H. R. Crane is wrong. More than ninety percent of students come to us
with demonstrably incorrect physical ideas, probably roughly the same
as those of Aristotle, except not as well thought out. They also come
to us with a decreasingly competent capability to articulate ideas
verbally. It is clear from their success with video and fantasy role
playing games that they are capable of acquiring new vocabulary
quickly if properly motivated. The best thing we can do for them is to
teach them an orderly set of rules about how an abstract model system
works in a new language they can assimilate. Some of my students last
semester clearly thought physics was a video game (we use CAPA, a
computer homework delivery system) so this should present them with no
insurmountable barrier. After introducing our formalism in this way we
may then try to replace their long held superstitions with the new
model as their Weltanschauung, their view of reality. This will
succeed with between ten and twenty percent of them. The rest are
irretrievable and expendable, but we pass them anyway, secure in the
knowledge that they won't ever take another physics course.
Yes, that picture is cynical. Do I believe it in detail? Perhaps not,
but there is far too much truth to it to dismiss it out of hand.
H. R. Crane may indeed hold his opinion ; I hold mine. I really do not
think that there is any value to trying to teach people who come to me
with wrong ideas already formulated in language with which they are
comfortable and use that same language to teach them new ideas which
contradict their misconceptions. That's too damn "innovative" for me.