Re: Pedagogy

[Larry Smith <larry.smith@SNOW.EDU>]

> At 14:37 -0400 4/30/04, Hugh Haskell wrote:
> Bob, I have to disagree with your characterization of Sheila Tobias's
> work. She was talking about not only physics but chemistry and much
> of engineering in "They're Not Dumb" and she wasn't demanding that
> students be spoon-fed their "learning," but that they be considered
> in the process. There are those of us who survived in physics because
> we wanted to, in spite of the attitudes of many of those who "taught"
> us.
>
> And it just might keep a few of those first- and second-rank students
> from leaving science (with a bad taste in their mouths) for the
> humanities, where they can make a career out of trashing science. I
> think that's a good thing.


While on the one hand not disagreeing with all those who wrote about a
passion for solving problems, and that one must take responsibility for
one's own education, and one must learn the material oneself (in a
constructivist sort of way), I agree strongly with Hugh on the other hand
that instruction could be and should be better.

Physicists are some of the smartest people in the world because they are
the only people who can survive current physics education.  Is physics so
intrinsically hard that we can't make physicists out of capable,
interested, and motivated merely-above-average people?  Is it truly so hard
that we want an elite club of only the smartest people in the world?
Wouldn't we rather have _more_ physicists, even if we had to take them from
the 80th percentile or the 70th?  (In most circles I'm considered
reasonably intelligent, but on this list I'm pretty much at the bottom.)

I believe that PER results should be incorporated into graduate school as
well as K-12 and undergraduate education.  I think we do all those things
Michael Edmiston mentioned, but we can also teach the concepts and
techniques better.  We can also do a better job of motivation, PR, and
inclusion.  And we should.

Larry