Physics First [Archive]

JSMaxwell

8th September 2007, 02:24 PM

What are the reasons the physics teachers are giving to not do physics first?

Objections include...

Cost
If every incoming high school student is going to have to take physics, the school district will have to spend major dollars to supply schools with the necessary equipment for the increased number of students to carry out physics experiments. Also, new teachers will have to be hired or existing teachers will have to be trained. These are certainly not bad uses of money. The concern is whether or not the district is thinking ahead or not. Fear is that the program will be initiated without the necessary purchases, hirings, and trainings being made.

Math
There is great concern over whether or not all incoming high school students posses the necessary math ability to successfully complete physics. Apparently the San Diego school district attempted the physics first program but abandoned it after 5 years. The chief reason given is that the math required for successful physics was too difficult for a significant portion of first year high schoolers.

Watered Down Physics
Many teachers are concerned that, in recognition of the potential math issue, physics will be watered down and made easier.

Lag Time
If students take intro. physics as freshmen, then must take bio. and chem. before they have the opportunity as seniors to take physics II or advanced placement physics as an elective, there will have been several years between the intro class and the more advanced class. This is a weak argument IMO as it can be applied to whichever science the kids have to take as freshmen.

Prep For College
If saved until 11th or 12th grade, physics and the accompanying math can be taught effectively in one year. If it is taught in 9th grade people are afraid the math will have to be left out, the subject will have to be taught more conceptually, and students will have to have another year of physics before going to college to catch up on the math.

jsfisher

8th September 2007, 02:43 PM

Fnord

8th September 2007, 03:03 PM

I'm in favor of the idea.

In my hometown, "Physical Science" was offered in my freshman year, which was 1970-1971. It was watered-down, only in the sense that the curriculum did not require any previous knowledge of Calculus or even Trigonometry. It was, in fact, an Algebra/Trig course built around the principles of Physics, rather than everyday life.

Such principles included, but were not limited to, Acceleration, Electricity & Magnetism, Gravity, Orbital Mechanics, Thermal Dynamics, and Vectors.

This was in contrast to such problems as "Farmer John has 33 acres of land. 1.5% is used for his buildings and roadways. Of the remainder, 1/3 is used for corn, 1/3 is used for soybeans, and 1/3 lies fallow. Determine how many acres Farmer John would for active production if..." that were given in first-year Algebra.

I took Physical Science the first year, Biology the second, Chemistry the third, and Physics in my senior year. I can only render a testimonial opinion by saying that taking the first-year Physical Science class gave me an edge in later classes over other students who did not.

Remember, this was 37 years ago, and I am now an Electrical Engineer.

Brian Pears

8th September 2007, 03:15 PM

"4th grade"? "9th grade"? "11th or 12th grade"? "Freshman Year"?

Would some kind USian please translate this into something we non-USian's can understand?

jsfisher

8th September 2007, 03:24 PM

"4th grade"? "9th grade"? "11th or 12th grade"? "Freshman Year"?

Would some kind USian please translate this into something we non-USian's can understand?

Public school starts with 5 year-olds in Kindergarten, with first grade in the following year. Kindergarten and grades 1 through 5 or 6 is elementary school.

Grades 6 to 8 are middle school (although some schools use 7 to 9 as junior high school).

High school goes to grade 12 (from either grade 9 or grade 10 depending).

Freshman year would refer to grade 9 in high school. Tenth graders are sophomores; eleventh, juniors; and twelfth graders, seniors.

JSMaxwell

8th September 2007, 03:26 PM

"4th grade"? "9th grade"? "11th or 12th grade"? "Freshman Year"?

Would some kind USian please translate this into something we non-USian's can understand?

Sorry,

Obviously there are variations from state to state and location to location, but students in the United States that attend public school (which I believe means the opposite that it does in England) typically progress through 13 grades beginning at about age 5. The school year runs from about September through about May with summer break from June - August. A student finishes his or her grade level at the end of the year in May and starts the new one in September.

At 5 years old a child enters Kindergarten.

In the school district I teach in Kindergarten through 5th grade is located in one building known as Elementary school

6th grade through 8th grade is in one building know as Junior High School or Middle School.

9th grade through 12th grade is located in one building know as High School.

9th grade is known as Freshman year
10th grade is known as Sophomore year
11th grade is known as Junior year
12th grade is known as Senior year

I hope I did that well.

thull

8th September 2007, 03:31 PM

"4th grade"? "9th grade"? "11th or 12th grade"? "Freshman Year"?

4th:= 9-10 year olds
6th:= 11-12 year olds
9th:= 14-15 year olds (freshmen)
11th:= 16-17 year olds (juniors)
12th:= 17-18 year olds (seniors)

True, age will vary... but it gives you a decent idea.

As for the thread, my HS required just physics and biology of everyone. The teacher taught one semester of physics for ninth grade, switched to biology and last semester of 10th grade year was physics again. I'm not sure I'd ever recommend that approach.

phyz

8th September 2007, 03:41 PM

When the science sequence decision was made once upon a time, it was decided that biology would be first, chemistry second, and physics last. Why? It's alphabetical. No other reason.

Once the sequence was established, it was figured out that 11th and 12th graders had more math under their belt. So physics could be taught with a higher level of math.

Now it is assumed that there is no physics without fairly intense math integrated (!) into the curriculum. That's not true. High school biology, as taught to freshmen and sophomores, is Conceptual Biology and no one complains. "Real" biology is suffused with chemistry. You really can't understand biology without chemistry. Yet frosh and sophs haven't yet studied chemistry, the bio course is done without chem.

So...

Cost
This has no bearing on pedagogical propriety. Nevertheless, PF has enjoyed its greatest success where it's been done on a small scale: in private schools and small districts.

Math
The state of California has effectively banned PF from all public high schools. Our implementation of NCLB mandates that all 10th-graders, regardless of what science course they're enrolled in, will take a state-mandated bio/life sciences test that bears weight in the school's Academic Proficiency Index. Schools figure out that it's best to have their 10th-graders enrolled in bio. PF prescribes phys in 9th, chem in 10th, bio in 11th.

I teach a physics course in California, the only prereq is Algebra 1, and my students do fine with state standards and assessments.

Watered Down Physics
Back in the 50s, physics was the killer course in high school. It was reserved for the 20 smartest boys in the school. All others need not enroll. You could hit those guys with quadratics and trig 'til the cows came home.

In the 70s, Paul Hewitt introduced Conceptual Physics, a curriculum that revolutionized physics instruction more than any post-Sputnik committee ever did. CP is not watered down by any stretch, but it emphasizes concepts and principles over number puzzles. Old-time teachers who enjoyed status as the high priests of the science department never liked it, because it opened physics up to the huddled masses.

Lag Time
The best experience for students would be phys, chem, bio, then a second year of their choosing. Lag time is not an issue.

Prep For College
It turns out there are a number of students who don't continue their study of physics in college. And here's probably the most important point I can make:

It is not the role of the high school physics teacher to prepare students for college physics. College physics has it's own priorities. High school physics has its own priorities, too. Unless the college instructor is signing his/her paycheck over to me, I'm not going to do their job for them.

Again, you can have a high-math class in high school for the few, the proud. Make that a second-year experience. In the meantime, why not a solid conceptual class for everyone?

TuftedPuffin

8th September 2007, 04:29 PM

It's a great idea. You just need to add a Calculus First program :p

Brian Pears

8th September 2007, 04:42 PM

Thank you for the explanations of the grades and the associated terminology.

Tokenconservative

13th September 2007, 05:25 AM

Hello All,

I am currently a 4th grade math and science teacher seriously considering moving up to teach high school physics. I just found out that my school district is considering a program called "Physics First" in which the traditional sequence of high school sciences would be rearranged. Instead of saving physics for 11th or 12 grade, ALL incoming 9th graders would take physics as their first high school science. Chemistry and biology would follow.

Does anyone have any experience with this sequence? Thoughts?

There are, of course, arguments on both sides. Several physics teachers that I greatly respect are opposed to the idea for what seem like good reasons.

Let the argument begin...

This is the best approach, and one that most private schools use, for that reason.

My kids attended a small private school k-8 (ages 4-13) and were probably 3 years ahead of the kids in their "science" classes in the 9th and 10th (ages 14-16) grades. They were taught science in this sequence (beginning in the 5th grade) Physics-Chemistry-Biology. In their current 10th grade "honors" biology class the class is having to do some quick physics work in order to understand the actual biology...they'll also be doing some chemistry. My kids already know this stuff and are bored to tears in this "honors" class.

It is taught backward in the public schools (and has been since the mid-60s because of the perception that biology is "easier" than chemistry and physics, and to some degree, that's the case, as most of biology (at this level) requires far less and less rigorous math than most chemistry and physics. This, is part and parcel of the general trend in our society at large, using our public schools as the means, of dumbing Americans down. Why this is going on, what it is for, you'll have to ask someone else.

Since the general dumbing-down of Americans began in the public schools in (hmmm...there's that date again!) the mid-1960s, we've been steadily losing our national ability to "do" higher level science because, after all...it's too hard!

This is why American companies and agencies must import so many engineers and scientists from Europe and Asia. Can you say "globalism" boyz n' girlz?

You did not post the reasons these physics teachers are opposed to this. I'd be interested to know.

Best,
Tokie

Tokenconservative

13th September 2007, 05:35 AM

Physics first is a great idea that came around last 10-15 years ago - but you have to remember that in that case, the physics is almost all conceptual because the 9th graders (unless major savants) will not have the math background to handle what would be expected in 11th or 12th grade. Many physics teachers do not like that (forgetting that MOST high school courses are introductory to subjects). Teaching honors physics last year, my most interesting "discoveries" were that the students had limited difficulty getting used to doing the math - but they had no real sense of the concepts. AND if they made a misstep in their calculator calculations had no idea why I (not particularly good with a calculator and not supposed to be teaching Honors Physics) had no trouble recognizing that they had done a boo-boo when I saw their wrong answer (hint: I know the concepts really well and I knowhow to estimate answers really well).

[If anyone is curious why I wound up teaching this when I had specified to the admin.s in my interview that I was only capable to regular physics ask - it is a boring and frequently occuring in the US school system story.]

This is mostly the case. Of course, it need not be. My kids could, in the 8th grade (of course one of them skipped that grade entirely) have easily handled the math required of them in 11th and 12th grade science classes.

Another funny thing: my kids attended an evangelical Christian school k-8-9, and when they took their first biology classes at the local public high school, knew more about evolution than did their classmates who'd been attending public schools all their lives. Understand: the Christian school also taught them that dinosaurs and man existed at the same time and that the univers is only some 6000 years old, and all that other hyper-religious, anti-rational stuff. BUT...they taught them the evolution "belief" too.

I don't expect the publics to teach religious beleifs, by the way...but they could at least try to do a better job of teaching the scientific ones, it seems to me.

I know why you ended up teaching this: you are a science teacher. Since most public schools teachers are drawn from something like the lowest GPA quintile of college graduates, most are completely unable to handle higher math and science. When a school finds someone who is even moderatly capable, they leap on them like a starving man would a pork chop. Where I live, in order to be hired as a teacher in anything other than foreign language, special ed and in math and science, you must be certified as a super-expert, basically in your field (this primarily means you've taken extra CE courses in Ft. Lauderdale). And you cannot be hired without an EDU. degree AND state teacher licensing. Not so if you hold any math or sci. degree and many engineering degrees, too. You just have to walk in the door...good luck leaving if you decide against it.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

13th September 2007, 05:40 AM

When the science
It is not the role of the high school physics teacher to prepare students for college physics. College physics has it's own priorities. High school physics has its own priorities, too. Unless the college instructor is signing his/her paycheck over to me, I'm not going to do their job for them.

Again, you can have a high-math class in high school for the few, the proud. Make that a second-year experience. In the meantime, why not a solid conceptual class for everyone?

Um, I have to respectfully disagree.

Actually, since the mid-60s, high school has become more an more college prep. Period. There are reasons for this, most of them have to do with what teachers (and their union) want to do and how they want to think of themselves.

Has also to do with the changes in our economy. This is why "shop" classes are largely being phased out as a matter, in most places of attrition.

The reasons for not having a "solid conceptual" class for everyone is that "everyone" is a lot. And the few and proud are those teachers actually able to teach science and math at ANY level, let alone higher levels.

This is a problem associated partly with payscales, and more so with who is typically attracted to teaching. Yes, yes...there are lots of people who see it as a calling. Most, however, go into it for...other reasons. And most of those are not math and sci. and engineering types.

Tokie

phyz

13th September 2007, 10:04 AM

Um, I have to respectfully disagree.

That rant was fun to read. Quite off the mark as far as teachers' unions controlling the curriculum. And always amusing to see another rehash of "those who can, do..." thinly-veiled though it was.

But do tell: how is high school physics taught in Tokie's ideal world?

Tokenconservative

13th September 2007, 10:39 AM

That rant was fun to read. Quite off the mark as far as teachers' unions controlling the curriculum. And always amusing to see another rehash of "those who can, do..." thinly-veiled though it was.

But do tell: how is high school physics taught in Tokie's ideal world?

Hmm...not sure it was a rant.

1. Not sure, as well, how it works in all other places, but where I live, the teachers (and nearly all are union members, and the union has a huge influence on all thing educational, and many things not at all related to education, here where I live) and they have quite a bit of input--teachers, and the union--into what textbooks are used and how the curriculum is set up...again, here, where I live.

2. I don't believe it was a has OR rehash of the old "those who can, do...etc." thing. I know teachers who've left much more lucrative careers to do what they do because they enjoy teaching. I sub teach for fun, and would leave my career in a heartbeat if I could make even 50% of what I do now, teaching.

3. I would hope physics, and just about anything else would be taught in a linear fashion. Where I live, first of all, it's taught backward. Should be Physics-Chemistry-Biology. That only makes sense. But it's not taught that way in the public schools here. As to HOW specifically it should be taught in high school, I believe it should be taught as a required course, not as something for "the 20 bestboys" or some such. We don't live in the world of 1940 or even 1960 any longer and young people who do not undestand science, engineering and math are more likely to fail.

I have little understanding myself of physics, but observed how it (and the other branches of sci AND math) was taught at my kids' private school and while yes, I did make it very clear to my kids that they would learn math and science to the very best of their ability (or suffer consequences), and that no doubt helped them, the approach seemed (comparatively--the private to the math and science I've taught in public schools) to be a bit less "theory" heavy and a bit more practical. When I was teaching 5th grade for example (real teaching, not subbing) I was reprimanded (and eventually fired) for insisting that "my" kids learn how to multiply and do long division (yes, hard to believe they were just learning this in the 5th grade...but there it is) rather than learning, as the curriculum demanded the "theory" of multiplication and division.

Tokie

technoextreme

13th September 2007, 06:26 PM

3. I would hope physics, and just about anything else would be taught in a linear fashion. Where I live, first of all, it's taught backward. Should be Physics-Chemistry-Biology. That only makes sense. But it's not taught that way in the public schools here. As to HOW specifically it should be taught in high school, I believe it should be taught as a required course, not as something for "the 20 bestboys" or some such. We don't live in the world of 1940 or even 1960 any longer and young people who do not undestand science, engineering and math are more likely to fail.

The fields really have no bearing on one or another unless your going into a science field. Even then my college omitted biology and switched physics and chemistry around. Mechnical engineers oddly enough have to take biology but not electrical. It's not like there aren't problems with the curriculum but it's generally continuity within a field like math. New York had a system where they would jump from subject to subject to subject with no continuity. You'd forget the subject and then go back to it three monthes later with the problem being that you forgot everything you learned.

Tokenconservative

14th September 2007, 04:59 AM

The fields really have no bearing on one or another unless your going into a science field. Even then my college omitted biology and switched physics and chemistry around. Mechnical engineers oddly enough have to take biology but not electrical. It's not like there aren't problems with the curriculum but it's generally continuity within a field like math. New York had a system where they would jump from subject to subject to subject with no continuity. You'd forget the subject and then go back to it three monthes later with the problem being that you forgot everything you learned.

Well, actually, they do. But I don't want to get into a pissing match with someone who probably understands a lot more about any/all of these sciences than I do about it.

They are very interrelated, to be sure. The point is whether schools (public...most privates do not teach "science" this way) teach the three major disciplines backward.

The "Physics First" approach, from what I can tell, seems to be arguing that they do. The educational product in America vis a vis "science" would seem to argue for this as well.

Anecdotally, my kids started learning (introductory) physics in about the 5th grade. They then learned (introductory) a little chemistry in the 6th. Then they started "science" for real in the 7th with...physics! Then...chemistry! Were they still in the private, they'd now (10th grade) be taking biology, and would in the 11th and 12 be able to take advaced courses in any/all of the three.

We should remember that in k-12, this sort of education is virtually all introductory (let's please not quibble over the rare advanced course and rely upon "well, when _I_ was in HS I was so good at it that I had to take physics at Princeton!" sorts of arguments). What you learned in college has no bearing at all on it. Other than the vain hope colleges have that the students they are getting will have at minimum this introductory set of "science" and outside those 101 classes we all take, college science classes are a different kettle of fish.

Sounds to me like your college was attempting to help ease students into something they were familiar with: the backward, fractured system most of them had experienced in their public school careers. If you were seeking a sci or engineering or math degree...you probably should've found another college.

Keep in mind as well that colleges, despite what they tell us, are money-making propositions, even state ones. You don't believe that all that $$ dumped into football and basketball is simply for love of the sport and of building comraderie amongst the players and "spirit" for the school, do you? Well, why believe that's the case for any other discipline at the college? They all have to show a "profit." They do that by attracting and retaining paying customers (whether the pay comes from the customer or in the form of subsidies from the state matters not at all to them).

In the public schools--starting in the mid-60s--it was decided that physics and chemistry were "too hard" for incoming (then 10th graders, today 9th graders--and this comes not from the schools, but from the teachers union and their "education professionals") and that "life science" (!?) would be easier for them to understand and that if they "got that" they could then move on to the "harder" sciences like chemistry and physics. This was a matter of perception more than anything else. "Biology" SOUNDS easier (hey, how hard is it to dissect a frog and figger out what it's heart does!?) than chemistry (math!!!) and physics (MAAATTTTHHHHHHH!!!).

Most importantly to the teachers was that since so many of them did not themselves understand the MAAAATTTTHHHHH!!! and since so few would qualify to teach chemistry and physics, while many more would qualify to teach "earth science" (!?) and since the most important thing to the teachers union is not education, but membership, which means money, which means power (they were a relatively powerless organization before about 1965) this seemed the best course to follow. And besides, most parents, themselves not "scientists" would agree that "earth science" would be easier for their 9th graders to understand...

And so we have arrived where we have today, science being taught backward in the public schools.

Tokie

drkitten

14th September 2007, 07:39 AM

Keep in mind as well that colleges, despite what they tell us, are money-making propositions, even state ones. You don't believe that all that $$ dumped into football and basketball is simply for love of the sport and of building comraderie amongst the players and "spirit" for the school, do you? Well, why believe that's the case for any other discipline at the college? They all have to show a "profit."

Um.

I could simply tell you that this isn't true. But the budgets at most state universities are matters of public record, so it will be easy enough for you to check it out for yourself.

And, no, "any other discipline" will typically not "have to show a profit"; in fact, it's extremely unlikely for the minor departments to be profitable, and even some of the mid-range departments like mathematics.

cbish

14th September 2007, 08:17 AM

drkitten

14th September 2007, 08:29 AM

We have one school in our district that does the phys-chem-bio sequence. If that's all that is done, it won't work. The phys is really physical science. Our school district received complaints that those students weren't prepared for college physics so they went to a second year physics for the upper classmen.

I've been teaching chemistry for eighteen years. My experience. The older, the better. Overall, sophomores don't have enough math experience or the ability to abstract as well (of course I'm painting with a wide brush here).

Well, I think the basic problem is that nothing you teach to groups of 15-year-olds will qualify as "college prep." If you teach 15-year-olds biology, they won't be prepared for "college biology" unless they take a second-year class later. If you teach them chem, they'll need second-year chem. If you teach them physics, they'll need second-year physics. Otherwise they will come out undeprepared for "college level" material and the colleges will notice.

My secondary school offered five different college-prep classes; two years of bio, two years of chem, but only one year of physics (since it was usually only taken by seniors). If you want to reverse the sequence, you'll still need five classes : two years of physics, two years of chem, and one year of bio. If you want to teach chem last, you'll still need five classes : two of physics, two of bio, and one of chem. And I don't think you'll really be able to avoid this on the college-prep track.

Now,of course, lots of students aren't college prep, and a substantial number of the "college prep" don't care about science anyway (they won't take college physics when they get there, but "physics for poets"). So it makes sense to me to figure out what science a llit major will need to know for the rest of his life. But as far as the science-bound college prep classes, it all ends up a wash, IMHO.

NobbyNobbs

14th September 2007, 09:25 AM

It seems too often schools just change things to be different. Not enough time is spent understanding what is to be accomplished by the change, and vanishingly little time is spend measuring for effectiveness.

It's not changing things for the sake of changing things. There really are reasons for it.

Originally, it was biology-chemistry-physics, mostly because of the math skills needed in each. Biology requires some but not much, chemistry more so, and physics quite a bit.

Then it was realized that biology is based on chemistry. And chemistry is based on physics. So maybe we should reverse things.

I taught 9th grade physics in a private school for several years. It was an introductory course, very little math. The student go on to chemistry in 10th grade and biology in 11th. Then in their senior year, they take "Integrated Science". It's a really unusual course. The theme of the course is "evolution". The first third of the year is spent on universal evolution (big bang, stars, black holes, matter, etc.), using quite a bit of physics. Then it goes into planetary evolution, using quite a bit of chemistry. Finally, it finishes with hominid evolution, using the biology. It's kind of a "From the Beginning to the Present" science course.

cbish

14th September 2007, 10:37 AM

So our other school had to create a second physics course for the older kids. They called their first course 'Physics' and the second 'Honor Physics'. We had to change our class name to 'Honors Physics' to be consistent within the district. The thing is, you get an extra grade point for 'Honors'. There's nothing 'Honors' about it. It's plain-jane high school Physics. It's a farce!

Wobble

14th September 2007, 11:11 AM

Wow. Education in America sounds so complicated. Do you really mean you do only one science each year at school? Are the other subjects also taught like that?

Also, when they standardised the names of all the school years in England, I was told they were starting with 'Reception', rather than year one so that they would be the same as grades in America, but apparently that's not true, since children start school a year later over there.

drkitten

14th September 2007, 11:28 AM

Wow. Education in America sounds so complicated. Do you really mean you do only one science each year at school? Are the other subjects also taught like that?

Typically, yes. Usually American secondary schools teach between about 5 and 8 classes, the same each day, so a typical load would be something like English, Math, History, a science, and two "electives." College prep students will usually take something academic like a foreign language, fine arts, and/or another science -- non-college-bound students can instead take prevocational courses such as "shop" or accounting.

It's a little more complicated, since courses are technically half a year long, but most of the big classes are a full-year course of which you take the first half in the fall and the second in the spring.

phyz

14th September 2007, 01:06 PM

The role of the high school teacher is to teach high school physics. High school physics should be accessible by anyone who's successfully completed Algebra 1. In the case of Physics First, they teach the algebra they need in the course itself. State-adopted academic content standards determine what gets taught. State and federally mandated testing policies determine the sequence in which the sciences are taught.

The real bottom line--and this makes legislative mandates somewhat worthless--is this: who's teaching the class? Someone with some passion who knows their stuff AND how to communicate it? Or someone else?

cbish

14th September 2007, 02:07 PM

True!
BTW, phyz. Aren't you suppose to be in class?!?

technoextreme

14th September 2007, 02:11 PM

In the public schools--starting in the mid-60s--it was decided that physics and chemistry were "too hard" for incoming (then 10th graders, today 9th graders--and this comes not from the schools, but from the teachers union and their "education professionals") and that "life science" (!?) would be easier for them to understand and that if they "got that" they could then move on to the "harder" sciences like chemistry and physics. This was a matter of perception more than anything else. "Biology" SOUNDS easier (hey, how hard is it to dissect a frog and figger out what it's heart does!?) than chemistry (math!!!) and physics (MAAATTTTHHHHHHH!!!).

Right thats all true though. If you honestly don't believe that then you truly mistaken. Even basic physics like the trajectory of a ball involves calculus. Now you don't really need to know calculus for the trajectory equations but then you run into the problem of the equations not making sense. Now your just teaching them how to memorize equations.

patnray

14th September 2007, 03:43 PM

six7s

14th September 2007, 05:02 PM

Wow. Education in America sounds so complicated. Do you really mean you do only one science each year at school? Are the other subjects also taught like that?
Typically, yes. Usually American secondary schools teach between about 5 and 8 classes, the same each day, so a typical load would be something like English, Math, History, a science, and two "electives."

When I were a lad of 13 and 14, this was all green fields we took chem, bio and physics for 2 hours per week each, with 'specialist' teachers and (I am guessing) lessons that were (at least loosely) coordinated with other teachers/departments, esp maths

Does anyone have any links to reliable stats/studies that indicate which approach is 'better' in comparable cultures?

phyz

15th September 2007, 04:19 PM

True!
BTW, phyz. Aren't you suppose to be in class?!?
One word: prep period.

D-oh!

Tokenconservative

16th September 2007, 06:47 AM

Um.

I could simply tell you that this isn't true. But the budgets at most state universities are matters of public record, so it will be easy enough for you to check it out for yourself.

And, no, "any other discipline" will typically not "have to show a profit"; in fact, it's extremely unlikely for the minor departments to be profitable, and even some of the mid-range departments like mathematics.

You might've noted that I put "profit" in um...well, the things that I put it in. Profit in the private sector is easy to define (what's left over after the costs of doing bidness). In the public sector it's a bit more complicated. The most "profitable" public institutions are able to attract the best profs and attract outside money

By "other discipline" I meant education as a whole compared to say, geology in the private sector. Brick-making companies that produce soft, poorly-molded product go out of business. Schools and even colleges that fail (to produce a quality product) year after year after year are supported by public monies and continue to operate, often hiding--with the state's help-- the fact that they cannot produce a quality product so that they can continue to operate.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

16th September 2007, 06:52 AM

We have one school in our district that does the phys-chem-bio sequence. If that's all that is done, it won't work. The phys is really physical science. Our school district received complaints that those students weren't prepared for college physics so they went to a second year physics for the upper classmen.

I've been teaching chemistry for eighteen years. My experience. The older, the better. Overall, sophomores don't have enough math experience or the ability to abstract as well (of course I'm painting with a wide brush here).

A very wide brush, and painting outside the lines, too.

My kids began studying physics in the 5th grade. Now, does that mean they were trying to uncover flaws in Einstein's theories then?

Um..no, actually...it doesn't. What it means is that they were introduced to physics/physical science (first).

What I find in this debate, often, is folks (teachers) who are worried more about how their particular discipline will be viewed, and screw the kids. What I see is high school science teachers horrified at the thought that younger kids can (and are) taught this stuff. They can't lord it over the rest of the teachers in the district then, with their lofty status of "I'm a ____(science) teacher!"

I'm not sure this is sufficient for me to look at this and say that I agree with you. I'd rather see kids educated in a way that makes sense for the educational process, than one that makes Top Dogs of a certain class of teachers.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

16th September 2007, 06:55 AM

Right thats all true though. If you honestly don't believe that then you truly mistaken. Even basic physics like the trajectory of a ball involves calculus. Now you don't really need to know calculus for the trajectory equations but then you run into the problem of the equations not making sense. Now your just teaching them how to memorize equations.

So what you are saying is that it is impossible to introduce younger kids to physics.

Hmm...my kids started with "physical science" in the 5th grade. As far as I know, neither had taken much calculus in grades 1-4.

But it was a private Christian school, so maybe there were secret calculus classes held after they sacrificed a baby each day or something.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

16th September 2007, 06:57 AM

While I think it's great that all students are required to take a physics class, it should not be the same class for all students. A basics physics class for students not contemplating majoring in sciences in college should emphasize the concepts and the scientific method. These are students who will not be taking Physics II later. This level class can be taught with simpler math.

My daughters both struggled with chemistry in high school because the only class available was geared to science majors. The teacher was a jerk who boasted about how hard his course was and how few students did well in his class (more of an admission of his lack of teaching skills, IMHO). For non-science majors the basics and principles are more important that rigid details. Sure they were drilled on sp3 hybrid orbitals, knowledge most of those students will never use and isn't required to understand chemical bonding, but they never learned that starch is the most common example of a compound that dissolves better in cold water, a practical fact they could use every time they wash a pot used to cook potatoes or pasta...

Exactly so. And keep in mind that the higher math(s) and sci. teachers in American public schools are the "stars" of these places in much the same way top science guys at universities are.

Giving them their due, if they understand AND can teach this stuff, that's important and they should take a certain level of pride in it, but asses like the one you describe need to be invited to seek employment elsewhere (though they almost never are).

This is exactly the approach that should be taken, but will not be for a number of reasons.

Tokie

JSMaxwell

16th September 2007, 03:45 PM

technoextreme

16th September 2007, 04:15 PM

So what you are saying is that it is impossible to introduce younger kids to physics.

Hmm...my kids started with "physical science" in the 5th grade. As far as I know, neither had taken much calculus in grades 1-4.

But it was a private Christian school, so maybe there were secret calculus classes held after they sacrificed a baby each day or something.

Tokie

It's not impossible but you may be thrown into a situation where the answer to a question involves going delving into calculus. For example position is .5at^2. Now tell me where the .5 comes from.:) It's easy to show that the units cancel out and you get meters but the half is another story. Then again I doubt that even this simple example is really appropriate for grade school kids because I don't remember when I learned about parabolas.:( Electricity is another topic. Unfortunatly, I don't remember how it was taught in my high school but I think I only covered stuff that didn't involve intergrands and differentials which meant nothing but resistors.

Tokenconservative

17th September 2007, 05:04 AM

It's not impossible but you may be thrown into a situation where the answer to a question involves going delving into calculus. For example position is .5at^2. Now tell me where the .5 comes from.:) It's easy to show that the units cancel out and you get meters but the half is another story. Then again I doubt that even this simple example is really appropriate for grade school kids because I don't remember when I learned about parabolas.:( Electricity is another topic. Unfortunatly, I don't remember how it was taught in my high school but I think I only covered stuff that didn't involve intergrands and differentials which meant nothing but resistors.

It's not only childish, but pretty ridiculous for you to throw out some "problem" like this, appended with a smile to show...what? Those of us who don't involve themselves in such things on a daily basis are of course not going to have any idea what you are talking about, and even those of us who were lucky enough to have either someone learned this stuff in a public school or who learned it in private or homeschooling, may have done so twenty or more years ago.

How about I give you a vexing problem from MY very specialized work and you "solve for" that? Why not? As I told Athon, teachers and doctors are always telling me how to do my job.

I could be mistaken, but my initial impression was that this is not a thread to demonstrate how smart any of us are about physics, but rather one discussing the demonstrably failed approach to science that public schools have been using since the mid-60s or so (as a means of making teaching science easier for increasingly ignorant teachers) and the "revolutionary" idea of "Physics First," the way in which most good private schools teach science and which as far as I was able to tell during my research of same, ALL the prominent homeschooling programs do it. This MAY explain why so many homeschooled kids end up getting so many science awards.

I guess the best approach (yours, apparently) is to assume that since the current backward approach has worked so well to produce so many scientifically-literate Americans (look at how many believe in Global Warming!) for so many years now from American public schools (evidenced by our abysmally low science scores compared even to some 3rd World nations, and the fact that so many American companies have to get scientists and engineers from India and Pakistan and China...), that maintaining the status quo is the best approach.

My kids began learing about parabolas in 5th-6th grade (private school/homeschooling about this time). And I may be wrong, but I don't believe I said they were being asked at that age to prove Einstein, only that they were being introduced to physics...on the other shoe, they were introduced to algebra in grade 3. This is the way a good private school does things. It is not the way a public school does things.

Now both of them are in high school and are in an Honors Bio class where they are the only ones who know a thing about atomic structure...which is necessary to understand (aparently) before going on in their studies in this class.

Tokie

drkitten

17th September 2007, 07:16 AM

Wow,

I go away for a few days and come back to 30-something replies. I feel so influential.

Can someone please give me an example of a "traditional" physics lesson that would be taught using the math, and how that same thing would be taught in a more "conceptual" method without the math?

Simple example. I set up an inclined plane and allow gravity to roll a cylinder down it. Using cunning technological equipment like a stopwatch, I measure the relationship between distance and time.

With 15 year olds, I plot the relationship on graph paper and look at the pretty curve.

With 17 year olds, I use the relationship d = (1/2)at^2 and determine the acceleration involved

With 19 year olds, I derive the relationship above using calculus (explaining en passant where the 1/2 comes from) and relate the experienced acceleration to the angle of the inclined plane, and use this setup to estimate the surface gravity of the earth.

Tokenconservative

17th September 2007, 07:55 AM

Simple example. I set up an inclined plane and allow gravity to roll a cylinder down it. Using cunning technological equipment like a stopwatch, I measure the relationship between distance and time.

With 15 year olds, I plot the relationship on graph paper and look at the pretty curve.

With 17 year olds, I use the relationship d = (1/2)at^2 and determine the acceleration involved

With 19 year olds, I derive the relationship above using calculus (explaining en passant where the 1/2 comes from) and relate the experienced acceleration to the angle of the inclined plane, and use this setup to estimate the surface gravity of the earth.

There's absolutely no reason you can't be teaching graphing earlier than 15. My kids began learning it in 4th grade, and I was teaching it in my 5th grade class. By the time they are 15, the "average" student may not be any better able to do it this way, but my kids are 14 and 15 and they'd come home and tell me they were being treated like 6th graders if you did that to them at this age.

And the only reason my 15 yr-old is not in calculus is because the school says "it's only for 11th grade or higher!"

Does that even make sense?

Tokie

drkitten

17th September 2007, 08:04 AM

There's absolutely no reason you can't be teaching graphing earlier than 15.

Absolutely correct. The problem is that you can't do any more than that without a substantial algebra background (which 15 year olds will not have.)

And, no, I'm not teaching "graphing." Students, as you point out, already know about graphing. I'm teaching physics -- how the world works. In particular, students may know about graphing, but they probably didn't know that objects fall in parabolae.

My kids are 14 and 15 and they'd come home and tell me they were being treated like 6th graders if you did that to them at this age.

... which is a strong argument against "Physics first." You can't do enough with them to justify the inclusion of a high school physics class without them having more math prep. So instead do biology, which can be done (you can dissect a frog to almost infinite detail, without using any math), and wait until the students have a strong enough background in algebra and trig before doing physics.

It's very hard to do statics and dynamics without trig (how do you resolve force components?), and it's hard to do trig functions without a certain amount of algebra and geometry.

phyz

17th September 2007, 11:36 PM

It's very hard to do statics and dynamics without trig (how do you resolve force components?), and it's hard to do trig functions without a certain amount of algebra and geometry.

Wow, we really are locked in tight to the idea that high school physics must be a carbon copy of college physics or it's not the real deal.

Algebraic kinematics, motion graphs, free-body diagrams, multi-dimensional conservation of momentum, head-on perfectly elastic collisions, heat engines, equipotentials, equivalent resistance of complex circuits, etc. we truly cannot imagine a class being called "physics" unless it's crowded with all the number puzzles we had in our college classes.

Well the 1950s are over, and it turns out there's plenty of good, solid, physics that can be taught and learned conceptually. Big-time physics honchos like Caltech's Professor David Goodstein are huge fans of Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics, which eschews number puzzles for concept-development.

Of course, those of us who were clever enough to get through the number-puzzle hazing tend to eschew any program that doesn't similarly abuse the next generation.

Nevertheless, education moves on.

Tokenconservative

18th September 2007, 05:07 AM

Absolutely correct. The problem is that you can't do any more than that without a substantial algebra background (which 15 year olds will not have.)

And, no, I'm not teaching "graphing." Students, as you point out, already know about graphing. I'm teaching physics -- how the world works. In particular, students may know about graphing, but they probably didn't know that objects fall in parabolae.

