Are high school teachers failing to teach students physics?

Question

This category has more "can somebody do my homework for me" questions than other categories, except maybe math. Are high school teachers not doing there jobs?

Answer 1

Yes.
But blame the parents.

Answer 2

Students who understand and can do physics problems have a mind different that other children. Same hold true in reverse, some children cannot comphrend physics problems So no matter how a teacher attempts to teach it to some students, the results for some will be a dissapointment.

I have a MS in Physics, and I cannot do crossword puzzles. Simply cannot do those things. That takes a differnet kind of a mind to do those which I do not have and have no interest in acquiring.

Regardless of the BS that the press is putting out, there is NO SHORTAGE of Engineers, Physics, Chem, BioChem people around. Run an ad and you will get 1000's of resumes per application from people in US who are either unemployed or underemployed in those professions. Sure some of the best and brightest are lost, but the money to work in these professions is way too low and they choose for example being a MD or a Lawyer where the money is. Plain truth is there is no money in science for the ambitious person to make and enjoy. Be a lawyer or an ordinary FamlyPractice MD and make about 2X the money.

Answer 3

When I was in high school, I wanted to take physics my senior year. So I signed up for the class. But the teacher was a complete idiot who may have known about science but he didn't know the first thing about teaching. He made things so confusing. So I ended up dropping the class. That was my experience, and I regret that I did not have the opportunity to really learn physics.

However, I also think that physics can be one of the hardest subjects to understand, and maybe having someone different explain a concept in a different way will help. Obviously my bad experience is not true for everyone, I'm sure there are some excellent physics teachers out there, but from what I hear, they are few and far between.

Answer 4

The percentage of high school students who take physics has doubled from 15% to 30% over the last 20 years. This means that on average they will not be as good and/or motivated as in the 1980's. There is also a need for more physics teachers so the quality of teaching has probably gotten worse, and it wasn't that good to start with. Even with good teachers and students, getting suck on a problem or concept will happen sooner or later to everyone. But the request to do multiple problems is a clear sign of laziness, and I try to check and not answer when that happens

Answer 5

I AM the high-school physics teacher :-)
I agree with both of the answers that students are getting more and more lazy. It happens at our school as well. It is easier if somebody does your work instead of you, I think we all think this way, but on longer terms, it doesn't help. And it doesn't necesserilly mean that I am not doing my job properly.
On the other hand, I understand most of the students and their problems. I know a lot of physics teachers and believe me, in some cases, I wouldn't be in their class either :-) It is one of the hardest subjects to deal with and very difficult to explain. So, many times it helps if somebody else explains the things in different way, yet it doesn't mean they're lousy, they're just different.
Also, in my country, there is a negative tendency at students being more and more dumm (sorry for using this word, but there's no other I'm affraid) for science subjects. This is especially emphasised in mathematics rather than physics.
So far, I like answering questions in physics. I can't know for sure if that someone who asked one is a begginer and really needs help or they're just lazy. One of the reasons why I decided to be a teacher was also to help students who are not well at math and/or physics.

Answer 6

I lecture Atomic & Nuclear physics at university (for 1st year) and my brother is a high school physics teacher.

The main problem he comes across is that when he comes to interviews potential teachers, very few are actually qualified in physics - due to the fact that since 1994 the syllabus for GCSE went to either dual-award or triple-award and the seperate subjects were lost. Therefore we now have physica being taught by biology and chemistry teachers - not that this is a bad thing but it is difficult to explain the concepts of physics anyway.

I see the problem manifest itself in other ways, whereas my A-levels were difficult for physcis, now I have students at university who cannot solve A-level problems and more fundamentaly they do not know some of the maths that I did at GCSE level.

As for a solution I'm not sure, but surely we need to raise the education standards again, the government just want more and more passes a year - this isn't helping the student, as they can get an A* at GCSE level, but they get to university and end up with a 3rd class degree.

The other problem is that there are more and more easy degrees to take now, such as Gambling and David Beckham studies - I think at the university I teach there are 190 (across 4 years) studying physics whereas there are 3600 taking media studies. I'm sure you can do the math.

We are a dying breed and should be encouraged and supported by the government - instead of them trying to close our departments down !!

Answer 7

Colleges won't really care if you switch. Much of the hype about preparing for a good college is complete nonsense. That being said, you're going to have at least a few shitty teachers in college. It's up to you to take the initiative if you want an A. Ask him if he recommends any supplementary reading, work through the next chapter before you address it in class, etc. If he still refuses to help, you can always seek help from the regular physics teacher.

Answer 8

High school teachers are doing their jobs but many kids are very lazy and would rather do anything besides their homework (me included im helping other people with their homework rather than my own) and at high lvl classes teachers dont care about if you try or not. For example i take ap chem, ap calc, and ap us history and in all of those classes you can do whatever you like without the teacher really caring because at that level you should be resposible enough to learn on your own.

Answer 9

teachers are not to be blamed fully, I am not a teacher but in the larger scale I know for a fact that there is a decline in the standard of education in our country and this is not all accountable to the effectiveness of teachers.

parents have partial responsibility on this.

one of the largest contributor to lesser education standards is the government and media.

you see, kids are not lazy with regards to studying.

its just that most kids do not see studying as fun. or they do not see it as exciting and enjoyable, they cannot fully relate to importance of their studies in their day to day lives.

you see, they find it more amusing to use the computer or the internet to look for answers rather that opening a book.

that is why when I see questions that are simple enough that could be asked by a kid. I answer the question fully, I calculate all the equations if possible then i explain how i did it. this is pretty much teaching the kid rather than just giving him answers to his homework.

i would rather encourage kids to study by showing them how fun science is rather than scold them and say 'get a book. study you lazy kid'.

this is the same treatment that i use with my 9 year old son. he's so active he could be in any x-game. loves the playstation and fallls asleep after reading a book for 10 minutes.
i have seen his notebooks and found that the teacher is doing her job, its just my kid is not paying attention.

I teased him a lot ang got him to enjoy his math

ive'd had positive results up to now

Answer 10

I don't think so. It's just that physics is a difficult class, it has topics that are not easily understood and usually require more explanation. if you don't pay close attention in class, you might miss something important and need help with your homework. my honors chem teacher is also the physics teacher and he is the by far the best teacher I've ever had. he treats us like college students (I'm a sophomore in HS) and has a strict curriculum that makes us learn everything we're supposed to. he also has a way of making things seem so simple. if ever i need help on homework, it's just because i spaced out on his lecture and missed something, but it's hard to space out on them because he makes them so interesting. anyway, there's bound to be some bad physics teachers out there, but i don't think its the reason people need help in that subject.

Answer 11

Students are lazy is more the issue. And people in here encourage them by answering the entire problem.

Judging by some of the hw questions I read in here, there are some god-awful physics teachers out there. (But just a few; most are cool I'm sure)