning Mere assistance alone may be not enough to create a dialogic situation. Swiss students, at least, need to be addressed before they accept help, and Bakhtin explains why this is the case. He emphasises that normal speech is always directed to a concrete person: The word is orientated towards an addressee, towards who that addressee might be: a fellow-member or not of the same social group, (…) someone connected with the speaker by close ties (father, brother, husband, and so on) or not. There can be no such thing as an abstract addressee. (Voloshinov 1986, p. 85)

In German, the noun ‘addressivity’ (Adressivita¨t) sounds strangely similar to aggressiveness (Aggressivita¨t), and as a matter of fact, addressivity and aggressiveness both describe a certain kind of intrusion into the lives of the listeners. But the aims are quite different. An addresser wants to establish contact with an addressee, whereas an aggressor wants to overcome an opponent.

But, according to Bakhtin, addressivity takes place if we talk invitingly to our students and leave no stone unturned in our efforts to catch their attention. We try, in a way, to enter the active part of their minds when we address them. Addressing somebody means finding out where he is and how one can gain access to him. ‘‘Where can I reach you and how can I catch your attention?’’ is the important question. A teacher who is completely absorbed in his own world cannot successfully address students.

Addressivity is only possible between socially connected persons: Utterances, as we know, are constructed between two socially organized persons, and in the absence of a real addressee, an addressee is presupposed in the person, so to speak, of a normal representative of the social group to which the speaker belongs. (Voloshinov 1986, p. 85)

If a teacher fails – because he is not attentive enough – to realise who he is confronted with, so that he addresses the class as ‘abstract’ students and not as persons embedded in a social group, he will never establish close contact

510

FRITZ KUBLI

with his real audience. Even worse, he may address himself to imaginary individuals whom he supposes to have the same intellectual background as he has – which may be very different from that of the students themselves. But to address somebody means becoming involved with his specific inner speech, and this necessitates a certain kind of empathy. We must respond intellectually and emotionally to the messages we receive from our audience if we want to be understood, because ‘‘every act of understanding is a response’’ (Voloshinov 1986, p. 102), and mutual responses are essential in any communication. Our students notice whether we are able to respond to their needs in our presentations or not. They have difficulty in following if we merely present our own program, unmoved by the signs from their side.

Obviously, we have to adapt our communication to our audience. But this adaptation is only possible if we have something to rely on. Every teacher knows that it is sometimes difficult to get into a subject in such a way that students become involved and their inner activity is stimulated. Do we, in any case, know our interlocutor’s inner orientation well enough to decide how he can be addressed? Is our input always ready to produce a reaction, for instance by proposing a subject of common interest? These are the important questions to be answered in the concrete classroom situation.

7. Implied Elements in Communication Such questions, however, are not the only ones. It seems to me that the symmetry between speaker and listener is disturbed if we concentrate exclusively on the listener – even if a constructivist perspective seems to suggest this. A speaker needs to know, at least to certain extent, the listener’s concepts and values in order to communicate effectively, but the same is also true for the listener with regard to the speaker’s concepts and personality. A specific knowledge of the speaker – or at least a clue as to his identity – is essential for any understanding. We teachers have to expose ourselves to our audience to a certain extent; we are, in a way, on stage and may very well feel some stage fright if we raise our voices because our students, like listeners in general, develop a picture of us speakers when they listen to us.

Of course, we can cultivate our perceived image when we teach. This is also true for the teller of a story who inevitably unveils some characteristic aspects of his personality, and experienced narrators know this. They implicitly comment on and underline the sequence of the events narrated by the use of their voice, more so than a speaker does who merely presents dry arguments.

Narratives have a human touch, and this aspect deserves closer examination.

This is also valid for science teaching, where we have to concentrate not only on the listener, but also on the teacher as the ‘teller of the story’.

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

511

Students of literature have to be trained not to confuse the real author of a text, i.e. the person who wrote it, with the implied author, i.e. the person who becomes visible as the author in the text. This distinction is useful both in the analysis of storytelling and in the analysis of teaching. We cannot teach without at least indirectly showing a certain way of organising information; we cannot withdraw and disappear completely from the stage without leaving an idea of who we are. But this idea or view of the person we expose to the audience is different from our own way of experiencing ourselves. Students do not see us as we like to be seen, but they construct a picture of us, or, better, their picture of us as implied authors – a picture that is revised and developed during the act of communication. Even in oral communication, the function of the implied author can be distinguished from that of the real speaker; and we have to be aware of this aspect in order to be good teachers.

Experienced teachers know that they perform a role in the classroom which does not exactly fit the role they have been trained for in order to become scientists. They develop a ‘teacher’s personality’, i.e. they deal with scientific subjects in an acceptable and comprehensible way even for ordinary, generally educated persons. This is especially true in the case of secondary school teachers. Grammar schools give a general education, and successful science teachers perform more like amateur scientists in the 18th century than like modern specialists. Many of these amateurs were also famous writers, such as Voltaire, who took a great interest in the science of his day and even performed experiments with heat. These writer-scientists knew how to present their results to a generally educated audience: they knew that any successful presentation had to include comments which guaranteed the social relationship between themselves and their readers or listeners. And they knew that their message was more likely to be accepted if they presented an understandable picture of themselves.

The importance of showing the peculiarity of a scientist’s way of thinking in ordinary situations must be explained to teachers at the beginning of their careers, because they very often do not dare to deviate from the imposed curriculum in order to include digressions which integrate the subject-matter being taught into their everyday life. Yet, any opportunities to do so should be used in order to stimulate interest. In our daily life, there are a lot of situations which allow us to show the peculiarities of scientific thinking in a context which is familiar to the students.

Science teachers need to be informed of the advantages of an open attitude, because in general they are not encouraged to adopt one. Consequently, many of our students do not have any idea, or have only a strange and unfounded picture, of what scientists do or how they think. They need additional information about how science is related to the persons who pursue it. The more they know about scientists, and the science teacher is a

512

FRITZ KUBLI

representative of this group, the more easily they can develop the necessary sympathy for the scientist’s way of thinking. This may sound strange to those teachers who have been trained in presenting only the results of scientific investigations and not in showing the processes which led to them. A certain familiarity with these processes is, however, essential for any education which aspires to be considered ‘general’.

8. Textbooks as Scaffolds So far, we have considered classroom communication as an exchange between a teacher and his students. However, science teaching is not only based on the teacher’s explanations and experiments. An important aid for both students and teachers alike is the often inevitable textbook used during the lessons. It is hard for students to cope with the subject if there is nothing written on which they can rely.

I must confess that some science teachers – myself included – do not use printed books, and this seems to contradict the advocacy of textbooks that will be set forth below. Often the feeling of independence, so highly developed and valued by Swiss science teachers, leads to the opinion that we have a different task to fulfil in the classroom than to explain a textbook. Our professional goal is to teach the subject as it is, and not as it is presented in a book. I know that this sounds ambitious – but our students should be prepared to understand a piece of nature, to read from this universal book so highly prized by authors like Galileo and his followers.

Textbooks normally have several functions in science teaching. They present the subject, but in general they also define the scope of the material to be learnt. There is also a legal aspect associated with them: a teacher who uses an officially recommended or even prescribed textbook does not have to justify the subject. The textbook indicates what has to be learnt, and the teacher shows the way to do so. He can act as an adviser or a tutor giving indications about how to achieve the goal – the understanding of the text, and of science as far as it has been defined by the authors of the textbook.