... which is a strong argument against "Physics first." You can't do enough with them to justify the inclusion of a high school physics class without them having more math prep. So instead do biology, which can be done (you can dissect a frog to almost infinite detail, without using any math), and wait until the students have a strong enough background in algebra and trig before doing physics.

It's very hard to do statics and dynamics without trig (how do you resolve force components?), and it's hard to do trig functions without a certain amount of algebra and geometry.

Wow.

This always is/becomes the problem in discussing this stuff with them as knows better'n d rest of'n us'ns...teachers and other "education" professionals. The desire to prove that they (teachers) are not "only" teachers, and are some sort of pre-college profs, and of course to protect the status quo and the economic rice bowl gets their backs up right fast!

My kids were learing graphing AND algebra by the 5th grade. It's not that kids can't learn this stuff by that age, it's primarily that in the public schools, it's "too hard" for teachers to teach it before we get to the more exhalted teaching staff of a high school (personally, having taught 5th grade...where I taught EVERYthing, I've never quite gotten why the higher grades' teachers are considered the elite, but that's a cat to skin some other time).

I am not at all certain what it is you are teaching. There is no reason kids can't be introduced to physics before they are ready to fill a blackboard at MIT with complex equations. Why you can't explain atomic structure in simple, linquistic terms earlier than 11th grade, escapes me entirely. Given, I hold only an English degree, but it seems to me that by oh, 3rd-6th grade, kids SHOULD have a strong enough command of the English language that they could pretty easily follow something like "this is an atom...." Perhaps I'm mistaken.

Um...my kids are delving into genetics in biology... not just endlessly dissecting frogs, and that requires some math (being a English type, I don't even know what this math is). A big problem their teacher in this Honors class is running into (according to my kids) is that very few of these Honors students have any sort of grounding in physics...they don't know atomic structure, which makes it difficult for them to understand a lot of other stuff without the BIOLOGY teacher doing a bit of remedial physics instruction.

As a physics teacher, you of course MUST insist that your science is "better" than mere, simple-minded biology, in order to protect your status. Private schools, homeschoolers and some more enlightened public (usually charter) schools, know that while teachers who do higher math and science come at a premium, they tend not to permit this sort of hierarchical nonsense to go on, and therefore are able to teach science in a way that makes sense.

And, as is also always the case in this discussion, a physics teacher must insist that since ALL of physics cannot be taught without first teaching math to a certain level, then NO physics can be taught.

That's like saying you can't teach someone to read Hop on Pop, if they can't also read and analyze Gatsby.

It's nonsense. Which is why better schools (privates, charters, homeschoolers) don't teach science the "easy" way most publics do.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

18th September 2007, 05:15 AM

Wow, we really are locked in tight to the idea that high school physics must be a carbon copy of college physics or it's not the real deal.

Algebraic kinematics, motion graphs, free-body diagrams, multi-dimensional conservation of momentum, head-on perfectly elastic collisions, heat engines, equipotentials, equivalent resistance of complex circuits, etc. we truly cannot imagine a class being called "physics" unless it's crowded with all the number puzzles we had in our college classes.

Well the 1950s are over, and it turns out there's plenty of good, solid, physics that can be taught and learned conceptually. Big-time physics honchos like Caltech's Professor David Goodstein are huge fans of Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics, which eschews number puzzles for concept-development.

Of course, those of us who were clever enough to get through the number-puzzle hazing tend to eschew any program that doesn't similarly abuse the next generation.

Nevertheless, education moves on.

Spot on.

Amazin' ain't it? And this observation goes hand in hand with the perception (again...beg. in about the mid-60s) that high school teachers are not an end unto themselves, but more a sort of pre-college professor.

LOL! I love your perception! Far better put than my own, because you have the experience...my last math class was in the 8th grade, my last sci. class "Earth Science" in the 10th.

You have physics teachers so enamored of themselves and what they do that yes, you get all this nonsensical shrieking..."how can you have any pudding, if you haven't eaten your meat!?

Talk about bricks in the wall.

Unfortunately, you are wrong in your last observation (I cleverly percieve a bit of fascetiousness, tho). We don't move on....the last thing in the world education in the US is doing is moving on. We aren't even moving backward (that'd be a good thing... a DARN good thing). Instead, public education in the US today, is driven by what the teachers want, as expressed through the force of their union.

This is why science is taught the way it is, today. It is "easier" (that's the perception) to teach science backward--biology is easier than chemistry is easier than physics--so more of the teachers who, normally, are drawn from the lowest GPA quintile of college graduates, can themselves pass the typically simple-minded tests that make them "science" teachers in middle school-to 10th grade.

And that's all this is about, and it contributes greatly to the dumbing down of Americans--another purposeful campaign.

Now, I have to go polish my tinfoil hat.

Tokie

Larry Barrieau

18th September 2007, 08:27 AM

In 1996 I attended the 1st World Skeptics Congress in Buffalo NY. It was a great meeting and I got to meet some really cool people (Randi included).

One of the most interesting talks was given by Nobelist Leon Lederman. His talk was about starting kids in the younger grades with physics. Unfortunately I remember very little from the talk only that I was intrigued with the idea although it was out of my 7th grade earth science discipline.

I just googled him and it appears as though he is either still at it or has been recently. I will look more closely at it when I have time.

It might be a good place to look at in terms of this discussion.

phyz

18th September 2007, 10:34 AM

Spot on.
teachers who, normally, are drawn from the lowest GPA quintile of college graduates, can themselves pass the typically simple-minded tests that make them "science" teachers in middle school-to 10th grade.

And that's all this is about, and it contributes greatly to the dumbing down of Americans--another purposeful campaign.

It appears that you yearn for teachers who are better grounded in the content knowledge of the subject they teach.

I'm all for it.

Now how do you suppose we go about achieving the goal? Let's see, a demand for smart teachers. Not enough supply. Man, sounds like a problem for an economist. Anyone know how to solve a problem where the demand outstrips the supply? Anyone? Bueller?

cbish

18th September 2007, 10:57 AM

phyz

18th September 2007, 01:18 PM

Unfortunately I'm not sure the rest of the world sees it this way... The unanimous consensus among the college people was, and I quote, "if it doesn't have trig, it's not physics".

It would be extreme for me to characterize that as the college instructors hoping HS teachers could do their jobs for them. So I'll just say they're hoping we can assist them.

And I've decided that I won't.

Funny thing is, when you talk to them in a different setting, they'll tell you all they want from pre-college instruction is that we turn the kids on to science--get them interested. Then they'll do the heavy lifting of rigorous instruction. I don't buy that extreme, either.

The state of California has decided the physics content it expects students to learn. I can work with that. I feel MUCH more accountable to the state than I do to physics professors at any college.

They've got their job; I've got mine.

Of course for many physics profs, their job is to get research funded and published. And, oh yeah; there's a section of underclassmen you'll need to teach. The curriculum's in a dusty binder in the faculty lounge. My point is that it's not a priority. Thus, if high school teachers could carry the water on that one, that'd be great.

Harvard's Phillip Sadler did a study and concluded that completion of high school physics had no bearing on a student's success in intro college physics. When that came out, I expected to hear a wailing and gnashing of teeth from high school teachers who profess to be working so hard to prepare their students for the rigors of college physics. It never materialized (or if it did, I was not in the right place to hear it).

I'm sure some took it as a rebuke or a shot across the bow to straighten up and fly right. I did not.

I took it as license to teach high school physics to high school students and let college instructors teach college physics.

(Oh, and since I don't teach chemistry, I don't have much to say about it.)

Hindmost

18th September 2007, 03:46 PM

It would be extreme for me to characterize that as the college instructors hoping HS teachers could do their jobs for them. So I'll just say they're hoping we can assist them.

And I've decided that I won't.

Funny thing is, when you talk to them in a different setting, they'll tell you all they want from pre-college instruction is that we turn the kids on to science--get them interested. Then they'll do the heavy lifting of rigorous instruction. I don't buy that extreme, either.

The state of California has decided the physics content it expects students to learn. I can work with that. I feel MUCH more accountable to the state than I do to physics professors at any college.

They've got their job; I've got mine.

Of course for many physics profs, their job is to get research funded and published. And, oh yeah; there's a section of underclassmen you'll need to teach. The curriculum's in a dusty binder in the faculty lounge. My point is that it's not a priority. Thus, if high school teachers could carry the water on that one, that'd be great.

Harvard's Phillip Sadler did a study and concluded that completion of high school physics had no bearing on a student's success in intro college physics. When that came out, I expected to hear a wailing and gnashing of teeth from high school teachers who profess to be working so hard to prepare their students for the rigors of college physics. It never materialized (or if it did, I was not in the right place to hear it).

I'm sure some took it as a rebuke or a shot across the bow to straighten up and fly right. I did not.

I took it as license to teach high school physics to high school students and let college instructors teach college physics.

(Oh, and since I don't teach chemistry, I don't have much to say about it.)

I can remember reading the Harvard study and how taking physics in high school did not really matter when students attended college. I was surprised, but then realized that top level students would do well in any case since they were motivated and had the needed abstract thinking skills. Other students would never take a physics class in the future.

So, when I taught my classes, I took this into consideration. With my top level students, I taught the class as a hybrid--not quite a high school class and not quite an AP or college class. As a result, I had a wide variety of students--not just the top twenty. Only a small portion were going on to be engineers or physicists. At the same time, I kept a lot of math in the class since these students had the capability and I would do my best to show them how useful math is in science.

For my second level class, I had an even broader range of abilities and diversity in what the students planned on taking in college. In addition, many of the students had no plans to go to college. I taught the class as a conceptaul class, but kept a significant amount of math for the same reason above. (I also had students that wanted to be engineers and they would need some math rigor)

Since I taught at a small school and was the only physics teacher, I could teach whatever I wanted and no one really would know if I was following a "good" curriculum. In my second year, I started to teach relativity. It was not needed for college prep for any student, but there was several reasons why I taught it: first it was fun to teach--even though it is tough to do demos--can't run that fast at my advanced age. Second, for some students, it will be the only chance they get to learn about Einstein's stuff. Since I coupled it with some cosmology, the students learned a fair amount about the universe they may never have been exposed to with other majors. Teaching relativity at the end of the year also helped motivate some very sleepy students.

I really believe that my students learned the most from doing lab reports...which were written with the style of professional journals. This gave students practical experience in writing reports and--most important--the ability to analyze and draw a valid conclusion. Feedback from students I had was positive when they were off in college...but not when they were doing the writeup.

my two cents:

I don't think physics first is the best idea...the more mature the student, the more I could cover in my physics classes. When I taught physical science to ninth graders, which was just physics "lite," I found I could not cover topics in the depth needed to really have students appreciate what they were learning. (it was also a required course and too many students were not motivated.) I needed to spend significantly more time on a topic for student to gain rudimentary knowledge. In teaching physics to 11 and 12th graders, I would tell my students that they would look at the world differently at the end of the year. Since the students were more mature, I could cover more topics. In this manner, I felt the student would understand the physical world. I don't think I could get ninth or tenth grade students to really appreciate relativity.

glenn

PS: tokenconservative: I don't know where you have gotten the idea that the teachers unions have an influence on curriculum, but it just isn't true. If the unions had their way, the "no child left behind act" would not be the very poor law that it is. You are going to have to cite some data or some study--not just anecdote. Any curriculum stuff I did was always about meeting state and national standards and those standards are not written to accomodate unions.

NobbyNobbs

18th September 2007, 04:11 PM

I taught my students distance, velocity, acceleration, and the basic relationships between the three.

I taught them magnetics. I taught them electricity and circuitry. I taught them atomic theory, and how a nuclear reaction works. I taught them nuclear decay.

I taught them how to plan, perform, and analyze an experiment. I taught them how to think skeptically. I taught them how to research and how to check their sources.

I taught them relative frames of motion.

I taught this to kids who, during the same period of time I was teaching them, were seeing algebra for the first time.

So no, it's not a PhD, but it's still physics.

