MAKING PHYSICS A FRIEND
As school physics teacher, I have seen students’ apprehension and alienation from physics first hand. I saw some students make lasting connections to physics but the majority of the physics students appeared to only be engaging out of fear of failure and to look smart to their friends.
The average student tried to hide from any situation in which he had to volunteer information and his facade of competence might be brought into question. This led me to wonder, what is it about traditional physics classroom environments that lead so many students, especially students from non-dominant backgrounds, to feel disengaged and bad at physics?
All of my students, whether interested in physics or not, were very motivated and successful in other areas of their lives. I felt that if my students were highly motivated to engage in other activities, such as sports, the arts, and social networking, I should be able to foster that sort of interest in physics as well.
With this understanding I have come out with interesting teaching methods that not only engage the students but also stimulate within the students desires to want to know the underlying principles taught and how they can relate it to reality.
It is an era of Physics.