Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: The "typical" high school physics teacher



PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu writes:
I have one friend who was hired as a public high school physics
teacher after obtaining a biology degree from the U. of Illinois. My
understanding is that she had no college physics courses.


At several AAPT meetings I have heard several speakers "Quote" a typical
situation with an interesting connection. "About 19% of HS graduates take
a year of physics during HS"...... "and about 19% of all HS physics
teachers have had AT LEAST one year of university physics......."
This may or may not be true...but even if only19% had MORE than one year
of university physics............ Emergency Certification gets around any
pedagogical reasoning....

jim ealy
education by demonstrqtion

Actually, the last time I looked, (yes such data can be found in manuals
supplied to most college libraries by NCES a government agency) in the mid
90's the figure was 26% of HS grads take at least one year of physics.

Dewey


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann

"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.

"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes
and Baby Universes, 1993.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++