Re: [Phys-l] Physics job opening in Texas for 2008-09

["Paul Lulai" <plulai@stanthony.k12.mn.us>]

Hugh,
 
At the risk(s) of (unintentionally) appearing to be a smart-alec, over-simplifying your statements, missing the point, and speaking (typing) so as to prove my ignorance...  
What are the three types of problems?  
Who is the source of the quote?
 
Thanks.
 
Paul Lulai
Physics Teacher
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________________________________

From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Hugh Haskell
Sent: Sun 5/11/2008 10:24 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Physics job opening in Texas for 2008-09



At 15:09  -0700 5/11/08, Bernard Cleyet wrote, regarding teaching HS
with a PhD:
> It gets in the way, as some students told me!
It can if you let it, but it can also be liberating. For example,
someone whose credentials in the subject are assured is free to say,
"I don't know the answer to that," if in fact they don't. I've known
any number of teachers who are literally afraid to admit that they
don't know something, and have become good at giving nonsense answers
that appear to make sense to questions they are really clueless about.

As for the rest, if someone wants to learn what teaching methods seem
to work best, they will, and if they want to try to remember how it
felt when they didn't understand some basic concept, they will. Their
degree of education doesn't matter. What is important is their
willingness to learn, and although it is certainly not guaranteed,
someone with a PhD *should* be willing to learn.

One thing that bothers me about many (but certainly not all) high
school teachers is their willingness to deal with individual problems
as isolated events and not try to tie them into the fabric of the
subject, so their students learn how to solve dozens of different
types of problems without ever realizing the connections between
them, and end up missing the entire point of the course.
Unfortunately, this is not just true of physics, but of much of
pre-college education (and I've seen it worm its way into college
curricula as well). We all know of the students who arrive in their
physics class directly from their math class, yet cannot apply the
skills they learned in math to their physics problems. IMO, whether
or not they have a PhD, the most important thing a teacher can learn,
and then work to impart to their students, is how to approach a
problem as an example of this or that principle, and then be able to
apply that principle to solving it. If, for example, the teacher
hasn't helped the students to understand that all problems involving
masses, ropes and pulleys are basically variants on Atwood's machine,
and not a whole bunch of disconnected problems, the solutions to
which have to be separated memorized, has failed his or her students
in a major way.

I believe the guy who said something to the effect, "I have learned
how to solve only three types of physics problems--but luckily, I
have always been able to reduce any problem I have come across to one
of those three," had a PhD.

Hugh
--

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

(919) 467-7610

Hard work often pays off after time. But Laziness always pays off now.

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