Blending the Two Cultures

Much has been said about what C. P. Snow has called the “two cultures” of the scientist and of the humanist. In a world where sci­ence and technology stand more and more at the center of life and those skilled in their practice increasingly assume roles of leader­ship, it is important that these leaders be familiar with both cultures and be able to bridge them in an effective way. Nowhere is there a better opportunity and perhaps a greater necessity for this than at a mathematics and science school such as the North Carolina School or Science and Mathematics.

The school was established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1978 as a public, residential, coeducational high school for juniors and seniors “with interest and potential for high achievement in the sci­ences and mathematics.” The school’s direc­tor, Charles Eilber, has recognized not only the value of excellence in science and mathematics, but also the necessity of breadth, warning against insularity and the danger of learning the sciences in a vacuum. He wrote:

To provide the essential bridge between the sciences and all of human affairs the School will provide for its students a strong program in English, foreign languages, the arts, and the social studies. The great issues or science and society will be a significant part of the School curriculum  to which the arts and humanities will make important contributions.

Clearly, no intellectual discipline can stand alone in our modern world, and no individual can lead effectively and contribute greatly without broad-based knowledge. In fact, most failures in our modern world are not the result of failures in technology but rather failures in communication. Effective communication comes about through interpersonal relationships, an understanding of people and of our political, intellectual, and social worlds, and through the ability to analyze and to think critically. It is through the social sciences that much of this can be accom­plished and the program at NCSSM is direct­ed toward this end.

The history/social science program at NCSSM consists of a one-year requirement in American Studies and a variety of electives for seniors. This program, if not unique in kind, certainly is unique in the degree to which, in terms of content, skills develop­ment, and values clarification, it ties in science, technology, and mathematics. The American Studies courses and the electives are best characterized as interdisciplinary in nature. Every effort is made to relate the content or these courses to other disciplines and to enable students to see knowledge as a whole.

Traditionally, the linkage between the two cultures of the scientist and of the humanist has been viewed almost exclusively in terms of content.

This emphasis on the interdisciplinary approach in the social science courses is not by accident but rather by design. Since students at NCSSM were selected because of their interest and ability in science and mathematics, the social science faculty realized that to attract students to their courses they had to reach out to where the students were coming from. This also explains the necessity of offering a large number of electives and expecting a small number of students in each course. The department realizes that it exists in a buyer’s market and therefore must speak to the interests or the students.

In the American Studies courses, history is the central thread that weaves together the other disciplines. These include economics, geography, political science, sociology, literature, science, mathematics, art, and music. In the latter instances members of the music and art faculty actually come into the classroom to present lectures and lead discussions. American literature, though taught separately, often parallels the American Studies courses. Because of the stated inter­ests of the NCSSM students, the scientific and technological advances of each age are highlighted, and at times material for a unit is organized around a major scientific and/or technological advance.

Just as the American Studies courses arc characterized by their efforts to be interdisci­plinary, so too are the history/social science electives. For example, economics is taught with an emphasis on mathematics and technological contributions, with an eye toward history, political science, and philosophy. World Religions is linked with science, philosophy, and history, and special attention is given to the impact of science on religion. Contemporary Politics makes use of the com­puter in dealing with quantitative data. A course on Science and Society Through the Ages traces the basic development of scientific thought from the earliest times to the present, focusing on the societal context in which the development occurred. Another elective, Wisdom, Revelation, Reason, and Doubt, is team-taught and integrates an examination or Western literature with a study of Western civilizations.

Currently, members of the history/social science faculty and the biology faculty are jointly planning a course entitled Population, Resources, and Environment, and arc offer­ing a course on Human Sexuality. Topics included in these courses will be discussed from the viewpoint or both the biologist and the social scientist. Practical, philosophical, and moral issues will be raised in various contexts.

Activities outside the classroom also reflect this interdisciplinary bias. Field trips, movies, debates, guest speakers, teleconferencing and other special events are planned, where possible, to include two or more disciplines. For example, a field trip to coastal North Carolina includes stops at various historical sites and lessons in marine biology.

Traditionally, the linkage between the two cultures or the scientist and of the humanist has been viewed almost exclusively in terms or content. However, the most effective linkage between the two comes in methodology or the teaching of skills. The NCSSM stu­dents with a mathematics-science back­ground and bent are, of course, problem solvers. They are accustomed to solving mathematical equations and laboratory prob­lems by using precise information to achieve an exact solution. Unfortunately, many elementary history programs have been taught the same way. These programs made history appear to be nothing more than dates and a logical sequence of events where A causes B, which in turn causes C. In some ways it would be nice if history were that simple, but thank goodness it is not that dull.

Curiously enough these mathematics/science students who have been taught to think and problem-solve by using exact formulas whose results are precise and contain few ambiguities have found that history taught in this same war is boring; yet, they have real difficulty in dealing with history if it is taught in any other way. So our first task is to show them how to deal with the ambiguities of history and with evidence that is often nonquantifiable and perhaps even contradictory. For example, many students are amazed and confused by historiography because they always thought it happened “that way” and “that way” only. One of the most dramatic examples or this occurs when we present to a class the revisionists’ interpretation of the coming of the Second World War and observe the students’ confused expressions.

After the shock of finding that history is not exact but loaded with biases, the students must face up to the fact that they too have biases. There is a logical progression to their gaining this insight. Students are assigned various readings and asked to identify the thesis in each and to demonstrate how the author supports this thesis. The latter task appeals to the scientist in them, for it throws Brer Rabbit in the Briar Patch. The task which follows is far more difficult for these students. The class is assigned an essay on a given topic, for example, the causes of the Civil War, and asked to develop a thesis supported by appropriate data. The result of this common task is that the class generally comes up with commonly agreed-upon data, but the interpretations differ. This is an interesting experiment in itself, watching students accustomed to coming up with the right answer come to the realization that there is no one right answer. It is important that this lesson be internalized because in life, there are rarely objective right choices; rather, choices often are made on the basis of subjective judgments.

An important by-product of this process is the improvement in a student’s ability to write thoughtful and coherent essays, research papers, book reviews, biographical sketches, document analyses, or editorials. The transfer of thought processes from mathematical and scientific symbols to written words carries with it both a benefit and a bane. Certainly the mathematics/science mind thinks with precision and uses an economy of words; on the other hand, written communication often needs and deserves a richness that technical writing does not contain. In nonscientific writing shades of mean­ing and nuance make the “truth” more vivid. In fact, the crayon used in broad strokes ofttimes is more accurate than the finely­ honed stylus.

Not only is it necessary for leaders to be able to communicate in written form, but, increasingly, effective oral expression and leadership are becoming almost synonymous. Just as they must support and/or de­fend their ideas in written form, they must also learn to do this in speech. Since there is little time for reflection and verbal erasures do not always work, this task is sometimes more difficult. Students must learn to give speeches and participate in debates. For ex­ample, teleconferencing, both an actual and symbolic example of technology applied to human communication, is important in that it communicates ideas to students as well as it makes them aware of the way education and business may interrelate. Participation in teleconferencing makes students aware of the necessity of speaking with precision and thinking on their feet.

The full development of oral skills includes not only communication on the part of the student, but also the ability to get others to communicate. The success of all oral history lies, in large part, in correct interview techniques so as to elicit the maxi­mum response from those being interviewed. Perhaps more than anything else, involvement in oral history projects gives students a sense of participation in history. This is the historical laboratory for NCSSM students who are already familiar with laboratory techniques.

However, the most effective linkage between the two comes in methodology or the teaching of skills.

The visual image is also becoming impor­tant in the teaching of the social sciences. Any discussion of the visual image with mathematics/science students logically begins with an examination of technique. This is the logical first step inasmuch as these students already have an affinity for the technical processes whereby things are made to work. Further, students need to be taught that technique influences content and becomes part of it. The means is a part of the end or, stated in  its extreme, the medium is the message. To cite just one example, the musical background in a film creates moods, emphasizes the important and determines attitudes. Ideally, technique enhances rather than obscures content. Content is, of course, the heart of the matter. For most students previous contact with visual images has been primarily television and movies. The content portion has been largely fictional or, as is the case with news broadcasts, immediate. In teaching students to evaluate content, they must first be made to understand that the visual image can be used to convey historical “truth” and can be reflective. In brief, they need to learn to evaluate visual images in the same way they would evaluate the printed word. The students at NCSSM are asked to evaluate each visual presentation by asking the following questions:

