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Re: Physics teaching qualifications



Bob Blankinship (bobblank@pacific.net.sg) wrote on April 17 (18th, his time :)

(my excerpt from the AIP report deleted, with my comment that "1 in 5 teachers
having a year or less of physics was 'still too high'")

I have taught physics for more than ten years. I have had about one year
of university physics back in 1966, and that's all. I am currently teaching
in one of the best schools around, and I fell that to teach PSSC physics
requires a deep understanding of all the concepts and applications. I am at
the point now where schools do not even bother to look at my college
transcript. The experience is enough. I realize that initially a science
teacher who is asked to teach physics and does not have the background will
have to work exceptionally hard, but he can still make the subject
interesting, perhaps more than one who has had plenty of background. My
students have never suffered.

Did you have AP physics in high school? Where did you get your "deep under-
standing" of the concepts and applications in physics? I'm not bashing, but
I have to admit my skepticism that the level of understanding you feel is
necessary to teach PSSC physics could be picked up in one year of university
physics. I don't question that teachers without the background could still
make physics "interesting", but to be honest I'm looking for _more_ than
"interesting". The students coming into college may have had "interesting"
physics classes, but how are their content/physics problem solving/scientific
approaches skills? (Note: I view "interesting" as a necessary, but not nearly
sufficient component to successful physics teaching.)

One last comment. In my current school, I'm teaching honors biology,
chemistry, regular physics, and of course, honors physics. I feel teachers
need to have a broad background across the sciences, and you'd be surprised
at the amount of integration I do between the sciences.

Bob Blankinship

I'm guessing, from what you said, that you were trained as a biologist/biology
teacher. I don't doubt that you integrate biology into your physics courses;
out of curiosity, how much physics are you able to integrate (explicitly, as
a "physics topic") into your chem & bio classes?

Mike Thayer
Laboratory for Astrophysics & Space Research
The University of Chicago
thayer@odysseus.uchicago.edu | http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/thayer/