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Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities



Fundamentally I don't disagree with Anthony Lapinski that physics ought
to be exciting and we ought to try to make it interesting, relevant, and
maybe even fun.

But let's also realize there are many differences between high school
and college. Some differences make high school teaching more difficult,
and some differences make college teaching more difficult. It is my
experience that student apathy is much worse in college physics.

In most cases, the traditional high school physics course is an
elective. It is therefore self-selective. Student enrolling in the
course generally have some interest in the subject or else they wouldn't
take it. I know this is not 100% true because some take it because they
know they want to be engineers; some take it because they know they want
to major in science in college; and so forth.

In college, very few of my students want to be in my class. My class is
typically one-third biology majors of one type or another, and they
can't for the life of them believe they need to know anything about
physics (or first-year chemistry, or even organic chemistry). Another
third of my class is pre-med majors, and they feel the same way. The
rest of the students are chemistry, computer science, engineering, etc.
majors. Only one or two each year are physics majors.

This means that somewhere between 5% and 10% of my students have any
real interest in physics. The rest are there because they have to be
there. They are definitely not in my class by choice. The only time
they see physics as remotely fun is if we do interesting demonstrations
or experiments completely void of any mathematical analysis and free of
any report writing. In other words, they are willing to be entertained,
but don't expect them to want to do anything else.

This also happens in first-year chemistry, organic chemistry, as well as
physics. It even happens in botany and ecology because the pre-meds and
biology majors interested in the health fields don't see why a biology
major interested in human health needs to take any botany or ecology or
other biology course not directly related to human biology.

My colleagues teaching first-year chem, organic chem, and I have started
asking our classes on the first day some variation of "Those of you who
are happy to be here raise your hands. Okay, those of you who are only
here because you have to be here raise your hands." We typically follow
that with a statement that we hope by the end of the term they are all
happy they took the course.

The year, none of the students in first-year chemistry said they were
there by choice, none in organic said they were there by choice, and two
in physics said they were there by choice. The two in physics are
physics majors. Last year these two physics majors took first-year
chemistry, and the professor said these two were part of the group that
said they were not there by choice.

Occasionally I get reports years after graduation from a student telling
me they were wrong about the value of physics. A student just about to
graduate from dental school wrote a letter (really a letter, i.e. snail
mail) telling me he was surprised how much physics he needed in dental
school as they studied the properties of material such as hardness,
strength, thermal conductivity, etc. A pre-med hopeful did not get
accepted into medical school, started nursing school, then learned about
a health physics program, and is now finishing a masters degree in
health physics. He wrote an email saying how much he enjoyed his health
physics program and that he would not have had that option if he had not
been forced to take physics in college.

I can give more examples. So there are sometimes rewards from putting
up with classes of apathetic students. Unfortunately many rewards come
several or many years after the students graduate. And yes, I read some
of the letters and emails to my current classes. The current students
don't ever see that happening to them.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu