Re: [Phys-l] special ed/relativity

["LaMontagne, Bob" <RLAMONT@providence.edu>]

________________________________

From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of John Denker
Sent: Thu 2/28/2008 4:47 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: [Phys-l] special ed/relativity



On 02/27/2008 05:51 PM, Richard Tarara wrote:
> ....  Understanding Special Relativity is a
> difficult goal.  Some might offer then that one shouldn't even attempt such
> at the gen-ed level, but I would counter that the real goal here is to show
> why physics has moved beyond the Newtonian model (with which they can gain
> reasonable, but seldom complete, understanding).


Yes, I understand these are liberal arts students.  But is BS a
liberal art?  It seems to me that the course -- as described --
is training people to be BS artists, according to the policy:
"we are NOT trying to formalize".  That's practically the
definition of BS, when people throw around the terminology from
a technical field that they don't understand.  

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Thank goodness someone finally pointed out the obvious. I have students in both my physics and natural science courses that answer questions early in the semester by simply flushing all the scientific jargon that they can remember from HS out of their brains in a totally incoherent fashion. The answers don't even make grammatical sense never mind scientific sense. Simply covering material for the sake of coverage or some "standards" test is rediculous. Covering less but actually understanding it is far more useful to the student in the long run.

I am tired of departmental meetings where we agree to sacrifice coverage for depth, and then at the next meeting a few members bully the group into including again most of the material dropped simply because the MCAT exam requires the material for the Biology students who take the course.

Bob at PC