The debate about how to teach has become a distraction from what actually matters. This position paper from the Australian Science Teachers Association takes direct aim at the increasingly loud claim that explicit teaching and inquiry learning are opposites — and argues that framing them as a binary is not just wrong, it is actively harming students and undermining the profession.
ASTA draws a clear distinction between explicit teaching, which is a flexible cluster of evidence-based strategies, and direct instruction, a scripted 1960s model that nobody is actually advocating. Conflating the two has led schools to interpret the push for explicit teaching as a mandate for passive, transmission-based learning — precisely the kind of environment the evidence shows disengages students, particularly in the middle years.
The paper makes clear that effective science teaching requires a toolbox, not a rulebook. Inquiry is not a pedagogy to be discarded — it is central to how science itself works. Mandating a single approach strips teachers of the professional judgement they need to meet the diverse needs of the students in front of them.