Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

> In most cases, the traditional high school physics course is an
> elective.  It is therefore self-selective.  Student enrolling in the
> course generally have some interest in the subject or else they wouldn't
> take it.  I know this is not 100% true because some take it because they
> know they want to be engineers; some take it because they know they want
> to major in science in college; and so forth.

Actually, it is not just self-selective.  A lot of students take it because
they think it will help them get into a "good" school.  The vast majority of
these students either will not, or can not pursue a career in math or
science.  TX is requiring 4 years of HS science next year in the belief that
this will improve student learning.  This will probably just put more
unwilling students into science classes, and swell lower level science
classes.  Only a very few are actually interested in it or seriously plan to
pursue science or engineering.  Some private schools require physics for
all.  So actually most students are really not interested in it in HS.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX