Conceptual difficulties in teaching History of Science and Technology to engineering students.

ABSTRACT

Lower-division engineering coursework often suggests to students that all meaningful questions have quantitative right answers--and that open-ended questions do not merit attention. A course in the History of Science and Technology can provide a valuable antidote to this rigidity of mind. It offers enough factual information--about dates, inventions and mechanisms--to persuade engineering students of its legitimacy. It also obliges students to contend with open-ended questions by embedding those facts in multiple historical, social, and ethical contexts. In-class analysis of these open-ended questions helps to establish the intellectual habit of historical interpretation. In order to make room in the syllabus for this analysis, however, one must be willing to demand the memorization of fewer historical facts.

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I am an assistant professor at the College of Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder--but I am not an engineer. Instead, I teach humanities and history to engineering students. After nine years of teaching humanities to this audience, I have come to expect certain challenges associated with grammar, metaphor, and paradox. More recently, when I began teaching a history course to engineering students, I have encountered an additional set of challenges. That is my topic here: conceptual difficulties in teaching History of Science and Technology to engineering students.

I offer my three-credit course in the History of Science and Technology in the fall. It has an enrollment of 40-50 first-semester engineering students. These students have only just graduated from high school. Nearly all of them believe that History is purely factual, and that, in its truest sense, it includes everything that ever happened. For them, the Big Bang constitutes the first historical event. Human history, by analogy, includes everything that ever happened to human beings, and that it concentrates on all of the important human events--wars, invasions, and the like. The historian's job, as they see it, is picking which of these events to write about. (1)

These general beliefs about history as events, learned as facts, greatly determine student expectation of what a history class should be like. For many of these students, the ideal history class should provide the important events as a list of facts, either on the board or in a PowerPoint presentation. The history professor, according to this model, recites and links the facts-and highlights the ones that will be on the test. There should be no loose ends. Interpretation, analysis, and open-ended questions, because they merely obscure these facts, should be kept to a minimum. Does this bleak picture seem too extreme? I admit that it does not do justice to my more mature students, but it accurately portrays many students on the first day of class.

Of course, it is hardly surprising that my engineering students seek a tidy version of history. Most of them excelled at high school math and science precisely because these subjects were taught without open-ended questions and unresolved issues. It seems that meaningful questions have quantitative right answers--and that questions without such answers do not merit attention. This educational model of Right Answers confounds the engineering professors who inherit these students. These professors protest that it promotes a rigidity of mind diametrically opposed to engineering reality. The practicing engineer rarely has the luxury of right answers, but must make do with best solutions. Nevertheless, in the math and science courses of the undergraduate engineering curriculum, the heavy reliance on right answers continues to convey the unspoken message that meaningful questions are factual and quantitative. In these courses, as in their high school counterparts, the answers can almost always be found in the back of the textbook. The culture of Right Answers persists from high school through college, powerfully shaping the students view of knowledge--and of the world.

In order for students to become intellectually mature adults, however, and in order for them to become good engineers, they must overcome this culture of Right Answers. They need to acquire the skills of analysis, reflection, and interpretation.2 Courses in the humanities and social sciences develop these skills, with an accumulation of such courses effecting gradual but profound change in a student's outlook. Engineering students, however, generally need take only six such courses to graduate. The window of opportunity, then, is narrow; the six courses must accomplish a great deal.

In this context, the bait-and-switch tactic proves invaluable. The apparent factual objectivity of history courses can entice engineering students. A course in the History of Science and Technology proves especially alluring because the facts address technological trends and inventions: Who developed the first successful motorcar? What is a Roman arch? Then comes the switch: a college-level history course contextualizes these facts. Multiple overlapping historical, social, and ethical contexts lend richness and complexity to every episode. The subject that seemed so crisply factual now reveals its ambiguities and contradictions, and gives rise to diverse open-ended questions. Through contending with such questions, the students can establish the intellectual habits of analysis and reflection. Thus history class does not merely constitute another aspect of their general education; it also helps students mature intellectually.

