About the visuals About the text To create the front cover I visited my sixth form and asked students to partake in squishing their faces onto a scanner bed, the images are meant to reflect the pressures of academic success. Within the zine I used different medias to create texture which I then scanned in to manipulate digitally. The orb like structures were created with atoms in mind, using wire and cut and pasting the images. The bright collage was created by screen printing and digitally layering and manipulating the outcomes, I was inspired by quantum physics and the concept of quarks within protons within atoms within material. Lastly I wanted to evoke the feeling of energy, I chose to use a long exposure to capture the movement of light flowing to reflect energy as it flows from a source to an output within a circuit.
Studying Science is something in the UK that we’re required to study from the beginning of our school lives up until the end of GCSE, that’s a lot of science. If you wish to continue within the subject you may opt to into further education, higher education and so on. Having studied physics up to the end of A-level I have formed my own opinion of the education system in regards to the education of physics. Within this essay I speak about my experiences as well as others, discussing how improvements could be made and how important pioneering studying of the sciences is.
The Fault in Our Physics
There is a common conception about the educational system’s failings in regards to the teaching of physics throughout school. I have chosen to address the topic physics within the educational system because, having experienced the subject first hand, I want to draw attention to the lack of accessibility that I think the subject holds within the state educational system. I have interviewed people on their experiences to further find out about their experiences of learning this subject, in order to better understand the issues, how accessibility needs to be improved upon and how this could be achieved. I have focus my research towards people’s experiences of the accessibility of physics from pre-school through to further education, recording interviews and creating accounts of individual’s views, in order to build a picture that represents wider views about the topic. To truly understand what is meant by the concept of something being accessible I looked to the Oxford Dictionary, which describes accessibility as “ease of access”, with synonyms including “availability, approachability, obtainability, understandability, penetrability and approachability”, all words that I argue few would instantly associate with their experiences of learning physics at school. I spoke to people aged between 18 and 25 who would have recent experience of the teaching styles within school, collecting data both by an online survey and by speaking to classmates and colleagues to gain statistics as well as personal accounts. During my research I wanted to ground my findings from the beginning of most people’s experience with physics education; preschool. This is when most students are first introduced to science within their classes, and thus it is this time that is the foundation of their relationship with physics. “Children become sensitive to certain causal principles and mechanisms from an early age” (Shultz and Kestenbaum, 1985) (Gur, C. 2011) and therefore it is important for information to be imparted clearly from an early stage of education. Estach and Fried (2005) list and explain the reasons to introduce physics to children at a young age, one reason being that; “early exposure to scientific phenomena leads to better understanding of the scientific concepts studied formally later”. Physics is introduced at first through simple observation using equipment like magnets and magnifying glasses. The journal article “Physics in Preschool Education” discusses how preschool students learn in regards to physics, explaining Piaget’s theory. It states that; “young children learn more about objects not by observing and describing them but by acting on them materially and mentally, and observing the objects’ reactions.” (Kamii, C. Lee-Katz, L. 1979) This suggests therefore that young children learn best through actions; experiencing the information rather than just looking at the information and observing. As stated in Cognition in Children; “working out how an event was caused enables them to understand the event itself”
(Goswami, U. 1998) providing more developed knowledge, and encouraging the abilities to problem solve and communicate concepts. I think that there is a lot to be said about this style of education, and that it causes the imparted information to be a lot more accessible and therefore more easily understood. This can then be further built upon with teaching physics through content that becomes gradually more advanced as one progresses through the educational system (Woodard, C and Davitt, R, 1987). A particularly poignant finding was that 23% of people were made to feel stupid when studying physics, while the majority of those asked in my survey (69%) admitted that they were made to feel stupid at one time. One person expressed; “The teacher focused on the geniuses in the class and no one else” – an experience that I personally found to be true while studying physics at A-level. Many of my friends studying physics, who found it challenging and perhaps didn’t enjoy the subject, also expressed that from a young age they had been told that they weren’t ‘science people.’ I find this to be a very negative attitude, which I think should never be impressed upon a child due to the long term effects it may have throughout their academic career. Many people related their experiences of the subject with the teachers they had, and explained the significant effect that professors have on each individual’s experience of learning the subject. For example one interviewee reflected “It depends who my professor was. I had a really good one and it was really interesting getting to know about this field. If the professor is not good it just gets really hard to follow and you don’t see the point in it.” This particular interviewee enjoyed their professor’s teachings “because they made clear explanations and used good examples which helped to understand it.” Another interviewee also appreciated their studies with a physics teacher “because he explained each step of each theory so it all came together in the end to make sense.” This suggests that teachers may play a larger role in students’ understanding than the complexities of the subject content itself. If the teacher is engaging and attentive it makes an important difference to the students’ attentiveness and ability to understand. Furthermore, varied and perhaps less traditional approaches to the subject may benefit students greatly – one person, for example, explained they enjoyed the subject specifically due to having classes where the students would watch “Brian Cox – Wonders of the universe” episodes. Another discussed how they were able to take part in “lots of hands-on experiments for most of the topics covered,” which provided an alternative method of addressing the subject than classic lecturestyle and textbook work, which may be found to be very monotonous and uninteresting for students to engage with. Some question the necessity of physics being a
