Re: Spiral Approach within general physics

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Steve Clark wrote:
> I teach at the high school level and I know from experience (21 years now)
> that it is vitally important that you revisit topics throughout the year.
> The most important reason (in my opinion) is because we have trained kids to
> think about school as passing a series of tests rather than learning
> material. The spiral approach discourages that approach because they have to
> continue to demonstrate skills that were previously tested.  Furthermore, it
> shows the kids that the concepts link together and are internally consistant

Amen, brother!

There's not much I can add to that, except to point out
that it's not just a high-school issue.  I vividly remember
running into the same bad approach among my fellow graduate
students at an Ivy League college in upstate New York.

They were absolutely addicted to cramming for tests.  They
thought I was insane because I would go to bed the night
before a big test, while they spend the night cramming.
I explained that
 a) Anything I learn by cramming tonight I will forget
    tomorrow night;  sleep deprivation interferes with
    consolidation of long-term memories.
 b) It is more important for me to know this stuff
    long-term than to get a good grade on this test.
 c) Even when it comes to using stuff I've already
    learned, I can't think clearly when sleep-deprived.

They were totally unpersuaded.  We were having two different
conversations.  I was thinking about preparing for a career
doing science;  they couldn't think about anything other than
getting a good score on tomorrow's test.

Sure enough, they got better scores than I did.  This just
confirmed their belief that I was a loser.

The funny part is, a year later, several of us were working
together on an experiment.  Very exciting, very challenging.
I forget the details, but we ran into some time-dependent
quantum permutation/combination path-integral perturbation
whiz-bang problem ... lots of steps, but each step was something
we all supposedly knew how to do.  So I went over to the
chalkboard and wrote out the solution:  one, two, three, done.
 -- Where the bleep did you find that result?
 ++ Find it?  You can't find things like that.  I derived
    it.  Just now.
 -- Huh?
 ++ Remember when we did this bit in class last year?
 -- Was it on the test?
 ++ I have no idea whether it was on the test.  I have
    a lousy memory.
 -- If you have such a lousy memory, how come you remember
    the physics?
 ++ Because the physics makes sense.  It sticks together.  If
    you forget one bit, you can rederive it from the neighboring
    bits.  William James said that every memory is associated
    with others, and each association is a "hook" whereby you
    can fish up that memory when it has sunk below the surface.
 -- Who the bleep is William James?
 ++ They say he wrote psychology books with a novelist's style.
    They say his brother wrote novels with a psychologist's style.

http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/tt12.html