In teaching the History of Science and Technology to young people, however, one encounters a particular difficulty. Today's college students, being young in a rapidly changing technological society, tend to expect continuous improvement from science and technology; my students, having chosen engineering as a course of study, privilege science and technology even more. They believe, generally, that science and technology will solve the world's problems and will make the future decisively better than the past. It is not surprising, then, that most of them share these basic prejudices:

* that past technology must be primitive and extremely limited in scope;

* that people of the past, lacking modern technology and dimly conscious of their imperfections, tended to "think small," as if in expectation of future discoveries;

* that the search for "labor-saving devices" characterizes the entire history of technology;

* that certain modern devices, by their very nature, could have no premodern counterpart;

* that technology and art are diametrically opposed; and

* that science and technology are identical.

Finally, they have the optimism and impatience of youth, believing that, whereas people in the past were constrained by their times to believe certain things, they themselves are wholly free in their intellectual choices. In particular, they themselves would never have believed the foolish things that were believed in past eras.

So these are some of the conceptual difficulties involved in teaching History of Science and Technology to engineering students. They make for a challenging teaching environment! Fortunately, the course content itself comes to the rescue. To begin with, the facts often flatly contradict students' expectations, and this gives the students some pause. Furthermore, the open-ended questions that the study of history raises can occasion valuable self-discovery through the dismantling of old prejudices. The following several examples will illustrate these claims.

The study of ancient Egyptian technology, fascinating in itself, corrects some of the more innocent misconceptions. The Egyptians were ancient, yes, but not primitive. The pyramid-builders lacked the pulley, but this deficiency did not stop them. Their massive pyramids and their monolithic obelisks express no insecurity whatsoever in their technological abilities, and betray no trace of "thinking small." (3)

The ancient Romans also illustrate a capacity to think big--not just in individual buildings like the Coliseum, but also in extensive civic works like paved roads or aqueducts. In this respect, ancient Rome resembles a modem civilization--and the students respond warmly to it at first. In another respect, however, ancient Rome disturbs them greatly, for it tolerated and indeed promoted social conditions that the students find shocking. In the state-owned Roman mines, for example, slaves and convicts performed brutally heavy work. The students invariably ask why the Romans did not investigate "labor-saving devices" in order to make the work easier on the miners. The answer is twofold: first, from the Roman point of view, these workers did not merit the effort; second, the whip, when well plied, could always increase production--at least temporarily. Whenever punishment exceeded the limits of human endurance, individual miners could be replaced. Indeed, the Roman mines served two functions: the extraction of or e through lucrative exploitation of slave labor, and the punishment of convicts. In order for the latter function to be realized, the actual work to be performed had to remain difficult. This harsh economy of pain re-contextualizes the "modern" Roman for the students. At the same time, it necessarily raises questions about exploitation of labor in our own world and in our own country. They begin to ask what "intolerable" socioeconomic conditions our own society tolerates and promotes. In such cases, the study of history helps them strip away appearances in the present. It reveals a more naked truth.

This discovery of truth beneath appearances can occur even with respect to things. For example, to the students, the seismograph and the odometer seem contemporary inventions that would be utterly unimaginable except in the modem age. Nevertheless, the ancient Chinese developed a delicate device that detected earthquakes, and the ancient Romans used a graduated wheel to measure distance traveled. The students' surprise at these early inventions reveals that they did not understand the basic principles underlying these devices. The study of the old, that is, reveals their ignorance about the new.

Then there is the issue of change: the modem madness for innovation. To contemporary American students, and perhaps to my engineering students in particular, what worked in the post deserves no veneration. It's old; it should be discarded. My students are impatient, for example, with ancient, medieval, or pre-modern artisans for not pursuing innovation and experimentation. They do not fully accept that in those societies, what worked in the past constituted a guarantee of what would work in the future; it represented security. A few examples illustrate this point: a new technique in agriculture might well increase yield--but it could also cause crop failure and starvation; a new technique in rigging might well improve navigation--but it could also cause shipwreck and drowning. These practical examples persuade them of the risks associated with change.