Thus, not only teachers, but also textbooks serve as guidelines or as scaffolds for the developing minds of students. Textbooks are a source of information, and for many students they are the most important aid in their efforts to gain an adequate understanding of the subject. They can even give some intrinsic motivation, and teachers may be tempted to reduce their own roles to those of attendants of the students.

This attitude can be justified by the writings of Vygotsky, who offers several important clues for an understanding of this situation. There are compelling reasons why not only teachers, but also textbooks can serve as scaffolds. Textbooks and the teacher can give assistance. In Thought and

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

513

Language, Vygotsky mentions that scientific concepts have to be learned like a foreign language. We learn a second language very differently – by studying its grammar, etc. – from how we acquire our first language. There is, according to Vygotsky, a comparable difference between scientific language and the spontaneously developed articulation of a subject. The latter can help children to ‘‘become more conscious and deliberate in using words as tools of his thought’’, because, as Vygotsky puts it: The strength of scientific concepts lies in their conscious and deliberate character.

Spontaneous concepts, on the contrary, are strong in what concerns the situational, empirical, and practical. These two conceptual systems, developing ‘from above’ and ‘from below’, reveal their real nature in the interrelations between actual development and the zone of proximal development. (Vygotsky 1962, p. 194)

Moreover, Though scientific and spontaneous concepts develop in reverse directions, the two processes are closely connected. The development of a concept must have reached a certain level for the child to be able to absorb a related scientific concept. (…) Scientific concepts grow downward through spontaneous concepts; spontaneous concepts grow upward through scientific concepts. (ibid.)

Textbooks – and other appropriate sources of information – often precede and guide the development of thinking. They stimulate thinking ‘from above’, which can join the student’s own, spontaneously developed concepts.

But they can never replace the teacher’s activity, which is to mediate between the two ways of thinking.

9. Extraverbal Aspects in the Classroom Textbooks, however, will not be sufficient in themselves and must be complemented by other forms of information. At this point, we go beyond Vygotsky’s theory and join Bakhtin and his views. Besides the argumentation of the textbook, there are extraverbal contexts to be considered. Lessons can be much more satisfying and interesting if we leave the written scaffold and lead the students ourselves into the sometimes surprising and inspiring world of scientific laws.

Bakhtin set out the extraverbal contributions to meaningful communication in a famous little story, which offers a striking example of the fact that communication can become meaningful only if we know the circumstances – even if the communicative act itself consists of only one word. Several elements determine whether a communicative act can be understood or not: Two people are sitting in a room. They are both silent. Then one of them says, ‘‘Well!’’ The other does not respond. For us, as outsiders, this entire ‘conversation’ is utterly unintelligible. Taken in isolation, the utterance ‘‘Well!’’ is empty and unintelligible. (…)

We lack the extraverbal context that made the word well a meaningful locution for the

514

FRITZ KUBLI

listener. This extraverbal context of the utterance is comprised of three factors: (1) the common spatial purview of the interlocutors (the unity of the visible – in this case, the room, the window, and so on), (2) the interlocutor’s common knowledge and understanding of the situation, and (3) their common evaluation of that situation. At the time the colloquy took place, both interlocutors looked up at the window and saw that it begun to snow; both knew that it was already May and that it was time for spring to come; finally, both were sick and tired of the protracted winter – they both were looking forward to spring and both were bitterly disappointed by the late snowfall. (…) All this is assumed in the word well. (Voloshinov 1976, p. 99)

This extraverbal context determines the success of a message. A communicative act presupposes (1) a common spatial purview, (2) common knowledge and (3) a common evaluation of the situation. It is not difficult to find the following parallels in the classroom: (1) Let us imagine a teacher who talks, without performing an experiment or, at least, showing some pictures, about the dispersion of sunlight, its continuous spectrum and the spectral lines produced by glowing vapours.

There is no common spatial purview among the interlocutors, which an experiment or at least a picture would provide. The phenomenon is so difficult to imagine that whatever the teacher says will be completely incomprehensible, at least to those students who have never actually seen anything of this kind themselves.

(2) A teacher shows that a certain force is constant by demonstrating that it produces a uniformly accelerated movement. A student who does not share his teacher’s knowledge of physics, i.e. who has not understood Newton’s laws, will not see the connection between these two statements and will not be able to follow the argumentation. He is in the situation of a child who cannot classify the late snowfall, because he does not share the adults’ knowledge of the calendar. The same is true in the classroom, whenever a train of argumentation is based on some implicit knowledge which is not available to some students.

(3) Shared values in the classroom: a teacher is deeply satisfied when the measurement of the rate of electric flow proves that it is proportional to the potential difference at the ends of the conductor. A student who is bored by the protracted lesson will not join him in his excitement and may even prefer to talk to his neighbour – i.e. to a person who shares his personal evaluation of the situation.

These three extraverbal preconditions – shared experiences, shared knowledge and common evaluation of the situation – must be satisfied in any effective teaching. A science teacher has to rely on experimental illustrations in order to fulfil the first condition; he has to proceed in a logical manner; and he has to strive for a shared system of values and feelings. Whereas the first two conditions are generally accepted, the third one has, to my knowledge, not received appropriate consideration. How can we convey our positive

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

515

feelings and our excitement in the classroom; how can we make sure that our own evaluations are shared by our students? In other words, how can we achieve success in our teaching, in the sense that students gain pleasure from our teaching?

Again, we are brought back to narrative as a means of showing and communicating our enthusiasm. If we describe Galileo’s excitement when he first saw the shadows in the craters of the moon through his telescope, or if we read his account in The Star Messenger accordingly, we can show his enthusiasm and spread the system of values we stand for by describing him as our spiritual ancestor. A system of values always has an emotional component and cannot be transmitted without a strong relation to the interlocutor(s). Moreover, our students will take notice of our efforts to communicate our excitement – for instance, if we take time to comment on our experiments in order to show their elegance or their emotional appeal.

10. Experiments and Reproductions in Science Teaching Most students are probably aware that demonstrations, regardless of whether they are executed by students or by the teacher, are repetitions of already known situations and not genuinely new experiments. Yet, this fact does not bother them; on the contrary, they appreciate experiments as a change and a welcome opportunity to get some emotional background. Moreover, they regard them as necessary illustrations which are fundamental to good teaching. It is helpful, however, to ask ourselves exactly what function they fulfil in science teaching.

One of the unquestionable merits of experiments in the classroom is their exclusivity. If we demonstrate phenomena that cannot normally be observed outside the classroom, and if we underline this element, students will not fail to show an interest. The special quality of classroom experiments is the fact that students are personally confronted with them or engaged in them.

Demonstrations in science teaching cannot be compared to original research work, but they can create a sense of identification with famous scientists if, for instance, we tell our students that they are now in the same position as Galileo was when he discovered the law of uniformly accelerated motions. What measurements were necessary to prove his hypothesis? What sort of instruments did he have at his disposal? Did he see a connection between the rolling ball and free fall? This linkage between an experiment and its historical aspects and roots adds some colour to the scientific argumentation we present.

