Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

["Rick Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

But what ARE they interested in, in High School?  In math?  In English?  In 
History?

If we only teach what interests students (maybe pop culture?) in our 
schools, where does that leave us?

Lack of interest is NOT a viable argument against science in school, at any 
level!  It is defeatist at best.

Rick


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>
To: "'Forum for Physics Educators'" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities


> > 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.
>
> Actually, it is not just self-selective.  A lot of students take it 
> because
> they think it will help them get into a "good" school.  The vast majority 
> of
> these students either will not, or can not pursue a career in math or
> science.  TX is requiring 4 years of HS science next year in the belief 
> that
> this will improve student learning.  This will probably just put more
> unwilling students into science classes, and swell lower level science
> classes.  Only a very few are actually interested in it or seriously plan 
> to
> pursue science or engineering.  Some private schools require physics for
> all.  So actually most students are really not interested in it in HS.
>
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX
>
>
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