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Encouraging a “Romantic Understanding” of Science: The Effect of the Nikola Tesla Story

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and apply the notion of romantic understanding by outlining its features and its potential role in science education, to identify its features in the story of Nikola Tesla, and to describe an empirical study conducted to determine the effect of telling such a story to Grade 9 students. Elaborated features of the story are the humanization of meaning, an association with heroes and heroic qualities, the limits of reality and extremes of experience, a sense of wonder, and a contesting of conventions and conventional ideas. The study demonstrates the learning benefits of encouraging a romantic understanding through a story that is structured explicitly around the identified features, in this instance in the context of the production and transmission of alternating current electricity. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of journal entries showed that the group of students who were encouraged to understand the concept of alternating current romantically (the experimental group) became more involved with both the content and the context of the story than a comparison group of students who were taught the concept explicitly, without a context (the control group). The students in the experimental group also performed statistically better on a science-content test taken 1 week and again 8 weeks after the indicated teaching intervention. This finding, along with the content analyses of students’ journals, provided evidence of romantic understanding of the science content for those students who listened to the Tesla story.

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Notes

  1. See AAAS (1990), Hadzigeorgiou (1997), Mintzes et al. (1997), Resnick (1983), Klassen (2006).

  2. See Girod (2007), Root-Bernstein (2002), Tauber (1996), Wong et al. (2001).

  3. Egan’s theory is elaborated in Sect. 2.

  4. Our definition is an interpretation of Egan’s work.

  5. Egan uses the term “revolt against convention.”

  6. See Cheney (1981), Jonnes (2003), O’Neil (1992), Seifer (1998).

  7. See Cheney (1981), Cheney and Uth (1999), Johnston (1983), Jonnes (2003), Lomas (2000), O’Neil (1992), Seifer (1998), Tesla (1982).

  8. See Cohen et al. (2000), Drew et al. (2008), McMillan (2004).

  9. More information on the Mastery Teaching Model is provided in Sect. 4.4.

  10. “Participants” are not all who were present in the teaching interventions but only those whose assessments were actually included in the data analysis, as elaborated, below.

  11. See Pugh (2004) for a discussion of transformative experience.

  12. Sample comments are presented in the “Appendix”, and the reader is encouraged to examine these, as they reveal extraordinary insights and observations.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported in this paper was undertaken as part of a larger research project on Imaginative Education, directed by Kiearn Egan, professor at Simon Fraser university and Canada Research Chair in Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece

    Yannis Hadzigeorgiou

  2. University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Stephen Klassen & Cathrine Froese Klassen

Authors
  1. Yannis Hadzigeorgiou
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  2. Stephen Klassen
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  3. Cathrine Froese Klassen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yannis Hadzigeorgiou.

Appendix: Samples of Students’ Comments as Evidence of Romantic Characteristics

Appendix: Samples of Students’ Comments as Evidence of Romantic Characteristics

1.1 Humanization of Meaning

  • It is unbelievable that behind the invention of the alternating current there was such an effort by a man who suffered a lot because of what happened to him. He lost his job, he became a digger, his laboratory caught fire.

  • The war between Edison and Tesla is something that I did not know but now I can understand that Tesla’s dream and hope are responsible for his victory and for what we all have today because of alternating current.

  • Tesla’s unbelievable work and passion are the two factors that can explain how alternating current won direct current.

  • Tesla’s unbelievable work and passion are the two factors that can explain how alternating current won direct current.

  • I liked that Tesla had the dream to send electricity to all people on Earth free. But people wanted to make money and that is why his dream was not realized. I think the fire in his lab after the great triumph at the Niagara Falls was not something that just happened. People who did not want Tesla’s dream come true tried to stop him from realizing his dream. Money, money is everywhere.

1.2 Heroic Qualities

  • Tesla is an admirable man because he wanted to do good to the world. He left his country and worked for another country, wanting to help all people. This is something really admirable and we should all do like him if we want to help the world.

  • I wish I could read and work like Tesla. I really think he is someone special. It is amazing that he could work non-stop for several days. I think he is very special not because he worked all those hours but because he solved the problems he was working on.

  • The idea to use a transformer to increase the voltage and decrease the electric current is amazingly clever and shows Tesla’s intelligence. As an idea it is not so difficult. If you want less losses you need less current so you must find a way to decrease it. But simple things require intelligence. And imagination. And Tesla had a lot of them.

  • Transmitting electrical energy to several km from Niagara Falls by using electric cables was a big thing. But to transmit electrical energy through the ground and to avoid the use of cables was really excellent and shows Tesla’s power of mind.

1.3 Sense of Wonder

  • The idea of alternating current is a very revolutionary idea. But how did Tesla get it and why did he insist that it was better than the standard current? It is amazing that despite all the problems he faced, he remained faithful to his purpose.

  • That we can produce alternating current by using loops of wire moving or rotating inside magnets is very simple indeed. This idea of loop is very useful idea. In the transformer making loops of wire and changing the number of loops in the two coils can increase or decrease the electric current. It is just so clever idea. Simple and very clever. Wow!!

  • The transformation of alternating current is something astonishing. I have been thinking about it a lot. Very very clever. I think Tesla had understood that direct current cannot be transformed, so that’s why he insisted on alternating current.

  • I am truly amazed by Tesla who fixed the lighting system in a city, in France, by not using a single drawing. He did everything by working it out in his imagination. How did he do this? This is really impressive.

  • That Tesla lit 200 or 300 lamps without wires is really astonishing. He sent the electric current through the ground without using any wires. Perhaps we can use it to send electricity to islands without using cables in the sea. I am curious whether islands receive electricity without wires.

1.4 Contesting of Conventional Ideas

  • I like the fact that Tesla made his university professors angry. Perhaps if he did not go against what those old professors knew about electricity there would not have been progress in using alternating current instead of regular current.

  • That Tesla did not listen to what his father was saying to him about becoming a priest must have made a big difference in the world as we know it today. I think it all started when Tesla followed his own ideas and feelings.

  • Tesla went against the Company of Ericson [sic] despite the fact that he was alone and without money. But he won. He taught us a lesson: he who insists wins even when he has to go against problems and difficulties.

  • I was thinking that the light we have at home and that all the electrical appliances work because of what Tesla did one century ago. The electric current we use today has a history behind which is the disagreement between Tesla and Edison. If Tesla had agreed with Edison who knows if we had electricity in our homes.

  • Tesla was a very peculiar person. He went against everything. His father, his teachers, and the American system. But he succeeded. I think people who disagree with the system can be successful. But you need guts. It is not easy. Many times I want to disagree with my father and my teacher but in the end I agree with them.

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Hadzigeorgiou, Y., Klassen, S. & Klassen, C.F. Encouraging a “Romantic Understanding” of Science: The Effect of the Nikola Tesla Story. Sci & Educ 21, 1111–1138 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-011-9417-5

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