In science teaching, the experiments reproduced in the classroom differ from the original ones in one important respect. The element of uncertainty – the sure sign of a real experiment – is drastically reduced if we repeat an experiment whose result can be deduced from the textbook. But even in the

516

FRITZ KUBLI

classroom, we can regenerate something of the pioneering spirit if we show how difficult it originally was to arrive at a result, and if we can convey the fascination of breaking new ground; and if we also succeed in bringing back to life the personalities of the scientists involved and their emotions, we can reflect this drive towards a better understanding of nature.

This aspect of revival is very important in science teaching. We can achieve it by doing experiments and by telling stories, but, as Joan Solomon has shown, it is often only the combination of stories and experiments that gives youngsters access to the scientific way of thinking (Solomon 2002). If history disappears from our science teaching, an important source of inspiration will be lost.

Let me give an example. If we demonstrate the function of a mercury barometer and explain how it is related to air pressure, and if we calculate the magnitude of the latter in a rather dry explanation, there is no guarantee that students will pay much attention to the construction of the instrument and the theory behind it. They might be interested in air pressure, but these explanations might not enter their mental space in order to become interwoven with their inner language. All they might notice is that an instrument that resembles an ordinary thermometer can measure the pressure of the air.

Now imagine a class of intelligent 16 or 17-year-old students. If you mention the historical background and show how difficult it was to fabricate and understand such an instrument and to explain how it functions, you are in a much better position to arouse interest. You show the motivation and inspiration that led Torricelli to create such a device, and if you explain how difficult it was to understand the produced phenomena, students are much better prepared to share the excitement of this discovery than if you restrict yourself to a dry description of its various parts. You may also mention the philosophical implications of the discovery of a real vacuum (Matthews 1994, pp. 60–70). Moreover, an extended analysis of the barometer may direct students’ attention to the fact that the glass tube must be closed at its upper end, or may answer the question of whether there is a vacuum in its upper part or not. What, too, about the pressure of the air – can any glass tube stand it without being split into pieces? Teachers can exploit their students’ imagination; they can bring them to represent situations which lead to a precise analysis of the components of the instrument. This approach may sustain the students’ attention for the whole lesson, as it involves a large portion of undergraduate physics.

By demonstrating physics in its historical context, teachers can mobilise their students’ imagination. A student once told me: ‘‘Stories catch our attention. They can produce something like a movie in our imagination.’’ The mercury barometer illustrates the fact that the technical aspects of the instrument can be shown in the context of its historical development.

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

517

It is obvious that this kind of storytelling is only possible if teachers know the history of their subject to some extent. It is regrettable that modern scientists often learn the fundamental principles of their subject only from textbooks and not from original sources. These were more commonly used when my own teachers received their education. My teachers had, in general, a good knowledge of original papers, and very often also of the biographies of the scientists whose ideas they had to teach. As they were Germanspeaking scientists, they could find the relevant details in Ostwald’s Klassiker der Naturwissenschaften, which, along with other well-known sources, was widely used. In so doing, they underlined the fact that we owe something to others, even if we create a new view – our own interpretation – with the help of these revived elements. Teachers can acknowledge this debt if they lend their voices to the otherwise dead and sometimes even forgotten treasures of the past, and if they weave an inspiring fabric, a picture of the past we all have in common.

11. Logic and Voices in the Dialogues But a further element must be considered, and this brings us back to Bakhtin’s and Vygotsky’s theories. Both being experts in language and thought, they shared insights that might have been inspired by Dostoyevsky’s writings, such as the difference between a voiced use of words in a dialogue and a voiceless ideal of an abstract deduction achieved by following logical rules.

In Thought and Language, Vygotsky quotes (p. 143) a passage from Dostoyevsky’s writings that could have been written by Bakhtin, because it illuminates an important point in his theory. This is Dostoyevsky’s story: One Sunday night I happened to walk for some fifteen paces next to a group of six drunken young workmen, and I suddenly realized that all thought, feelings and even a whole chain of reasoning could be expressed by one noun, which moreover is extremely short. One young fellow said it harshly and forcefully, to express his utter contempt for whatever it was they had all been talking about. Another answered with the same noun but in a quite different tone and sense – doubting that the negative attitude of the first one was warranted. A third suddenly became incensed against the first and roughly intruded on the conversation, excitedly shouting the same noun, this time a curse and obscenity. Here the second fellow interfered again, angry at the third, the aggressor, and restraining him, in the sense of ‘‘Now and here you have to butt in, we were discussing things quietly and here you come and start swearing.’’ And he told this whole thought in one word, the same venerable word, except that he also raised his hand and put it on the third fellow’s shoulder. All at once a fourth, the youngest of the group, who had kept silent till then, probably having suddenly found a solution to the original difficulty which had started the argument, raised his hand in a transport of joy and shouted … Eureka, do you think? I have it? No, not eureka and not I have it; he repeated the same unprintable noun, one word, merely one word, but with ecstasy, in a shriek of delight – which was apparently too

518

FRITZ KUBLI

strong, because the sixth and oldest, a glum-looking fellow, did not like it and cut the infantile joy of the other one short, addressing him in a sullen, exhortative bass and repeating … yes, still the same noun, forbidden in the presence of ladies but which this time clearly meant ‘‘What are you yelling yourself hoarse for?’’ So, without uttering a single other word, they repeated that one beloved word six times in a row, one after another, and understood another completely. (The Diary of a Writer, Dostoyevsky 1873, quoted in Vygotsky 1962, p. 241)

This conversation shows that the same word can have quite different implications, according to the tone of voice in which it is uttered. In a similar way, even words which are citations from a textbook may create a new meaning in the classroom, according to the voice of the teacher who explains the subject. A repetition of spoken words is never an exact duplication or identical reproduction, but always a new creation, as the text quoted above has shown.

The intonation of our voices is, therefore, not without consequences for our teaching. This must be emphasised, because the way in which scientists see the world is often as a voiceless universe. This ideal has been discussed in complex theories of science. In the early 1920s, there was a powerful movement in Vienna – called the ‘‘Vienna Circle’’ – which tried to reduce science to the qualities of the (voiceless) structure of its objects – one example being Rudolf Carnap in the introduction to his famous treatise Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1961, original edition Vienna 1928). Carnap was determined to eliminate all kinds of ‘metaphysics’ from science, but he failed to realise that the reduction of the subject to its voiceless, logical structure produced only dull and uninspiring language, which, according to Bakhtin, is the opposite of any dialogical relationship. If our knowledge is no longer to consist of mere dead structures, then those structures ‘‘must clothe themselves in discourse, become utterances, become the positions of various subjects expressed in discourse, in order that dialogic relationships might arise among them.’’ (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 183) Bakhtin illustrates his point of view with the following example. Let us consider two identical sentences: ‘Life is good.’ ‘Life is good.’

Here, we have two absolutely identical judgements, or in fact one single judgement written (or pronounced) twice; but this ‘twice’ refers only to its verbal embodiment and not to the judgement itself. We can, to be sure, speak here of the logical relationship of identity between two judgements.

But if this judgement is expressed in two utterances by two different individuals, then dialogic relationships arise between them (Bakhtin 1984a, pp.

183–184).

It is useful to make a distinction between a voiceless repetition of a logical statement and the dialogical version. This can be shown by the above example: ‘Life is good’ and ‘Life is good’ is a senseless repetition, unless we place the

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

519

accent differently, for instance ‘Life is good’ versus ‘Life is good’. Now the situation has changed. We can imagine two voices in a dialogue, for instance between a depressed person and a partner who wants to convince him that life is wonderful and should be lived. In this case, we do not have a mere repetition, but a dialogue that consists of different statements, even if they are rendered in the same words.

