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Re: Physics First, Last, Always





While most of the 600 or so students in our introductory calculus-level
physics are domestic or Asian or Latin American, we have a few Europeans.
They tend, even when not particularly brilliant students, to be very
logical and systematic in their homework and exam solutions and to have a
very good background in physics. When I ask them, they typically did not
take physics in their last year of school, or the year before, or whatever,
but had some physics every week for many years. Same with chemistry and
biology. I suspect this is a good system, and wish we could incorporate
something of the sort in our educational system. Perhaps this is similar
to some of the "integrated" approaches that have been mentioned.

Laurent Hodges, Professor of Physics lhodges@iastate.edu
12 Physics Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3160
(515) 294-1185 (office) http://www.public.iastate.edu/~lhodges


I have heard arguments like this one before, and although I don't
necessarily disagree with the conclusion, the logic of the argument loses
something on me, I guess. I feel it's saying something like, "This seed yields
a good crop in the field Across The Water - therefore it should also yield a
good crop in my field here". The problem with the syllogism is that it assumes
the growing conditions in the two places are approximately equivalent, and, in
the case of physics teaching and learning, I'm really not sure that is the
case. I don't have any reason to believe that kids on this side of the pond
are any dumber than they are in Europe, but I do think that societal forces may
indeed make the 'growing conditions' for learning physics a bit more hostile
over here. For example: How well-trained are our physics teachers compared to
our European counterparts? (Last I checked, high-school teachers in Germany
needed TWO masters' degrees in order to teach there: one in their discipline
and one in education. I don't think many of us h.s. teachers - myself included
- would qualify to teach in German schools.) What are parental and community
attitudes toward their kids' education? (An article published a few years ago -
which I don't have at hand - suggested strongly that most American parents
suffered from the 'Lake Wobegon effect' - i.e., they believed that their kids
and their schools really were pretty much above average in spite of hard
evidence to the contrary, and hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it? or why get
involved to improve it if it's already good? American parents were also far
more likely than their Asian counterparts to believe that success comes from
innate ability rather than from hard work - and the results speak for
themselves, in my estimation.) Is education valued in the cultural 'soil'?
(My Thai students, for example, come here with a pretty good handle on basic
physics, even though they learn under methods many of us would find philistine -
rote memory, no lab work, etc. - but I get the feeling that education is valued
much more highly in Thai culture than it is here, so the kids there end up
learning well.) And, incidentally, my impression of the European model is that
it is less like the 'integrated science' schemes kicked around on phys-l than
it is like taking ten half-credit courses (instead of five full-credit ones)
during one's high-school career - but that opinion may be based on too small a
sample.

Sorry to have been so long-winded. In a nutshell: the success of the
European model in Europe does not necessarily imply the success of the European
model in the U.S. I think most any model of science education would do better
abroad than here because social and cultural differences (especially in regard
to attitudes toward education) rather than the pedagogy used may turn out to be
the factor primarily responsible for the differences in achievement in science.
Importation of a successful foreign model of science education, while tempting,
may simply end up being an expensive exercise in casting pearls of wisdom
before swine. We may want to justify such casting on other grounds, but we may
need instead to concentrate our reform efforts on finding what combination of
seed and nutrients will yield the best crop in the soil we're aparently stuck
with.


Nick

Nick Guilbert
Peddie School
Hightstown, NJ

nguilber@peddie.k12.nj.us