Re: Middle School Physical Science Texts: dishonesty

["John M. Clement" <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

Well here in the great state of TX the truism is that the average MS science
teacher is called Coach.  The problems extend to the HS.  Once over lunch
proposed the following problem: "You have a 1 mile long free way with a
single entrance, and an exit onto an interstate.  2 cars enter every minute
all day long at 30mph.  How many cars exit per minute at 60mph onto the
interstate."  Three other science teachers including an AP physics teacher
agreed it was 4 cars/min.  After some Socratic dialog and a little prompting
one teacher concluded that the answer was 2, but still acted puzzled.  This
problem was posed as an example of why students don't understand that wave
frequency remains constant when waves cross from one medium to the other.  I
then said that if they had trouble, consider how difficult this type of
concept is to their students.

And then of course in elementary school the average teacher is still a
concrete thinker.  This means that elementary teachers are at the same level
or barely above the students they teach!  How can they actually plan and
execute a lesson that might raise student thinking skills, when they can not
even understand what those skills are.  Fortunately many students develop
despite this problem.  I suspect that teachers who are reluctant to admit
that they could be wrong are probably lower level thinkers.

A good book can and should be of benefit to the students.  From what I can
see most teachers tend to use the book to plan the lessons.  This is OK when
the book is properly research based, and arranged.  A book is also
invaluable when it is necessary to have a substitute.

Welcome to the club.  I detest the way my own children are being taught
science and math.  I try to help them think about it, but your own children
are more resistant the your students.  I have not seen a single school in
the Houston area that really does a proper job with science and math.  There
are a few teachers that are OK, but very few that really use the proper
methods.  Currently my daughter has a fairly incompetent math teacher, who
is also a bit psychotic.  The teacher did not know that the earth went
around the sun, and that the moon went around the earth.  She tried to use
the sun going around the earth as an example of an ellipse!  I don't know
whether to laugh or cry.

John M. Clement


> > >         1. The one middle-school science teacher I've talked to
> > > said, emphatically, "You can't teach a science course from a
> textbook."
> > > She was aware of newspaper publicity concerning the purported
> > > errors.
> >
> > There is always an exception to every rule.   You have been very lucky
> > to find such an exceptional middle school science teacher on your first
> > attempt.
> > It certainly would be nice if all middle school science teachers were
> > as competent as the one that you met.
>
> My concern as a parent is whether the _teacher_ knows the science well
> enough to teach w/o a text.
>
> I find now that _my_ local MS teaches w/o science texts -- not because the
> texts are found to have errors but because none of the texts match the
> state requirements.
>
> Now I am really worried!
>
>
> Jim Green
> mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
> http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen