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Playing
a Role in Science Education Worldwide
By Karen Young Kreeger
The pedagogical reach of at
least two Bryn Mawr professors extends far beyond
their students, past and present. Elizabeth McCormack,
associate professor of physics, is helping to
establish an undergraduate science curriculum
at a one-year-old liberal arts college for women
in Saudi Arabia. And Susan White, associate professor
and chair of the chemistry department, is keeping
up her nearly 25-year relationship with Togolese
high-school teachers and students in West Africa,
which first began with her Peace Corps stint there
in the late 1970s.
Science
Education in Saudi Arabia
In January 2001, McCormack,
along with three colleagues in the biological
and chemical sciences from Mt. Holyoke College,
visited Effat College in Saudi Arabia to help
establish a natural-science curriculum there.
They were invited by Princess Lolowah Al-Faisal,
daughter of Queen Effat, the college's namesake,
and hosted by Marsha Grant, educational counselor
to the Princess and Haifa Jamal Al Lail, dean
of the college. Both Grant and Al Lail visited
Bryn Mawr last year on a tour of women's liberal
arts colleges.
While in Saudi Arabia McCormack
and her colleagues had wide-ranging discussions
with Effat College's administrators, faculty,
and students. One of the trip's highlights was
a mini-symposium on women and science education.
Effat College is in the midst of raising money
from the royal family to renovate the science
building, and they are awaiting approval of the
natural-science curriculum from the Saudi minister
of education.
McCormack was impressed by
the similarity between Saudi and Bryn Mawr students
in their enthusiasm for learning. "I spoke with
one student who was very
articulate about what she loved about studying
physics," she recalls. "It
struck me that people aren't as different as we
sometimes think."
On the other hand, McCormack
found that Saudi women needed to be sponsored
in all aspects of life — women cannot drive
and they must be escorted by men at all times,
for example. (She and her fellow female travelers
from the United States did wear the traditional
head covering out of respect.) "For me, a single
woman who grew up in an American culture, it was
quite shocking to see how dependent on men women
there are required to be."
Given such culturally designated
restrictions, what might the role for women in
science education be in Saudi Arabia, one of the
stricter Muslim countries? "I think there's a
big interest in developing fields that are acceptable
for women in their society, like education and
health care," observes McCormack. "I think their
society is facing a challenge. They need the help
of every citizen to continue to build their country’s
resources, but they also clearly want to preserve
their unique culture, which is maintained by their
societal structure. I think the main point of
view there is that an educated woman will be good
for society in a general sense, even if just for
raising children. It is my hope, however, that
they’ll move beyond that to expand the roles
of women in their society. Education will certainly
be a key factor for that to happen."
Since her last visit, McCormack
has kept in touch via e-mail about the developing
curriculum and with the college's architect, and
is discussing hosting students and faculty members
from Effat at Bryn Mawr. She describes the experiences
thus far as "a great lesson in how to get things
off the ground. The opportunity to work with an
excited and talented group of people developing
a new college is inspiring."
Teaching
in Togo
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Susan
White (right) with students
in Tohoun, Togo
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Similar personal motivations
have inspired White in her long-term persistence
in helping fellow educators in Africa. From 1978
to 1981, White taught physical science in high
schools in Togo in West Africa with the Peace
Corps. Teaching there is and was hard work. The
students have much less in the way of materials
than students in the U.S. and Europe; in fact,
textbooks are often scarce.
Teachers have to be resourceful,
especially if they want to do hands-on experiments.
"The one that I remember was the most fun and
crazy was to demonstrate that pendulum motion
is actually sinusoidal," she recalls. "I took
a Peace Corps issue bed sheet and a funnel and
filled the funnel with sand, suspending it with
string. As the funnel was going back and forth,
we dragged the sheet along the floor and it traced
out a sine wave. They thought this was a waste
of someone's laundry."
White also had to deal with
cultural differences: "I really like optics, and
one issue I was faced with is superstitions about
mirrors. I think there was a belief that if you're
a bad person and you have a mirror, it will attract
lightning. It was a cloudy day, so the class voted
as to whether we could do the reflection experiment
or not." Science won out that time. The students
agreed to do the experiment and no one was struck
by lightning.
White finally got a chance
to travel back to Togo in 1994, when she visited
American friends in Ghana and ended her trip with
a 10-day stay in Togo visiting teachers she had
worked with. Four years later, she returned to
figure out what she could do to help her colleagues
get educational supplies. Most recently she spent
time there in 2000 and 2001. "This time I really
wanted to bring some personal computers. Most
students have heard of computers but most haven't
touched one."
On her last trip, equipped
with a donated laptop, as well as what she could
carry in the way of French and English books and
other supplies, she met with students and teachers.
"When the classes had a free hour I talked to
them about computers," she explains. "They had
a full range of questions: 'We've heard that you
can read newspapers and pornography [on computers]
and that they can recognize you,' they would say.
It was really fun."
Keeping up connections with
Togolese friends, colleagues and students isn't
easy. "Politically it's difficult because many
formal paths for aid to Togo don't exist because
they haven't had free elections," White says.
Togo has had the same president for the last 30
years. "As a scientist I would eventually love
to host visits from Togolese students. That's
a dream." She is hosting a Togolese plant molecular
biologist this fall, who will be working in her
lab purifying proteins. The students enjoy her
visits, and there's certainly a need for materials,
but for White the connection goes back to her
own early days as an educator: "The people I know
who are science teachers there were some of my
best teachers."
About the Author
Karen Young Kreeger is a science
journalist who writes on biomedical and women’s
health topics, as well as careers in science.
Her most recent work has appeared in Bioscience,
Genome Technology, Muse and The
Scientist.
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