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: AP Physics Students



Please excuse this cross-posting to:
Phys-L <http://mailgate.nau.edu/archives/phys-l.html>,
PhysLrnR <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>,
Physhare <http://lists.psu.edu/archives/physhare.html>.
AP Physics discussion list
<http://www.collegeboard.org/ap/listserv/tech.html>
(no easily searchable archives)

In his 4/23/01 Phys-L post "Re: AP Physics Students," Hugh Haskell,
hits the nail on the head:

"Where is it written that we have to live with this situation where we
get students at the beginning of the year who know no physics
whatever (regardless of whether they are in high school or college),
and are expected to make them have some degree of understanding of
one of the most complex of sciences in one year or one semester? . . . .
It is time that the physics community (in concert with our colleagues
in the other disciplines of science) rise up and demand that students
start getting introduced to the ideas of physics and chemistry as
early as the fifth grade, and that they see some aspect of the
subjects every year until they graduate from high school. By that
time, some of the conceptual ideas will have had time to mature a bit
and can be cemented home by a good teacher of the subject in college.
By that time the student will have a good enough understanding of the
subject that they can make an intelligent decision as to whether they
want to continue with it or not. After all, this is the way we have
taught mathematics and reading for decades at least. Why can't we do
it with science? Is this a big job? You Bet! And time's a'wastin'.
We need to get on with it now. . . . . The ideas of physics are not
trivial, nor are they intuitive. If we want them to understand them
we have to give them time. If we wait until they are 17 or 18 before
exposing them, we can't be surprised
if, when they are 18 or 19, they still don't understand."

As indicated in ref. 1, this same point was eloquently made by Ken
Ford(2) over a decade ago:

". . . . Physics is difficult in the same way that all serious
intellectual effort is difficult. Solid understanding of English
literature, or economics, or history, or music, or biology - or
physics - does not come without hard work. But we typically act on
the assumption (and argue to our principals and deans) that ours is a
discipline that only a few are capable of comprehending. The
priesthood syndrome that flows from this assumption is, regrettably,
seductive . . . . .If physics is not more difficult than other
disciplines, why does everyone think that it is? To answer
indirectly, let me turn again to English. Six-year-olds write English
and (to pick a skilled physicist writer) Jeremy Bernstein writes
English. What separates them? A long, gradual incline of increased
ability, understanding, and practice. Some few people, illiterates,
do not start up the hill. Most people climb some distance. A few
climb as far as Bernstein. For physics, on the other hand, we have
fashioned a cliff. There is no gradual ramp, only a near-vertical
ascent to its high plateau. When the cliff is encountered for the
first time by 16- or 17-year olds, it is small wonder that only a few
have courage (and the skill) to climb it. There is no good reason for
this difference of intellectual topography. First-graders could be
taught some physics . . .(ref. 3). . . , second-graders a little
more, and third-graders still more. (4) Then for the eleventh- or
twelfth-grader, a physics course would be a manageable step upward.
Some might choose to take it, some not, but few would be barred by
lack of 'talent' or background."

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and
catastrophe." H. G. Wells


REFERENCES
1. R.R. Hake, "Is it Finally Time to Implement Curriculum S?" AAPT
Announcer 30(4), 103 (2000); on the web as ref. 13 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake> [CurriculumS.pdf., 3/15/01,
1200K] (400 references & footnotes, 390 hot-linked URL's).

2. K.W. Ford, "Guest Comment: Is physics difficult?" Am J. Phys.
57(10), 871-872 (1989).

3. D. Hammer, "Physics for first-graders?" Science Education
83(6),797-799 (1999);
<http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/cpt.html>.

4. Benezet, L.P. 1935-1936. The Teaching of Arithmetic I, II, III:
The Story of an Experiment, Journal of the National Education
Association 24(8), 241-244 (1935); 24(9), 301-303 (1935); 25(1), 7-8
(1936). The articles were (a) reprinted in the Humanistic Mathematics
Newsletter #6: 2-14 (May 1991); (b) placed on the web along with
other Benezetia at the Benezet Centre
<http://wol.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/benezet/>. See also ref. 5.

5. S. Mahajan & R.R. Hake, "Is it finally time for a physics
counterpart of the Benezet/Berman math experiment of the 1930's?
Physics Education Research Conference 2000: Teacher Education;
<http://www.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/~rstein/perc2000.htm>.