How to defeat your own conditioning

How do I un-do so many years of conditioning that molded me into a person that understands how science is not only taught and learned - but how it is lived? When I struggled with physics initially - I just knew I had to open the book and read about the concepts. Just doing the problems wasn't going to cut it for me. At age 16 I was already conditioned. So now - with the available technology - I have to re-create myself. I wonder if the story is being told about the shock that a teacher experiences in charging herself with becoming something else. This is no simple task. I am reading about how teachers must change their perspectives and widen their lenses - but throwing away all of that convention and tradition is not unlike converting to another religion. Which is why so many that I have met have shunned public school education. For the most part what I have seen - in a number of schools - is a faculty of science teachers who are trying to force the traditional manner of doing science into an environment where that approach is not going to be received. I was thinking this morning that field biology is what hooked me and kept me in the scientific community. And the ability to bring that excitement about hunting for clues in the natural world is what kept me going. I have learned that I am willing to scrap lectures for discussions - as long as I can find way to convince my students to go on a scavenger hunt for information before we attempt to talk about a topic. I am at odds with myself. If I take out all of the detailed explanations about processes and do not discuss the scientific instruments and how they work - how can I teach science? Is it science at all? Those are precisely the two things that scare off the majority of college prep and level 1 students. But they seem to be willing to listen to it if it is a part of a video game or cartoon or tv show. And mind you - I am not being condescending. I'm just thinking about how to get students to think about and talk about science without being threatened with failure on a lab or quiz. What I am receiving form the literature is that the method of delivery has to fit the times. Students need to talk about the concepts, and they need to be encouraged to collaborate and design and execute projects and labs in order to really be engaged in science. All of this needs to take into account sociocultural differences. And - there really is no reform initiative that will "do it" for you. It has to be developed from what drives you as a lifelong lover of doing whatever science you do. So I return to the two most basic and fundamental questions that are only superficially addressed by most teachers and students. Who am I? Who are they? And then once again to the questions about what happens when we can't find common ground about what is and is not important. I suppose it can just be alright that we don't agree and that students might refuse to ascribe value and beauty to the science that we teach. But none of us really wants that. The students don't even want that - they are seeking meaning and purpose for the time they spend with us. Nobody likes time spent in their lives on any task - even if it is one they do not enjoy - to be a complete waste. And there is a place where the most resistant teenager will meet you if you are trying to meet them half-way. I've found that place before - I just haven't a method of delivery that works for them. But I will. I will.