The prevalent US system of offering a year of high school physics, late in high school, with some schools offering a second year of "advanced" physics, is disastrous.
Some commenters in the "So, you want to be an astrophysicist? Part 0" thread felt I was too harsh in saying a year of High School Physics was NOT ENOUGH.
In particular, they only had a year, and are now tenured professors.
Sorry folks, but this is selection bias.
There are people who could do no high school physics and get up to speed on university level physics in less than three months, though most of those would still need to have the math background.
BUT, most people are not those people.
For most people, who could be good physical scientists, in particular research level astrophysicists, a single year, or even two years, of high school physics is not enough.
The concepts are not ingrained, too much material was covered too quickly, and there was no follow through, no iteration building on material previously learned.
These people flounder in the first two years of university physics, primarily because they come in thinking they know physics and they do not. Too little retention, too shallow a coverage of topics and too little reinforcement of learning,.
So we lose them and they go into gooey sciences or professional careers.
The whole concept that covering a field of study for one year, or two, only and then doing something else is completely fucking insane. It doesn't work.
As proof that it doesn't work, no other field where intense preparation and development of ingrained intuitive understanding is needed, does it this way.
This would be like football only being offered in junior year of high school, with a small fraction going on to take "advanced football" in their final year.
There would still be players who would go on to play at the College level, and some would be very good, and the pros would still recruit full teams, but this would not be considered an acceptable way to sustain a robust football endeavour, sustaining fan interest, being leaders on the international level and obtaining the best possible players.
So where does the notion come from that this is an acceptable way to teach science?
Other than convenience of scheduling and a self-fulfilling prophecy of low interest.
For students to learn physics, in bulk, creating a substantial fraction of the populace educated and interested, who in turn appreciate the importance of physical science, you need the students with the interest and potential to be given the opportunity to take multiple years of science, lab based, building successive years of learning on the previous concepts taught. Reinforcing what was learned previously, ingraining intuitive understanding, and building on the foundations of previous work.
A small fraction of students can jump over this, but most students can't they need the basics built up over time and previous learning successively reinforced.
This is not a matter of having enough PhDs to hire as professors, or even to work in defence industries. This is a matter of having a large part of the population have basic understanding of fields of study essential to modern life.
Many of the most intense sport fans are those who played some - enough to get a feel for the sport, including where the difficulties lie, and an appreciation for the top performers who made it.
The way science is taught, the "fan base" is seriously underdeveloped.
This is, in my ever so humble opinion, an essential flaw in K-12 education that needs to be remedied, and soon.
- Log in to post comments
I don't disagree with most anything you wrote here. My comment that one year of high school physics was "enough" was aimed at the the idea that if you only had one year of physics, it wasn't "enough" preparation to start studying Astronomy.
The reality is that most high schools do not offer more than one year of Physics. I don't think that's good, either, you'll notice that in my comment on the other thread I immediately said "More is better, of course."
But your earlier post was *not* about improving the US K12 system, it was about what students need to do to prepare to study Astronomy in college. Given the limited curriculum options that many high school students are faced with, it's important when giving out advice to them to not make them feel like their choice of career is limited because they didn't take two years of Physics. It's not.
Have you ever taught in the K-12 system? Have you ever taken the time to determine what students should be exposed to and incorporate as working knowledge in the 13 years they are in school? It is much more complicated than just saying they need more Physics or Physical Science. As a public educator for 30+ years in various roles including science teacher, science administrator and building level administrator there is no clear agreement among the public or the professionals what should be taught and how it should be taught. Culturally this country does not put a premium on the depth, difficulty and subtlety of intellectual knowledge. It doesn't matter if the subject area is social studies or science. In our present day politics a candidate who discusses issues in a way that is not a sound bite is labeled elitist.
Although sports can be very challenging intellectually as well as physically it is much easier for young people to participate since there are many adults who will organize it. Hence the many programs for athletics from early ages. They are in the press all the time. But the programs for young people that help them develop their interest in math and science are plentiful. Saturday Scholars, SAGE, Intel Science Fair, US First, Science Olympiad, MathCounts and many many more. These require young people to think in ways that challenge them. These competitions don't get the same amount of press the sports activities do. I was fortunate to have a team of students who won our regional Science Bowl in the Albany, NY area a year ago. We went to Washington, DC to compete with the other 63 regional winners from around the country. It was April Madness for geeks. (I say that with great affection since the geeks have taken over the world. My team of geeks was filled with athletes, musicians and artists!) The competition was fierce, as exciting as any state or national athletic contest. The statistics of past participants who end up in science or science related careers is outstanding. Eighty five percent of those who have competed are now in those fields.