1. Was the visual image representative of and appropriate for the time period and the theme or thesis of the visual presentation? If so, why? If not, why not?
2. If you were producing a visual presentation on this topic, what would you have included that was missing from this presentation? Why?
3. What do you feel the producer of the presentation could have deleted without damaging the integrity of the production? Why?
4. Is the information presented in the visual presentation based on historical fact? If there arc factual inaccuracies, how do they affect the presentation?
5. Is the information presented biased ei­ther in fact or in the method of presentation? If so, how could the bias be corrected? If not, show that the bias had an impact on you the viewer?
6. Choose two or more images, characters, or settings and evaluate their importance to the flow of the presentation. Were they supportive in the development of the theme or thesis? If so, why? If not, why not?
7. Have you seen other visual presenta­tions on this topic? How did this presenta­tion differ from the others? How was it the same as the others?
8. Did you find the visual presentation worthwhile? Why? Why not?
9. Did the visual presentation change your mind about the subject and/or time period being considered? If so, how and why? If not, why not?

By happy coincidence another element of the program, the building of skills necessary to use quantitative data, reflects a growing trend in history/social sciences  and speaks directly to the interests of math/science students. There are several areas in the social sciences which are ready-made for the generation and analysis of data. The machine that made the study of Cliometrics a reality is the computer. Computers are powerful tools for gathering, organizing, analyzing, processing, and evaluating information. Until very recently, they have been utilized almost exclusively by the scientific, business, and mathematical communities of the world. It is only in the past five to seven years that history and the social sciences have seen and experienced the benefits of the computer age.

A few NCSSM students are computer en­thusiasts; the others, although taking it in stride, enjoy the machine and what it can do. There are three ways in which  the history/social science faculty utilizes the computer to assist in instruction; first, as an information retrieval system for research purposes; sec­ond, as an instrument to analyze data that is either student generated or found in available sources; and third, as an editing system that will improve students’ writing skills.

It is also possible for the computer to simulate events with student interaction. This separates the computer as a teaching tool from television, which was and primarily still is a passive tool. One example of a computer simulation is the re-creation of the 1960 presidential election. The computer sets the stage for the election by reviewing for the students the social, political, and eco­nomic climate or the nation prior to the election. Students are then assigned the roles of the primary protagonists and required to make decisions on such issues as travel plans during the campaign, campaign advertising expenditures, and topics to be highlighted during the campaign. The software package “President Elect” produced by Strategic Simulations, Inc., responds to the student’s decisions while maintaining the real climate of 1960. It can be extremely interesting to see if Richard Nixon could, in fact, have  been elected. Different campaign strategies produce different election results—a valuable lesson for students to learn.

Finally, the history/social science faculty at NCSSM takes seriously its task of helping develop thoughtful leaders for tomorrow. As­ Director Eilber wrote, “These students, who have the potential to be leaders of the future, must be guided to make sure that the Ameri­ca of the future is benefited by their under­standing of the impact of science and tech­nology on human affairs.” Scientific leaders as well as leaders in general must be taught the processes of decision making and prob­lem solving within a moral and ethical frame­work. For example, the problems raised by the disposal of PCB-laden oil in North Carolina highways have been not only scientific in nature but also societal. Leaders had to decide by what process to make it less toxic and also where to dispose of it. The Three Mile Island near-disaster and the fruit-fly prob­lem are societal problems that contain both a scientific and moral dimension.

The basic principles of the scientific meth­od itself can be transferred into a decision-making tool for history and the social sciences, as is the case in the decision-making portion of our skills program entitled “The Buck Stops Here.” Actual presidential deci­sions and the process by which they were made are used as a teaching vehicle. The steps in presidential decision-making are dis­cussed, using the pattern suggested by Theo­dore Sorensen in Decision-Making in the White House. The point of interest and the point of focus are the similarities between this and the principles of the scientific method.

It should be clear by now that teaching in a mathematics/science school poses a special challenge and presents a special opportunity. The challenge lies in the chance to blend the two cultures of the scientist and the humanist through the teaching of content and skills. In order to do this effectively, the teacher must constantly think in two languages simultaneously and be prepared to speak in either at the appropriate time. The opportunity comes in exposing future leaders to value-questions and in imparting to them perhaps not so much specific values as a sense of the need for values. Through such exposure these future leaders will benefit from the insights of  both worlds, that of the scientist and that of the humanist.