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Physoc's Art Hobson (2011, in his post "Re: PER Review Article? #2," wrote:
"PER is great so far as it goes, but physics educators also need to
pay attention to scope and sequence. A good place to experiment with
scope is in courses for non-scientists. These can be more flexible
because they needn't satisfy specific pre-requisites. Yet such
courses often plod along in the same pattern as standard professional
courses. We need to try new topics. Physoc supports teaching all
sorts of social topics. Another area is modern/contemporary physics.
We're living in an ideal age for physics education, what with all the
NEW IDEAS AND POSSIBILITIES IN COSMOLOGY, HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS,
QUANTUM PHYSICS, etc. Yet our intro courses focus almost entirely on
Newtonian mechanics and classical E&M."
My response to Art in a post "Cosmology, High Energy Physics, &
Quantum Physics in Introductory Courses?" [Hake (2012)] netted zero
(0) responses on Physhare, Phys-L, & PhysLrnR; and one (1) response
on Physoc - that from Marc Sabb (2012), who correctly pointed out
that most K-12 teachers no longer have the luxury of choosing what
topics to teach since they are often mandated by state standards.
In that post I quoted anti-advanced-agenda arguments of Bruce
Alberts (2012) and Arnold Arons (1997).
Here's ANOTHER ACERBIC ARNOLD ARONS ANTI-ADVANCED-AGENDA ARGUMENT
quoted from "Toward wider public understanding of science" (Arons,
1973)] [bracketed by lines "AAAAA. . . ."]:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Students are being told about the "fascinating" particles of high
energy physics, with jargon about interactions, angular momentum,
mass-energy relations, quantum transitions, and the uncertainty
principle, while they have yet achieved no conception of what is
meant by velocity, acceleration, force, mass, energy, or electrical
charge, much less of how we obtain evidence regarding the structure
of matter on a scale that transcends our senses.
Students, who are still intrinsically Aristotelian and have no
significant understanding of the law of inertia, are invited to toss
around phraseology about the Coriolis effects in meteorology and
oceanography.
Students who have no notion of how to define "local noon," midnight,
or the north-south direction, who have no idea of the origin of the
seasons or the phases of the moon (they believe the unilluminated
part of the moon to be the earth's shadow), who are unaware the stars
have a diurnal motion, are subjected to lectures on stellar
nucleosynthesis, quasars, pulsars, and black holes in courses called
"astronomy."
Students are conned into reading and talking about DNA, the molecular
nature of genes, nerve and muscle action, while they have no idea why
we believe in atoms and molecules; how we come to know anything about
molecular formulas, size, or structure; what is meant by "oxygen,"
"nitrogen," "carbon"; what is meant by "electrical charge" or
"potential difference" and how we know that these concepts have
anything to do with nerve action.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
Links to Articles: <http://bit.ly/a6M5y0>
Links to SDI Labs: <http://bit.ly/9nGd3M>
Blog: <http://bit.ly/9yGsXh>
Academia: <http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake>
REFERENCES [All URL's accessed on 7 Feb 2011; most shortened by
<http://bit.ly/>.]
Alberts, B. 2012. "Trivializing Science Education," Science 335
(6066): 263, 20 January, a summary is online s at
<http://bit.ly/wu4O7l>.
Arons, A.B. 1973. "Toward wider public understanding of science," Am.
J. Phys. 41(6): 769-782; online to subscribers at
<http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v41/i6>. See also Arons (1974).
Arons, A.B. 1974. "Toward wider public understanding of science:
Addendum," Am. J. Phys. 42(2): 157-158; online to subscribers at
<http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v42/i2>.
Arons, A.B. 1997. "Teaching Introductory Physics," p. 362. Wiley,
publisher's information at <http://bit.ly/jBcyBU>. Amazon.com
information at <http://amzn.to/bBPfop>, note the searchable "Look
Inside" feature.
Hake, R.R. 2012. "Cosmology, High Energy Physics, & Quantum Physics
in Introductory Courses?" online on the OPEN!:-) Phys-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/zG34L3>. Post of 3 Feb 2012 14:04:44-0800 to Physhare,
Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and Physoc.
Hobson, A. 2011. "Re: PER Review Article? #2," online on the CLOSED!
Physoc archives at <http://bit.ly/wuP5qp>. Post of 5 Dec 2011
09:09:36-0600 to Physoc. To access the archives of PHYSOC one needs
to subscribe :-(, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on
<http://bit.ly/dVm2AM> and then clicking on "Join or leave the list
(or change settings)." If you're busy, then subscribe using the
"NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may
access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving
NO MAIL from the list!
Sabb, M. 2012. "Re: Cosmology, High Energy Physics, & Quantum Physics
in Introductory Courses? on the CLOSED! Physoc archives at
<http://bit.ly/w8HXZF>. Post of 4 Feb 2012 09:42:52 +0700 to Physoc.
To access the archives of PHYSOC one needs to subscribe :-(, but that
takes only a few minutes by clicking on <http://bit.ly/dVm2AM> and
then clicking on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If
you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under
"Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives
and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the
list!