This linguistic analysis shows where the problem in science teaching lies.

Teachers have to fill voiceless scientific structures with life, and we can do so if we dialogise them. What has been collected in statements and laws can serve as logically useful starting points for scientific considerations or calculations, but it must acquire a touch of life if students are to become interested. The soundless laws of science have to be revived by being integrated into dialogues between voices.

12. Voices in Science Teaching The concept of voice has, to my knowledge, never been discussed in the didactics of science, although it is an aspect that deserves to be studied and cultivated. I have realised in my own teaching that this concept illuminates a very sensitive domain. The distinction between a voiceless expression and a colourful voice has something in common with that between a bare, monochromatic sine-wave and the warm, subtle timbre of a musical instrument whose sound can be broken down, by Fourier analysis, into a rich variety of harmonics or overtones. Readers who are not familiar with acoustics might compare the taste of a bland, cheap wine with the full flavour of a fruity, harmonious wine with a distinctive body.

The importance of a warm and lively timbre can be considered on the physiological level of a teacher’s actual voice. A relaxed, warm and selfconfident voice is much easier to bear than one that is cold, strained and insecure: it shows that a teacher is in control of the situation without apparent effort. Students agree that easy-going teachers have additional trump cards at their disposal – ‘easy’ (said in English) being one of the favourite expressions of my German-speaking, adolescent students. If ever our voices become uneasy and strained, we are well-advised to search for the reason(s).

A student once compared an imaginary teacher ‘‘who is so tedious that I prefer to read a book on the subject’’ with the life-affirming performance he would like to experience in a well-taught lesson; and he made it clear that he expected more than a monotonous voice. A teacher’s ‘voice’ can be empty or full of harmonics in a figurative sense, too, and this seems to be the point that student had in mind. In this case, the ‘overtones’ are not sound waves but links with other subjects (and persons), and this is something else that Bakhtin suggests we should analyse. If a subject is taught in the context of a network of

520

FRITZ KUBLI

associations, its meaning is easier to grasp than that of an isolated structure whose connections with everyday life are not apparent. The more experiences can be brought into contact with a subject, the richer is its ‘timbre’. Teachers should be trained, therefore, to teach their subjects integrated into as many contexts as can be imagined. Bare bones do not make an appetising meal.

Yet it is not only links with other subjects and situations that are important. From the fact that we share our language with other members of society, Bakhtin deduces that, even in our inner speech, there are always some echoes from other people’s voices. The more voices that are present in the speech of a teacher who tries to integrate his words into a colourful intellectual horizon, the more echoes can be stimulated by the student’s inner activity. Bakhtin emphasises that: [E]ach person’s inner world and thought has its stabilized social audience that comprises the environment in which reasons, motives, values, and so on are fashioned. (Voloshinov 1986, p. 86)

This image can be projected into the classroom. Facing the teacher with his specific speech, which is dependent on his own education, training and experience, there are students with quite a different inner ‘social audience’ – voices that have been shaped by their own social environment. If we want to address them, we have to link their immediate social environment with a more general view; we have to enter their inner sphere with the help of our words. Our teaching must be directed ‘‘towards another’s discourse, towards someone else’s speech’’ (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 185), and we can achieve this if we invoke voices that can be commonly heard.

Some of these voices have a long tradition and may be used in our teaching. I have always been surprised that some words uttered by eminent scientists have survived throughout the ages. Archimedes’ ‘Eureka!’ or Galileo’s ‘Eppure si move’, for instance, are familiar in many cultural traditions and can be evoked and reinforced. These voices – which are as important as those of Julius Caesar, Napoleon or other famous social leaders – should be revived in the teaching of science.

In a meaningful science course, students should not only learn structures, but they also should become acquainted with some echoes of the voices of persons some of whom faded into oblivion long ago. Of course, a physics teacher can only reanimate echoes of the voices of Galileo, Pascal, Newton, Einstein or Niels Bohr, but even these echoes can add some life to an otherwise monotonous train of argumentation. This means that we are welladvised to study the history of our science through original reports and documents. In many original papers, or in letters exchanged with other persons, the voices of eminent scientists are recognisable and can be made accessible to later generations. Some of the pioneers of science, such as Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle, Bohr, Einstein, Schro¨dinger, de Broglie

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

521

and many others, were also excellent writers who have provided us with texts which even exhibit artistic qualities. Feynman, incidentally, is a modern example of this gift for writing which both informs and entertains the reader.

Anyone who has spent the time and energy needed to immerse himself into such historical treasures will agree that the results are worth the effort. The historical aspects thus brought to light bridge the gulf between science and education most effectively – provided that an echo of the voices of those who participated in the historical development is evoked and brought to life.

Otherwise, history becomes a rather dull adjunct to science teaching, and brighter students will prefer ‘real science’ to these additional contributions.

Yet – to conclude this analysis of voices – the voices invoked need not be those of outstanding personalities in all cases. Sometimes, the voices of family members, or of educators, teachers or fellow students are more important, because they are emotionally coloured. It helps students if they can experience an interaction between their teachers and important voices in their personal surroundings. ‘Important’, however, does not imply that these voices have to be famous in any way. Personal voices are far from unimportant if they have an emotional impact. They reflect the teacher’s social network, which may then be linked to the social network of the students. The voice of a science teacher, for example, is not the only one that is heard in a school community. In addition to other important sources of meaning, there are at least as many voices as there are teachers and different subjects in a class. We must not only focus on isolated communication between an individual teacher and his students, but integrate it into a larger system – a system that has a sociocultural dimension.

13. Sociocultural Constructivism and Narratives In the general discussion of constructivism as a pedagogical theory, the question is whether we should adopt an individually based view of constructivism, a conception of a rather isolated mind which develops a world view independently of any other views, or should consider a mind which is, right from the beginning, integrated into a social fabric – initially consisting of the family and, later, of larger social communities such as school classes, peer groups or the adult community. Influential authors like Jean Piaget do not deny that social influences are important with regard to the development of the mind, but they never place them at the centre of their investigations.

Authors like Lev Vygotsky and Michail Bakhtin, on the other hand, develop theories which presuppose that every individual mind is based on a strong relationship with other minds. Language or, in more general terms, social signs are essential elements in the thinking process and cannot be separated from our mind or our consciousness.

522

FRITZ KUBLI

Bakhtin, one of the most interesting specialists in the mind and communication, not only favoured a socially based brand of constructivism, but described social interaction in precise detail. The same is true of his compatriot Vygotsky, who made a seminal contribution to developmental theory when he combined the study of the individual consciousness and identity with a research into language as the social component of this intellectual development. Yet, however carefully these investigations may have been carried out, it is not easy to replace an individually based view of intellectual development with a social point of view, unless further elements are included.

This might be one of the reasons why Jerome Bruner integrated narratives into the constructivist perspective and enlarged this picture to embrace a new direction (Bruner 1990, 1996); narratives might be an important link between the individually shaped mind and the social components of consciousness. Not only are narratives helpful for the individual understanding of a certain subject, but they also contribute to the social identity of the thinking individual. Every effort to understand a narrative is also a struggle for a personal identity which is accepted in the individual’s social environment.

