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From: Dewey Dykstra, Jr.
To: phys-l
Subject: Re: devil's advocate (? one wonders...)
Date: Wednesday, November 06, 1996 9:37AM
A simple place to begin, as far as I'm concerned, would be to reserve the
vocational training strictly for physics and engineering majors and for
everyone else (K - 12) and college non-science majors develop courses in
which the *students'* understanding concerning the *phenomena* are the
object of attention. I think even the physics and engineering majors would
be all the better for this approach of partitioning the thrust of courses
at the different levels.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
--
Why do I, teaching in a college with about 1400 undergraduates, have 130
students in my algebra-based physics sequence? Because 100 of them want to
be Physical Therapists. (the other 30 are chemistry and pre-med majors. We
have no physics major.) Most young people who are attracted to Physical
Therapy as a career have had a lot of sports experience in high school, and
are interested in "helping people", and were not particularly interested in
science or math. Our PTH department has moreover decreed that all
candidates for the 30 yearly admissions to the program will have B- or
higher grades in all required prerequisite courses. I have suggested to
the department that we might develop a physics course which would be more
appropriate to their prospective majors (my ulterior motive being to have a
good reason to get an additional faculty member for my dept.) , but have
repeatedly been told that they don't want a "watered down" physics course,
as the traditional one "teaches them to think." (Translation: YOU do the
dirty work in weeding out the undesirables!) So poor innocent kindly I am
the one who has the students sobbing that 'I never was good at math,
especially story problems," screaming that I have destroyed their life and
am the sole obstacle to their acheiving the profession of their dreams,
telling me indignantly that "I have never gotten a grade lower than an A in
my whole life." I really hate being cast as the ogre, and resent that they
will spend the rest of their lives hating physics. I guess this is a
classic case of having an outside agency dictating the format of your
course.
(While I am ranting on, let me add on a somewhat nicer note, especially to
Dewey Dykstra and Van Neie, and a testimonial to the rest of you, that I
used the Powerful Ideas in Physical Science program for a group of
in-service elementary teachers last summer. They loved it, I loved it--It
was the most rewarding teaching experience I have had since I left high
school teaching 30 years ago! Thanks!)
Margaret J. Clarke
Physical Science Department
College of St. Scholastica
Duluth MN