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Re: [Phys-l] Unit Conversions (was Mass and Energy)



Jack,

It is all the psycho-babble that seems to scream 'stupidity'. I am much
more comfortable with 'ignorance', but an ignorance that comes partly from
poor preparation, but also from lack of intellectual curiosity and more
importantly, a lack of intellectual honesty on the part of students.

IMO, we can largely thank the lawyers (sorry) and the psychologists of the
past few decades for removing the responsibility of the individual from the
social equation. In our cases, there IS a responsibility on the students
not just to go through the motions in our educational system, but to
actually engage their brains, to seriously try and understand the material.
High school students who think they live inside the earth does not strike
me as any kind on conceptual problem--it is rather pure ignorance which
almost has to be the fault of the students as I can't imagine that any
state curriculum doesn't deal with this kind of basic knowledge.

While everyone wants to bitch about NCLB, the number one fault I would
place on the whole enterprise is that it places almost zero responsibility
on the students and consequently almost zero consequences upon them for
what must be accepted as a personal responsibility--to become educated
citizens of the country/world.

Rick


[Original Message]
From: Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>
To: <rbtarara@sprynet.com>; Forum for Physics Educators
<phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Date: 5/27/2006 1:33:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Unit Conversions (was Mass and Energy)

Hi all-
Reading Rick's post, I'm willing to be $0.50 with anybody on the
list that he hasn't read, or at least has forgotten, the material in the
Introduction and Chapter 1 of Aronss' book <A Guide to the Teaching ...>.
Also, I think it unwise to confuse stupdity with ignorance.
Regards,
Jack