In his years as a physics teacher, students often asked Mark Whalley why they had to learn the subject when most of them would never directly use it in their careers. Having never been satisfied with the answers he gave, he here sets out the case for learning physics, even for students who don’t pursue the subject further
Several years ago I was sitting at the back of a classroom supporting a newly qualified science teacher. The lesson was going well, a pretty standard class on Hooke’s law, when a student leaned over to me and asked “Why are we doing this? What’s the point?”.
Having taught myself, this was a question I had been asked many times before. I suspect that when I was a teacher, I went for the knee-jerk “it’s useful if you want to be an engineer” response, or something similar. This isn’t a very satisfying answer, but I never really had the time to formulate a real justification for studying Hooke’s law, or physics in general for that matter.
Who is the physics curriculum designed for? Should it be designed for the small number of students who will pursue the subject, or subjects allied to it, at the post-16 and post-18 level? Or should we be reflecting on the needs of the overwhelming majority who will never use most of the curriculum content again? Only about 10% of students pursue physics or physics-rich subjects post-16 in England, and at degree level, only around 4000 students graduate with physics degrees in the UK each year.
One argument often levelled at me is that learning this is “useful”, to which I retort – in a similar vein to the student from the first paragraph – “In what way?” In the 40 years or so since first learning Hooke’s law, I can’t remember ever explicitly using it in my everyday life, despite being a physicist. Whenever I give a talk on this subject, someone often pipes up with a tenuous example, but I suspect they are in the minority. An audience member once said they consider the elastic behaviour of wire when hanging pictures, but I suspect that many thousands of pictures have been successfully hung with no recourse to F = –kx.
Hooke’s law is incredibly important in engineering but, again, most students will not become engineers or rely on a knowledge of the properties of springs, unless they get themselves a job in a mattress factory.
From a personal perspective, Hooke’s law fascinates me. I find it remarkable that we can see the macroscopic properties of materials being governed by microscopic interactions and that this can be expressed in a simple linear form. There is no utilitarianism in this, simply awe, wonder and aesthetics. I would always share this “joy of physics” with my students, and it was incredibly rewarding when this was reciprocated. But for many, if not most, my personal perspective was largely irrelevant, and they knew that the curriculum content would not directly support them in their future careers.
At this point, I should declare my position – I don’t think we should take Hooke’s law, or physics, off the curriculum, but my reason is not the one often given to students.
A series of lessons on Hooke’s law is likely to include: experimental design; setting up and using equipment; collecting numerical data using a range of devices; recording and presenting data, including graphs; interpreting data; modelling data and testing theories; devising evidence-based explanations; communicating ideas; evaluating procedures; critically appraising data; collaborating with others; and working safely.
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Science education must be about preparing young people to be active and critical members of a democracy, equipped with the skills and confidence to engage with complex arguments that will shape their lives. For most students, this is the most valuable lesson they will take away from Hooke’s law. We should encourage students to find our subject fascinating and relevant, and in doing so make them receptive to the acquisition of scientific knowledge throughout their lives.
At a time when pressures on the education system are greater than ever, we must be able to articulate and justify our position within a crowded curriculum. I don’t believe that students should simply accept that they should learn something because it is on a specification. But they do deserve a coherent reason that relates to their lives and their careers. As science educators, we owe it to our students to have an authentic justification for what we are asking them to do. As physicists, even those who don’t have to field tricky questions from bored teenagers, I think it’s worthwhile for all of us to ask ourselves how we would answer the question “What is the point of this?”.