And on the subject of college vs. high school, every college physics professor I've talked to on this subject (about a dozen or so) has told me the same thing: if in high school, I can teach the kids how to think, then in college, they can teach the content.

cbish

18th September 2007, 05:21 PM

(Oh, and since I don't teach chemistry, I don't have much to say about it.)But, couldn't you make the same claim for chemistry? Is the ChemCom curriculum sufficient for entry level college chemistry? It seems like it's a philosophical question. Maybe the question is one of language. I guess my question is, 'are the students that take the Phys (10th), Chem (11th), Bio (12th) sequence as prepared, or better prepared, as the traditional'?

BTW, I pretty much agree with much of what you say. I tell my students that as far as the subject matter goes, if they can have some hint of recognition of a topic, I've done my job with the curriculum. The ability to think, and to think scientifically, is the most important. They're going to teach them what they want them to know.

phyz

18th September 2007, 05:50 PM

PS: tokenconservative: I don't know where you have gotten the idea that the teachers unions have an influence on curriculum, but it just isn't true... Any curriculum stuff I did was always about meeting state and national standards and those standards are not written to accomodate unions.
As ever, Hindmost, your gift for understatement brings a smile and a chuckle.

Tokenconservative

19th September 2007, 04:50 AM

It appears that you yearn for teachers who are better grounded in the content knowledge of the subject they teach.

I'm all for it.

Now how do you suppose we go about achieving the goal? Let's see, a demand for smart teachers. Not enough supply. Man, sounds like a problem for an economist. Anyone know how to solve a problem where the demand outstrips the supply? Anyone? Bueller?

I'll assume (and you know what that makes of u and me) that your nasty sarcasm is all in good fun.

Math(s) and science teacher are already, typically, paid more than teachers of say, history or English...and should be. As you appear to understand, that is still not enough to compete (this is a key phrase, one you may even wish to write down or copy/paste for further study) against what many (not all) might earn in the private sector.

The solution would be, if I recall my Keynes, to pay them more. Oh...wait, that wasn't Keynes, were it?

But how do we go about doing that....hmmmm...there's a large stumbling block to that in the way....I wonder what it might be...hmmmm.....?

See if you can guess, Buehler.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

19th September 2007, 05:06 AM

I can remember reading the Harvard study and how taking physics in high school did not really matter when students attended college. I was surprised, but then realized that top level students would do well in any case since they were motivated and had the needed abstract thinking skills. Other students would never take a physics class in the future.

So, when I taught my classes, I took this into consideration. With my top level students, I taught the class as a hybrid--not quite a high school class and not quite an AP or college class. As a result, I had a wide variety of students--not just the top twenty. Only a small portion were going on to be engineers or physicists. At the same time, I kept a lot of math in the class since these students had the capability and I would do my best to show them how useful math is in science.

For my second level class, I had an even broader range of abilities and diversity in what the students planned on taking in college. In addition, many of the students had no plans to go to college. I taught the class as a conceptaul class, but kept a significant amount of math for the same reason above. (I also had students that wanted to be engineers and they would need some math rigor)

Since I taught at a small school and was the only physics teacher, I could teach whatever I wanted and no one really would know if I was following a "good" curriculum. In my second year, I started to teach relativity. It was not needed for college prep for any student, but there was several reasons why I taught it: first it was fun to teach--even though it is tough to do demos--can't run that fast at my advanced age. Second, for some students, it will be the only chance they get to learn about Einstein's stuff. Since I coupled it with some cosmology, the students learned a fair amount about the universe they may never have been exposed to with other majors. Teaching relativity at the end of the year also helped motivate some very sleepy students.

I really believe that my students learned the most from doing lab reports...which were written with the style of professional journals. This gave students practical experience in writing reports and--most important--the ability to analyze and draw a valid conclusion. Feedback from students I had was positive when they were off in college...but not when they were doing the writeup.

my two cents:

I don't think physics first is the best idea...the more mature the student, the more I could cover in my physics classes. When I taught physical science to ninth graders, which was just physics "lite," I found I could not cover topics in the depth needed to really have students appreciate what they were learning. (it was also a required course and too many students were not motivated.) I needed to spend significantly more time on a topic for student to gain rudimentary knowledge. In teaching physics to 11 and 12th graders, I would tell my students that they would look at the world differently at the end of the year. Since the students were more mature, I could cover more topics. In this manner, I felt the student would understand the physical world. I don't think I could get ninth or tenth grade students to really appreciate relativity.

glenn

PS: tokenconservative: I don't know where you have gotten the idea that the teachers unions have an influence on curriculum, but it just isn't true. If the unions had their way, the "no child left behind act" would not be the very poor law that it is. You are going to have to cite some data or some study--not just anecdote. Any curriculum stuff I did was always about meeting state and national standards and those standards are not written to accomodate unions.

Hindmost: not sure at what level and when you taught, but in the publics, K-12, you toe the district curriculum line or he walk the unemployment line.

Given, some leeway is um...given, to those teaching higher math and science because it's so hard to attract (especially now in these idotic times of the idiot's NCLB) qualified math and sci teachers. And the curriculm has not permitted teaching ANY discipline whether its art or physics to an INDIVIDUAL student's level since before about 1965. So, I'm assuming you've been retired for quite some time.

But your voicing the "what they planned to take in college" cannard, suggests to me that you are a teacher of the post 1965 era. Now I'm confused. Of course, today, as I've said, high school teachers see themselves (and so does the public education system) as a sort of pre-college professor. This may come as quite a bit of a shock to you (sit down, please) but many students have no plan to, no ability to, and no aptitude for going to college.

These students are, in the publics today, ignored. And no, I am not saying they will need higher-level physics but I'm not sure, as a parent, I'd want you--or any teacher--deciding what it is my kid "needs" to that level.

I'd love it if the publics taught to the INDIVIDUAL student's level. But they don't, and in many cases can't, and in most cases are prohibited from doing so by their district, even if they are the kind of qualified, caring, effective teacher who is able to do that.

The reality is that teachers who do this in the public schools are quickly fired.

Sorry, I don't have any studies to cite. I'm simply going by stuff I've read, heard and experienced and yes, the union, through it's representatives (it need not be the case that they put a big "Stamp of NEA Approval" on it), has much to say about the curriculum. And have for decades.

Hindmost

19th September 2007, 08:02 AM

Hindmost: not sure at what level and when you taught, but in the publics, K-12, you toe the district curriculum line or he walk the unemployment line.

Given, some leeway is um...given, to those teaching higher math and science because it's so hard to attract (especially now in these idotic times of the idiot's NCLB) qualified math and sci teachers. And the curriculm has not permitted teaching ANY discipline whether its art or physics to an INDIVIDUAL student's level since before about 1965. So, I'm assuming you've been retired for quite some time.

But your voicing the "what they planned to take in college" cannard, suggests to me that you are a teacher of the post 1965 era. Now I'm confused. Of course, today, as I've said, high school teachers see themselves (and so does the public education system) as a sort of pre-college professor. This may come as quite a bit of a shock to you (sit down, please) but many students have no plan to, no ability to, and no aptitude for going to college.

These students are, in the publics today, ignored. And no, I am not saying they will need higher-level physics but I'm not sure, as a parent, I'd want you--or any teacher--deciding what it is my kid "needs" to that level.

I'd love it if the publics taught to the INDIVIDUAL student's level. But they don't, and in many cases can't, and in most cases are prohibited from doing so by their district, even if they are the kind of qualified, caring, effective teacher who is able to do that.

The reality is that teachers who do this in the public schools are quickly fired.

Sorry, I don't have any studies to cite. I'm simply going by stuff I've read, heard and experienced and yes, the union, through it's representatives (it need not be the case that they put a big "Stamp of NEA Approval" on it), has much to say about the curriculum. And have for decades.

You obviously did not read my post...please read it through.

First, as I stated, I taught high school physics 11 and 12th grade.

And I just retired after teaching 7 years.

It is difficult to fire a teacher once they get tenure--teaching off curriculum is not something that will get a teacher fired. Firing a teacher with no cause--that is something the unions get involve with completely. Along with the ideas of merit pay and other topics such as NCLB. The main purpose of unions are teachers' rights, not curriculum.

Curriculum is developed by adminstrators and teachers that essentially volunteer at state and national levels to write up the best possible curriculum for subjects. If you get a bunch of teachers together writing curriculum, they will talk about what students need to learn, not anything to do with union rules, with the exception of getting paid to do something beyond the normal scope of teaching.

When a teacher has 100-130 students in a day--which is typical in high school--how do you expect a teacher to accommodate an individual learning style for each student???? The idea is absurd...however, we still have to do it for some students. A special ed student has to have an individual education plan that is tailored to that students needs. There was much less accommodation in the past. No teacher is prevented from teaching to an individual students needs. Some schools are fortunate to have gifted and talented programs...most cannot afford it.

Now, read my post...I said:

"For my second level class, I had an even broader range of abilities and diversity in what the students planned on taking in college. In addition, many of the students had no plans to go to college...."

Obviously, I fully realized my students were not necessarily going to college.

High schools do tend to be college prep in many cases. At my school, about 80% of the students typically went on to further their education. However, high schools do not accommodate students planning on working in crafts...these have become cost prohibitive. And of course, there are many students that just don't want to be in high school and there is nothing else for them to do to get skills.

Finally, anecdote doesn't past muster with me (or others on this forum)...you must cite examples where unions have disputes with curriculum before I will accept it. The only issue I have seen with such things is when subjects are eliminated and teachers lose their jobs and that is not really a curriculum thing.

glenn

Tokenconservative

19th September 2007, 02:45 PM

You obviously did not read my post...please read it through.

First, as I stated, I taught high school physics 11 and 12th grade.

And I just retired after teaching 7 years.

It is difficult to fire a teacher once they get tenure--teaching off curriculum is not something that will get a teacher fired. Firing a teacher with no cause--that is something the unions get involve with completely. Along with the ideas of merit pay and other topics such as NCLB. The main purpose of unions are teachers' rights, not curriculum.

Curriculum is developed by adminstrators and teachers that essentially volunteer at state and national levels to write up the best possible curriculum for subjects. If you get a bunch of teachers together writing curriculum, they will talk about what students need to learn, not anything to do with union rules, with the exception of getting paid to do something beyond the normal scope of teaching.

When a teacher has 100-130 students in a day--which is typical in high school--how do you expect a teacher to accommodate an individual learning style for each student???? The idea is absurd...however, we still have to do it for some students. A special ed student has to have an individual education plan that is tailored to that students needs. There was much less accommodation in the past. No teacher is prevented from teaching to an individual students needs. Some schools are fortunate to have gifted and talented programs...most cannot afford it.

Now, read my post...I said:

"For my second level class, I had an even broader range of abilities and diversity in what the students planned on taking in college. In addition, many of the students had no plans to go to college...."

Obviously, I fully realized my students were not necessarily going to college.

High schools do tend to be college prep in many cases. At my school, about 80% of the students typically went on to further their education. However, high schools do not accommodate students planning on working in crafts...these have become cost prohibitive. And of course, there are many students that just don't want to be in high school and there is nothing else for them to do to get skills.

Finally, anecdote doesn't past muster with me (or others on this forum)...you must cite examples where unions have disputes with curriculum before I will accept it. The only issue I have seen with such things is when subjects are eliminated and teachers lose their jobs and that is not really a curriculum thing.

glenn

Interesting..how does one "retire" after only 7 years on the job...did you mean to say 27?

Of course, firing a tenured teacher is nearly impossible. Tenured teachers tend to be those who have figured out that they had better toe the line if they want to continue workng only 8 months a year, and rec'vg that fabulous bennies package.

Um...no, the main purpose of the NEA is power...teacher "rights" are quite secondary to that.

Mayhaps....but you will also get a bunch of (tenured) union members working in their own best interests.

Um...I expect them to accomodate the individual by first, recognizing the individual and then using some fairly fundamental management to provide teaching for those GROUPS of students who learn differently and at different speeds, etc. Of course, if you are so unfortunate and desperately hated a teacher (by your principal) that he has you teaching classes populated at once by AP, Special Ed, and every age the school educates, yeah...that's going to be a problem.

I hope your principal likes you better than that.

