With apologies to those of us on both sides of the maginot line who
are truly trying to learn how to teach.
Wow, what a great week. During this week learned professors of physics
have opined that physics teaching in high school is ineffectual (no.....
that is too kind) inappropriate is a better word.
As one of the ineffective high school teachers of inappropriate
physics i have been cogitating (as best by limited education will allow
me to) about how i/we should change the high school physics curriculum to
make it less ineffective and inappropriate. I asked on this list for
specific advice and receiving none i was left to attempt to find my own
model.
During one of the 4 minute passing periods in our school while waiting
for batch 4 of six classes i teach every day i had an AH HA experience.
There sitting right before me was the ideal model for physics
instruction. But of course, adapt the model used by our large universities.
We could then stuff 400 enrollees (tuition payers, revenue sources etc)
into a large lecture hall and talk at them four times a week. Once a
week apply a lab session run by a graduate student and by all means do
not correlate the two experiences in any way( of course some of the more
progressive of our institutions of higher learning have taken this to a
higher level by eliminating the lab altogether (i haven't seen any
research that shows that a lab results in students learning any physics
anyway (of course i did not look either))).
In this way we too could minimize our contact hours with students and
maximize the revenue flow for our department. Gosh, simple max/min
calculus.
Of course then the label "teacher" would no longer apply, (in popular
erudite circles the word has pejorative connotations anyway) so a new
name would have to be found for a person in such a position...... Maybe
that is why they are called professors?
With this model I can eliminate the pc's, uli's, motion detectors,
etc. optics kits, genecons and resistors, batteries and bulbs, lab setups
in the evenings etc etc........
Bruce Esser
Physics Teacher Something witty
Marian High School Should go here
Omaha NE http://marian.creighton.edu