The Engaging Factor

I am studying to be a high school physics teacher, so in Mexico I will mostly be focusing on their science education.  Science education, especially physics, is taught with a very distinct style when compared to other fields. English, History, Geography, and Math generally display their fruits on paper, while most sciences principles are best conceptualized trough experiments and observations.   A physicist will teach momentum best not with explanations, but by demonstrating collisions with toy cars. Sound is understood by listening to different tuning forks and how they interact with one another.  A class may start out with the teacher showing an abnormality or a phenomenon in nature and challenge the students to explain what causes its abnormal behavior. This interactive learning style I call the engaging factor.

I became hooked on physics my junior year in high school. We did an experiment with a cannon that launched golf balls. We were first explained the fundamental principle of projective motion and Newton’s equations, but then we were given the chance to prove Newton’s laws worked. We were divided up into pairs and given a launch angle and the challenged to predict where the golf ball would land if launched at our angle.  After making our predictions we would place a small empty cup where we calculated the ball would land.  I remember that my partner and I were the only ones in the class who predicted accurately enough so that when the gold ball was launched, it landed right in our small plastic cup. That idea of being able to predict the projectile motion of that ball fascinated me. Nature could be predicted. From that day on physics became my favorite subject.

The engagement factor inspired me in a way paper work could not. It has shaped my future. My choice career sprouted off of those engaging experiences I had in that classroom.  I owe a lot to my high school physics teacher, Mr. Holtz, for how he taught me.  With that said, I want to express a worry. If Mexican schools are low in funding and resources, I worry the engagement factor in their science classrooms is minimal.   

My goal in going to Mexico is not to change that, I can’t. But if a foreign student enters an American science classroom with very little enthusiasm for the topic, it might just be it was never presented to him in an interesting manner; and that might be exactly what he needs to want to succeed in the class.