The students still marvel at human resistance to social change, however. The Industrial Revolution, when we finally reach it, strikes them as refreshingly modern and progressive. In the mechanized factory, they see only efficiency, production, and economic savings. Later, they learn the harsh facts of this system: its disruption of social patterns, its exploitation by the very rich, and its oppressive working conditions. They see that their own enthusiasm for progress had blinded them to the possibility of harm. They had nor anticipated some losses because they had not known of the existence of intangibles. They now see that progress has its price.

A recurring theme in this course is the relationship between science, technology, and art. When the students begin the semester, they see technology as inextricably linked to science, but as diametrically opposed to art. Furthermore, they think of "technology" as something with metal and gears--or circuitry and data. From the very outset, I attempt to disrupt these patterns of thought by breaking technology free from science, and by linking it, at least temporarily, to art. A consideration of the cave paintings of the Paleolithic helps to make this point. The students recognize the craft involved with these paintings, and they deeply appreciate their art. They do not see in them what they call science; however, the cave-painters made no use of chemistry, for example, or of a complicated color theory in order to make their powerful images. Here, at least, the students grant that technology can be divorced from science, yet linked with art.

The study of ancient cosmology further establishes science's independence from technology, and irrevocably determines the conceptual differences between the two. At first, the students cannot accept ancient cosmology as science. They are sure that the ancients were both foolish and wrong about such things. They find the exemplar of foolish error in the sort of superstitious fellow who sailed with Columbus and feared falling off the edge of the earth. (You remember the picture in the history book: the ocean spreads out like a tabletop, and at the edges the water runs off in tremendous cascades. Sometimes sea serpents are involved.) The more ignorant students suppose that this superstitious sailor adequately represents pre-modem scientific knowledge. After all, for them, earlier means stupider. They conclude that the ancients must have believed that the Earth was flat.

Aristotle and Ptolemy, of course, shatter these conclusions. To begin with, these thinkers did not believe that the Earth was flat. Instead, they argued that the Earth was a sphere hanging unsupported in the heavens. Moreover, both of them deduced the sphericity of the Earth. Aristotle deduced it from the curved shadow that the Earth leaves on the partially eclipsed moon. Ptolemy deduced it from the north-south variation in the altitude of stars, and from the east-west variation in times of celestial events. These elegant arguments, based on such simple observations, greatly impress the students. Ptolemy and Aristotle relied on scarcely any technology for these deductions; reason alone guided them. Here the students must acknowledge science without technology.

After having encountered these ancient cosmologists, many of the students shift their allegiance. Instead of mocking the geocentrists, they now freely concede the impossibility of sensing the Earth's rotational motion. (4) Indeed, some of them actually begin to defend the geocentrist view as being perfectly reasonable within its historical context! Thus, through the study of these ancient cosmologists, the students contemplate evidence they had not noticed, and learn to appreciate a position they had never really understood: that of intelligent geocentrism. This constitutes a great victory in the battle for a sense of history.

The study of these two geocentrists convinces the students that not every ancient thinker was a fool. It also underscores the difference between knowing the right answer and knowing why something is the right answer. Aristotle and Ptolemy, wise as they were about the sphericity of the Earth, yet erred in supposing that the Earth was stationary. Their case demonstrates that error and folly do not go hand-in-hand. This demonstration rattles the students somewhat, as well it should. If error is not necessarily linked to folly, then it is possible for truth to be linked to folly. One can be right for the wrong reasons.

