When physics is taught well, there are a lot of things it helps it helps
students learn or relearn or "cement" in place. It helps students learn
algebra, trig, geometry. It helps students think logically. Labs get
students working with their hands and students increase their
observational skills and note-taking skills. If students write lab
reports it helps them with their writing skills. (Indeed, alums come to
homecoming and tell me that learning to write was the most valuable
thing they learned in my classes. That wasn't my goal.)
However... to stress this is why physics should be taught first or
second or last or in whatever order... makes no sense. This implies we
physicists are the sole preservationists of good education in today's
society. That may be a compliment when someone else says it, and it may
be patting ourselves on the back when we say it, but I believe we are in
worse shape than I thought if we suggest we want to continue down this
road.
I guess I cringe when I hear scientists talking as if we need to
position specific science courses in specific places in order to enhance
this or that aspect of education. If improving education rests on our
shoulders alone, we are in big trouble. The task is way too big for us
to shoulder alone.
We need algebra, geometry, trig taught well. We need students to write
across the curriculum. We need all courses to help students think
clearly and logically. Perhaps we need shop experiences for all
students (both sexes) to get them using their hands for more things than
pressing the buttons and moving the joy sticks of computer games.
When I was in high school I was already a good writer before I got to
senior physics. I was already really good at algebra, geometry, trig.
I had shop and mechanical drawing and was good with my hands and could
visualize and sketch things. I could take good notes, I could solve
problems. (I could even sing and play a musical instrument.) Thus, by
the time I took physics as a senior, I was prepared to do some really
good physics and I wouldn't have traded that year for any other
sequence.
This all happened because my school (a rural public school with 600
students in grades 9-12; a graduating class of 153) was an outstanding
school with outstanding teachers... and I was a good student. I guess I
cannot say there was "no child left behind" at my school, but I find it
difficult to blame the school for that. I saw teachers trying really
hard to reach everyone, and I can remember these incidents clear back to
first grade.
I didn't have one bad teacher from grade one through grade 12. I'll go
beyond that... I had only excellent teachers from grade one through
grade 12. But the curriculum was just an ordinary curriculum delivered
very well. Most of my classmates were receptive to this and
learned/experienced a lot. Grades ranged from failure all the way to A
(and there were no 4-points). Not everyone got A grades, not everyone
went to college, not everyone who went to college graduated... but I
still think my school was outstanding. My sister and brother who went
through the same school 3 years and 5 years later than I did will tell
you the very same thing.
Unfortunately, my two nephews who went through the same school a
generation later will not tell you the same thing. It is still a good
school. But it now suffers the same problems as most schools... student
apathy, little parent support, over dominance of sports, difficulty
passing levies, some mediocre teachers that were not weeded out by
administrators who have not done their jobs, a watered-down curriculum
with too many paths to graduation (i.e. loopholes that allow students to
avoid the standard curriculum I had).
My point is that no one field and no reordering of topics is going to
solve the problems of education today. Indeed, I can't see curricular
reform doing much of anything. We need all teachers in all disciplines
to work together. We need good administration, good school boards, good
parents and good communities. Perhaps physicists can be leaders, but we
cannot do the job alone, and it's going to take a lot more effort than
simply working on curriculum.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu
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