Re: devil's advocate (? one wonders...)

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

Let me come to Joel's defense--as least partly.

It is unfair to say that only 1% of our physics students go on to become
physics majors and therefore only that 1% has gained anything from
traditional instruction--and then include but they didn't really need
instruction anyway.

What about the engineers, the Chemists, Biologists, medical students, etc.
who also had traditional instruction and have seemingly done OK with it? 
To be sure there is the odd bridge or O-ring problem, but the state of
technology today says that the engineers have been doing pretty good with
our instruction--likewise these other technical professions.

While that still leaves a majority of students who don't take additional
physics and don't use it directly in their careers, it is presumptuous to
assume that their instruction in physics hasn't had 'some' positive
effects.  True they can't do well on the FCI (neither can many of the
'tech' students), but to say that rigorous work in problem solving hasn't
sharpened their critical thinking skills, that they don't have a better
understanding of the physical world than before instruction, that they
don't have a better feel for the methods of science is hardly objective. 
{I don't think Dewey would say such things--but someone out there would
;-)}

Sure many (if not most students) don't look favorably on their physics
instructional experiences.  How many of us old-timers look favorably on our
Latin instructional experiences?  Negative post-attitudes do not preclude
real learning and real benefits from a course.   Also (from an e-mail tag
line I saw someplace)--"The plural of anecdote is not data!"

Sure we can do better with the majority of students and the place we should
be working hard to introduce the best conceptual instruction is the
elementary/middle school level of science.  The folks working in Physics
Educational Research have and can play an important role in helping us all
be better instructors.  However, to dismiss the 'practical' accomplishments
of 'traditional' instruction by ignoring the products of that instruction,
is IMO very unfair. 

Rick Tarara 

----------
> From: Dewey Dykstra, Jr. <dykstrad@VARNEY.IDBSU.EDU>
>
> Can we really be *proud* of this 'picture' of what we are doing to
society
> just because we happen to have plenty who become physicists?
>
> There's lots of things wrong with this 'picture', just to name a few:
> 1.  Again, it dismisses 99+% of the people who have any physics
> instruction, which in most 'first world' and maybe 'second world'
countries
> is most of the population.  I doubt that any physical theory which
> dismisses 99+% of the available data would be found acceptible in the
> physics community, so why does it make sense to do so here?
> 2.  The physics instruction upon which people base this "lesson learned"
> proports to be about physical phenomena when instead it is almost
> exclusively about the conclusions *others* (those special people who
*can*)
> have reached about the phenomena and training in the vocational practices
> of professional physicists.
> 3.  The research in physics education literature is full of examples that
> physics instruction does not have to be this way.
>
> But, then maybe this IS the goal; to elevate ourselves and put others
down.
> (Why else are we so proud of our effect on conversations at social
> gatherings?)  Or, maybe to put it more gently, maybe the goal IS to troll
> through society to find all with "true" potential and discard the
'chaff."
> If either is the case then we are spectacularly successful!