Letters
Using Physical Science as an Effective Tool to Help Us Better Educate
Individuals Versus Group Processing
To the Editor:
Improvement in the quality of education will be a major factor in determining
our future as a nation. What are we willing to do in the U.S. to really
improve education, and particularly science education? What are we failing
to do that should be done? Various studies on education have indicated
that America's children received a better education fifty years ago than
they do today. If education did a better job in the past, what has caused
the deterioration of education to its present condition? What are the real
basics which play a part in becoming educated? That which determines more
than anything else whether or not an individual is going to succeed as
a student depends on the individual's eagerness to learn and the individual's
willingness to be completely involved in doing what needs to be done, and
this is typically closely associated with strong family life and parental
concern.
We need to keep in mind that gifted students who are truly motivated
to learn will succeed no matter what type of support is given by the educational
system. Therefore, evaluation of improvement in the educational process
must be determined by the progress shown by average and below-average students.
These are the students who need more motivation and more individual help.
I believe that one of the keys is that each student must be taught according
to his or her ability within the framework of what needs to be achieved
in each grade level. Eagerness to learn is greatly enhanced when students
have the opportunity to investigate and find out for themselves. Future
success in any type of human endeavor depends mostly on what a student
continues to do on his or her own time in addition to what is required
at school. This effort is strengthened when there is an eagerness to learn.
We need to eliminate the practice of equalization, the mass processing
of all students according to a model of what has been determined as the
level of the average student's capability. This method ignores the different
abilities and interests of students and provides a mediocre and limited
type of education for students. Over the last three decades or so, students
have become adept at memorizing and passing tests but haven't developed,
as they should, their ability to think or to write. As a result, these
students are not prepared to function at the college or university level
and are also limited in terms of being able to function properly in society.
In many cases, the memorization syndrome is continued and even enhanced
in universities and colleges.
Many of my physical science colleagues at BYU have told me that in the
last few years more and more of their students lack the ability to think
and write properly, and they try to get by through memorizing what is needed
to pass tests. The over emphasis in public schools, and in many instances
in universities and colleges, on passing tests, usually accomplished by
memorization, has had a debilitating effect on learning science, especially
physics. Many professors have seen a need to reduce and simplify what they
require of their students now because the students don't have the capability
to do what has been done in the past. Emphasis must be placed on the need
to educate individuals instead of educating by group processing so that
each individual learns how to think and is able to report orally or in
writing what he or she has learned.
I believe that physical science teachers at all levels of education have
the opportunity to be primary catalysts in this process, because physical
science courses, more than any other basic courses, provide numerous opportunities
for students to investigate and learn for themselves. Physical science
courses provide hands-on experience with the opportunity to express orally
and in writing what has been observed and what it may mean. We must take
full advantage of these opportunities to help our students think for themselves
and optimize their individual potentials.
Alvin K. Benson
Department of Geophysics and Geology
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Communication Skills
To the Editor:
I have been motivated, reading the summer issue of the FEd, to give some
reflections about the problem of the so-called "communication skills" of
physicists. For 28 years I have been professor of the Faculty of Physics
at the University of Havana, Cuba and I have worked with other colleagues
conceiving the curriculum of Physics. I can say that in our experience
we make an effort to develop the skills in our students to communicate
their results, because research work, participation in seminars, and in
scientific events have an important weight in the curriculum. And we really
reach the desired result in this way.
Nevertheless, I agree that there is a lack in our professionals if we
talk about the "social communication skills" and I wonder what we can do
in order to obtain that our students are more open and interacting with
the surrounding social media. I consider that these are precisely the communication
skills that we need to improve in our students in order to have in the
future a physics community which will be more closely related with the
society, as other professionals are now. My opinion is that we must include
in the curriculum some courses dealing with relations between people, management,
etc.
I ask you to include this letter in your next issue, because I would
like to exchange experiences and opinions with other colleagues of the
Forum on Education and of the APS in general. I will receive any opinion
with pleasure.
Prof. Jose Marin-Antuna
Faculty of Physics
University of Havana
San Lazaro y L.
Habana-4, Cuba
Phone: (537) 783266, (537) 701506, or (537) 786150
Fax: (537) 333758 or (537) 335774.
email: vrd@comuh.uh.cu
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