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on 11/9/01 9:39 AM, Michael Edmiston at edmiston@BLUFFTON.EDU wrote:communicate
snip
I would answer this by saying it's not important, don't bother to teach
students any arbitrary conventions. The only reason we would need to
memorize arbitrary conventions would be if we ever intended to
otherclearly with other people. If we are only concerned with understanding
things ourselves and we never intend to discuss our understanding with
+/-people, then each of us can adopt whatever conventions work for us. All
that each of us has to do is be internally consistent, and we each can
figure out how the world works, right?
Don't limit your decision to quit teaching arbitrary conventions to just
Forsigns on work and energy. Don't memorize any arbitrary conventions.
weexample, don't memorize colors. Heck, green is just an arbitrary name
proceedgive to the color that is traditionally used for signaling cars to
herat a traffic light. If you personally want to call that red, go right
ahead. But don't talk to my daughter (who is just learning to drive)
because she is using a different convention for colors, and if you tell
red,she should proceed through the intersection when she sees the light is
goyou're going to jeopardize my daughter's life (and others as well). So
daughter.have whatever color conventions you want, just don't talk to my
be
Unfair comparison to the question I was addressing.
I need to know standard colors to be granted the privilege of driving with
everyone else who drives. I need to know the standard sign conventions to
granted an engineering license or physics degree so that I can communicatepeople
and design. Does a HS student need to know the sign convention for work to
understand energy conservation? Naaa. Gets in the way.
All language conventions are arbitrary. Who needs them? Only those
physics.who want to communicate with each other.I developed this problem in college when majoring in chemistry and
Many of sign conventions required for communication were NOT standardizedcathodes)
(still have to think for 2 minutes when sorting my anodes from my
My primary goal for HS students is conceptual understanding. Putting a
question up such as "Is the box doing neg. or pos. work" seems counter
productive.