In order to pick up a little money on the side, I do private tutoring. Most of the time, this starts out as some kid wanting to power through some specific test so he/she can have a .2% better chance of going to a better college in 6 years. I don't have a problem with this, but it's pretty boring.
However, my long term tutoring gigs tend to be people who are more interested in learning about the world than cramming for a test. Lucky for me, I currently have three gigs exactly like that. The oldest one I'm helping to prepare for job interviews, the middle one I'm helping to write a novel about a super annoying pandemic disease that ruins all of the main character's social engagements (I wonder what inspired that?) and the youngest one, a sixth grader, made the mistake of telling me that "physics is boring."
I totally do yoga and so respect all people and all their rights. I even respect their rights to be completely wrong, which is why when the 6th grader uttered blasphemy I respectfully told him that he was full of E36 M3, that physics was super fun and that I was going to prove it to him.
It started off by building a dual hull miniature boat out of poster board. Then we bought a book about airplanes and tried to figure out why sub sonic and super sonic wings are such different shapes. Then, I sat him down to learn some basic aerodynamics theory. He sketched out a few designs. I got a whole bunch of cardboard boxes and we translated those designs into physical objects. We ended up settling on a roof spoiler design, a trunk spoiler design and an air dam design.
Met up in a parking garage with his parents last weekend and affixed said designs to my Kia along with some string and tape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MyF4-kWjT0&ab_channel=BenGarrido
Side note: if you want to turn heads, don't buy a Lamborghini. Cover your Kia in cardboard and string.
Trebuchets.
If you want kids to be interested in physics have them build a trebuchet.
It doesn't need to be like the Loup de Guerre King Edward the First had build to knock down Sterling Castle to be a fun build.
Trebuchet Math is pretty complex but the principles are pretty easily described and observed when you have a 6 foot tall trebuchet flinging tennis balls 100 yards.
jharry3 said:
Trebuchet Math is pretty complex but the principles are pretty easily described and observed when you have a 6 foot tall trebuchet flinging tennis balls 100 yards.
Hmm...I'm about 300-yards from the beach. I could probably hide a trebuchet in the backyard where no one would see it. Sadly I don't think I could get enough velocity to arc the projectile over the large oak trees between here & there.
Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:
Hmm...I'm about 300-yards from the beach. I could probably hide a trebuchet in the backyard where no one would see it. Sadly I don't think I could get enough velocity to arc the projectile over the large oak trees between here & there.
It's all about scale. When I was renting myself and the local (crazy) history teacher built one with a 16' arm, and we were using junk small block cylinder heads for weight. We got a lot of pumpkins from where we were in MD over the Delaware border and managed to have the state police show up. Glad it was for "learning purposes" and pre 9/11. 
parker
Reader
11/9/20 10:28 a.m.
In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
This is the coolest post. Ever.
I'm really ok with this. Glad that you and these services are accessible to these particular kids.
a few weeks ago my kids (6 and 4) were sitting at the dinner table. My oldest, lost in thought, suddenly asks "wait - if you shoot a laser, does it keep going? like forever?". Me, the engineering physics grad, swells with pride. Before I can answer however about how good a question that is or to even start working through the solution, my youngest yells out. "Oh. My. Gosh. I can hold my cup using just my teeth, AND NO HANDS!!!"
It's a very accurate vignette of their personalities so far.
My middle kid watched physics videos for fun. We thought it was weird in a proud parent way but now he is in first year science with mid nineties for marks. Not sure where it is going but he will be paid from the neck up in life, unlike me who was generally paid from the neck down.
Korean schools make every subject boring and confusing, really.
In my school textbook there were experiments every chapter, but every teacher skipped that part... because students need to cover at least 50 pages before the term test. But teachers never reach that goal, and there is always extra pages left, but nevertheless that part is always on the exam. Time to go to cram schools...
Even in private high school, teachers were not very helpful. There was very difficult Physics question on term test, so I asked my physics teacher about that. It went like this:
- "Sorry, but I don't know how to solve this."
- "...Teacher, didn't you make questions for the term test yourself?"
- "I did, but actually, I copied it from old university entrance exam."