Understanding is linked to social recognition. Of course, it has its individual aspects – every student has his own conceptual system with which to grasp the meaning of a text or a line of argumentation – but the result must be something that can be compared with other views, communicated to other thinkers, and accepted by them. It is, therefore, not possible to separate the individual consciousness from such social aspects.

This is the paradigm of social constructivism which was illustrated in the early part of this paper. In considering its implications for the classroom, however, it is important to extend the view a little further. The person who constructs his or her own view and who co-operates with partners is integrated into a general culture. It is, therefore, necessary to draw attention to the socio-cultural component of intellectual constructs in learning processes, in addition to the social components already mentioned. This step has been suggested by John Leach and Phil Scott (Leach and Scott 2003) and relates to an aspect also put forward by James Wertsch (1991, 1998) in his analysis of Bakhtin’s theories. It is also relevant to school situations, because the struggle for social recognition and a (social) self not only has a social dimension in the sense that it includes partners, but – and this is my central thesis – it also has a cultural dimension.

It is perhaps necessary to explain what is meant by ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ in this context. The social component of intellectual activities is relevant, if we consider the fact that our individual insights must be given a form that makes them communicable to other people. It is important, for instance, to verify that a certain perspective can be adopted by a peer or an educated person like

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

523

a teacher. In this regard, Piaget distinguishes ‘egocentric’ views which have to be ‘decentrated’, in the sense that they can be adapted to the conceptual systems of others. Scientific insights cannot consist of egocentric views which cannot be understood by other thinkers; they must be developed into views that can be adopted and shared, and this demands permanent co-operation with partners.

The cultural aspect comes in when a communicable view has to be accepted officially. In our classes, we can construct perfectly understood and even logically consistent views which have only one drawback – they may not be in agreement with officially accepted scientific language. Scientific norms have been developed through a historical process, including, for instance, conferences which have institutionalised certain language or conceptual systems in order to facilitate further discussion. Previous systems may have been logically consistent as well but have, for some reason, been replaced by other concepts. This shows that science is also a cultural enterprise, in the sense that it has to be supported not only by individuals, but by society as a whole, or at least by some of its leading members. A teacher is a member of this cultural community and has to represent it adequately.

Teaching has a ‘cultural’ dimension in many respects. The confidence students place in a teacher’s authority is closely related to his cultural identity and how it is perceived by them. A teacher is conceived of as the exponent of the present state of an art which has its own tradition. Teachers are, in general, not supposed to develop their personal ideas and arguments when they discuss their experiments in the classroom; rather, they are employed to reproduce generally accepted arguments developed by others. In doing so, they represent a certain view of reality – the scientific approach – which has long since been shaped by eminent scientists and their followers.

This cultural dimension of science must be underlined. By showing their experiments to students, teachers follow in the footsteps of personalities like Galileo Galilei, Benjamin Franklin, August Fresnel, and many other gifted experimentalists (Kubli 2001a). In this respect, they not only propagate certain insights from the demonstration desk, but also display their dedication to experiments and their commitment to a certain way of thinking.

Teachers might, in addition, be disciples of great educators like Richard Feynman, who educated his students through his outstanding lectures, or try to be followers of theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein or Niels Bohr, who developed not only a physical point of view, but a whole philosophy that has also been intensively studied outside the boundaries of pure science.

Teachers can cultivate this cultural dimension without sacrifice, for it does not, in general, complicate the deduction of a scientific law if we embed it within its social and cultural context. On the contrary, we add some colour to it by so doing. And this colour, especially if it has a human dimension, is helpful for learners. The integration of scientific ideas into general culture has

524

FRITZ KUBLI

an important function in the teaching and learning of science. The subjects taught become more accessible through a colourful presentation than through a rather dry and abstract one. Narratives which include this cultural dimension can open the way for scientific thinking, even for students with no inclination towards abstract reasoning; they can be a catalyst for genuine understanding.

14. Echoes from the Classroom A grant given by the School of Education of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences allowed me to interview more than 70 of my former students in sometimes intense discussions in order to verify this point. Most of them were already engaged in a University program and were kind enough to spend an hour or more in helping me to understand the classroom situation. They told me how they had experienced their former education in physics, and helped to clear up some ideas. They even made fruitful suggestions as to how physics could be taught more effectively. It was an encouraging experience to see that they were, in general, very positive about the cultural dimension of physics – and that they regarded the telling of stories as a very efficient means of bringing the subject closer to the students.

In order to specify the ideas under discussion, we distinguished between five different kinds of stories. On the one hand, we made a distinction between (1) unproven anecdotes, (2) well-documented biographical details, and (3) stories which relate a scientific discovery and/or its application to the general historical situation. On the other hand, we distinguished between two kinds of stories which related scientific insights to everyday life: (4) general stories and (5) stories related to the teacher’s own experience. The students were asked to give their comments on those five possibilities.

Let us begin with the latter distinction. There was unanimous agreement that scientific results and theories must be integrated into the context of everyday experience, and it was generally agreed that this can be done with suitable stories. Many students underlined the fact that stories help to make listening easier and the teacher’s image more human. A medical student, for instance, said: ‘‘It is important for me to know how a teacher organises his personal world, and I can only be introduced to it if he exposes it to the students’’.

It is interesting to discuss this point with teachers themselves, and so I also interviewed more than two dozen experienced and successful colleagues about their use of stories in their teaching. In general, they initially told me that they were rather sparing with stories, and that they would never tell their students anything personal. But in the course of the ongoing interview, most of them revealed that they also had a repertoire of stories they used – if the atmosphere was relaxed and conducive to doing so. The dignified director of

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

525

a grammar school frankly admitted that, for him, stories were ‘‘a kind of reward’’, and that in difficult classes he would ‘‘rigorously restrict his communication to facts and figures’’. But as the interview progressed, he admitted that stories might be a good device for creating a better climate.

Stories produce a sense of openness if they give an insight into the intellectual world of the teacher. They help students to follow his argumentation. ‘‘I will remember some of your stories even when all the formulas have been forgotten’’, said one of my former students. Nevertheless, many teachers are reluctant to tell stories, especially ones which contain personal information, and this with good reason. As one of the students put it: ‘‘An insecure teacher who has difficulties either with the subject or with the class is not in a good position to tell stories’’. It might be the privilege of experienced teachers that they can make good use of stories to explain difficult points, to deal with difficult classes and to create a good working climate. Indeed, why not accept an invitation to tell stories? If the class climate is conducive to storytelling, this is a good indicator of fruitful interaction with the students. On the other hand, if the climate is not so inviting, we should follow the advice given in an interview: ‘‘Teachers should reassess their relationship with the class if they feel too embarrassed to tell stories!’’

But where do we find appropriate stories? History is full of events that can be retold, and these stories have many advantages – if they are told in the right form and at the right moment. They are not mere entertainment, but helpful tools in the difficult task of teaching and learning science. This point became evident in the interviews. Students had interesting ideas about how to use what they had learnt earlier at grammar school. ‘‘The historical associations of the subject help to organise the subject matter and to remember it’’, is a point that was underlined by several university students. And: ‘‘Cultural aspects should never disappear completely behind the technical details.

Grammar schools have to show the human side of the scientific enterprise’’.

