Re: Would Physics First Increase the Number of Physics Majors?

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 9:35 -0400 4/29/03, Larry Cartwright wrote:
> As some of us keep saying, although no one seems to be listening,
> the two main factors standing in the way of significant reform in
> elementary education are:
> (1) Age gradedness; and
> (2) The self-contained classroom.
>
> The elementary education establishment continues to fixate on the rural
> schoolmarm model of the late 19th century.  "Oh, you're a teacher?  What
> do you teach?"  "I teach 4th grade."
It's not the self-contained classroom that is the conceptual problem
here, but the self-contained teacher. I have no problem with not
having third-or fourth graders running around from class to class.
But that doesn't mean that the teachers can't. I also think that
there needs to be a teacher in the classroom who knows the kids, and
who the kids know and trust. At that age this kind of "bonding" is
important. But the idea that I have been pushing, the
"circuit-riding" science teacher doesn't have to be that person. Of
course, the science teacher will get to know the kids, and vice
versa, with time, and there will be a degree of bonding there, too,
if the teacher is good. But the important factor here, is that the
science teacher will be someone who understands the nature of
science, and the appropriate pedagogy for the level of students to be
taught.

Another feature of this idea has to do with class management. At this
level, the class sizes often reach 30 or more students. If you have
ever visited such a class, you know that trying to do any sort of
hands-on investigation with one teacher and 30 or so students is a
recipe for disaster. There is no way that even the most gifted
teacher can keep order in that environment. There will be a couple of
groups that understand what they must do and get on with it, but over
here there will be a group that, for whatever reason, often that they
don't understand what the task is, who becomes disruptive, which then
interferes with the groups around them. So the teacher will try to
work with that group to get them back on track. Meanwhile another
group gets off track and also starts to disturb their neighbors, and
as a result gets the teacher's full attention. Meanwhile, as the
teacher bounces from crisis to crisis, putting out fires, there will
be one or two groups (usually of girls, in my experience--the
disruptive groups are almost always of boys) who also don't
understand the task either, but don't become disruptive, so they
never get the teacher's attention. They may be the real casualties of
the process, since they never get the help they need and for them
science class becomes a time of quiet desperation, and they are
quickly turned off on the process. And another group of potentially
talented females is irretrievably lost to science.

When there are two teachers in the room, even if one of them isn't a
science teacher, the situation is very different. The classroom
teacher can handle the discipline problems, while the science teacher
can move about and make sure all the groups are on task, including
the non-disruptive ones. The result is a much more effective
classroom environment. I have personally observed the value of having
two adults in the classroom. The activity remains much more focused,
and more learning takes place.

Having said that, the other aspect of the situation that must be
dealt with, as John D. has cogently pointed out, is the curricular
material. If the students are being asked to perform impossible
experiments, you can have 30 teachers in the room and there will be
little or no learning. I have also seen this happen. Classroom
activities are often designed by people who understand science but
don't understand how third, fourth or fifth graders learn. And all
too often, it is clear that those who designed the activities, never
attempted to carry them out themselves. I have learned, through
painful experience, that those lab activities that I might design
need to be done by *me* in the same setting and using the same
equipment that I expect the students to work in and with. Time and
again, I have seen activities given to students where that precept
was ignored, and students were expected to carry out tasks that
either they were physically incapable of doing at their age, or to
use apparatus that was totally unsuitable for the assigned task. Even
a gifted teacher will fail in that setting. All that can happen with
an untrained teacher is that the teacher's frustration will be
quickly transmitted to the students, and they will be turned off to
science.

So my proposal is not an easy one to carry out. It will require $$$.
It will require a commitment on the part of school boards and
district staffs to stick with the program during its initial phases.
It will require a massive education of teachers, who are not only
competent in elementary school pedagogy, but who have the
understanding of science that will allow them to give meaning to
their classrooms. And it will require that curricula and curricular
materials be designed by scientists, working in close cooperation
with classroom teachers at all levels, thoroughly tested not only by
the designers, but by students, and from which politics has been
ruthlessly rooted out.

Alas, this won't be easy.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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