<p>Seems that it is not that unusual for a high school student to post a question along the lines of "do I need to take physics?". On the other hand, it is rare for this question to be posed for biology or chemistry (and some of the students who seem to fear physics take more than one year of biology and/or chemistry).</p>
<p>What is so scary about high school physics compared to the other sciences?</p>
<p>As someone who has taken Honors Chemisty and Honors Biology and is currently taking AP Physics B, I’ll definitely say that Physics is probably one of the hardest classes I’ve taken so far, especially in comparison to the former two. While Biology and Chemistry mostly involve memorization (though a few parts of Chemistry involve calculations), for Physics, you not only need to memorize equations, but you also need to have a good understanding of the concepts and be able to correctly do calculations. I guess you could say it’s another math class.</p>
<p>At my school, at least, bio and chem are considered essential science classes, while physics is looked at more as math-science combo. For kids who don’t like either, or both, of those subjects, physics is avoided. Don’t know about fear, but it is avoided.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, I would hope that high school courses would include helping students get a good understanding of the concepts as well as memorize things, not just in physics, and not just in science and math.</p>
<p>My D wasn’t afraid to take physics but she didn’t enjoy it in high school. The teacher she had didn’t explain much and she was used to her calc teacher explaining WHY a particular formula/equation was used/needed and she didn’t get that with her HS physics teacher. He knew physics but wasn’t good at teaching/explaining it. In addition, the formulas he used didn’t match up with what she was learning in calc BC and calc BC was a requirement for AP physics B. She just didn’t have a good experience. She’s in her first semester of college physics now and I think it’s a much better experience for her. </p>
<p>So, which do you think is easier for a non-math kid…standard Physics or AP Bio? I loved Bio and hated Physics myself. </p>
<p>Two things. I think there are a lot of bad high school physics teachers out there who barely understand what they’re teaching. Yes, there are some good ones, but people who are good at physics tend to take higher paying jobs. And physics requires figuring out how to set up equations to solve problems. It’s like a whole course of word problems, and we know those are terrifying.</p>
<p>First I’d ask if the question really was based in fear. Maybe, given that it’s required in so few high schools, it really is a question of need. And for most people, the answer is no, you really don’t need to take high school physics. Both my kids took regular high school physics, which is conceptual physics, (nobody can take AP or DE of any science without taking the regular hs version first). Lots of kids, including mine, hated it, but i don’t think I’d conclude that students avoid the class because it’s scary.</p>
<p>I think they are afraid of the math and of not making a good grade. </p>
<p>We have this at our high school. There is only one section of Physics C, and it contains the mathy-est kids, the future engineers and STEM majors. The other kids top out at Physics B or take a non AP Physics class. There are plenty of sections of Physics B and non AP Physics.</p>
<p>I also wonder about the teacher quality issue. The kids seem to like the one we have pretty well, but I have sympathy for the idea that it is hard to find a good Physics teacher. </p>
<p>I guess our school has even more physics fear then–we have maybe 25 Physics B students. That’s it for advanced physics. And it’s not the teachers, we are lucky to have extremely good ones.</p>
<p>I think a lot of kids can do math the way it’s presented in math class, and are comfortable with plug and chug and manage to do pretty well that way. But when they are confronted with a problem where they have to do a little more to get to the equation solving step, they struggle. Maybe it’s because they don’t have the context of knowing what math chapter they’re in so they don’t know what possible equations or techniques they might need to use. </p>
<p>I think a lot of kids are afraid of physics because they aren’t confident in math. My older son far preferred physics to AP Bio. (He’s a comp sci guy who minored in physics in college.) But even my younger non-math guy picked AP Physics over AP Chem. (He did AP Bio first, which is pretty standard in our school for kids on the AP track as a junior year course.) He liked AP Bio, partly because he’s always had a strong interest in ecological issues - which was one of his events at Science Olympiad.</p>
<p>Frazzled kids, both physical science majors, feared the curves in high school physics classes and the unsettling feeling that they never quite knew where they stood. (This has also been the case in some college classes.)In contrast, the AP bio class was not graded on a curve, but the kids nonetheless avoided this class because they perceived it as mostly memorization. (Both of them aced honors bio, fwiw.)</p>
<p>Two things: GPA and class rank. I don’t think students fear physics as much as they fear how the class may affect their GPA and correspondingly, their class rank because physics has traditionally been seen as the “hard” science class. Sadly, there seems to be a preconception that physics isn’t necessary except for certain students (those nerds!), and there is a penalty to taking an unfamiliar subject.</p>
<p>Kind of sad if we’ve set up our educational system so that students are afraid of learning unfamiliar or difficult things.</p>
<p>Way back when I was in high school, about a third of the students or slightly more took high school physics. This was also about the same fraction of students who went to four year universities after graduation.</p>
<p>There was no AP or advanced physics, but there were two options:
<p>Perhaps the lack of Project Physics or similar course today may be a deterrent for prospective humanities and social studies majors who do not want to be thrown into a course meant for prospective physics and engineering majors. But that does not really explain the apparent hesitation to take physics among those who load up on other sciences to the AP level.</p>
<p>@mathyone
TOUCHE!!</p>
<p>Also the fear of physics is approximately equal to the fear of math.</p>
<p>Opting out of physics wasn’t an option at my HS or similar other public magnet or some private high schools I know of. It was part of the 4-year science requirement with 3 being lab sciences(bio, chem, physics) alongside 4 years of English lit/writing which was also feared to the point some students tried opting out…with similar non-existent levels of success. </p>
<p>So, it looks like the more important question seems to be: Do a lot of high school teachers fear high school physics?</p>
<p>At my kids’ HS, it isn’t that kids fear physics, it’s that the natural progression is Biology freshman year, Chemistry, Environmental/Earth science or Anatomy & Physiology sophomore year, AP Bio or one of the courses not taken in sophomore year junior year, and then Physics senior year. I think the thought process is that they want the kids to have as much math as possible before taking physics. By senior year, kids who aren’t headed into the sciences are wondering if they really need that 4th year of science. Kids who decide to stop with 3 years of science mostly end up not taking physics. At the HS in the next town down, physics is the first course and is predominantly a freshman course (obviously this is not a calculus based or heavy math physics course), so the vast majority of kids take it.</p>
<p>Maybe what some of you are terming fear is just simple lack of interest. I’m very mathy. I’m not “afraid” of any class with math content, at all. But physics just didn’t / doesn’t seem all that interesting to me. So I didn’t take it in high school, and never took it in college. I tend to be intellectually curious about a lot of stuff, but physics has never captured my attention. Maybe I’ve missed out, but it’s kind of an oh-well - there are plenty of fields out there and it certainly doesn’t seem as though physics is any kind of life requirement. </p>
<p>Some people don’t like physics, others don’t like foreign languages or art history. I’m not convinced these are crimes. Or “fears.” </p>