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RE: Who are we helping...



BUT, I'm still looking for responses to the issue of just who do we think
we are teaching physics and what do we think we are teaching physics for.

This is very subjective and idiosyncratic, but I will tell you that I
teach physics as Nature appreciation, much as a musician would teach
music as music appreciation. I would not be at all unheppy to learn
that many high school teachers do the same. Understanding Nature (if
that is an accessible goal) has always been my motivating force.

As with music appreciation I think all students would enrich their
lives by learning some physics. There is real satisfaction in knowing
"how things work", be they rainbows or electric motors. In college
students are going to be taught physics *ab initio* whether they have
had physics or not in high school. I think that physics appreciation
is more likely to produce the kind of students Martha (and I) wants
to see than is AP physics.

Leigh