When you teach a subject like physics, it's inevitable for people, students and adults alike, to imply or flat-out state that the subject matter isn't really important for most people. If I had a dime for every teacher colleague of mine who has told me, "Well, I never even took physics!" I'd have... well, maybe a dollar and a half.
I have told my students before that whether they learn to enjoy physics or not, what I really want them to learn from my class is the feeling of trying something hard and succeeding at it. I want them to remember that their effort paid off. I want them to remember building something that they never thought would work (like a LED circuit with homemade paper-clip switches), or creating something that failed miserably a half dozen times before it finally did work (like a Rube Goldberg Machine).
Last year I had a student who told me she never understood how to use a formula to solve problems before she took my class. She will probably never need to calculate kinetic energy again, or maybe not even use the Find-Given-Solution template to solve anything else. But I hope she remembers the process of figuring out what she has and what she needs and planning the steps to get there. I hope she remembers what it feels like to look at a page that looks like gibberish one week, and the feeling of each word and variable and symbol slowly coming into focus and making sense. I hope she remembers that she can learn to know and do things she may never have expected to.
Well said! I think this should be one of the goals of school regardless of the subject being taught - Learning how to problem solve and take risks. I think many students would be surprised what they can do if they just try, especially if they don't succeed right away.
ReplyDeleteYes! The big question, of course, is how do you convince a kid to keep trying when they've had years of school experience showing them that trying isn't worth it.
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