Re: Pedagogy

["Fernanda Foertter [Advanced Physics Forums]" <admin@ADVANCEDPHYSICS.ORG>]

I still don't see what competitive ness has ANYTHING to do with passion for
a field, and why you would assume I have none.  Why does anyone here choose
Physics for a field of study?  Certainly not because they thought it was
easy...

People missing legs have a passion for walking one day, but how does that
help them walk anymore than they can fly?  This topic isn't to question how
much I love Physics, cause I wouldn't have stuck around this long.  But what
your are telling me in so many words is that I don't care enough to do it
myself.

But so far I HAVE done it my self.  My  question to you is how much of this
work that I had to do myself should have been done by some professors...not
all, just some that I've had.  The rancor I've expressed is because you have
so far assumed many things about me that I've never said regarding my
"passion" to study physics.  Why would you even jump to such a conclusion?

Your bit about competitiveness again shows me that you are the type of
professor that says keep up or leave, regardless of a persons "passion" for
the field.

I studied Relativistic QM this past semester, with a wonderful professor I
might add.  This field was still being written up in papers by Feynman 50
years ago...no amount of "passion" made anyone else come up with it before
Feynman did... But through his papers, lectures, he help many physicists
understand the derivation of his path integrals.  Should Feynman have
assumed that since no one else understood it, tough too bad?  You don't care
enough to understand it?

If you've ever heard Feynman lecture, than you would understand what I am
talking about.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Tarara" <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: Pedagogy


> We can do without your personal rancor expressed in your other response!
> You clearly missed the point.  Perhaps 'blood sport' is too harsh a term,
> but the fact is that for those training to be physicists, chemists,
> biologists, economists, philosophers, doctors, lawyers,..... just about
any
> profession and most other jobs as well, will find that IT IS A COMPETETIVE
> WORLD.  If you are going to succeed, you need to have passion for your
> chosen field, and that passion will need to help you compete with others
who
> are vying for the same grants, the same faculty position, the same
research
> appointment, etc.  One way that passion exhibits itself is that YOU need
to
> take most of the responsibility for your own education.  As I've written
> before, your instructors are your guides--not you mother!
>
> As to your comment below--it is clear you have little experience in the
> classroom as indicated by you characterization of this as a 'simple idea'.
> What you describe concerning the Calculus is the rule..not the exception.
> Most math courses fail miserably to instill any sense of meaning to
> derivatives and integrals beyond 'the slope of the curve' and 'the area
> under the curve.'  Don't chastise the physics faculty for not succeeding
> here--I bet many have tried.  I spend an entire year working on the
problem
> and still find that all but the best students continue to struggle with
the
> meaning of the integral and the ability to set one up for a physical
> situation.  My exams don't even ask students to solve the integrals--I
know
> they can do that (at very least using integral tables)--I only ask that
they
> setup the integral for a given problem...usually electric fields or
> potentials from large charge distributions.
>
> R.W.Tarara
>
> *********************************************************
> Richard W. Tarara
> Professor of Physics
> Saint Mary's College
> Notre Dame, Indiana
> rtarara@saintmarys.edu
> ********************************************************
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> ********************************************************
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fernanda Foertter [Advanced Physics Forums]"
> <admin@ADVANCEDPHYSICS.ORG>
>
> > I've had students that have taken calculus, gotten an A and cant
describe
> > what an integral is, but they know how to solve it.  How's that you
> figure?
> > many professors don't bother to explain even simple ideas like this.