Science and inclusion KEY 1.0 aims to promote inclusion through science, joining two aspects that are usually kept apart. The idea of the project was born around this unusual combination, which is much more than a characteristic feature of the personal path of the KEY coordinator: it is his obsession. In the present article, Giancarlo Pace is going to describe the reasons behind this obsession.

The clear-cut separation between intellect and affection, thought and emotion, reason and values, clear reasoning and feelings … is a simplification of the language. A useful and inevitable simplification, because understanding thought and emotion as different categories is crucial for communication. However, we should remember that they are extremes of the same spectrum. There is no boundary between them, but rather a grey area, and most of our significant activities occur in such a grey area. For example, while I’m writing, I’m exercising my intelligence in order to clearly explain concepts which are emotionally charged. It’s impossible to say which part of me is thinking, which one is feeling. Actually, pure thought doesn’t exist, since thinking would be absolutely pointless without the emotions related to the object of our thought. When we say that a person is rational in the pejorative sense of the term, we are not speaking of a person without emotions. What we have in mind in this case, is a person who acts greedly, for example, rather than feeling the more noble sentiment of friendship, as we would prefer. The only possible end to a completely rational life, absolutely devoided of emotions, is suicide. Without positive feelings, thus without pleasure, the resources necessary to keep our bodies alive are just a waste of effort from a purely rational standpoint. When we feel that something should happen, rationality helps us make it happen . This sentence also reveals the language limitation that separates thinking and feeling, but it’s a considerable progress with respect  to a naive dualism. Imagine that we have a friend with a problem whose resolution demands all of our rationality, and imagine that we are certain that solving the problem would benefit our friend without causing inconvenience to anybody. Our feelings make us determined to help her. The will to help our friend and the intention to be rational in searching a solution for her problem, are actually the same thing.   Our will to think rationally, is a proxy for the sincerity of our affection. Of course, we could have the best intentions to rationally find a solution, but be unable to do so. In this case, our affection wouldn’t be any less sincere. One more reason to try to learn to think well. This skill only develops under certain circumstances, and enables us to effectively act according to our values. These words are much more than a rhetorical exercise. Think about the importance of distinguishing between valid information on one hand, and lies and manipulation on the other, in crucial matters such as health, society, global warming. Think about the real risk involved in not thinking carefully on these issues. Teaching Science and, I would dare to say, Philosophy, should have the objective of reducing such risk. Of course, irrationality is to some extent inherent to  humanity, and it will always be. Nevertheless, the goal to foster the conceptual tools that help overcome irrationality, is a viable and valuable social goal.  We think that education should help students to find the right balance between openness and skepticism when facing novel information. A society that values hygiene is less vulnerable to epidemics, although bacteria and viruses are still around. Similarly, a society that encourages the attitude previously described, has more constructive discussion and responsiveness to good ideas, both conventional and unusual, even though  it cannot possibly erradicate narrow-mindedness and prejudice. We believe that a pedagogy based on discussion between peers foments not only critical thinking, but also inclusion, openness to diversity, and cooperation.  I hope I will clarify the reasons for this claim in the last part of this article. We have good reasons to support it, not clear evidence, many reasonable people might strongly disagree with us in this aspect. Before making the case for the pedagogy based on discussion as a means to social inclusion, we are going to argue just that is a way to better teach science, which is a much less controversial and more straightforward claim. There is very strong scientific evidence that discussion between peers is far more effective than the traditional science class. There are plausible explanations for this result. The first one is, as Eric Mazur points out on this interview, that discussion between students is motivates more deeply than passive listening, it is therefore much more effective in eliciting authentic curiosity and involvement. Learning through discussion does not eliminate the need for patience and attentive listening, one the countrary, it provides good reasons for practising them. The second explanation is that a classmate is a great teacher. In the same interview, Eric Mazur reminds to us that a student that has just understood a concept, most probably knows how to teach it to a classmate better than the teacher, since the latter has learnt it a long time ago and has forgotten how difficult it was to learn it. In fact, the teacher was probably part of the 10% minority which easily understood scientific subjects. The distinguishing feature of this 10% minority, is not  an inborn intelligence,  but a different way of interpreting  new information, evaluating arguments and counter-arguments, thus developing a skill to distinguish among hypothesis, evidence, arguments and reasoning. In short, mental habits make the difference. There are conditions that educe the good mental habits. Discussion among peers is one of those, since it puts students in a situation where they have to argue to defend a statement, so they will calmly evaluate arguments and counter-arguments. This is the third reason for the pedagogical power of discussion. The fourth and last we are going to mention, is interaction. When students discuss, they interact with eacht other and with the teacher, so that the teacher always knows if they understand or not. In a traditional context is much more difficult for the teacher to have this awareness. Whatever the reasons, discussion is an extremely efficient pedagogical tool, as evidenced by the power of figures and statistics. This result has not yet been implemented in our schools. One of our goals is start to do it. Not all discussions are constrictive, and the role of the teacher is even more important in a pedagogical context based on discussion among peers. He or she must notice and correct the faults of the discussion, acting in the least intrusive way, and should let the students find the meaningful answers on their own. Discussing generates a cooperative environment, where the understanding of an academic contenti is built collectively. Talking to peers enables students to overcome the fear of making mistakes, and to accept them as an inherent part of learning. On the coutrary, if the students perceive that their goal is to report a content to an autoriry figure, they will less likely gain interest in the meaning of the concepts, they will be worried of a possible emberassment and thus search for the shortest way to avoid it: the right number to plug into the right formula, the algorithm one is supposed to apply, the sentence one is supposed to say ....  Not so when discussing with a colleague. The interlocutor might have a different interpretation of the same topic, a way to look at it that complements one’s own.  Sometimes this is not the case, one student might have a much deeper discernment than the other. In this situation, which is likely to happen, the one who better understood the topic, will have an important opportunity to improve his or her own comprehension as he or she explains it to the other student. This too is a win-win situation, in which the individual autonomy is valued and used by the group. This process not only helps to build the ability to argue, for  the reasons mentioned above, but is also more democratic and horizontal in its core. It has already been used to tackle gender issues among engineering students [Felder et al 1995] and KEY 1.0 aims to use it to encourage a more welcoming attitude towards the migration phenomena. The mere communication of any scientific content, no matter how brillant and clear, is pointless if students do not analyse it critically and do not formulate autonomously an understand of it. Similarly, the development of any skill, should serve much more meaningful goals than the competition for the best mark. A school usefulness goes beyond environment, where academic and social skills reinforce one another, has an enormous transforming potential. This school is within our reach. KEY 1.0 intends to take a step in that direction.


Giancarlo Pace Key 1.0. Team Coordinator