DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE INSTRUCTION

SECRETARY'S MINUTES

FIRST SESSION. TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 9, 1907

The department met in the State Normal School, Los Angeles, at 9:30 A. M., and was called to order by President H. A. Senter, head of department of chemistry, high school, Omaha, Nebraska.

The session was devoted to an informal díscussion of the topic: "What Equipment Is Required for Successful Teaching of Chemistry in the Secondary Schools." The following Committee on Nominations was appointed by the president:

W. A. Dunn, Los Angeles, Cal.

Horace H. Cummings, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Lucas A. Reed, Healdsburg, Cal.

SECOND SESSION.—THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 11

The meeting was called to order by President Senter at 2:30 P. M.

Frank F. Almy, professor of physics, Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa, presented a paper on the topic, "What Equipment Is Required to Successfully Teach Physics in Secondary Schools." The discussion of the paper and topic was led by Irving O. Palmer, science master, Newton High School, Newtonville, Mass. The informal discussion was participated in by W. A. Fiske, Richmond, Indiana; Professor Fernando Sanford, Palo Alto, Cal.; Arthur Dunwood, Pomona, Cal.; Superintendent Mott H. Arnold, Eugene, Oregon; J. Fred Smith, Campbell, Cal.; Chas. F. Hays, Denver, Colo.; W. R. McDonald, Auburn, Cal.; Misses Vesta Gray, Lemoore, Cal.; and Ruby E. Gracier, Fruitvale, Cal.

The report of the Committee on Nominations was read and adopted and the following officers were declared elected for the ensuing year:

For President, Irving O. Palmer, science master, Newton High School, Newtonville, Mass. For Vice-President, Frank F. Almy, professor of physics, Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa. For Secretary, Henry Kerr, principal, Excelsior Union High School, Norwalk, Cal. The department adjourned.

FRANK F. ALMY, Secretary.

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

WHAT EQUIPMENT IS REQUIRED TO SUCCESSFULLY TEACH PHYSICS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS?

FRANK F. ALMY, PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS IN IOWA COLLEGE, GRINNELL, IOWA When asked to discuss any topic in connection with secondary-school teaching my mind reverts to a quip credited to Lord Rosebery. When asked to define memory, he is said to have replied that memory is the sensation which creeps over one when a friend tells an original story.

One must needs be a genius who shall discuss any phase of the teaching of elementary physics without stimulating the aforesaid sensation. For, beginning

with the report of The Committee of Ten, in 1893, the various questions involved in the teaching of elementary subjects have been discussed hither and yon until it would seem that there can be no phase of the subject that has not been, many times, settled beyond all controversy. And yet we have the "new movement among physics teachers," which seems to be developing a wide group of teachers inclined to take quite a new attitude toward the teaching of elementary physics.

If there is any phase of the subject which has not been worn threadbare, it may be that assigned for this discussion, to which we are led by the report of your committee at the last meeting of this department of the National Educational Association.

I have no quarrel with the report of your committee as regards the first-year course in physics, and it is to the first-year course I wish to limit my part in this discussion. There have been numerous syllabi of such courses presented, a considerable number in the main good, and differing but slightly. But a syllabus will not teach a successful course in elementary physics. I am a staunch believer in the Garfield college, but the log is not the essential. The syllabus served a most important function in the teaching of physics in the decade following 1893. It compelled the teacher to "sit up and take notice," to take account of stock, to make conscious analysis of the work to be done, and to apportion his efforts equably to the subject-matter to be presented. The debt of elementary physics to those who have followed the lead of Professors Trowbridge and Hall, who gave us the original syllabus, which was incorporated into the "Report of the Committee of Ten," and which forms the body of practically every elementary laboratory manual published in the decade following, has not been overestimated. And while the "new movement," or a new movement may very materially modify the subject-matter both of classroom and laboratory work, there will remain the consciously consecutive and correlated treatment of subject-matter with quantitative laboratory work, which is the outgrowth of the Harvard movement thru those who have followed it.

