It's about time we supported our schools & children?A sorry tale of where we went wrong, when the world started goingbackwards with modern ideas!****************************************A physics teacher begs for his subject back: An open letter to AQA andThe Department of EducationI am a physics teacher. Or, at least I used to be. My subject is stillcalled physics. My pupils will sit an exam and earn a GCSE in physics,but that exam doesn’t cover anything I recognize as physics. Over thepast year the UK Department for Education http://www.dfes.gov.uk/ and the AQA board http://www.aqa.org.uk/ changed the subject. Theytook the physics out of physics and replaced it with… something else,something nebulous and ill defined. I worry about this change. I worryabout my pupils, I worry about the state of science education in thiscountry, and I worry about the future physics teachers — if there willbe any.I graduated from a prestigious university with a degree in physics andpursued a lucrative career in economics which I eventually abandonedto teach. Economics and business, though vastly easier than mysubject, and more financially rewarding, bored me. I went intoteaching to return to the world of science and to, in what extent Icould, convey to pupils why one would love a subject so difficult.For a time I did. For a time, I was happy.But this past academic year things changed. The Department forEducation and the AQA board brought in a new syllabus for thesciences. One which greatly increased the teaching of `how scienceworks.’ While my colleagues expressed scepticism, I was hopeful. Afterall, most pupils will not follow science at a higher level, so weshould at least impart them with a sense of what it can tell us aboutour universe.That did not happenThe result is a fiasco that will destroy physics in England.The thing that attracts pupils to physics is its precision. Here, atlast, is a discipline that gives real answers that apply to thephysical world. But that precision is now gone. Calculations — thevery soul of physics — are absent from the new GCSE. Physics is asubject unpolluted by a torrent of malleable words, but now everythingmust be described in words.In this course, pupils debate topics like global warming and nuclearpower. Debate drives science, but pupils do not learn meaningfulinformation about the topics they debate. Scientific argument is basedon quantifiable evidence. The person with the better evidence, not thebetter rhetoric or talking points, wins. But my pupils now discuss thebenefits and drawbacks of nuclear power plants, without any realunderstanding of how they work or what radiation is.I want to teach my subject, to pass on my love of physics to those fewwho would appreciate it. But I can’t. There is nothing to love in thenew course. I see no reason that anyone taking this new GCSE wouldwant to pursue the subject. This is the death of physics.Specific Complaints:My complaints about the new syllabus fall into four categories: thevague, the stupid, the political, and the non-science.The Vague:The specification provided by the AQA (available at their website)is http://aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA-4462-W-SP-08.PDF vaguely worded.Every section starts with either phrase ‘to evaluate the possiblehazards and uses of…’ or ‘to compare the advantages and disadvantagesof…’ without listing exactly what hazards, uses, advantages ordisadvantages the board actually requires pupils to learn. The amountof knowledge on any given topic, such as the electromagnetic spectrum,could fill an entire year at the university level. But no guidance isgiven to teachers and, as a result, the exam blindsides pupils withquestions like:Suggest why he [a dark skinned person] can sunbathe with less risk ofgetting skin cancer than a fair skinned person.To get the mark, pupils must answer:More UV absorbed by dark skin (more melanin)Less UV penetrates deep to damage living cells / tissueNowhere does the specification mention the words sunscreen or melanin.It doesn’t say pupils need to know the difference between surface deadskin and deeper living tissue. There is no reason any physics teacherwould cover such material, or why any pupil should expect to be testedon it.The Stupid:On topics that are covered by the specification, the exam board hasanswers that indicate a lack of knowledge on the writer’s part. Onequestions asks `why would radio stations broadcast digital signalsrather than analogue signals?’ An acceptable answer is:Can be processed by computer / ipod [sic]Aside from the stupidity of the answer, (iPods, at the time of thiswriting, don’t have radio turners and computers can process analoguesignals) writing the mark scheme in this way is thoughtless, asteachers can only give marks that exactly match its language. So doesthe pupil get the mark if they mention any other mp3 player?Technically, no. Wikipediacurrently lists 63 different players. Is it safe to assume that theexaminer will be familiar with all of them? Doubtful.If the question is not poorly worded, or not covered in thespecification, it will be insultingly easy. The first question on asample paper started:A newspaper article has the heading: ‘Are mobiles putting our childrenat risk?’ A recent report said that children under the age of nineshould not use mobile phones…The first question on the paper was:Below which age is it recommended that children use a mobile phone inemergencies only?This is the kind of reading comprehension question I would expect in aprimary school English lesson, not a secondary school GCSE.The Political:The number of questions that relate to global warming is appalling. Ido not deny that pupils should know about the topic, nor do I deny itsimportance. However, it should not be the main focus of every topic.The pupils (and their teachers) are growing apathetic fromoverexposure.A paper question asked: `Why must we develop renewable energysources.’ This is a political question. Worse yet, a politicalstatement. I’m not saying I disagree with it, just that it has noplace on a physics GCSE paper.Pupils are taught to poke holes in scientific experiments, toconstantly find what is wrong. However, never are the pupils givenways to determine when an experiment is reliable, to know when anexperiment yields information about the world that we can trust. Thisencourages the belief that all quantitative data is unreliable anduntrustworthy. Some of my pupils, after a year of the course, havegone from scientifically minded individuals to thinking, “It’s notpossible to know anything, so why bother?” Combining distrust ofscientific evidence with debates won on style and presentation aloneis an unnerving trend that will lead society astray.The Non-scientific:Lastly, I present the final question on the January physics exam inits entirety:Electricity can also be generated using renewable energy sources. Lookat this information from a newspaper report.The energy from burning bio-fuels, such a woodchip and straw, can beused to generate electricity.Plants for bio-fuels use up carbon dioxide as they grow.Farmers get grants to grow plants for bio-fuels.Electricity generated from bio-fuels can be sold at a higher pricethan electricity generated from burning fossil fuels.Growing plants for bio-fuels offers new opportunities for ruralcommunities. Suggest why, apart from the declining reserves of fossilfuels, power companies should use more bio-fuels and less fossil fuelsto generate electricity.The only marks that a pupil can get are for saying:Overall add no carbon dioxide to the environmentPower companies make more profitOpportunity to grew new type of crop (growing plants in swamps)More JobsNone of this material is in the specification, nor can a pupilreliably deduce the answers from the given information. Physics isn’ta pedestrian subject about power companies and increasing theirprofits, or jobs in a rural community, it’s is about far grander andbroader ideas.Conclusion:My pupils complained that the exam did not test the material they weregiven to study, and they are largely correct. The information testedwas not in the specification given to the teachers, nor in theapproved resources suggested by the AQA board. When I asked AQA aboutthe issues with their exam they told me to write a letter ofcomplaint, and this I have done. But, rather than mail it to AQA tosit ignored on a desk, I am making it public in the hope that moreattention can be brought to this problem.There is a teacher shortage in this country, but if a physicist askedmy advice on becoming a teacher, I would have to say: don’t. Don’tunless you want to watch a subject you love dismantled.I am a young and once-enthusiastic physics teacher. I despair at whatI am forced to teach. I have potentially thirty years of lessons togive, but I didn’t sign up for this — and the business world stillcalls. There I won’t have to endure the pain of trying to animate acrippled subject. The rigorous of physics been torn down and replacedwith impotent science media studies.I beg of the government and the AQA board, please, give me back mysubject and let me do my job.Sincerely,Wellington GreyPlease help spread the word and vote for this story on digg.