Vision
This intersection serves as an intellectual and aspirational crossroads for a unique cross-section of the science education enterprise. Many such conversations began during the first five Science Education at the Crossroads meetings held each fall from 2005 – 2009. In short, this venue provides a way for discussions to continue and extend, as well as an outlet for new ideas and projects.
There are many limitations on what we can accomplish here. Time, space, and finances are all things we’ve have learned to make use of in limited quantities. We can’t claim to have the resources afforded journal editors of some major outlets for science education research. Nor do we have in mind that we need to. We have a different objective altogether, with a few specific goals.
First, we conceive of this journal as an opportunity and intersection for continued discussions without the need to schedule and pay for travel. Entries will serve various purposes: updates of individual Ventures, outlets for particular Vexations, and announcements about new Venues. Standards of honesty, integrity and respect will be preserved even as the readership expands beyond those who have attended Crossroads. The goal is to invent a multi-voiced yet shared purpose forum that will be informative and enticing.
Additionally, we make no apologies for pushing our academic traditions, questioning status quo, and probing more deeply our purposes. We’re not asking for revolution, yet we see a deeper purpose to the research work done in science education. As 2009 marks a halfway point between the historical call-to-action initiated by Sputnik’s launch in 1957 and the idealized “end” to science education reform in 2061, we’ve wondered out loud how much closer are we to realizing our goal of “Science for All Americans?” If the current modes for discussion, research, and reform aren’t making the necessary differences, then we would be wrong to continue to limit our work to traditional outlets and within traditional modes of operation.
Finally, many of you who know us will recognize that we do this because of the joyful possibilities. We’ve been known to orchestrate not only an annual conference, but gather scholars together to balance peacock feathers on their chins or learn line dancing. We’ve found ways to fund dancing Chinese lions and grand pianos for hundreds of science education researchers at a social event. By some mix of mind tricks and charm, we’ve enticed colleagues to sing to an overhead projector, get forcibly removed from a ballroom while writhing and screaming, or reveal their deepest academic nightmares to 200 people (the same 200 people who would later be learning to line dance). Perhaps we can’t expect the same results in this online offering. But we savor the possibilities.
John Settlage & Adam Johnston
March, 2010