mandatory subject due to the thought that the topics taught in school are ‘irrelevant,’ and contain information based around ‘unimaginable concepts’ that don’t relate to ‘real life knowledge.’ There are many times that I have heard students ask why we had to learn particular topics, and the response they received would be ‘because it’s in the syllabus’ not ‘because it’s vital knowledge to develop your understanding of the topic further,’ nor perhaps that ‘the information will help you to know the key concepts of how this works, and therefore allow further learning and understanding of exciting ideas.’ I find that this attitude creates a stagnant and overly traditional experience during studying, and entrenches students’ opinions of the concepts having no real value or necessity. The way that we learn at the start of our formal education plays a vital role in how we develop our knowledge further – “in high schools students tend to solve science problems mechanically. They focus on sample problems, search for the correct formula and simply plus numbers into the formula.” (Sherin, B. 2001) This approach to solving problems actually hinders the student’s ability to problem solve by evaluating and reasoning rather than just plugging numbers (Ding, N and Harskamp, E). Furthermore many students often find one part of the subject more interesting than another, which results in their excelling one module and not the other. For example, I personally found quantum to be very interesting and thus achieved in the topic, but struggled with mechanics and consequently was unable to excel in the unit as a whole. An individuals’ interest in particular topics can be the result of a combination of the relevance of the information, the teaching of particular theories and how clearly the information is imparted. When questioned on the accessibility of the subject, one interviewee responded with “teachers at school especially make it boring
and uninteresting, by following a curriculum that is limited and doesn’t seek to inspire young kids to get into physics. I thoroughly enjoy reading up about it and think it’s fascinating to hear about (even if I don’t fully understand all of it) and that doesn’t come across in lessons.” I contend that this expresses a very current opinion, shared by many students, who question the curriculum and its relevance. Everyone’s experiences within school are diverse, just as everyone’s preferred subjects and strengths within the education system are different. During the interview process my recorded data displayed that 69% of those asked didn’t think that physics was taught well, nor was it accessible. One interviewee described the subject as “elitist,” supporting my argument that the current physics-teaching format is far from accessible to the average student. This also forces one to question why this is, and what can be done to rectify this viewpoint on the subject. However when I inquired about whether people enjoyed physics or not in school it was a 50/50 response, highlighting that even if people didn’t find their teachers to be
engaging, nor the courses to be accessible, they could still enjoy the subject itself. I contend that this evidence demonstrates that it should be possible to engage everyone with physics, if it is taught and studied in the suitable form for the individual. The evidence found has driven me to the conclusion that the fault in our physics schooling doesn’t lie in one particular area but is instead the sum of many factors. To begin, it is vital that science is introduced early on in children’s formal education, interacting with the ideas opposed to merely observing, developing their ability to problem solve and better understand future studies in physics. There also seems to be a lack of innovation in the style of teaching, and a need for more exciting method, minimizing the classic textbook style of teaching. Engaging students with relevant current findings and experiments can offer positive change, keeping the information relevant while stimulating students in participation. The accessibility can be improved significantly by these effective changes, providing an overall more optimistic view of the schooling of physics. The individual student is the professional of tomorrow and thus should be nurtured to thrive and supported by the education system not disregarded as a ‘not a science person’ or talked at from a textbook. Lessons need to be accessible to all levels of knowledge and styles of learning to provide the best knowledge of the subject and produce more able physics students who can choose to further their education therefore catering for the demand for more physicists and engineers. Finally physics is exciting and it’s all around us, this should be reflected in how the subject is taught, the content should be refreshing and the delivery of the information should be inspiring.
Reference List
Ding, N and Harskamp. E. (2006) ‘How Partner Gender Influences Female Students’ Problem Solving in Physics Education’, Journal of Science and Technology, Vol. 15, No. 5. DOI: 10.1007/s10956-006-90217. Eshach, H. Fried, MN. (2005) Should science be taught in early childhood. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. Goswami, U. (1998) Cognition In Children. Hove, UK. Psychology press Ltd. Gur, C. (2011) ‘Physics in Preschool’, International Journal of the Physical Sciences, Vol. 6(4), pp. 939-943, 18. DOI: 10.5897/IJPS10.653. Kamii, C and Lee-Katz, L. (1979) ‘Physics in Preschool Education: A Piagetian Approach’, Young Children, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 4 Mann, C. (1910) ‘Physics and Educations.’ The School Review. Vol. 18, No. 8. Oxford Dictionaries. (2014) Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries. com/definition/english-thesaurus/accessibility?searchDictCode=all (accessed: 13/11/2014) Sherin, B. (2001) ‘How students understand physics equations’, Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 19, Iss. 4. White, P (1995) ‘The Understanding of Causation and the Production of Action From Infancy to Adulthood’, Essays in Developmental Psychology. Psychology Press. Wilkinson Chambers, L. (2014) Survey Monkey Physics Survey. Available at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6SDTGYW Woodard, C and Davitt, R. (1987) Physical science in Early Childhood. Spi Edition. Springfield, IL, USA. Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd. Worth, K. (2010) Science in Early Childhood Classrooms: Content and Process. Newton, Massachusetts.