These remarks, and many others, show that teachers are well advised to integrate general aspects into their specific courses. These aspects not only help students to memorise the subject, but also assist teachers to achieve a positive and relaxed climate in the class.

Teachers often ask what kinds of stories can be effective. This question is difficult to answer in general terms, because the ‘what’ essentially depends on the situation. The students I interviewed emphasised that stories should never be told in a haphazard manner, which would quickly rob them of their magic effect. Storytelling is a device that demands sensitivity towards one’s audience. If students notice that a particular difficulty has been illuminated by the story and that it was well embedded in the general discourse, they appreciate it more than if its relevance to the general discourse cannot be seen. It is important that the teacher has a certain repertoire of stories which he can use if the situation is favourable.

526

FRITZ KUBLI

Students seem to remember relatively short stories better than long ones – anecdotes rather than lengthy digressions. Many of these anecdotes belong to the body of our general culture: they establish our cultural identity and selfunderstanding. I have always been surprised to note that even beginners have a certain acquaintance with some of these anecdotes and that they can be used to embed our teaching within this cultural background. Some examples will be given in my latest book Stories as Door-Openers in Science Teaching (Kubli in press).

But let us now return to the question of what kinds of stories can be effective. Instead of ‘What kinds?’ it is easier to give advice about ‘how’ this can be achieved. If a teacher knows what he wants to achieve by telling a story, he will, in general, come to the point soon. His story will be relatively short. Storytelling needs some discipline, otherwise the students’ attention will decline. It is essential for the story to have a concise plot: it must be clear, short and easy to remember (Kubli 2001b).

Students feel that stories reduce the distance between the teacher and his listeners, more than any amount of argumentation can ever do. A narrator gives access to his inner world, they say. Teachers who favour a rather personal presentation of scientific facts – and there are supporters of this view – are committed storytellers, seeing this as a means of preventing students from being scared by the cold and unfriendly world of impersonal science. According to our students, we are well advised to use all the means at our disposal to come closer to the classes in order to influence them more effectively.

15. Bakhtin and the ‘Carnivalistic’ Tradition After this digression into the opinions expressed by students, it is time to return to Bakhtin’s ideas and their contribution to the understanding of teaching processes. His efforts to reduce the distance between speaker and listeners – or between author and readers – were set out in Rabelais and His World (Bakhtin 1984b, Russian original 1965), a book that has, to my knowledge, never been analysed with regard to its implications for teaching. In it, Bakhtin analyses Franc¸ois Rabelais’ satirical and often grotesque Gargantua and Pantagruel, an early and fundamental European novel published in the 16th century which has since become an acknowledged masterpiece of world literature; in his analysis, Bakhtin develops an ideal of communication which can also be applied to the classroom situation.

Two concepts relate Bakhtin’s analysis of Rabelais’ world to the abovementioned urge to reduce the distance between teacher and student. These are the ‘familiar speech in the marketplace’ as a form or ‘culture of folk humour’ (p. 15) and ‘the carnival laughter’ which produces a festive event.

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

527

‘‘The entire world is seen in its droll aspects, in its gay relativity’’ (p. 11), and this generates a ‘‘second world and a second life outside officialdom’’ (p. 6).

This is an antidote to any official (or, in our context, academic) and hierarchically organised, dry and impoverished world view which can even emerge from an enlightened society (Bakhtin 1984b, p. 124).

Bakhtin profoundly analyses one of the most typically and exclusively human gestures, namely laughter, and he distinguishes between festive, ‘carnival’ laughter and the response to satire, which is rather negative: Let us enlarge upon the second important trait of the people’s festive laughter: that it is also directed at those who laugh. The people do not exclude themselves from the wholeness of the world. (…) This is one of the essential differences of the people’s festive laughter from the pure satire of modern times. The satirist whose laughter is negative places himself above the object of his mockery, he is opposed to it. (…) The people’s ambivalent laughter (…) expresses the point of view of the whole world; he who is laughing also belongs to it.

(Bakhtin 1984b, p. 12)

This concept of wholeness, unity or a sense of belonging may also be applied to the classroom situation. There is an essential difference between a class that is rather hostile to a teacher, a person who might be seen as a rather distant source of knowledge, and a class that is united with this source of knowledge in a festive mood that can be evoked by all-embracing laughter.

The familiarity of the carnival and of carnival laughter has also been described by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his Italian Journey (Goethe 1974; English 1962); indeed, Goethe seems to have been one of Bakhtin’s sources of information and inspiration (Bakhtin 1984b, pp. 244–257). Laughter releases a creative potential that can be exploited in the classroom.

It has sometimes been noted that a lesson without any festive laughter in the class is sterile and fruitless. Bakhtin seems to indicate that a lesson without a jovial teacher is pointless as well. He disapproves, as does Rabelais, of any stiff and official order, any order which suffocates creative, fanciful and lighthearted developments and inspirations. Rather, he advocates a fearless atmosphere that can be created by a unifying burst of laughter shared by students and teacher alike: Laughter is a specific aesthetic relationship to reality, but not one that can be translated into logical language; that is, it is a specific means for artistically visualising and comprehending reality and, consequently, as specific means for structuringan artistic image, plot, or genre. Enormous creative, and therefore genre-shaping, power was possessed by ambivalent carnivalistic laughter. (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 164)

16. Bakhtin and Socratic Teaching The function of laughter has also been shown by Bakhtin in his analysis of the Socratic dialogues, in which he points out their ‘carnivalistic’ or ‘menippean’ attitude – named after the Greek philosopher Menippos, who

528

FRITZ KUBLI

produced satires. Bakhtin underlines the fact that the Socratic dialogue was a special and, in its time, very widespread genre which ‘‘[grew] out of a folkcarnivalistic base and [was] thoroughly saturated with a carnivalistic sense of the world.’’ (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 109) In this regard, he is in agreement with Rabelais, who describes Socrates as follows: … judging by his exterior, you would not have given an onion skin for him. He was illshaped, ridiculous in carriage, with a nose like a knife, the gaze of a bull and the face of a fool. His ways stamped him a simpleton, his clothes a bumpkin. Poor in fortune, unlucky when it came to women, hopelessly unfit for all office in the Republic, forever laughing, forever drinking neck to neck with his friends, forever hiding his divine knowledge under a mask of mockery …

Yet had you opened his box, you would have found in it all kinds of priceless, celestial drugs: immortal understanding, wondrous virtue, indomitable courage, unparalleled sobriety, unfailing serenity, perfect assurance and heroic contempt for whatever moves humanity to watch, to bustle, to toil, to sail ships overseas and to engage in warfare.

(Gargantua and Pantagruel, book 1, Prologue, cited after Bakhtin 1984b, p. 169)

But there are further points to be mentioned. Bakhtin deals with Rabelais’ view of Socrates in his book Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Socrates’ dialogues, as we know them from Plato’s descriptions, might be recollections of actual conversations, and Bakhtin sees an advantage in Plato’s personalisation of the arguments through his narrated dialogues. Plato’s way of presenting a philosophical subject is, in his view, an approach that may be generally recommended. Ideas in Plato’s dialogues are, according to Bakhtin, not free-floating but bound to certain carriers, such as Protagoras, Gorgias, Kratylos, etc. Bakhtin writes: In the Socratic dialogue the idea is organically combined with the image of a person, its carrier (Socrates and the other essential participants in the dialogue). The dialogic testing of the idea is simultaneously also the testing of the person who represents it. We may therefore speak here of an embryonic image of an idea. (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 111/112)

The term ‘embryonic’ is most appropriate in this context, for it shows that a personalised truth has an almost biological power to promote a spiritual development. If we teachers relate our curriculum to the history of ideas, to the very earliest exponents of the truths in question, we have a good chance of sowing seeds in the gardens we have to cultivate, i.e. in the minds of our students.