And when I was teaching 5th grade, while I had only 27 students, that's exactly what I did. Oh, and I did that for Lang Arts, Math, Science and Geography, and Social Studies. Oh...and in that sort of class, no matter whether your principal hates you or not you DO get a mix of students... I had Special Ed to students that should probably have been advanced at least one grade, kis who rarely or never saw their parents, a couple who'd been sexually abused (one severely), several others who'd been physically abused, most of them from "broken" homes anyway, and about half the class was ESL.

Oh, yeah...sometimes we had to duck when we heard gunfire outside.

Still, I was able to break them up (after a bit of quick, easy testing when I first took the class over) in four primary groups in each of the disciplines I taught...did I mention I don't have an Ed. degree?

I think I should, probably...don't you?

Yes, high schools do tend to do, almost exclusively, college prep. And my hair tends to fall out. That does not make it a good thing. High schools began becoming college lite in the mid-60s, primarily at the urging of voices w/in the union, and at the same time urging teachers to become "more than mere dispensers of information." This resonated (and resonates) well with high school teachers, many of whom are wannabe college profs and who think they can "up" their street cred (at least in their own minds) by assuming this attitude.

Again, works well for the teacher, but allows too many kids to fall through the cracks.

Now, if you want to talk about absurd, let's try on the notion that teachers are all about what's best for students.

About the only thing I find more absurd than that is "Britney Spears is Mother of the Year."

Tokie

Hindmost

19th September 2007, 06:59 PM

Interesting..how does one "retire" after only 7 years on the job...did you mean to say 27?

no seven, second career.

Of course, firing a tenured teacher is nearly impossible. Tenured teachers tend to be those who have figured out that they had better toe the line if they want to continue workng only 8 months a year, and rec'vg that fabulous bennies package.

10 months, plus every weekend. The benefits are not that good. The retirement package is poor. It is one of the reasons I left. Again, teaching off curriculum would not be a problem--I did it all the time--even before I was tenured

Um...no, the main purpose of the NEA is power...teacher "rights" are quite secondary to that.

Mayhaps....but you will also get a bunch of (tenured) union members working in their own best interests.

Power to do what? Here's a link to show you what NEA considers important. If you review the history of teacher benefits and union initiatives, you will see a direct correlation.

http://www.nea.org/topics/index.html basically teachers rights and education.

Um...I expect them to accomodate the individual by first, recognizing the individual and then using some fairly fundamental management to provide teaching for those GROUPS of students who learn differently and at different speeds, etc. Of course, if you are so unfortunate and desperately hated a teacher (by your principal) that he has you teaching classes populated at once by AP, Special Ed, and every age the school educates, yeah...that's going to be a problem.

I hope your principal likes you better than that.

My class was an elective. A wide range of students wanted to take my class because they found out the physics is phun. Neither the principle nor I had any say as to who took my classes as long as they met the prerequisites...although, my classes would fill up and I could not have more that 24 students in a class--state guidelines and equipment limited the size to this.

One cannot teach three or four different levels of physics to a class. It just isn't possible. I would teach to a stringent level that would challenge the most talented student in the class, but still bring along the least talented. I would work longer with students that had difficulty. If a student did their work...they would always learn something. Applying what you learned from teaching 5th grade does not universally translate to every other subject and every grade level--there are just to many variables on cognitive levels..attention span...etc.

And when I was teaching 5th grade, while I had only 27 students, that's exactly what I did. Oh, and I did that for Lang Arts, Math, Science and Geography, and Social Studies. Oh...and in that sort of class, no matter whether your principal hates you or not you DO get a mix of students... I had Special Ed to students that should probably have been advanced at least one grade, kis who rarely or never saw their parents, a couple who'd been sexually abused (one severely), several others who'd been physically abused, most of them from "broken" homes anyway, and about half the class was ESL.

Oh, yeah...sometimes we had to duck when we heard gunfire outside.

Still, I was able to break them up (after a bit of quick, easy testing when I first took the class over) in four primary groups in each of the disciplines I taught...did I mention I don't have an Ed. degree?

I think I should, probably...don't you?

That's just teaching...it doesn't sound unique at all. I have had autistic students, students returned from criminal activity, special ed students and some with emotional problems as well as some of the top students in the country. Fairly normal.

Yes, high schools do tend to do, almost exclusively, college prep. And my hair tends to fall out. That does not make it a good thing. High schools began becoming college lite in the mid-60s, primarily at the urging of voices w/in the union, and at the same time urging teachers to become "more than mere dispensers of information." This resonated (and resonates) well with high school teachers, many of whom are wannabe college profs and who think they can "up" their street cred (at least in their own minds) by assuming this attitude.

Again, works well for the teacher, but allows too many kids to fall through the cracks.

I agree that most of high school is college prep...however, the changes were driven by cost more that anything. Shop classes are expensive and tech schools now take up most of the students that want to go into craft type jobs. I do believe it is an issue as some students are not accomodated--change would cost money that taxpayers are not willing to pay.

There is no push to make teachers as "dispensers of information." That "sage on the stage" attitude faded along time ago and is actively discouraged in education classes and at schools. Also, you have zero evidence that teachers want to be college profs--otherwise, why would they get education degrees?

Now, if you want to talk about absurd, let's try on the notion that teachers are all about what's best for students.

Most of the teachers I worked with were very much about the students...take a look at http://www.ratemyteachers.com/ and see what the students say about their teachers. You will find that most of them are quite dedicated. Every industry has its bell shaped curve of employees. In my school the curve was skewed to the high end with very dedicated teachers...it is the reason I enjoyed working there so much.

About the only thing I find more absurd than that is "Britney Spears is Mother of the Year."

:confused:

Tokie

I feel you are making too many statements based on perception and not actual data.

glenn

phyz

19th September 2007, 11:04 PM

Tokenconservative

20th September 2007, 04:46 AM

no seven, second career.

10 months, plus every weekend. The benefits are not that good. The retirement package is poor. It is one of the reasons I left. Again, teaching off curriculum would not be a problem--I did it all the time--even before I was tenured

Power to do what? Here's a link to show you what NEA considers important. If you review the history of teacher benefits and union initiatives, you will see a direct correlation.

http://www.nea.org/topics/index.html basically teachers rights and education.

My class was an elective. A wide range of students wanted to take my class because they found out the physics is phun. Neither the principle nor I had any say as to who took my classes as long as they met the prerequisites...although, my classes would fill up and I could not have more that 24 students in a class--state guidelines and equipment limited the size to this.

One cannot teach three or four different levels of physics to a class. It just isn't possible. I would teach to a stringent level that would challenge the most talented student in the class, but still bring along the least talented. I would work longer with students that had difficulty. If a student did their work...they would always learn something. Applying what you learned from teaching 5th grade does not universally translate to every other subject and every grade level--there are just to many variables on cognitive levels..attention span...etc.

That's just teaching...it doesn't sound unique at all. I have had autistic students, students returned from criminal activity, special ed students and some with emotional problems as well as some of the top students in the country. Fairly normal.

I agree that most of high school is college prep...however, the changes were driven by cost more that anything. Shop classes are expensive and tech schools now take up most of the students that want to go into craft type jobs. I do believe it is an issue as some students are not accomodated--change would cost money that taxpayers are not willing to pay.

There is no push to make teachers as "dispensers of information." That "sage on the stage" attitude faded along time ago and is actively discouraged in education classes and at schools. Also, you have zero evidence that teachers want to be college profs--otherwise, why would they get education degrees?

Most of the teachers I worked with were very much about the students...take a look at http://www.ratemyteachers.com/ and see what the students say about their teachers. You will find that most of them are quite dedicated. Every industry has its bell shaped curve of employees. In my school the curve was skewed to the high end with very dedicated teachers...it is the reason I enjoyed working there so much.

:confused:

I feel you are making too many statements based on perception and not actual data.

glenn

I am told people do this out of a love of teaching...then you quit after only seven years because the bennies suck?

Where I live (and where you live may be different) virtually no one (today) outside government employment and the PO has any sort of retirement package even remotely approaching that of teachers.

Here, teachers get 80% of their last year's pay, they get full medical coverage including dental and vision.

Of course, none of this is factored into the equation when teachers are bemoaning their "low pay."

You must, again, work in a very different place from where I live. Here, teachers get approx. 3 mos. off in the summer (usually starting in mid-May, ending in mid-August, two-three weeks at "Holiday" time, a week in the spring, every other legal holiday and of course those "in-service" (we call them golf 'n ski) days.

Here, it typically rounds out to about 8 months on, 4 months off. And yes, when I was a new teacher myself, I worked 16 hour days and all weekend. As in any job, by the 3rd year, if you are still doing this, you are at minimum inefficient and likely incompetent.

A public link to show me what's important is like a link showing what Saddam Hussein was saying about his military capabilities...useless.

The NEA is the single most powerful and influential labor union in the country today...do you deny this?

I was told that it was "impossible" to teach the way I was doing it, yet w/in six weeks I had kids who'd previously been having trouble adding and subtracting doing immense long-division problems on the board...for fun. Mayhaps, physics is different, I really can't say. And we agree that one cannot individualize teaching to EACH student (and yes, some will never do anything but fall through the cracks...I had one like that, but he was as old fogeys like me say "mentally retarded" though nobody else wanted to admit it).

But I managed to do it with the same number of 5th graders (a bit like herding cats) and high schoolers tend to be at least a bit more mature and more able to sit still. So you are absolutely right about how tough that would be across the boards. Yeah, it would likely be a tougher row to hoe for say, 9th grade boys.

Shop classes are expensive. But kids who are not college-bound for a host of reasons may never be introduced to the trades where they might at least have a hope of making a decent living if they never have a chance to try them out. Interestingly, just at the same time our nation has been phasing out "shop" we've thrown open our borders to 3rd Worlders.

Taxpayers (I happen to be one) are not willing to pay (this is a myth, by the way...far more school funding initiatives PASS than fail) because for decades now we've seen our schools doing essentially nothing. Where I live, our last governor and the legislature where on the schools like white on rice...several were closed down after repeated testing showed they were not teaching. Oh, and you asked about what the NEA wants: to maintain its power. I think the last school choice initiative here had a war chest of a couple of $million$. The NEA dumped something line $20million into defeating it. And I don't live in CA, NY, FL or TX. Our population is around 2 million (excluding illegals). Do the math on that one, then guess which way it went.

I sub teach now and so I am exposed to a lot of different school (albeit in one district). I constantly run into other subs who tell me they are "trying it out" to see if the headaches are worth it for the bennies and the cushy schedule.

Conversely, I run into a fair number of teachers (and subs and student teachers) who clearly are there because they love teaching--or think they will. But I run into even more who are sour old burnouts (I am my self in middle age, by the way) with no enthusiasm and who clearly at minimum dislike their job and their students and are only marking time until the bell rings on retirement day. They need to be fired and everyone knows it and in any other situation would be, but, can you guess why they cannot be? Instead, many are invited into the "dance of the lemons" where they are shifted from one school to the next, passed on to be somebody else's problem for a year or two until they are finally out by retirement.

Does this strike you as a good approach? Here, it's estimated that it will cost a school district $250k/avg. to fire bad teachers...because of the high costs of paperwork no doubt...right?

NO ONE should be teaching who is not there for the love of the work. Too many enter the profession because the hours/bennies : pay strike them as a good deal. Yes, yes, we all hear teachers constantly bemoaning how little they make (here, the avg. pay is $50k/yr for a "senior" teacher...nobody is disputing that 1-3 years teachers are paid like slaves...so what?), but of course they stedfastly refuse to acknowledge the contribution their fantastic bennies package ads to that, estimated (here) to be worth at least another $20k--and please don't now shriek for LIIIINNNKKSSSSSSS!! I dont' have any. Take it or leave, it...I really don't care.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

20th September 2007, 05:12 AM

Tokie seems to be angry about how Tokie was treated in some particular situation that was very life-altering for Tokie. We're not privy to the details, so it is difficult for us to judge one way or the other. I know I've got battle scars (and a fat file in Personnel); I'm guessing Glenn might have a few of his own.

Tokie decided that Tokie's problems were the result of the union, and now appears to be on an anti-union charge. (And whatever the union can't be blamed for was probably Clinton's fault; I don't know.) That charge will end when unions are finally abolished, and not one day before. Hence, it will be a lifelong battle for Tokie. I'm a member of my union but I don't much wave the flag. As they say, there's only one thing worse than the union; and that's no union.

