Meaningless, meaningless

Hurrah!  In a huffy Alan stylee I've had my letter published on the DTI intranet and quoted from in an article.  What follows is abridged, as I don't know how the copyright works on this... 

RESPONSE to news of CBI concerns for science education in the UK showed DTI is not just aware of the problem, it’s already working to solve it.

A number of DTI readers sent in their feedback on the story, highlighting some of the work the Government is already involved in and offering their own insights and opinions.

John Kirby, senior policy adviser at Research Base, noted that the story had “stirred up a lot of interest both in the Office of Science & Innovation and from colleagues at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES)”.

He highlighted some of the long-term actions being taken by Government to increase the take-up of science.
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Rosie Telford, ‘astrophysicist-turned-assistant statistician’, had a warning about the possible pitfalls of the CBI’s call to re-brand science as “desirable and exciting”.

“The only result of this will be huge disappointment to young potential scientists embarking on their studies only to find that instead of glamour, what they're getting is very hard work,” argued Rosie.

She suggested that to recruit the best students to science, it should be marketed as “important purely for its own sake, because increasing our knowledge of the world is always good thing”.

Here's what I actually wrote:

It's all very well the CBI saying that science should be "rebranded" as "desirable and exciting; a gateway to some fantastic career opportunities".  The only result of this will be huge disappointment to young potential scientists embarking on their studies only to find that instead of glamour, what they're getting is very hard work.

 

I am someone who has always found scientific results exciting and interesting.  I embarked on a career as a physicist to find that results are few and far between, and that obtaining them usually involves a tedious slog.  So I left.

 

Let's get this straight: becoming a scientist will not make you well paid, is very unlikely to make you famous, will not endow you with much leisure time or opportunity for part time work, will generally involve a great deal of working on your own and, in many of the traditional sciences, will probably involve a lot of moving around before you finally land a permanent job (if you ever do).

 

However, there is and always will be a significant minority of people who find the sense of victory when they finally obtain results outweighs all of the drawbacks and makes the whole edifice worthwhile.  For these people, the adventure of working to increase the sum of human knowledge, however small their contribution, is reason enough to join in.

 

It's my opinion that any attempt to market science as "a gateway to a fantastic career" will be counterproductive.  Those who choose science as a springboard to a high-flying career rather than from a genuine interest in the subject are more likely to be put off by the hard graft, and standards will drop.  The truly interested and able will then be disappointed by the lack of challenge.

 

If anything will help in recruiting the best students to study science, it will be recognising and marketing science as important purely for its own sake, because increasing our knowledge of the world is always good thing.  (Although backing that up with better pay packets and more permanent jobs for scientists certainly wouldn't hurt.) 

Having just read today's main article in the Guardian's G2, I'd agree with them that it's a real challenge for teachers.  You need to attract the nerdy kids to science by showing it as it is -- difficult, challenging and interesting if you like that sort of thing -- but you also need to non-sciency kids to be basically scientifically literate, which requires kind of mass appeal that would put the nerds off.

Another reason for me to feel guilty about not becoming a physics teacher.