GOULD AS TEACHER, WRITER, AND MENTOR: HIS REMARKABLE EFFECTIVENESS AS AN EDUCATOR

Through his gifts as a communicator, Stephen Gould ultimately dedicated a significant proportion of his career to education. He is arguably best known for his essays and books for the general public, in spite of his tremendous scientific legacy. He was a popular lecturer at Harvard University and elsewhere and advisor to many research students heavily influenced by his manner of thinking and teaching. He won awards for his teaching and writing from both the NAGT and NABT. What contributed to Gould’s success in communicating and teaching across such a range of subjects and audiences?

His effectiveness as an educator was related to his strengths as a scientist, in particular in his penchant for providing lucid general explanations to apparently complicated or unrelated phenomena and his ability to critique and overturn once standard views. Many of the key ingredients of Gould’s writing were also the basis of his successful teaching, not least his mastery of colorful language and story telling.

While his teaching approach did not clearly follow coincident trends in science education, he arrived at a similar intended educational outcome: increased accessibility of real science. In lectures and essays alike he engaged his audiences in the excitement of scientific inquiry, describing explorations of intriguing and baffling real-world observations. Social relevance of science took on enhanced meaning in descriptions of his own experiences, e.g., defending teaching of evolution in public schools.

Perhaps above all Gould is well-known for not having “dumbed-down” his writing or his lecturing, assuming, either naively or with great insight (or both) that more people can grasp and enjoy intellectual details of natural history than is acknowledged by stereotypes of the general public. Such high expectations may challenge and maintain long-term interest where more simplified presentations might have failed.