Tokie clearly has teacher-hatred issues. Not terribly exotic. We've all had bad teachers. Most of us try not to paint the entire profession with such a broad brush (or brushes) as seen in Tokie's posts. Most of us have had good teachers, too. Teachers we would not characterize as union stooges cowering under district micromanagement directives or college prof wannabes looking to up their street cred. Jesus, Tokie; where do you come up with this stuff?

And before I forget, please do cite support for your assertion that Math/Science teachers are paid more than their English/Social Studies colleagues. Or is that just something you heard down on the avenues while you were upping your own street cred? Sorry, mon ami; you lost real cred when you threw that one out there. But it's a large nation and I'm eager to learn where us match/sci types are so appreciated.

I'll gladly match you (in advance) with evidence that all teachers K-12 and counselors and speech therapists and librarians score the same scratch on payday (sorry for the lingo; just flexin' my own street cred chops). Anyway, click this (http://www.sanjuan.edu/files/filesystem/Revised_0607_Certificated_Teachers_etc_wCriteria.p df). There's plenty more where that came from.

Fire away! If nothing else, we'll get your post count up.

I always appreciate free interweb forum psychoanalyis and find it to be well worth every penny of its cost!

Thanks!

Life-altering? LOL. No, but irritating yes. Details: I have been a sub for geez...I dunno, a decade. I do something else, by the way and began subbing for "fun" because, frankly, I like kids and I like teaching. I subbed in an ele. school that is what is here, called "at risk" and was asked by the principal to take over a 5th grade class that, in her description, had driven its 1st year teacher to the point of a nervous breakdown.

I agreed to do so, though it would mean handing day-to-day operations of my business (in which at the time I was making somewhere around $17kk/year) to my second in command. I was, frankly, flattered, and took on the job.

I was asked to straighten the class out, get them up to speed (testing showed they had not only learned nothing to the 1/2 way point of that year, but most had indeed LOST ground). I took it on with gusto. Ran my own tests (taken from 1st-8th grade home/private school materials) in every subject developed some fairly simple spreadsheets to slot and track each kid and got down to teaching them.

It was wildly successful. Primarily because while I loosely followed the district curriculum as to where they should be going, I dumped all the touchy-feely, social experimentation crap, and just got down to teaching them. Within weeks, kids who had been having trouble adding were doing long division (mind you...I was told NOT to teach them long division other than as a "concept" because they'd be learning that later...later!?). I taught it to them, anyway...what else was I supposed to teach them after multiplication? By the way, the curriculum for math said that by mid-year, this 5th grade class mind you, should be "demonstrate an understanding (not ability to perform) of more complex addition and subtraction problems."

Does this strike anyone else as a bit....odd?

It did me. I told the district "math guru" (a 22-23 year old girl) that the district math goals were laudable, but the process was nothing more than the same "New Math" they fobbed off on my generatioin in the 60s, crippling so many of us and that no, I would not be teaching "concepts" and hoping that somewhere up the line they'd actually be asked to perform math.

It took a few more weeks, but I was fired. But in the meantime, I'd rekindled a love of learning in all but two of these kids. One of these two left, the other I segregated from the class to keep him from disrupting learning all day long. By the third week he "got it" and figured out ways to simply not be there most of the time (this, by the way, was after two meetings with his parents...mom was insistent that he was an elfin' darlin' while step-dad was rolling his eyes at me when mom wasn't looking).

I tested them weekly (horrors!!!) to gauge MY success and was, frankly, shocked to see how quickly they were catching up. In fact, I was cornered by one of the 6th grade teachers (they shifted classes for "speacials") and asked to "slow down" because he'd discovered some of my kids were, a little more than 1/2 way through 5th grade, working at a low 7th grade level in math (by the way...the last time I took a math class was in 8th grade) and that it would be a "problem" for him the next year.

I was seeing the same sorts of results in their language arts especially and in their geography and science.

They fired me and I went back to my regular job, and now (market changes) make only about $100k a year doing it, but what the hey. I don't find this work anywhere near as enjoyable as teaching and my wife and I decided back then that if I wanted to, I would shift into teaching and we'd bite the bullet economically.

I was never involved with the union. I was there on a long-term sub basis working toward a more permanent position. I was never invited to join the union and was far too busy to bother about the union. I don't mind unions in things like carpentry and electricity and trucking. I think unions do a good job for folks like these and serves a wonderful purpose in our society.

I am a licensed professional in what I do for my "real" job. There is no union. There's no lawyers union, no doctor's union, no software developers union...so why do licensed, educated professionals in THIS profession need a union?

I mean, more power to you on a personal level...your unions does what unions SHOULD do, and that is represent, protect and promote YOUR needs...to the exclusion of the needs of all others. Here's the problem with that: your union is not one that represents truck drivers or carpenters.

One of the primary reasons schools cannot hire the best teachers is because of the union. If schools could advertise for a physics teacher and negotiate his/her salary, then better teachers would be hired...same goes across the board. Instead of the teacher who told me to "slow down" because I was turning out kids whose math abilities would be higher than his own, you'd have teachers reveling in such results and encouraging a teacher below them to do more because they themselves would work with that and continue it.

Removed per rule 12

But any "teacher" who is, as are you so supportive of an union that has been working to systematically de-educate (again: see Stossel) and dumb-down an entire population as a means to its own ends, is probably not the best thing for individual Americans (those not in the union, anyhow) or America on the whole.

You of course will shriek that the reason American students score so badly against those in other countries, esp. in math and science is becaus of "lack of funding!!! Lack of funding!! Bwaaaak!" But our kids also score badly against kids coming out of public school systems in 3rd World countries where per-pupil expenditures are a fraction of what they are even in the poorest districts here.

removed per rule 12

Tokie

Hindmost

20th September 2007, 11:48 AM

I am told people do this out of a love of teaching...then you quit after only seven years because the bennies suck?

Where I live (and where you live may be different) virtually no one (today) outside government employment and the PO has any sort of retirement package even remotely approaching that of teachers.

Here, teachers get 80% of their last year's pay, they get full medical coverage including dental and vision.

Of course, none of this is factored into the equation when teachers are bemoaning their "low pay."

You must, again, work in a very different place from where I live. Here, teachers get approx. 3 mos. off in the summer (usually starting in mid-May, ending in mid-August, two-three weeks at "Holiday" time, a week in the spring, every other legal holiday and of course those "in-service" (we call them golf 'n ski) days.

Here, it typically rounds out to about 8 months on, 4 months off. And yes, when I was a new teacher myself, I worked 16 hour days and all weekend. As in any job, by the 3rd year, if you are still doing this, you are at minimum inefficient and likely incompetent.

A public link to show me what's important is like a link showing what Saddam Hussein was saying about his military capabilities...useless.

The NEA is the single most powerful and influential labor union in the country today...do you deny this?

I was told that it was "impossible" to teach the way I was doing it, yet w/in six weeks I had kids who'd previously been having trouble adding and subtracting doing immense long-division problems on the board...for fun. Mayhaps, physics is different, I really can't say. And we agree that one cannot individualize teaching to EACH student (and yes, some will never do anything but fall through the cracks...I had one like that, but he was as old fogeys like me say "mentally retarded" though nobody else wanted to admit it).

But I managed to do it with the same number of 5th graders (a bit like herding cats) and high schoolers tend to be at least a bit more mature and more able to sit still. So you are absolutely right about how tough that would be across the boards. Yeah, it would likely be a tougher row to hoe for say, 9th grade boys.

Shop classes are expensive. But kids who are not college-bound for a host of reasons may never be introduced to the trades where they might at least have a hope of making a decent living if they never have a chance to try them out. Interestingly, just at the same time our nation has been phasing out "shop" we've thrown open our borders to 3rd Worlders.

Taxpayers (I happen to be one) are not willing to pay (this is a myth, by the way...far more school funding initiatives PASS than fail) because for decades now we've seen our schools doing essentially nothing. Where I live, our last governor and the legislature where on the schools like white on rice...several were closed down after repeated testing showed they were not teaching. Oh, and you asked about what the NEA wants: to maintain its power. I think the last school choice initiative here had a war chest of a couple of $million$. The NEA dumped something line $20million into defeating it. And I don't live in CA, NY, FL or TX. Our population is around 2 million (excluding illegals). Do the math on that one, then guess which way it went.

I sub teach now and so I am exposed to a lot of different school (albeit in one district). I constantly run into other subs who tell me they are "trying it out" to see if the headaches are worth it for the bennies and the cushy schedule.

Conversely, I run into a fair number of teachers (and subs and student teachers) who clearly are there because they love teaching--or think they will. But I run into even more who are sour old burnouts (I am my self in middle age, by the way) with no enthusiasm and who clearly at minimum dislike their job and their students and are only marking time until the bell rings on retirement day. They need to be fired and everyone knows it and in any other situation would be, but, can you guess why they cannot be? Instead, many are invited into the "dance of the lemons" where they are shifted from one school to the next, passed on to be somebody else's problem for a year or two until they are finally out by retirement.

Does this strike you as a good approach? Here, it's estimated that it will cost a school district $250k/avg. to fire bad teachers...because of the high costs of paperwork no doubt...right?

NO ONE should be teaching who is not there for the love of the work. Too many enter the profession because the hours/bennies : pay strike them as a good deal. Yes, yes, we all hear teachers constantly bemoaning how little they make (here, the avg. pay is $50k/yr for a "senior" teacher...nobody is disputing that 1-3 years teachers are paid like slaves...so what?), but of course they stedfastly refuse to acknowledge the contribution their fantastic bennies package ads to that, estimated (here) to be worth at least another $20k--and please don't now shriek for LIIIINNNKKSSSSSSS!! I dont' have any. Take it or leave, it...I really don't care.

Tokie

In teaching, I consider the benefits poor with the exception of health--which are reasonable.

One of the reasons I quit was due to the fact that I would lose 30-40% of my social security benefits if I vested in my teaching pension...since I am older, my teaching pension would have been very limited. (there are other reasons) One must teach for about 30-35 years to get a reasonable pension...compared to other civil service positions such the typical police department where in 20 years a full 80% pension is received. In addition, teaching does not have matching funds in a 401k program--just a limited 403 program. There is very limited personal time and very poor maternity benefits. And typically, limited sick days and no long term disability. Here, teacher lose health benefits after they retire...or they can pay the cost--which is high.

Pilots, nurses, police and other professions have unions. I agree that the NEA is a strong union, but do not have data to suggest the strongest. If you look at benefits vs time over the past 30 years, you can see the need for a teaching union...and by the way...I am not in favor of unions in general. They become needed when management is exploitive. Teachers used to get fired just for getting pregnant.

I agree old burned out teachers should be fired...or given a golden handshake...however, the cost to fire anyone today is expensive whether they are teachers or not.

Every teacher did inservice at my school and no one ever played golf. We needed to work to get those CEUs.

The eight month number for a school year doesn't add up. By law, public schools must be 180 days long plus extra days for teachers. My district had 187--many districts have around 200 days. There is one week each for winter and spring break. About one and a half weeks around xmas and then normal holidays typical of industry. I got out of school around june 21 and started back about august 27...that's just over 2 months in summer. A typical work year in industry is about 250 days...take off about 3 weeks for vacation and it comes to about 235 or so. If I look at my school year, 187 days plus working at least 30 days on weekends and then add in evenings, teaching is not really a big time saver. Now, you mentioned that I was likely incompetant. Well, whether in my first year or 101st year, a stack of lab reports takes about 8 hours to grade. Couple that with homework and tests and class improvements...and this last year when my school went through accredidation, I worked a bunch--for half the pay I used to make.

And finally, the reason I think students in the US don't do as well--and I have posted this before--is due the lack of an education culture in the US. Only when the general public supports education from a cultural standpoint--i.e. it becomes cool to get an education--will scores improve. There's more to this, but I don't feel like going into it.

Since you are starting in with ad hominems against me (and Phyz), this will be my last post on this topic.

glenn

phyz

20th September 2007, 01:45 PM

Tokenconservative

20th September 2007, 02:06 PM

In teaching, I consider the benefits poor with the exception of health--which are reasonable.

