Science Doesn’t Believe Anything

Mr. Henley is a high school chemistry and AP Biology teacher at a small, rural school in Wisconsin. He and his science colleagues had been closely following the news related to COVID and knew that it would inevitably reach their community and school. Therefore, they attempted to proactively prepare students for online learning days before receiving official word from the district that they would not be returning to campus.

We’d started hearing about shutdowns and school closures and things like that. So, we started really telling kids, “Bring your textbook home so you have access to that. You have an online textbook, make sure you can access these things so you’re at least aware of what’s going on.” Then it was on a Friday that we got notification that we wouldn’t be back that Monday.

Mr. Henley and the other members of his department soon realized that the school shutdown was not going to be temporary, so they began making plans for virtual learning for the remainder of the school year. However, this was a difficult task because their courses included a great deal of lab work that would need to be substituted with other options or cut completely.

It became apparent that this wasn’t just going to be a 10-day or two-week process. . . . and teachers had the expectation that we were going to plan and get things lined up for the rest of the year. So, we did a whole lot of planning in terms of calendaring and what are the things that we should or can do? In a lab class, obviously there are certain things that you can’t do at all, so we’d pull in virtual things.

Mr. Henley chose to hold synchronous lessons in the mornings followed by independent work time in the afternoons. During the synchronous portion of the day, Mr. Henley taught students about COVID because he wanted to ensure they were hearing accurate and up-to-date information. In AP Biology, he wove the topic into topics he was already responsible for covering, such as evolution and immunology. He found that COVID provided a current, real-life example that students could relate to. It was more challenging to incorporate discussion of COVID into his chemistry instruction because it didn’t fit as well with his standards. However, Mr. Henley chose to answer student questions as they arose and focused on teaching students about the nature of science as it related to the pandemic.

Every day there was something new on the news about numbers of [infected] people or possible vaccinations. We tried very hard to incorporate those into part of our curriculum. . . . As questions came up, we would discuss, “Here’s what a vaccination does, and here’s how it works.” We would certainly include those in the AP Bio class. It was much more like we’re talking about evolution, so we would talk about evolution of viruses. We’re talking about immune systems in immunology, so we could talk a little bit about T-cells. In chemistry, less so, but still the nature of science and how we do things . . . but most of those were student-generated things or something that would be in the news, and we would discuss it a little bit more impromptu.

More specifically, Mr. Henley was able to use the nature of science to explain why the health and safety guidelines kept changing as more information about COVID became available. He explained that these discussions helped alleviate some of the misinformation students were being exposed to.

In our district, everyone had very specific guidelines, . . . but they were medically vetted in terms of what our procedures were. We would talk about this and why that was the case and what we know. And then kids were like, “How can this change?” I told them, “We’re learning new things, and this is the nature of science.” So, I think it was important that kids could get someone who is—I’m not going to call myself an expert, but I know more about science and medicine than they do. I can relay some accurate things that they might not get from home, and certainly some of them did not get from home, especially when we get into vaccinations and efficacy and mRNA and all that. Kids would be like, “Well, I heard . . .” and so I could hopefully dispel some of those misconceptions or those misrepresentations of what was actually happening.

Despite his best efforts to talk about COVID from a purely scientific standpoint, Mr. Henley began to receive pushback about the subject from parents and students. He recalled a particular incident where a student recorded a class session where he was teaching about COVID. This video was given to the student’s father, who then shared it with the school principal and school board claiming that Mr. Henley was indoctrinating students with ideas based on a personal political agenda. The school principal ultimately supported Mr. Henley, pointing out that his teaching was aligned with district policies.

I tried very hard to accurately represent from a science and medicine standpoint—what we know versus feeding into the social anxiety and the hysteria that politics tended to direct towards it. . . . It was unfortunate because that came into the classroom because some students were fed this by their own families and their circumstances. Some were like, “Masks don’t work,” or “I’m not going to wear a mask” or “It’s against my rights.” I did have an incident where I had a student that recorded me. And the dad was a big person that was talking to the school board and sent the audio to the principal. . . . Dad said I was pushing political agendas and telling my kids they had to be vaccinated and things like this. And the principal listened to it and was like, “That is our district policy. This is a choice that you and your family will need to make.”

The 2020–21 school year brought a new set of challenges as Mr. Henley’s school shifted to an alternating hybrid schedule before eventually bringing all students back on campus.

Trying to do synchronous and asynchronous at the same time was the biggest challenge of the pandemic. Teaching all from home at the same time was doable in terms of management of things and equity and all of that, but when we tried to do both A-day/B-day, that did not work well. And then ultimately, at the end of January, we came back, and we were all full time.

As he navigated the changing forms of instruction, Mr. Henley continued to discuss COVID with his students. In particular, he was committed to keeping students informed about new information related to the pandemic as it emerged. He also continued to emphasize the nature of science as more information was discovered.

If there was some new brand-new information out, then I’d say, “Hey, this is science in the news. This is an important thing to be aware of.” Kids would also ask, “How come things have changed?” “Oh, well, because we know more, we’re learning this and this and this.” We talked about everything from vaccinations to why boosters are necessary. Just as part of recognizing the nature of any disease and changes of viral coats and things like that.

Mr. Henley saw that by discussing COVID, specifically the vaccine, his students began to have a greater understanding of their immune responses and were not as susceptible to believing in the widespread misinformation.

I think [I provided] reinforcement of a lot of the standard-of-care medical practices that were being done and medical recommendations in terms of vaccinations and boosters. “You got sick from the vaccination. Why is that? Your immune response was doing this. Aren’t you glad you got the vaccination compared to actually having two weeks of this?” They were like, “Oh okay, so when I got the COVID shot, I didn’t actually get COVID. . . . The symptoms that I felt were my body’s immune response.” The kids started to recognize some of the science behind what’s happening rather than some of the misconceptions that were traveling around the internet.

Students and staff returned for a normal, in-person school year in the fall of 2021. Although COVID was less prevalent, Mr. Henley chose to continue discussing COVID-related topics with an emphasis on the nature of science. He explained that his goal was to stick purely to the science, emphasizing to students that science is its own entity that is based in fact, not politics or religion, and is continuously changing.

I had to be careful because (A) you don’t want to pull any politics and (B) you don’t want to infringe too much upon a student or family’s beliefs. But in science we say, “Science doesn’t believe anything. Science is based on evidence and facts.” And so we try to really reinforce what science does and doesn’t do. Science doesn’t care about your religion. Science doesn’t care about your politics. Science cares about what we know and what we learn and where we go from here. . . . Trying to represent science for what it is, learning based on evidence and changing our conceptual model of how it works, that was important for kids to get.

Thinking back on his time teaching during the pandemic, Mr. Henley believes he provided his students with accurate science information, even when it was not easy to do so. He was able to help students sift through the information and misinformation they were hearing and provide a safe space for students to ask questions.

I was a good bridge between what they would hear from media, from family, and social things and what their doctor or other healthcare provider would actually tell them. I was a lot more accessible. . . . I was able to share what was medically accurate and appropriate without trying to inflame it with what you hear in politics and social stuff in a nonpartisan scientific way. I think that was really important for kids to hear. And it was also a pretty safe place. There was never, “You should get your vaccination,” but “Here’s what vaccinations do. This is why they can help. This is why they can be important and what happens if you don’t.” That was important for kids to be able to ask questions in a hopefully non-threatening place and get some accurate answers.