But whatever the syllabus, the question of successfully teaching elementary physics is not determined by the omission, or failure to omit, certain topics from the discussion, by demonstrating, or neglecting to demonstrate, particular phenomena, or by the inclusion or the exclusion of a topic from the laboratory work. The syllabus is a guide, and indicates the treatment to which each topic lends itself, but the competent teacher may safely be, and at times must be, a law unto himself.

But to the topic, "The Equipment Required for Successfully Teaching Physics in Secondary Schools."

The prime essential is a teacher; a capable teacher of tact and abundant common sense. I know of no better discussion of this topic than that of Professor Hall in his Teaching of Physics in the Secondary School.1 Professor Hall in opening his discussion says,

Longmans, 1902.

As in any other department of pedagogic art, there is in physics the teacher who is born and the teacher who is made. The latter, if successful, is the product of infinite labor, of long-suffering patience with himself, of constant courage, of never-dying willingness to learn.

The teacher of physics should not be a utilitarian. To quote Superintendent Bardwell,

When the patrons, the members of a class, or a teacher, or all three of these feel that the information to be obtained from a course in physics is its chief reason for its place in the schools, that subject will be taught in a weak and insufficient manner.

....

I wish to urge that the attention be given not so much to the science as to the people who are being instructed in the science.2

The vision of the teacher of physics should be no more restricted, no less humane than that of the teacher of the humanities. His mission to society, to civilization, is constructive. He should be no less creative, not less inspiring to men because of the utility of physics.

In addition to the qualities of inspiring leadership demanded of any teacher, the teacher of physics needs, to again quote Professor Hall,

capacity for clear, sustained, correct thinking capacity for quick understanding of mechanisms-a considerable degree of skill and proficiency in the use of tools, a reasonable acquaintance with the processes of the workshop.

He should know his subject beyond that which he expects to teach in order to have perspective; he must always seek to know more, both by study and by investigation, if nothing more than the small problems that arise out of his own experience and are associated with his own work. He must be alive and keep abreast of the trend both of work and methods, but he "should be a physicist, rather than a pedagog with an inclination toward physics." He must be long in common sense and in his knowledge of common things, for I believe with Professor Crew, that the facts of elementary physics are largely already the common knowledge of the pupil, and the teacher must have the capacity to use this fund of common knowledge and to shape it into an orderly arrangement of facts-"organized common sense," a science. Do not understand me for a moment as making a plea for phenomenology; the work should be elementary physics. It is entirely possible that a course in physical phenomena might be used in connection with, or as a part of, the nature-study work of the last grades of the grammar school and be of much greater educational value than work that is now given there; but the youth of high-school maturity, in my humble opinion, needs the more mature form of work.

The teaching of elementary physics can be successful without further equipment, but conditions do not ordinarily obtain which are conducive to make that kind of instruction successful. The second essential is equipment for. demonstration. This need not be elaborate to be effective. It must be such as will make a real contribution to the information that the pupil already possesses. It should supplement the demonstrations of physical principles, laws, and phenomena that can be drawn from the everyday experience of the

Sch. Sci., Vol. III, p. 443.

pupils by presenting illustrations not familiar to the pupil and which, on that account, are impressive; and by the repetition of familiar phenomena in order to obtain accurate observation of details that escape in the casual observation. Demonstrations should not be introduced that do not in some way contribute to the education of the pupil. Of necessity, then, the experiments actually performed before the class should vary with locality, as will the supplementary illustrations drawn from the fund of common experience of the pupils. The sensational and spectacular demonstration is to be avoided in favor of the simple experiment which directly demonstrates the physical principle or phenomena involved. It is entirely possible to revive the much lamented "go" in physics in legitimate ways. As illustrating these points, I would consider the airpump and accessories valuable because few pupils are familiar with satisfactory illustrations of the phenomena here involved, and the field it illustrates is large. The whirling-table and accessories are similarly useful, and so also is most of the apparatus that receives general acceptance in demonstration use.