Both approaches, the Socratic and the Bakhtinian, have in common the notion that the dialogue is the focus of attention. Yet there are differences, which become obvious if we apply them to teaching. A famous passage with regard to teaching methodology is Socrates’ dialogue with a slave in Menon, which shows how even an uneducated person such as a slave can be led to construct a square with twice the area of a given square. Socrates’ method has been recommended by eminent educators ever since – and it is interesting

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

529

to see Bakhtin’s comment on it. This is how he describes the Socratic approach: At the base of the genre lies the Socratic notion of the dialogic nature of truth, and the dialogic nature of human thinking about truth. The dialogic means of seeking truth is counterposed to official monologism, which pretends to possess a ready-made truth, and it is also counterposed to the naive self-confidence of those people who think that they know something, that is, who think that they possess certain truths. (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 110)

For a teacher, it can be difficult to accept the idea that he might not be in possession of and able to present ‘certain truths’. For there is a widespread and naive notion that teachers have to transmit only accepted truths, and that they should not engage in any interaction leading to uncertain results.

Students are supposed to learn – by heart or by other means – what is regarded as the content of the curriculum, rather than to think originally and to develop their intellectual capacities. On the other hand, it is well known that, in general, students expect insights and not just mechanical memorisation from their education. Frustration and resignation may result if they realise what a school normally expects of them – the mere reproduction of subject-matter that may or may not have been properly understood. But insights result – and this is the constructivists’ message – from personal constructions; and, Bakhtin adds, from the fruitful exchange of ideas.

The question is, however, whether the Socratic dialogue is the solution to this problem or not. Some educators do think so, but Bakhtin makes a distinction: In Plato’s dialogues of his first and second periods, the dialogic nature of truth is still recognised in the philosophical worldview itself, although in weakened form. Thus the dialogue of these early periods has not yet been transformed into a simple means for expounding ready-made ideas (for pedagogical purposes) and Socrates has not been transformed into a ‘teacher’. But in the final period of Plato’s work that has already taken place: the monologism of the content begins to destroy the form of the Socratic dialogue.

Consequently, when the genre of the Socratic dialogue entered the service of the established, dogmatic worldviews of various schools and religious doctrines, it lost all connection with a carnival sense of the world and was transformed into a simple form for expounding already found, ready-made irrefutable truth; ultimately, it degenerated completely into a question-and-answer form for training neophytes (catechism). (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 110)

Bakhtin relates the dialogical principle to the ‘carnival sense’ and firmly maintains that even a ‘dialogic’ principle can degenerate into a rather senseless interplay between questions and ready-made answers, as in a catechism. The Socratic way of developing a subject may be meaningful, but it can be empty as well. Every teacher knows that lessons can become pointless games if the students do not enter into the spirit of the enterprise.

The often-recommended ‘Socratic’ way of teaching must be seen, therefore,

530

FRITZ KUBLI

in the light of Bakhtin’s carnivalistic approach to the student – whatever that means.

For it is hard to give a precise definition and to specify in every detail what a ‘carnival’ approach is. The next paragraph might give some indications, but the most important advice that can be given to teachers by a follower of Bakhtin is to try the unexpected and to tread new paths in approaching his students. Students generally appreciate any visible effort on the part of the teacher to establish a freer and more active exchange of ideas. Even if the attempt to do so demands some energy, a certain degree of optimism and confidence in the power of these digressions is justified, the results being at least encouraging.

It is important, however, to conclude this section by emphasising that these moments of carnivalistic laughter are the spice that enlivens the pedagogical diet, and nothing more. I am extremely sparing in my use of them in my own teaching, and I do not, by any means, advocate ‘teaching-by-eventsonly’. Carnivalistic highlights must be followed by quiet, intense phases of digestion and practice involving both concentration and effort, just as every concert, even by the loudest rock band, includes some quieter ballads. It is the variety of means that leads to success.

17. Monologic and Dialogic Narrators A final and interesting distinction in Bakhtin’s theory of narratives is his differentiation between a ‘monologic’ and a ‘dialogic’ narrator. This is a rather technical notion, but it is of direct relevance to the activity of teaching.

In Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Bakhtin mentions that authors can be classified as monologic or dialogic. Whereas he characterises the former type of writer with the example of Leo Tolstoy, the latter is represented by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It is hard to transpose this differentiation to the didactics of science teaching, but nevertheless the distinction is fruitful enough to merit more thorough consideration.

The ‘monologic’ type of narrator, represented by Tolstoy, is described as follows: The words and consciousness of the author, Leo Tolstoy, are nowhere addressed to the hero, do not question him, and expect no response from him. The author neither argues with his hero nor agrees with him. He speaks not with him, but about him. The final word belongs to the author, and that word – based on something the hero does not see and does not understand, on something located outside the hero’s consciousness – can never encounter the hero’s words on a single dialogic plane.

That external world in which the characters of the story live and die is the author’s world, an objective world vis-a`-vis the consciousness of the characters. Everything within it is seen

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

531

and portrayed in the author’s all-encompassing and omniscient field of vision. (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 71)

Dostoyevsky, on the other hand, is characterised as a ‘dialogic’ author: Dostoevsky never left anything of any real consequence outside of the realm of his major heroes’ consciousness (that is, outside the consciousness of those heroes who participate as equals in the great dialogues of his novels); he brings them into dialogic contact with everything essential that enters the world of his novel. (Bakhtin 1984a, p. 73)

Before I try to relate this idea to the classroom, I would like to illustrate Bakhtin’s assertion with two excerpts. The first passage is taken from Tolstoy’s War and Peace and shows Natasha’s fiance´, Prince Andrew, at the mercy of his imagination the night before the battle of Borodino, where he was to be severely wounded: On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could not sleep. He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and constantly interrupted her story to say: ‘‘No, I can’t! I’m not telling it right, no, you don’t understand’’, though he encouraged her by saying that he did understand and he really had understood all she wanted to say.

But Natasha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced that day and wished to convey. ‘‘He was such a delightful old man, and it was so dark in the forest …. and he had such kind … No, I can’t describe it’’, she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. (War and Peace, book 10, chapter 25)

Here, Tolstoy invites us to enter the imaginary world that exists in the consciousness of Prince Andrew. It is interesting, however, to note whose voice is heard in this text when we accept this invitation. We wonder what Prince Andrew thinks and we prepare to hear his voice, but in vain. For above all, and at great length, we hear the voice of the implied author and not that of Prince Andrew himself. When Prince Andrew recalls the evening in Petersburg, it is not his own voice but the narrator’s which brings to life the voice of Natasha: we see Prince Andrew completely from outside.