I really, really hated that school.
I always liked the Pasta Rocket engine when I was young.
But I still like playing with fire...
I met a guy this summer who teaches middleschool physics. Said that his focus is that everything is hands on and uses simple math. Wish there were more teachers like that. Thankfully I had a tech teacher like that in secondary school. I'm sure it affected my future positively!
Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:
jharry3 said:
Trebuchet Math is pretty complex but the principles are pretty easily described and observed when you have a 6 foot tall trebuchet flinging tennis balls 100 yards.
Hmm...I'm about 300-yards from the beach. I could probably hide a trebuchet in the backyard where no one would see it. Sadly I don't think I could get enough velocity to arc the projectile over the large oak trees between here & there.
I'll give you a dollar if you can.
buzzboy said:
I met a guy this summer who teaches middleschool physics. Said that his focus is that everything is hands on and uses simple math. Wish there were more teachers like that. Thankfully I had a tech teacher like that in secondary school. I'm sure it affected my future positively!
wait what? Middle School Physics? I did not get physics till my senior year of High School. For that Matter, Biology was Sophomore year and Chemistry was Junior. Grade School was all rinse and repeat kiddy stuff.
mad_machine (Forum Supporter) said:
buzzboy said:
I met a guy this summer who teaches middleschool physics. Said that his focus is that everything is hands on and uses simple math. Wish there were more teachers like that. Thankfully I had a tech teacher like that in secondary school. I'm sure it affected my future positively!
wait what? Middle School Physics? I did not get physics till my senior year of High School. For that Matter, Biology was Sophomore year and Chemistry was Junior. Grade School was all rinse and repeat kiddy stuff.
Calculus can be taught as early as 10th grade in some schools. They're going earlier and earlier.
karussell said:
Korean schools make every subject boring and confusing, really.
In my school textbook there were experiments every chapter, but every teacher skipped that part... because students need to cover at least 50 pages before the term test. But teachers never reach that goal, and there is always extra pages left, but nevertheless that part is always on the exam. Time to go to cram schools...
Even in private high school, teachers were not very helpful. There was very difficult Physics question on term test, so I asked my physics teacher about that. It went like this:
- "Sorry, but I don't know how to solve this."
- "...Teacher, didn't you make questions for the term test yourself?"
- "I did, but actually, I copied it from old university entrance exam."
I really, really hated that school.
Yeah, I know what you mean. It is getting better, but it's still like 90% test cramming. The really sad part about it is that "focusing on the test" is actually less efficient in most cases than learning the subject and then stumbling into the test as a side effect.
I took something called IPC : Integrated Physics and Chemistry around my junior year. I enjoyed science but didn't like math. Really, i do tons of math for fun just spitballing (math term! lol) things i never seriously plan to do. The problem with math was only that it wasn't applied to things i considered interesting, for the most part. That IPC teacher knew i was into cars and asked me about light 4 cylinders to use in a homebuilt helicopter. I dont think i gave him any good advice, but it was cool that he asked and a perfect example of how to hook a student on something. I also got out of taking Algebra 2 because I figured out according to state guidelines they were lying to me about it being required. I took something called Math Models which focused on practical math mostly tied to finance, like budgeting and calculating interest. I liked that class a lot! Anyway, my senior year a counselor once told me i was the lowest GPA in my graduating class that was actually passing (70.xx) which i considered like threading a needle for 4 years straight, an exercise in real precision. Started taking vocational auto tech classes at community college and getting 4.0s in my major. Graduated that associates and my later bachelors in education with ~3.6 gpa or something like that, and am now a teacher.
I dont consider myself a fantastic teacher but i do believe that if things are humanly possible and you're human, you COULD do it. Believing that has a lot of implications for students' differing results in the classroom. Nurture over nature. With unlimited motivation and effort we COULD bring them all up equally to the highest levels of achievement. I definitely don't have infinite motivation or effort to give, but just believing that everyone CAN succeed i believe is honestly more important to teaching than how much you actually know about anything. My hat's off to anyone out there trying to teach.
