Physics for Barmaids:
A Look at the Pedagogy and History of Physics in Modern America
Gabriela Montelongo
University of Texas at El Paso
Albert Einstein set forth the idea that “[i]t should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid”, in the early twentieth century. This seemingly inane comment was made off-hand by a man who, by all means, could say this, because he did intimately understand the laws of physics, but who was, for all his audacity, completely right. The idea that physics should be a subject easily learned is from the prospective of the average reinforced through years of a misplaced belief that physics is solely student an accurate statement, but which has been twisted into a fallacy by the general public, a canard which has been a subject for the “nerds” and “geniuses” of the world. In reality, physics is just another subject available to students, which is studied the same as any other, through rough memorization, a little mathematics, and a rudimentary understanding of concepts. Which then begs the question why the physics department in the public school system, secondary education especially, is so lacking in qualified teachers? Physics all around America is becoming a dying subject to high school attendees, a drastic change from what used to be the norm in post World War II America. In the hope of restoring interest of the physics department, organizations have become devoted to the even distribution and adequate teaching of the subject, but even then students are wary of taking the subject, this is due in part to the negative connotation attached to present day physics as opposed to the interest in physics as a tangible, applied and engineered powerhouse it was regarded as during the World Wars and the nuclear scare thereafter. With little hope of another world war to refocus America’s attention to physics, school districts and science based organizations are left with little choice but to keep trying to reinstitute an interest in physics in Americans at a young age.
In order to examine and compare the spread of physics in post war America, which was helped mainly by the dispersion of Feynman’s diagrams, a study in understanding is needed. How much of what is taught to students is really understood? Rote learning, or memorization, is knowledge stored into the memory that does not have a connection established with what is already processed as the “mental property” (Nachtigall, 1990). The student memorizes information without being made conscious of existing data that leads to the “new” information that they already know; knowledge gained this way is called ‘declarative knowledge’ (DK). Knowledge that students know because they can track the mental progression that leads them to specific conclusions is called ‘procedural knowledge’ (PK) (Nachtigall, 1990). Physics is a science made up of PK, the entire idea behind physics is finding ways to understand the way the world works, so by proxy physics should be a class easily learned. The problem in the school districts is not that physics is too difficult to understand, but that physics is very hard to teach. In a study conducted at Bern University, several groups of teachers were instructed to teach groups of students physics. The results showed that the group of teachers who had been especially trained on the material they taught was a combination of information developed by the teachers and outside publications. The other experimental groups were given the same criteria but not the specialized training, and a control groups was not given any specific criteria to teach the classes with. The control group was shown in the results to have comprehended little more than a half of what the other groups did, and while the specialized material did improve the grades and comprehension levels of the students with teachers not given the training, the results of the students in the first experimental group showed to still have at least a 10% increase in PK (Labudden, et al.,2000). This cements a foothold of inadequate teachers as a cause of the physics deprived door of modern America.
America has faced a shortage of adequate physics teachers before. During the Second World War, the American government lured away physicists from colleges with promises of better pay, health care and a chance to delve into experimental physics on an unheard of level of theoretical science and infamy for advancements in nuclear physics. The government’s war time efforts to develop functional weapons put an obvious drain on the science talent of colleges and students fresh from school with graduate degrees where easily swayed by the comforts not offered by schools interested in filling teaching positions. This solved America’s need for technology during the war, but afterwards as the country made an effort to right itself and during the Cold War, the lack of scientists became apparent on a national level. Afraid of an impending attack from the Soviet Union and content with the privileges awarded to them through their high paying jobs, government research facilities became saturated with scientists while universities lost more and more science professors who could adequately teach the subject. The American government, always on the constant look out for more scientists to add to their ranks, noticed the decrease in competent physicists and in response President Truman created the President’s Scientific Research Board in 1946 (DeBoer, 1991). The board observed the reasons as to why the government research facilities where more popular than university positions, and concluded that in order to have more adept professors the colleges would need larger pay for teachers and better equipment to experiment with. Even though the board understood that:
The immediate solution to the problem of shortage of scientists was perceived to lie in making the job of college of science faculty more attractive, the board also recognizedthe importance of providing a general science education for all students, K-12 and beyond ( DeBoer, 1991, p.130-131)
To help bring this problem to light, the board asked the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for assistance. In response the AAAS’s Cooperative Committee on the Teaching of Science and Mathematics issued a report entitled”The Present Effectiveness of Our Schools in the Training of Scientists” which focused on the lack of students taking science courses, physical science in particular, secondary education, and too few science teachers available to do a good job with those who did want to take the courses. In an attempt to rectify this, the board suggested that it be made mandatory that students take three additional years of specialized science after an initial year of generalized science.