Let us now compare this description of a protagonist’s inner world with the discourse which gives us access to Ivan’s consciousness in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The hero of this passage, Ivan, is having a nightmare in which he is struggling with the devil, and yet he seems to be aware that he is delirious and that the devil is his own invention: I am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like, I don’t care! You won’t drive me to fury, as you did last time. But I feel somehow ashamed … I want to walk about the room … I sometimes don’t see you and don’t even hear your voice as I did last time, but I always guess what you are prating, for it’s I, I myself speaking, not you. Only I don’t know

532

FRITZ KUBLI

whether I was dreaming last time or whether I really saw you. (The Brothers Karamazov, book 11, chapter 9)

A little later, the imaginary devil replies: ‘‘You scold me, but you laugh – that’s a good sign. But you are ever so much more polite than you were last time and I know why: that great resolution of yours …’’ ‘‘Don’t speak of my resolution,’’ cried Ivan, savagely. ‘‘I understand, I understand, c’est noble, c’est charmant, you are going to defend your brother and sacrifice yourself … C’est chevaleresque.’’ ‘‘Hold you tongue, I’ll kick you!’’ ‘‘I shan’t be altogether sorry, for then my object will be attained. If you kick me, you must believe in my reality, for people don’t kick ghosts.’’ (ibid.)

How different is the devil’s irony from the despairing verbal attacks launched against him by Ivan! But despite the colourful contrast between the two voices, it is interesting to note that this conversation is essentially a monologue – the apparent dialogue being a creation of the protagonist’s brain.

Both the voices of Ivan and those of the devil are creations of his, Ivan’s, imagination. However, this monologue is not the writer’s monologue, as it is in the Tolstoy episode. Whereas Tolstoy describes an inner world from an external point of view, Dostoyevsky constantly reminds us that we are in the inner space of his protagonist’s consciousness, and that the outside world is his construction. We hear Ivan’s voice in many guises – but we can hardly hear Dostoyevsky’s comment on the situation.

What, then, does this all mean with regard to science teaching? First and foremost, it prompts us to think about narratives again. Are we rather followers of Tolstoy, looking back, in our stories, on a heroic past which is finished yet still worth describing in our monologic account? Or are we able to reproduce the inner worlds of the heroes we want to present to our students? Not being as gifted as Tolstoy in producing stories, we might not find an audience if we merely display, at length, our view of historical facts. A monologue is not very exciting, as I am sometimes reminded rather brutally by my students when I lose myself in the presentation of my view of events. Invoking at least an echo of the voices of our heroes is difficult, but well worth the effort.

18. Implications for Science Teaching Bakhtin’s writings illuminate not only dialogues, but also the teaching of sciences. Even if not every teacher has the time and the energy necessary to follow his suggestions, some clear implications are apparent. Through our teaching, we can stimulate not only logical conclusions in the minds of our students, but also dialogues between imagined persons. These dialogues are among the most essential processes in learning, and they are completely different from merely memorized forms of knowledge.

SCIENCE TEACHING AS A DIALOGUE

533

In more than 35 years of teaching on the one hand, and several investigations into students’ thinking on the other, I have had ample opportunity to work on both the practical and the theoretical sides of the teaching process.

Some of the results have been published in English (Kubli 1979, 1983, etc.), and Bakhtin’s work has become an important element in this tradition. His ideas confirmed my former Plea for Stories in Science Teaching (Kubli 1998), in which I tried to show what narrative theory in general can do for science teachers.

But in addition to this confirmation, Bakhtin has brought new insights into the theory of teaching processes. His ideas yield an illuminating picture of the position, function and role of a teacher in the classroom; they show which aspects should be trained and cultivated in the pursuit of successful, rewarding and professional activity.

Bakhtin’s work offers a powerful indication of how to teach successfully.

His theories can help us to do our job professionally, and can be a very effective tool in our hands. When specifically applied to a theory of language and dialogue in science teaching, they allow a better understanding of classroom processes. A Bakhtin-orientated approach to teaching helps us to find the right balance between proximity to and distance from our students.

After a long career as a science teacher, I can only recommend it to experienced colleagues and relative novices alike. It would have made my own efforts to gain access to the world of students easier if I had known it right from the beginning.

References Bakhtin, M.: 1981, The Dialogic Imagination, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. Bakhtin, M.: 1984a, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, University of Minnesta Press, Minneapolis.

Bakhtin, M.: 1984b, Rabelais and His World, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Bruner, J.: 1990, Acts of Meaning, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Bruner, J.: 1996, The Culture of Education. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Carnap, R.: 1961, Der logische Aufbau der Welt. Hamburg, Meiner.

Clark, K. & Holquist, M.: 1984, Mikhail Bakhtin, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Gergen, K.: 1994, Realities and Relationship: Soundings in Social Construction, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Goethe, J.W.: 1974, Werke, Hamburger Ausgabe, t. 11. Mu¨nchen: Beck. Engl. Translation 1962, The Roman Carnival. In: Italian Journey, Pantheon, New York.

Kubli, F.: 1979, ‘Piaget’s Cognitive Psychology and its Consequences for the Teaching of Science’, European Journal of Science Education 1, 5–20.

Kubli, F.: 1983, ‘Piaget’s, Clinical Experiments – its Critique and its Consequences for the Didactic of Natural Science’, European Journal of Science Education 5, 123–139.

Kubli, F.: 1992, ‘Un entretien avec Louis de Broglie’ (29 Novembre 1968), Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie 17, 111–134.

534

FRITZ KUBLI

Kubli, F.: 1998, ‘Pla¨doyer fu¨r Erza¨hlungen im Physikunterricht – Geschichte und Geschichten als Verstehenshilfen’ (Plea for Stories in Science Teaching.) Aulis, Cologne.

Kubli, F.: 1999, ‘Historical Aspects in Physics Teaching: Using Galileo’s Work in a New Swiss Project’, Science and Education 8, 137–150.

Kubli, F.: 2001a, ‘Can the Theory of Narratives Help Science Teachers be Better Storytellers?’, Science and Education 10, 595–599. Reprinted in F. Bevilacqua, E. Giannetto & M. Matthews (eds.), Science Education and Culture: The Contribution of History and Philosophy of Science. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 179–184.

Kubli, F.: 2001b, Galileo’s ‘Jumping-Hill’ Experiment in the Classroom – A Constructivist’s Analysis’, Science and Education 10, 145–148.

Kubli, F.: in press, Geschichten als Tu¨ro¨ffner im mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht. (Stories as Door-Openers in Science Teaching). Aulis, Cologne.

Leach, J. & Scott, P.: 2003, ‘Individual and Sociocultural Views of Learning in Science Education’, Science and Education 12, 91–113.

Matthews, M.: 1994, Science Teaching. Routledge, London.

Matthews, M. (ed.): 1998, Constructivism in Science Education, Kluwer, Dordrecht.

Piaget, J.: 1926, The Language and Thought of the Child, Harcourt, Brace, New York.

Solomon, J.: 2002, ‘Science Stories and Science Texts: What Can They do for Our Students?’

Studies in Science Education 37, 85–106.

Voloshinov, V.N.: 1976, ‘Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art’, in Freudianism. A Marxist Critique, Academic Press, New York.

Voloshinov, V.N.: 1986, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Vygotsky, L.S.: 1962, Thought and Language, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA. Wales, K.: 2001, A Dictionary of Stylistics, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow.

Wertsch, J.: 1985, Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Wertsch, J.: 1991, Voices of the Mind, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Wertsch, J.: 1998, Mind as Action, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Wood, D., Bruner, J. & Ross, G.: 1976, ‘The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 17, 89–100.