Vigo (Forum Supporter) said:
I took something called IPC : Integrated Physics and Chemistry around my junior year. I enjoyed science but didn't like math. Really, i do tons of math for fun just spitballing (math term! lol) things i never seriously plan to do. The problem with math was only that it wasn't applied to things i considered interesting, for the most part. That IPC teacher knew i was into cars and asked me about light 4 cylinders to use in a homebuilt helicopter. I dont think i gave him any good advice, but it was cool that he asked and a perfect example of how to hook a student on something. I also got out of taking Algebra 2 because I figured out according to state guidelines they were lying to me about it being required. I took something called Math Models which focused on practical math mostly tied to finance, like budgeting and calculating interest. I liked that class a lot! Anyway, my senior year a counselor once told me i was the lowest GPA in my graduating class that was actually passing (70.xx) which i considered like threading a needle for 4 years straight, an exercise in real precision. Started taking vocational auto tech classes at community college and getting 4.0s in my major. Graduated that associates and my later bachelors in education with ~3.6 gpa or something like that, and am now a teacher.
I dont consider myself a fantastic teacher but i do believe that if things are humanly possible and you're human, you COULD do it. Believing that has a lot of implications for students' differing results in the classroom. Nurture over nature. With unlimited motivation and effort we COULD bring them all up equally to the highest levels of achievement. I definitely don't have infinite motivation or effort to give, but just believing that everyone CAN succeed i believe is honestly more important to teaching than how much you actually know about anything. My hat's off to anyone out there trying to teach.
If you really want to go into the weeds about this, I'm exploring some explanations on why we railroad people into these abstract, disembodied theory classes from elementary school onwards. The short answers I've found are as follows:
1. Abstract, disembodied theory classes free us from liability. The only reason I was able to do the activity you see above is because the parents went along with it. (Those particular parents are wonderful people and I love them, btw.) Doing it with 25 kids at once is, at best, a giant PIA and it's also risky from the school's POV because there's a 0.0001% chance one of the kids might jump out of a window and get hurt. Safety is really not the problem, but "being conventional as hell so we can avoid getting the blame when something goes wrong" is a huge problem.
2. There's an idea that math explains everything and that abstract knowledge is "truer" than the knowledge of the senses. This goes back at least to the Upanishads and is certainly the core of Plato. The fact we rely so heavily on statistics to rank and evaluate schools locks us into this pattern to this day. This is logical problem for a whole bunch of modeling problems and fundamental limitations of modeling, but we often pretend that we can overcome these limitations with better data. We can, to an extent, but only an extent. (I can go way into the weeds on this ...)
3. Evaluation is a lot easier with scantrons and multiple choice bubbles. "Objective" evaluation of this type encourages cramming and shallow, painful "learning" that people forget after three days. "Subjective" evaluation like "build a trebuchet and explain why it works or why it doesn't work" or "explain why Ghengis Khan attacked Poland" is much better for engaging students' brains, it's a lot more fun and the knowledge gained lasts a lot longer. However, keeping the parents happy is more about frequent evaluation and easy-to-understand evaluation than it is about effective evaluation. It's also less work for the teacher.
Man, that sounds like a lot of fun. I never had a half decent science teacher and never had a good math teacher until one of the college classes I did a few years back. The real trouble I had engaging in high school was none of the teachers were as cool as the skatepark 3/4 of a mile away. It's not that I didn't want to learn or couldn't understand, but it was so boring and all the busy work just made me hate it. So I skated. Senior year attendance was legendary, and by legendary, I mean it was more of a myth.
barefootskater (Shaun) said:
Man, that sounds like a lot of fun. I never had a half decent science teacher and never had a good math teacher until one of the college classes I did a few years back. The real trouble I had engaging in high school was none of the teachers were as cool as the skatepark 3/4 of a mile away. It's not that I didn't want to learn or couldn't understand, but it was so boring and all the busy work just made me hate it. So I skated. Senior year attendance was legendary, and by legendary, I mean it was more of a myth.
I feel your pain man. "Safe" teachers who do everything by the book and don't take any chances are a guaranteed way to irritate smart and active learners. I didn't skate, but I did go to war with teachers I thought were wasting my time. Different strokes for different folks. ;)