I agree that we need to do a better job at making sure students have a better understanding of how science is done and what laws and theories are. Science educators do this all the time. We are active in trying to improve the system. But the idea of "more physics" does not fit into this system. Why not more biology since the human body is so important? Or more civics since the cornerstone of democracy is informed voters?
I could write a many page analysis of this kind of thought as it relates to our educational system. My point is that this is much more complicated than you original thoughts set it up to be.
I agree with your general sentiment. That said - and I don't mean to denigrate your post - but all it boils down to, in practical effect, is an idle wish that more resources be devoted to your subject of choice, so that already-advanced students can benefit themselves further. John-Michael is right that you ignore (or perhaps do not know) how complicated the problem really is.
Doesn't your logic equally call for more intensive study of math? Biology? Chemistry? Don't forget how dismal US students are at geography, history (their own, plus world history and the history of other regions, including groups whose history was mostly excluded from traditional courses), so we ought to give them more classes there, too. Let's not forget Jane Austen's comment that to this "she must yet add something more substantial, the improvement of her mind by extensive reading," so we better improve literature courses. While we're at it we better give them more writing (creative and analytical) and communications classes or we won't be able to *tell* if they know anything. Ooops, I almost forgot foreign languages. I suppose that art, music and phys ed should slot in there somewhere, too. And fit it all into a regular school day.
All these courses will have little bottom-line impact unless we also demand the kids be equally facile with the English language, free from developmental problems, and come from households where the parents are good role models, value education and give the kids' the proper level of oversight and encouragement. Their neighborhoods must be reasonably safe so they are not distracted from their studies, and their parents and schools should be wealthy enough to feed and clothe the kids and to permit them reasonable access to teaching aids and supplies.
In the real world, of course, schools have to deal with all these problems. I suspect that many would respond that the whole post smacks of elitism, an improper concern for details of the curriculum at schools that already cater to relatively talented students when the bulk of the nation suffers with much more serious educational problems than concern over the year when the coefficient of starting friction is first introduced. Your post strongly suggests that, even if you appreciate this problem at some theoretical level, you don't really see how things work on the ground.
Fair point Chris - I'll amend.
The original SywtbaA.0 that I did started as a rant on K-12 so I was in a different mindset.
John-Michael: I have not taught K-12, but obviously I went through the system. Not the US system.
I don't think scientific competitions and awards are particularly relevant to providing a broad education, they primarily motivate a small "elite" subsection of the students.
I also have to say, the US system of doing sport training largely through the high school system is not at all universal - how the schools got stuck with such a top heavy sport system in the US is an interesting side issue.
"More physics" fits perfectly well into the US K-12 system, and it is NOT instead of more biology - there should be both. It is just that I am advocating for physics because that is where I am coming from.
The basic notion that you can teach a subject for a year only, and then move on - first biology, then chemistry, then physics - is essentially flawed.
All these subjects, and the humanities and the arts, need to be taught concurrently over multi-year periods, and in a sequential, not modular fashion.
And don't tell me it can not be done, because around the world, that is what most school systems do.
Jim: yes, my comment does call for more bio and chem and art and geo etc
The essential point is that if you want an educated population, the bulk of the student population needs sustained exposure to the full range of fields, and in a way which builds on past learning, not through short disconnected modules.
It is also necessary to offer selections of courses for advanced students so when they start selecting fields to concentrate on they are getting multi-year exposure which cumulates their understanding of the field.
The US system has the resources to do this, and the mechanics of this are possible, it is done in other systems with less resources per student.
Well, if this has just evolved into a general comment that the US educational system needs focus on teaching students the entire time they are in school, then I think everyone agrees with that.
Beyond that, you must agree it's hard to analogize US schools to those in the "other countries" whose students top the usual lists without a lot of caveats, because US schools have decentralized oversight and financing, and they have to deal with very different local social issues.
