
Junior high school kills scientific curiosity - respinal
https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-2638674345
======
mncharity
> No, we talk about friction and pulleys.

And that poorly. Amontons' laws of friction for objects greased with pig fat.
We now understand friction down to nanoscale for a broad range of materials
and conditions. But we don't teach any of that. After all, why bother?

Even nanoscale. A sense of scale, of the physical sizes of things, is thought
foundationally important. It's part of every undergraduate curriculum in the
sciences and engineering. And often high-school. But it's not then _used_ by
subsequent content, so there's little selection pressure to teach it
_successfully_. And so we don't. If you ask graduate students at a first-tier
medical school "how big are red blood cells?", don't be surprised by the
baffled innumeracy of "really really small".

So yes, topic selection in science education is problematic. But simply
tweaking the topic list... there's no shortage of such "physics for jocks and
poets" efforts. And quite a few "physics emphasizing biology" courses. They
too are less than wonderfully successful.

------
WheelsAtLarge
I think schools in general kill curiosity. At some point, we are all pretty
much told to stop asking so many questions and to follow the lesson plans.
It's not meant to stifle curiosity but is a way for teachers to keep order
when they have 30+ students to manage.

Disrupting how schools conduct their business would do wonders for society.

I think Google's 20% time on one's own projects would be a great model for
schools to adopt from the preschool level on to graduation. Of course,
students would need guidance and it's not for every kid but it would be a
great choice for them to have.

~~~
imtringued
The goal of school is uniformity. Everyone takes the same classes. Kids who
like science are in the same class as kids who don't like science. This has
downsides but also advantages. It is better to have a society where everyone
has had "roughly" the same childhood and therefore the same starting
conditions.

As soon as the kids leave school and go to university there is a huge variety
of degrees which lets students take advantage of their individual strengths.

------
smt88
This is the opinion of a physicist, not someone who's actually studied this in
a serious way. Some issues with the statement:

\- junior high school is _very_ different for different people, even in the
same city (e.g. public vs private school, having money for science camps,
etc.)

\- most people go through a mental plateau in their early-ish teen years, so
there might not be as much opportunity to spur scientific curiosity in junior
high anyway

\- junior high is followed by ~10 more years of education for many people,
which seems like more than long enough to undo whatever "damage" was done