The case of ancient atomic theory reinforces this conclusion--that one can be right for the wrong reasons. Lucretius, the Roman philosopher-poet, believed that the world consisted of nothing but matter, void, and motion. He explained the entire world as a random outcome of the interactions of atoms in the void. He astonishes the students with his apparent modernity; he strikes them as both wise and right. A closer look, however, reveals that Lucretius offered no physical evidence at all for his theory. He had no cathode-ray tubes, no chemical analysis, and no theory of electricity to assist him. He argued only by analogy. Lucretius, that hero of positivist history of science, did no experiments. His account seemed reasonable, the students slowly realize, because it echoes a story they have heard since childhood. Many of them now realize that they do not exactly know what evidence supports that familiar story. Perhaps they, too, have been right for the wrong reasons.

These examples illustrate how the content of the course itself helps overcome the conceptual difficulties presented by these engineering students. The students overturn many of their preconceived notions. No longer do they treat past technology with condescension and impatience. No longer do they take as necessary the current intimacy between science and technology. Collectively, these insights constitute a tremendous awakening.

Now, if the students were the only source of conceptual difficulties, we would be finished. The fact is, however, that I bring some of my own conceptual difficulties with me. I mean that, in teaching History of Science and Technology to engineering undergraduates, my preconceived notions create some of my own obstacles. To begin with, I make the general mistake of assuming that engineering students of today resemble the engineering students of my generation. In fact, they do nor all like cars. They did not all dismantle an alarm clock, an iron, and a clothes washer. They never made a radio. In particular, they do not know, any better than I do, how to make the slide projector work.

The far more serious conceptual difficulty, though, is my own conviction that they can learn what I want them to learn through listening to my lectures and reading the textbooks. I want them to know how to make sense of history, and so I illustrate and model historical interpretation. On the other hand, I give them very little opportunity to practice it. To make things worse, although I claim to reject the culture of Right Answers in favor of interpretation, I keep resorting to multiple choice and true/false texts. Yes, certainly, they are cleverly worded so that students cannot ace them unless they have mastered the important facts... The important facts. For all of my rhetoric, I have replicated the very sort of high school history I deplore.

So now, how does one teach them how to interpret? How does one teach them to use the facts that they have learned? Offering them a daily diet of one's own historical interpretation can have only limited success. Furthermore, the insights of a few bright and vocal students do not prove that the class as a whole has mastered the art of interpretation. No, the whole class can learn the habit of historical interpretation only through class practice. The students need plenty of opportunity, on repeated occasions, and at intervals spread throughout the semester, to struggle with original material. I must take care not to resolve their struggles through professorial pronouncements, lest historical interpretation itself seem like yet another Right Answer. My contributions must draw them out, not cut them off.

This kind of student engagement with the material--including the opportunity to make some colossal blunders--can come about only at the expense of lecture time. This fact poses a tremendous challenge, for I, too, was bred in a culture of right answers; I have been encouraged to identify success with the extent of the material covered. I have learned to assess their progress in terms of the quantitative answers that they can give. Especially here, though, in the combat against the culture of Right Answers, one has to be willing to sacrifice a few of them! Content must be sacrificed in order that the skills of historical interpretation may be acquired. To put it differently: they will memorize fewer facts, but they will be able to reason about the facts they have memorized. Thus choosing quality over quantity constitutes the greatest conceptual difficulty in teaching this course, as in so many others.

(1.) Some students did say that the historian's job is "interpreting the events." Many of the students who said this must have picked up the expression in high school without understanding its meaning; they did not seem able to cope with historical interpretation at all. This inability to cope had at least three aspects: they could not distinguish between fact and interpretation in the texts; they could not understand or appreciate interpretation in the lectures; they were not able to interpret on tests or in written work.

(2.) Most advanced engineering courses (and even some of the newer introductory courses) do encourage the development of these skills, but even upper-division students need explicit instruction in adapting these skills to other contexts.

(3.) The original Ferris wheel, designed by George W. Ferris, also testifies against the "thinking small" hypothesis: each of its 36 wooden cars held 60 people.

(4.) Some students hold out, however, insisting that they would be able to recognize that the Earth is rotating. "Convection currents," one of them told me; "I would be able to deduce the Earth's rotation from convection currents."