I'll step out on a limb and argue that K-12 schools in the US are world-beaters: to the extent they are located in moderately wealthy, more-or-less homogeneous urban or suburban areas where the average parent is an employed college graduate. The trouble is, most schools do not service those kinds of neighborhoods and do not start out with their many advantages. For every public school like Hinsdale Central (http://iirc.niu.edu/School.aspx?schoolID=190220860170001) or New Trier (http://iirc.niu.edu/School.aspx?schoolID=140162030170002), there are ten schools like North Lawndale (http://iirc.niu.edu/School.aspx?schoolID=15016299025005C). Playing around a little bit the curriculum in these other schools is not going to get you where you want to go. The real problems are elsewhere.
I think high schools need BETTER physics, not necessarily more. I took a year of double-period AP physics in my senior year of high school. But I didn't have a very good teacher, and the class made me decide that I didn't like physics. I had loved my AP chemistry class, so I decided to be a chemistry major in college. As a requirement for the chemistry major, I took intro physics (the same information I learned in high school) with a wonderful professor, and I found out that I did in fact like physics. I switched to the physics major, which was a great move!
Luckily I started out in a physical science and had the chance to take another physics class, but there might be some people who get turned off to physics (or all physical science) in high school and never give it that second chance. However, I guess your proposition of teaching a little bit every year would also get the job done if there were good teachers somewhere in there.
Steinn is correct. The most sophisticated argument that he makes is: "These people flounder in the first two years of university physics, primarily because they come in thinking they know physics and they do not."
My wife, a Physics professor, has (among her Physics papers as such) a Physics Pedagofy paper that analyzes the following, with scholarly citations to other studies.
The problem is NOT in teaching Physics to people who know that they don't know Physics. The problem IS in teaching Physics to people who DON"T know that they don't know Physics. This is mostly due to a combination of bad textbooks and bad teachers. My wife quotes in her paper from textbooks that are simply wrong.
That most K-12 science teachers do not know Physics is due in part to there being fewer certified High School Physics teachers in the USA than there are High Schools in the USA. Hence Physics is (by the pigeonhole principle) motsly taught by people with no subject matter certification in Physics, let alone even a B.S. in Physics, let alone experience in actually doing Physics professionally in a laboratory (as my wife had for many years).
Other arguments in this thread are, to me, secondary, although I agree with the Football analogy. Remember when presidential candidate Ross Perot said that Texas should place less emphasis on Football and more on academics?
The politically incorrect thing to say here (and you know that I am far from a sexist) would be that High School Football stars are well-known to have sexual access to more and prettier high school girls. Now, if Physics stars had the same motivation... What's missing from that hypothetical statement is that GIRLS SHOULD MAJOR IN PHYSICS. Which is part of why I trotted out my wife's status. By the way, that paper was praised by the Personnel Committee that promoted my wife one notch in professorship at her university. They may not know Physics, but they saw that this was important to the teaching of Physics. As was my wife's publication in The Physics Teacher.
"...my comment does call for more bio and chem and art and geo etc".
Sure, but that leaves no time for cooking classes!
;-)
"The politically incorrect thing to say here (and you know that I am far from a sexist) would be that High School Football stars are well-known to have sexual access to more and prettier high school girls."
There is nothing sexist about stating an obvious truth.
But seriously, as Steinn argues, the US model of high school teaching requires an enormous amount of reform, which I agree needs to happen; like he says, it is certainly possible to do this because many other countries do it. But it'd be very hard to modify the current system.
I took a year of cooking classes in what would have been freshman year of high school in the US.
I also took physics, chemistry and biology, concurrently.
And history, english, english literatures, mathematics, german and religious studies.
And physical education and art. I couldn't fit geography in the schedule because of conflicts
and I dropped french.
The next year I alternated woodwork/metalwork with cooking, but had the option to take cooking if I wanted. And all the other subjects.
I did physics and chemistry for the final four years, they were elective but available.
This was in a medium sized state school in a moderately well funded area.
The point is to both have everyone take one year basics in a very broad range of subjects, have a large minority take two or more years in a broad range of subjects, and have a smaller minority take a 3-4 year course in a narrow range of subjects.
This is also how most phys ed programs run - expose students to all sports, let them follow through in several sports, and then have the opportunity to those who like or do well in particular sports to continue them throughout.
The resources are there, it is a matter of deploying them to such a schedule as a matter of police.
Whats a "gooey" science? In case you're wondering biology, geology and the like are "hard" sciences that utilize a lot of math and theory in their disciplines as well. I HATE how people in physics somehow think they are above the other sciences.