4 ms·

Junior high school kills scientific curiosity

8 points by respinal 7y ago

smt88 7y ago
This is the opinion of a physicist, not someone who's actually studied this in a serious way. Some issues with the statement: - junior high school is very different for different people, even in the same city (e.g. public vs private school, having money for science camps, etc.) - most people go through a mental plateau in their early-ish teen years, so there might not be as much opportunity to spur scientific curiosity in junior high anyway - junior high is followed by ~10 more years of education for many people, which seems like more than long enough to undo whatever "damage" was done
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
I think schools in general kill curiosity. At some point, we are all pretty much told to stop asking so many questions and to follow the lesson plans. It's not meant to stifle curiosity but is a way for teachers to keep order when they have 30+ students to manage. Disrupting how schools conduct their business would do wonders for society. I think Google's 20% time on one's own projects would be a great model for schools to adopt from the preschool level on to graduation. Of course, students would need guidance and it's not for every kid but it would be a great choice for them to have.
- smt88 7y ago
  I have never met or heard of a teacher who wants students to stop asking questions in general. They do need to get through a plan and some questions are meant to show off or be distracting, but even tired, jaded teachers like questions.
- imtringued 7y ago
  The goal of school is uniformity. Everyone takes the same classes. Kids who like science are in the same class as kids who don't like science. This has downsides but also advantages. It is better to have a society where everyone has had "roughly" the same childhood and therefore the same starting conditions. As soon as the kids leave school and go to university there is a huge variety of degrees which lets students take advantage of their individual strengths.
mncharity 7y ago
> No, we talk about friction and pulleys. And that poorly. Amontons' laws of friction for objects greased with pig fat. We now understand friction down to nanoscale for a broad range of materials and conditions. But we don't teach any of that. After all, why bother? Even nanoscale. A sense of scale, of the physical sizes of things, is thought foundationally important. It's part of every undergraduate curriculum in the sciences and engineering. And often high-school. But it's not then used by subsequent content, so there's little selection pressure to teach it successfully. And so we don't. If you ask graduate students at a first-tier medical school "how big are red blood cells?", don't be surprised by the baffled innumeracy of "really really small". So yes, topic selection in science education is problematic. But simply tweaking the topic list... there's no shortage of such "physics for jocks and poets" efforts. And quite a few "physics emphasizing biology" courses. They too are less than wonderfully successful.

8 points by respinal 7y ago

This is the opinion of a physicist, not someone who's actually studied this in a serious way. Some issues with the statement: - junior high school is very different for different people, even in the same city (e.g. public vs private school, having money for science camps, etc.) - most people go through a mental plateau in their early-ish teen years, so there might not be as much opportunity to spur scientific curiosity in junior high anyway - junior high is followed by ~10 more years of education for many people, which seems like more than long enough to undo whatever "damage" was done

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

I think schools in general kill curiosity. At some point, we are all pretty much told to stop asking so many questions and to follow the lesson plans. It's not meant to stifle curiosity but is a way for teachers to keep order when they have 30+ students to manage. Disrupting how schools conduct their business would do wonders for society. I think Google's 20% time on one's own projects would be a great model for schools to adopt from the preschool level on to graduation. Of course, students would need guidance and it's not for every kid but it would be a great choice for them to have.

smt88 7y ago
I have never met or heard of a teacher who wants students to stop asking questions in general. They do need to get through a plan and some questions are meant to show off or be distracting, but even tired, jaded teachers like questions.
imtringued 7y ago
The goal of school is uniformity. Everyone takes the same classes. Kids who like science are in the same class as kids who don't like science. This has downsides but also advantages. It is better to have a society where everyone has had "roughly" the same childhood and therefore the same starting conditions. As soon as the kids leave school and go to university there is a huge variety of degrees which lets students take advantage of their individual strengths.

mncharity 7y ago

> No, we talk about friction and pulleys. And that poorly. Amontons' laws of friction for objects greased with pig fat. We now understand friction down to nanoscale for a broad range of materials and conditions. But we don't teach any of that. After all, why bother? Even nanoscale. A sense of scale, of the physical sizes of things, is thought foundationally important. It's part of every undergraduate curriculum in the sciences and engineering. And often high-school. But it's not then used by subsequent content, so there's little selection pressure to teach it successfully. And so we don't. If you ask graduate students at a first-tier medical school "how big are red blood cells?", don't be surprised by the baffled innumeracy of "really really small". So yes, topic selection in science education is problematic. But simply tweaking the topic list... there's no shortage of such "physics for jocks and poets" efforts. And quite a few "physics emphasizing biology" courses. They too are less than wonderfully successful.