I Don’t Care What You Think, I Want to Hear What Science Says!

Abstract

It is amazing how serendipitous experiences, that are truly enlightening, enter our lives. Last month we were invited to speak to the Ministry of Education in N’Djamena, the capital city of the Republic of Chad. Neither of us had ever been there, nor did either of us directly know anyone from the country. We were asked to speak about the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and provide a workshop to illustrate what a NGSS based classroom would look like. It seemed harmless enough, and it was an opportunity to escape some of the Chicago winter. Before continuing, let us tell you a bit about the country to provide some context. The Republic of Chad is a land country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. The official languages are French and Arabic, but enough English is spoken for us to get along. It is the fifth largest country in Africa, with a population of 12.83 million. Based on its bordering nations and the ever looming specter of Ebola we were a bit hesitant to accept the invitation, but the U.S. government said it was a safe place to travel. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the Director of the Ministry of Education, Francois Dbergerois and this is when we began to realize that all was not wellplanned. It seems that in 1968, a new set of science standards entitled, Nuclear Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Ministry of Education, 1968) were developed. The implementation of the standards did not go well and were held in hiatus until 2010. When Chad heard about how the U.S. was promoting the NGSS in 2013, they mistakenly thought that the U.S. NGSS was the same as the Chad NGSS. Hence, we were invited as international experts to explain how we were successfully implementing what Chad thought was their vision of science education. They were truly enamored by the idea that the U.S. saw the value in what they had