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Re: [Phys-l] Unit Conversions (was Mass and Energy)



I probably shouldn't raise my head here - it might get blown off - but I know from first-hand experience how little college professors of physics know about the limitations of most HS students.

Because those with graduate degrees in physics are among the few who could abstract at an early age, it's impossible (well, very difficult) for them to imagine how people think who cannot abstract. I suspect that Professors of Physics believe that everyone sees the world as they do.

I suspect also that you would reject out of hand the notion that most (?) high school students have absolutely no idea about their spatial relationship to the planet they live on. I find that, despite our using a spherical globe as a model of the earth, most students cannot make the connection between that model and the earth they live on. Many believe we live inside the earth. (Otherwise we would fall off.) This is a very simple example of the inability of HS seniors to grasp even the simplest abstract concepts.

I was astounded when I came to HS teaching as a second career (some 18 years ago) to learn - really learn - what an inability to abstract means. Modern educational philosophy completely ignores these limitations.





I don't know about others here, but if I were to really believe in
everything John Clement posts to this list then the logical conclusion is
that people are just TOO STUPID to learn much of anything, much less
Physics.