Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Actually the attitude towards science decreases in the earlier grades
starting around grade 5 or 6, long before physics is formally introduced.

Actually I think practically all have the capability of carrying a tune, but
it requires training, and some need more than others.  In Wales
traditionally practically all men sing and they form male choirs at the drop
of a hat, but in the US male singing and dancing is deprecated.  Look at the
number of men in ballet or choirs.  Mandarin is a language which uses exact
tones to distinguish between various meanings, and they have found that most
Mandarin singers have perfect pitch, so even that can be trained.  There is
of course a big problem if you have a vocal cord/muscle problem or a severe
deficiency with your hearing.  But music is often done in groups where the
students who need the extra attention to learn to carry a tune simply can
not be accommodated.  It does help if you sing at a young age.  But again
music training with youngsters seldom gets them to sing on pitch at a young
age.  It is sort of like learning to color inside the lines.  My daughter
has a severe fine motor problem, so she didn't like to color until later in
her teen years when she could finally color inside the lines.  Then she was
doing it when all others had dropped it.

This is actually a good illustration of why students do not like science or
math.  A large fraction of it never achieve any understanding, and just
memorize meaningless items.  No wonder they don't like it.  Then there are
those who try to find meaning and connections in everything, and they like
everything.  I have a memory problem with names and words, so foreign
languages pose a big problem.  But I do love it when I can learn about
languages, and bits and pieces of languages which I can fit into my schema.

So I would say that self esteem goes up when you have success, not the other
way around.  Then with more self esteem you are willing to try more, so it
becomes a positive feedback loop.  And when you have failure often the
esteem goes down so you try less, negative feedback.  And finally the last
piece comes from psychology.  Praising a person and saying they are
intelligent usually causes them to try less, but praising specific actions
can be helpful.  So our society tries to raise esteem by saying you are
intelligent so you can do it.  And the reverse often happens.

But I would agree that over a certain level, we should probably not be
forcing students to take more "advanced" courses in subjects they loathe and
will never use.  Specifically I am against algebra for all!!!  Instead the
math courses should be doing things to develop proportional reasoning,
measurement, statistical reasoning and other valuable skills.  Algebra never
used to be a requirement for HS graduation in the 1950s, and it is never
used by 90% or more of the population after school.  Since it does not build
reasoning skills, and it now serves as a huge barrier to graduation, it
should not be required.  And if it is considered to be a little valuable,
then just the ability to use formulae should be taught, with only advanced
students going on to quadratics...  Incidentally at Sr level HS the vast
majority of students in physics classes have no concept of how to find the
equation given an experimental straight line graph, so it is obvious that
math has not served them well.  But if Rod McDuff is correct, his program
may turn math around and make algebra for all realistic!  Then I will have
to change my opinion!

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

 
> "Unfortunately, the research shows that student interest and liking of
> science goes DOWN with each conventional science course they take."
>
> This is a depressing fact and it may be true, but I am going to propose a
> politically incorrect explanation.
>
> I think that much of the gnashing of teeth that we physics teachers do is
> caused by our attempt to teach physics to a broader population than those
> who are capable of learning it.  We say "physics for all" but there is one
> group that does not believe us: our students.  I think they ARE paying
> attention and being rational.  And they are assessing their ability to
> understand.  Some of them see that they can and do understand and they see
> the joy that we see.  They come back for more.  Others realistically
> assess that they cannot do this.  The way that I have to accept that I
> will not have a career in singing.  Music for all?  Now if I didn't know
> what music really was and I enrolled in a choral singing class, part of my
> experience would include the discovery that I can't carry a tune.  At the
> end of the class, I might rationally report that my interest and liking of
> music had dropped as a result of the conventional music class.  If, say
> 60% of the class was made up of students
>  like me, then the end of year results would make the class look
> ineffective.  The music teachers could go back to their debates about how
> the next group should be taught.
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