Re: Physics teacher begs for his subject back: An open letter to AQA and The Department of Education. watering down standards. Wot about da kidz?

In article <4669d55c$0$8711$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mike Coon <mjcoon@@connectfee.co.uk> wrote:
[...] From the
description, that course and exam is no foundation for taking the subject
further in any depth. So what are Universities going to do? I concede that
was about GCSE, and perhaps that is aimed only at students who will not go
on to tertiary education. [...]

With bright students taking, say, 10 GCSEs, 4 A-levels, and
1 degree subject, it's not hard to see that most GCSEs are inevitably
dealing *primarily* with students who are not going to continue that
subject to A-level, and A-levels similarly with students who are not
going to continue that subject in HE. There is a difficult balance
to be struck between the GCSE physics that we would like bright arts
students to *know* [being very possibly the last science they will
ever learn in their lives] and the GCSE physics that serves as an
*advertisement* to bright scientists, to tempt them and enthuse them
into doing physics to A-level and beyond.

If you want historians, musicians and lawyers to understand
global warming, nuclear energy, and so on [and statistics, genetics,
....] then that is the material that has to be presented at GCSE; and
while it should not be dumbed-down beyond recognition, nor should it
be presented in a way that may suit scientists but repels historians.

Equally [and this seems to be the principal worry of the OP]
it should not be presented in a way that repels scientists. We have
to find material that interests everyone, that can be presented in a
scientific and rigorous way, but that can also be understood in a
qualitative way. We need to present the great sweeps of ideas, but
also the relevance to everyday life, and the political implications.
It's not easy!

One problem is that designing syllabuses and exams -- esp
*practice* exams that are never going to matter -- is a thankless
and ill-recognised task. I have, luckily, rarely had to design a
syllabus; but I have set something like 150 exams over the years.
For maths, and some other subjects, it takes around a working week
to set one paper. This is not understood by those in subjects
where the exam paper consists merely of six essay titles. Nor is
it understood by those who set their maths [or physics or chemistry]
exams in a couple of hours, thereby setting a rubbish paper with
mistakes all over the place, either for the unfortunate students to
trip over, or for more conscientious colleagues to find and correct.
It just is not easy; even the most experienced setter still often
gets it wrong; no-one ever comes up to you and says "Gosh, that was
a well-set exam", but they are quick to criticise the mistakes.

Similarly, the practical application of maths (calculus, say) in physics is
surely one of the crucial synergies in science. [...]

Absolutely right. However, you need to be clear about what
sort of calculus is needed for GCSE or A-level. The general concepts
of rate of change, summation and limiting processes are ideas that
ought to be understood by every bright person. The derivative of
arctan is rather less vital. The trouble is that these discussions
are invariably hi-jacked by the "In my day, we all knew XXX" brigade.
For a start, this is actually true for remarkably few XXX. In a
world which broadly cannot multiply 7 by 9, and can even less divide
a half by a quarter, XXX includes no calculus, algebra, Pythagoras,
quadratic equations, history, Shakespeare, chemistry, .... Having
a couple of lessons on these things does not impart knowledge; nor
does putting them on the GCSE syllabus.

But probably more importantly, very little XXX is truly needed
at the start of a relevant degree. Many degree subjects already start
from scratch [medicine, law, psychology, economics, ...], and merely
require evidence of relevant intelligence. Maths could perfectly well
be taught the same way -- given bright, enthusiastic students, we could
easily cover the whole of secondary-school maths from age 11 up to
A-level in a term or so, with the added advantage that they would all
have been taught the same things in the same way, and with some hope
that it would have been taught correctly [and so replacing the term
or so that we currently spend bringing everyone from random starting
points to a common base and undoing the harm done at school]. The
problem for us would be trying to identify these students; and the
problem for engineering and physics departments is that they want
their students to know lots of maths without having to spend valuable
engineering/physics time on it.

But if it could be done, without people harping on about "In
my day, ...", it would be great. We would have a population that had
been taught zillions of important and interesting things while they
were at school, were enthusiastic about education and learning things,
and would take those attitudes into HE. Sadly, it's not going to
happen any time soon .... The bean counters always win.

--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
anw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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