One of the reasons I quit was due to the fact that I would lose 30-40% of my social security benefits if I vested in my teaching pension...since I am older, my teaching pension would have been very limited. (there are other reasons) One must teach for about 30-35 years to get a reasonable pension...compared to other civil service positions such the typical police department where in 20 years a full 80% pension is received. In addition, teaching does not have matching funds in a 401k program--just a limited 403 program. There is very limited personal time and very poor maternity benefits. And typically, limited sick days and no long term disability. Here, teacher lose health benefits after they retire...or they can pay the cost--which is high.

Pilots, nurses, police and other professions have unions. I agree that the NEA is a strong union, but do not have data to suggest the strongest. If you look at benefits vs time over the past 30 years, you can see the need for a teaching union...and by the way...I am not in favor of unions in general. They become needed when management is exploitive. Teachers used to get fired just for getting pregnant.

I agree old burned out teachers should be fired...or given a golden handshake...however, the cost to fire anyone today is expensive whether they are teachers or not.

Every teacher did inservice at my school and no one ever played golf. We needed to work to get those CEUs.

The eight month number for a school year doesn't add up. By law, public schools must be 180 days long plus extra days for teachers. My district had 187--many districts have around 200 days. There is one week each for winter and spring break. About one and a half weeks around xmas and then normal holidays typical of industry. I got out of school around june 21 and started back about august 27...that's just over 2 months in summer. A typical work year in industry is about 250 days...take off about 3 weeks for vacation and it comes to about 235 or so. If I look at my school year, 187 days plus working at least 30 days on weekends and then add in evenings, teaching is not really a big time saver. Now, you mentioned that I was likely incompetant. Well, whether in my first year or 101st year, a stack of lab reports takes about 8 hours to grade. Couple that with homework and tests and class improvements...and this last year when my school went through accredidation, I worked a bunch--for half the pay I used to make.

And finally, the reason I think students in the US don't do as well--and I have posted this before--is due the lack of an education culture in the US. Only when the general public supports education from a cultural standpoint--i.e. it becomes cool to get an education--will scores improve. There's more to this, but I don't feel like going into it.

Since you are starting in with ad hominems against me (and Phyz), this will be my last post on this topic.

glenn

I don't start with ad homs, but I do join in after they've been leveled at me, and my worthy adversaries running away after having done so, claiming the high ground(!) is something I am familiar with.

Cops and soldiers get to retire earlier than teachers for some pretty good reasons. A 30 year career is not unusual. Most people in other industries work that long and retire with only whatever they've socked away and social security, these days.

It's not 1977...it's 2007.

NEA is consistently the largest single PAC contributor to the DNC and has been for at least a decade, probably longer.

That makes them powerful, even if you don't believe good, solid, Dem politicians can be bought.

SOME pilots, nurses, cops etc. are in unions ALL teachers are. Period.

No, I can't see the benefits in this case of union teachers. How has it benefitted students? Oh...sorry, fergotted you isn't talkin' at me nomore.

When I first started doing what I do, it took me 4-6 hours to do an "average" case. Now, the same thing takes me maybe an hour.

Oh..THAT's the ad hom!? LOL. I did not call YOU incompetent (touchy!) I said any teacher still working the same 16 hour days he/she did as a first year teacher in their 3rd or 7th or 20 year is LIKELY incompetent. I suppose there are some who are workaholics or just like to pile it on themselves. Most, after the initial breakin periods, as with anyone else, learn how to better manage their time, regardless of how long this, that or the other thing takes.

When education "professionals" start turning out a quality product (educated students) then the American public will HAVE something to support. Right now, education is about jobs for teachers, not educating kids.

Tokie

phyz

20th September 2007, 03:24 PM

Tokenconservative

23rd September 2007, 06:46 AM

So you might gather your thoughts and start a thread about whatever the point is you're trying to make here. You'll have access to more people interested in all things Education. Just us physics geeks here. It appears your message is intended for a wider audience.

I always find this sort of approach at minimum, puzzling: a fellow makes comments/assertions, whatever, and when someone comments back, he then runs around shrieking, "off-topic!!! Off-topic!!!" when it was he, in the first place, who made the comments, etc., that elicited a direct reply to um...well, those comments.

Very puzzling.

I works in some minds I guess, but I always find it...difficult to comprehend.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

23rd September 2007, 06:48 AM

Anyway, the thing about Physics First was...?

(We seem to have tattered the thread--and I say that as one with some responsibility for the tattering.)

If there is more to be said on the subject, let it be said. Otherwise, Peace Out!

Not much left to be said. I think we can all agree that American (and it seems Canadian, too) public schools approach the teaching of science bass-ackwards.

No surprises there (in the US...kinda surprised me about Canada, tho), since that's the approach they take to just about every other subject, too.

Tokie

Miss Anthrope

24th September 2007, 10:51 AM

Stop personalizing the discussion. Rule 12 folks.

athon

24th September 2007, 10:18 PM

Wow. Education in America sounds so complicated. Do you really mean you do only one science each year at school? Are the other subjects also taught like that?

Unfortunately it seems to be the case.

I'm currently teaching in a school in Australia where we basically teach to a unit, not a discipline. The downside is that kids don't really know what 'physics' is until late secondary school. The upside is that they learn a heap of physics-based skills and learn to relate them to biology and chemistry, which is all taught together.

For example, I'm in the middle of a year nine unit focussing on what damage can be done to a human body. We started by looking at the nervous system, then some organic chemistry (focussing on alcohol and fermentation, with a side-trip looking at fractional distillation and how we can apply that to separation techniques) and next term we'll look at physics in a sense of ballistics and car accidents. The kids are seriously stoked.

Splitting science into disciplines for these kids bored the hell out of them and removed the relevance. Now they are much more eagre to apply what they are learning. I couldn't imagine now doing it any other way.

Athon

athon

24th September 2007, 10:38 PM

Tokenconservative

25th September 2007, 03:59 AM

So you might gather your thoughts and start a thread about whatever the point is you're trying to make here. You'll have access to more people interested in all things Education. Just us physics geeks here. It appears your message is intended for a wider audience.

While I appreciate your need to attempt to make me go home and play by myself, Phyz....um, I am only following this thread where it has taken us.

If, as you seem to be saying this is a "science teachers only" forum, perhaps that caveat should've been made more clear in the OP?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

25th September 2007, 04:09 AM

Unfortunately it seems to be the case.

I'm currently teaching in a school in Australia where we basically teach to a unit, not a discipline. The downside is that kids don't really know what 'physics' is until late secondary school. The upside is that they learn a heap of physics-based skills and learn to relate them to biology and chemistry, which is all taught together.

For example, I'm in the middle of a year nine unit focussing on what damage can be done to a human body. We started by looking at the nervous system, then some organic chemistry (focussing on alcohol and fermentation, with a side-trip looking at fractional distillation and how we can apply that to separation techniques) and next term we'll look at physics in a sense of ballistics and car accidents. The kids are seriously stoked.

Splitting science into disciplines for these kids bored the hell out of them and removed the relevance. Now they are much more eagre to apply what they are learning. I couldn't imagine now doing it any other way.

Athon

LOL. It's much worse than you can even imagine.

Yes, in American public schools these three disciplines are treated as seperate animals entirely. You can imagine the problems this causes...how does one even teach biology with no basis in physics and chemistry?

Well, one can't. Which is why the first month of my youngest's "Honors" biology class (10th grade--ages 15-16, tho she is only 14) has been taken up with "review" of...well, I'll let you guess what they had to review.

I can buy teaching bio and chem together...that makes sense. But a solid foundation in physics is needed...FIRST!

And while I cannot say (nor do I really care) that this approach "bores" kids, what it does do quite nicely in American schools (which some with tinfoil hats--like me--believe is the purpose) is to so befuddle the average kid as to the workings of these things, as to cause them to lose interest entirely.

Which is part 'n parcel of why the USA, with technological and scientific innovations like the lightbulb and telepone and the Salk vaccine and breast implants (what!? That's an important medical breakthrough!!) under our belts, is today routinely bested in science in international testing by places such as Andorra and Sri Lanka.

Again, nothing happens by accident. This state of affairs has been thus for decades. We sent men to the moon, but our best "education professionals" can't figure out why so many American kids are scientifically illiterate?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

25th September 2007, 04:16 AM

When it comes to teaching abstract concepts to younger students, one always needs to take care that it is an understanding of a topic they are getting and not the ability to just repeat a task. The same goes with mathematics - I can teach any kid to plug in numbers and parrot an answer, but it's tougher assessing an understanding from them.

I've seen this happen quite a few times with younger students who claim to already understand something a parent or another teacher has told them. I start off incredibly impressed by their claims, however quickly find that they've merely been taught a few simple tricks outside of a direct context. The problem is that children younger than about 12 rarely have a good grasp of abstract concepts. It's little more than good ol' Piaget's discoveries - concrete skills develop first and abstract later. Some kids never fully get abstract thinking skills down pat.

Physics, being full of a lot of less than concrete concepts, is tough to teach beyond a few fundamental concepts to any child who has not developed abstract thinking. You'll always get a few sharp kids picking up the heavier concepts, but this is not all that common.

Athon

Indeed. But I'd wager it's even more difficult to teach the next step/level in any subject without first at least introducing a student to the ideas, terms, etc. of the step that comes before.

It's not necessary to know how a refrigerator works in order to understand that if you put your soup in there it will get cold. Later, you can delve into exactly why that happens.

In America (and I experienced this first-hand as a teacher with a district curriculum cited as one of "the best" in the country) where I was to teach 10-11 year olds the "concepts" of multiplying and dividing numbers, but stay away from actually having them engage themselves in multiplying and dividing numbers (yes...I know how this sounds to people from elsewhere: why the hell are you only just teaching kids that age how to do this...shouldn't they have learned it 2-3 years before!?).

Indeed, I was told very directly by my team leader and "mentor" that I was to stop having them do so many multiplication and division problems (my approach: have them do so many of these it becomes automatic...and it did for most of them) and move on to the nonsensical "concept-based math" in our Rainforest Math curriculum.

I...chose not to.

Tokie

Dorman

25th September 2007, 06:17 AM

Tokenconservative

25th September 2007, 02:35 PM

Coming back to the point some have raised earlier: why does one need to teach the science subjects one per year ? This compels the teachers to water-down the syllabus of the subject to be taught in a lower grade, and also gives rise to the problem of discontinuity: If the last time I learnt physics was in 9th grade (and that too some rather elementary stuff since I did not know the requisite math), how would I cope up with college level physics ? Or will that also have to be watered down ?

I would think that teaching physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics in parallel would enable one to introduce concepts in each subject slowly over a period of many years. Also, one can then prepare the syllabi such that simple concepts are taught in grade n, slightly more difficult concepts or concepts that need some knowledge from the other sciences are taught in grade n+1, etc. This would also retain continuity: the chemistry I learn is split over 4 years, but I learn some chemistry every year, so I do not lose touch.

This policy is definitely followed in some other countries. Has this been seriously tried in US ? Perhaps in some private schools ? (I am rather unfamiliar with the US school system).

You've pretty much encapsulated American public education here. "Watered down" is one way of putting it "dumb down" is another. This is PRECISELY what I encountered as a 5th grade (10-11 yr-olds). I was told I was teaching them "too much" math and that this was a threat to the next-year teacher.

While more general study science and math courses in colleges have also been watered down to deal with this, "real" such courses have not been and yes, it's a HUGE problem, and not just in science and math. Remedial courses at college are a cottage industry of colleges and an enormous money-maker for them. The truly funny thing (and not in a "ha-ha" way) is that now "education professionals" here are pushing very, very hard to force kids to start school even earlier...

A very famous TV consumer reporter here found in a study he did that in general, the longer you attend an American public school, the more ignorant you become.

Your approach would also work, but here, we've broken the three out, and teach them exactly backward. The reason we do this, regardless of all the harrumphing to the contrary in "professional" education circles, is because this is easier on...teachers. Teacher who, I remind you, were themselves educated in the same system, and who, typically, graduated in the bottom quintile of their college class.

Tokie