With this equipment, viz., a capable, tactful, resourceful teacher with sympathy and vision, with properly selected and even limited demonstration equipment with which to get certain phenomena clearly before the pupils while under discussion, I am not prepared to say that elementary physics cannot be successfully taught. I am, however, very thoroly convinced that in the vast majority of schools under the conditions that now almost invariably obtain, and certainly in the present stage of the evolution of science teaching, experimental work on the part of the pupil is a very material aid to successful teaching of the subject. I believe that the nature of this personal experimentation should be very materially influenced, just as in the demonstration work, by the habits and experience, by the life and ideals of the pupils. The work of the classroom and that of the laboratory must complement the knowledge that the pupil has obtained thru previous experience, and correlate and co-ordinate the whole. To me it seems self-evident that in the nature of things there should be radical difference in discussion, in demonstration, and in the personal work of the pupil in the country town or small city from that in a factory town, and each in turn differing from that in a school in the large city. The competent teacher has his syllabus or syllabi-with which his course should measure up. In his striving toward the standard, under the conditions peculiar to his environment, he must be a law unto himself; he must properly evaluate the components peculiar to that environment and attempt to supply the deficient complement— not necessarily to measure up to the standard set by the National Educational Association, or that by the North Central Association or by the "Harvard Circular," but to the standard which, guided by these or others, he has set for himself in his environment.

The principles that should guide in providing for the personal experimentation, so succinctly put by our chairman in his discussion of the high-school chemical laboratory before this department at its meeting of 1904, are utility

and economy. The more I have thought upon this matter the more convinced am I that Dr. Senter has there put the kernel of the matter into a very small shell. If the teacher will properly evaluate the precept there given, it is certainly a safe guide in the selection of the physical problem to be used for laboratory experiment, the laboratory experiment to be used to elaborate the problem, and the particular form of apparatus to be used in the laboratory experiment. The principle of utility and economy may be the criterion in the whole matter. To apply the test to the equipment of the laboratory; the apparatus should be reliable and should not only permit the repetition of an operation with the same result, but also it must persistently perform consistently. To be assured of this it should be made by a reliable maker or at least by skilled labor. It should be as simple as is consistent with good results, on account of less liability to failure in operation and in order that its manipulation and operation may be within the comprehension of the pupil, that his attention may comprehend the physical problem and not be wholly directed upon the mechanism; that is utility with economy in cost, time, and effort of operation. For the same reason I should use the method and apparatus, other things being equal, that reaches most directly the results sought. There are occasions when other things are not equal, when an indirect method involves other phenomena, methods, data, or constants such as to make it more useful and efficient when measured in its ratio of total net results to total cost of time and effort.

In qualitative experiments, the apparatus should be reliable in order to maintain the confidence of the pupil, and in order to avoid confusion by erratic results. In quantitative work there should be no failure of apparatus which shall lead the pupil to the attitude that the results finally obtained are guess work or may be juggled. The apparatus should permit doing quantitative work; otherwise it fails. The apparatus should be assembled in a workman-like manner; and whether it be commercial apparatus or made by a local mechanic, it should be finished and wear an air of respectability at least equal to that of its surroundings. It must be apparatus which commands respectful treatment from the pupil thru its appearance and apparent adaptability to its purpose; it must maintain the respect of the pupil by consistent, truthful performance. If it does this, successful laboratory-teaching can be accomplished thru it, whether it be made by Golaz of Paris, or by Jones, the local blacksmith.

For utility in teaching and economy of effort of both the instructor and pupil the laboratory-work should be consecutive with the discussion and demonstrations in subject-matter. This can generally be accomplished with such duplication of apparatus as will permit one-third of the laboratory division of the class to work upon one experiment at one time. This need displace no experiment more than two laboratory periods from the place in time which it would occupy if sufficient apparatus were provided for the class to work abreast. I have employed both methods and in my own experience do not find the inherent evils of the two methods to differ materially. It is more agreeable and economical of the teacher's effort for the class to work