Although the problems in the report were acknowledged not much was done to help resolve the issue of unqualified teachers. Several years latter another report was published suggesting a special honors class for advanced students to learn science in the hopes that by making the sciences more exclusive more students would strive to join them. Around the same time the US announced the great space race with Russia. With a new project to keep America interested in science, the special honors classes started to fill up and student attendance in physics and chemistry grew.
Physics has been the bond between the minds of countries for decades, able to push past differences in the promise of furthering their knowledge, countries have competed with America to show not only friendly comradely interest, but to incite excitement in the science for decades. Feynman’s diagrams for example, released to the world shortly after the end of World War II, was very effective in drawing in the interest of foreign countries. Together, physicists around the world came together, regardless of previous hostilities, to puzzle over the doodles of one brilliant college professor (Kaiser, et al., 2005). Feynman’s diagrams started out as a way for “simplifying lengthy calculations in one area of physics – quantum electrodynamics” (Kaiser, 2005), which after being published in 1948 where quickly spread and discussed worldwide, but were so complex and abstract in their thinking and structure that no one could completely understand them. Nations joined rank with America and puzzled over the strange drawings until Feynman, himself, and a college by the name of Dyson published a report on the “rules” behind the diagrams, captivated by the new scientific discoveries unfolding beneath them, America showed an exponential increase in student attendance in secondary education science courses (DeBoer, 1991).
A lack of proper teaching is not the only concern in current American physics, a recent study done of physics classes around the country shows that the availability of classes are not evenly distributed. More commonly than not, the wealthier urbanized parts of cities have schools which offer specialized science courses, including but not limited to physics, anatomy, and chemistry, while poorer and more urban schools have little to no specialized science classes (Kelly, 2008). Without an even distribution of science throughout the country, America can hardly hope to raise the cognitive understanding of physics to students, leaving the nation with a deficit of scientific intelligence in comparison to other countries.
America is in a mental depression in the subjects of specialized sciences and mathematics, a lack of interest that begins in secondary education, due to the negative connotation attached to the subject, a lack of public interest, lack of adequate teachers, and a lack of proper distribution of science courses and material within the nation. In order to reignite a passion for science, America should look into its own past peek public curiosity with another national project, should raise the pay and benefits for teachers in specialized science courses, and should set aside time and money for a serious look into redistributing science and mathematics courses more evenly to the country.
DeBoer, G. E. (1991) A history of ideas in science education: Implications for practice. University of Texas at El Paso. Teachers College Press.
Kaiser, D. (2005) Drawing theories apart: The dispersion of Feynman diagrams in postwar physics. Googlescholar. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_wz9JZvBt78C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=q %3D+ppedagog+physics++America+1950&ots=PYHjXz5zEe&sig=4hqKlkGDPiLZ5qq VhLYoIQKjuoI#v=onepage&q&f=false
Kaiser, D. (2005) Pedagogy and the practice of science. University of Texas at El Paso. MIT Press.
Labudden, P. et al. (2000) Girls and physics: Teaching and learning strategies tested by classroom interventions in grade 11. 22(2), 143-157.
Nachtigall, D. K. (1990) What does understanding mean? In Kühnelt, H. (Ed.), Interdisciplinary aspects of physics education (1-2). University of Texas at El Paso: World Scientific Publishing Co.
Owen, S., et al. (2008) Teaching physics: Students’ attitudes toward different learning activities. Research in science & technological education,26 (2), 113-128. DOI: 10.1080/02635140802036734.
Kelly, A. M. (2008) Inequities in physics access and enrollment in urban schools. City University of New York: American Institute of Physics.
