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Re: [Phys-L] abstractions



My personal experiences make me question most of what has been claimed on the list. I grew up speaking French at home, but there was a Polish Catholic grammar school directly across the street from me - so my parents ended up sending me there. It wasn't a huge problem because my friends that I played with spoke mostly Polish and English - so I knew enough of the language to get by. We had no science of any kind taught at the school through the eight years that I attended. We did, however, have an excellent grounding in math. I left the school with a math background equivalent to what would have been called High School Algebra II at that time.

I took a general physical science class in my freshman year in high school. I then went through the usual sequence of biology and chemistry and did not encounter physics until my Senior year. I loved it and excelled in it. Most of the college track kids in the class had very similar backgrounds - no real contact with physics until that Senior class. We were a small class (6 students if I recall correctly). None of us had problems with "proportional reasoning and other formal reasoning skills". We certainly had had no spiraling sequence of encounters with physics concepts through the various grades before first encountering them as HS Seniors. For most, it was a course to be gotten through, but no one expressed a strong dislike for physics. I was the only one who pursued it in college.

I am strongly of the opinion that early experience with physics is a waste of time. Instead, language, math, and general thinking skills are the things that should be developed early on and right up the end of HS. I don't really think that my HS physics course contributed significantly to my success in the major in college.

When my daughter encountered physics in HS, it was an entirely different matter. She attended public grammar school and a supposed "elite" public high school. She was totally unprepared to do well in physics. The math courses she had taken were vastly inferior to those that I had taken. Her other courses involved very little actual thinking and analysis - mostly memorization. A large portion of her time was taken up by "diversity" and social welfare courses. Fortunately, after getting a degree from on of the local state colleges, she has had enough doors open so she has been successful in life - although most of her income is from her figure skating coaching.

I feel that the big difference between our experiences is that I had a good solid Catholic early education that stuck to the basics (although I am no longer a Catholic). She grew up in a fairly weak public school system, that I think only the most motivated could survive. Except for language skills and math skills, I really don't think that encountering topics like physics, economics, psychology, or other academic areas early on produce any strong benefits later - it's the basics that matter.

Bob at PC
________________________________________
From: Phys-l [phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org] on behalf of John Clement [clement@hal-pc.org]
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 11:29 AM
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] abstractions

There are already some well designed things. FOSS has research behind it.
SCIS was also designed using research. Karplus tried all kinds of things
and his stack of rejections was vastly taller than the stack of things that
worked. The problem is that teachers are not trained in using these things,
so they sit in closets, and the students are taught out of books. In
addition the states mandate inappropriate memorized things.

The two places where we need the most attention are in first grade and
middle school. When the brain is growing rapidly this is a window of
opportunity to influence how students think and to improve thinking skills.
Shayer & Adey targeted both of these points in time. As to 3rd or 4th
grade, there is a big problem. Proportional reasoning and other formal
reasoning skills can not be developed in the vast majority of students
before age 10, so any science that needs it must be omitted. However there
are things that can be targeted. The connection between weight and volume
or between volume and water displacement for sinking objects needs to be
developed, and that must be after age 7. These are markers of mature
concrete operational thinking, so grades 3 and 4 are appropriate. A lot of
natural science which is stamp collecting can be done. Students can learn
about classification, but Newton's laws in a more formal sense are beyond
them. They can learn about control of variables. Developing mature
concrete reasoning can be done before age 10, and once this is achieved,
developing formal operational reasoning is much easier at age 10+.

There have been studies which show that grade 4 student can develop some
precursors to proportional reasoning, but not full proportional reasoning.
So fractions are really the stuff for grade 5, and before that full
understanding of them is not possible. Formal math with fractions should
not be before age 10. However, they can use fractions in measurement.
Getting students to use English rulers might be very helpful in developing
full understanding of fractions later, but without formal math. They should
measure all kinds of things and be able to give the measurments using
standard English rulers and give the measurements to the nearest 8th. In
addition they should also use metric rulers.

As to science topics, the more important topics are the ones that develop
reasoning skills. Map reading and measurment on maps is a good thing. Do
what Benezet did and give them various logical tasks. I am pretty sure they
can learn to use motion maps to figure out some things, so by all means this
could be introduced. I don't know when graphs should be introduced. They
certainly could learn things like magnets attract mainly iron and steel, but
not all metals. This would be easy to do in some labs. The same thing
could be done for learning that volume is determinant in water displacement
with a series of labs. Galileo's result is accessible, but not the theory
behind it. The idea that it is the Earth pulling on objects is probably
also reasonable so they give up the term gravity as a noun for a "thing".
Again, here you have the problem of second grade teachers who ask "Why do
things fall? It is gravity!" They give magic incantations, like Harry
Potter spells.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


All of which suggest the need for more time and/or a much
reduced curriculum. Maybe a 'well designed' spiral physical
science program spanning 3rd or 4th grade right through high-school?



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