There’s an interesting discussion at Pharyngula and Uncertain Principles about a high-school physics teacher in California who is in trouble for firing a gun as part of a classroom demonstration. It’s interesting because it opposes two principles to which we bleeding-heart liberal academic types will generally be sympathetic: “guns are dangerous” vs. “teachers should be free to make their classes interesting and exciting.” In the comments it’s very clear that, not only are people disagreeing, but they find folks on the other side to be slightly nutso.
I’m happy to come down on the side of an interesting classroom in this case. Guns can certainly be dangerous, and we have some cultural issues here in the U.S. that cause special problems that most other countries don’t have. It’s far too easy for the wrong people to have guns, especially handguns and assault rifles and other darlings of the NRA. But it goes way too far to extrapolate to the idea that the very concept of a gun is somehow evil, and that the things should be banned entirely.
The teacher, David Lapp, demonstrates the ballistic pendulum experiment each year by shooting a bullet into a block of wood. By measuring the block’s recoil, you can figure out the velocity of the bullet using conservation of momentum. (Or “inertia, velocity and other complex formulae,” as the newspaper article would have it.) Sure, there are ways to do it without using a rifle, but a demonstration like this makes the experiment come alive for a lot of students.
Many commenters in PZ and Chad’s threads are absolutist about the issue, insisting that any appearance of a gun in a classroom is completely insane. But the basic arguments against allowing the gun are pretty simple: either (1) there is a safety risk in having a gun in the classroom, or (2) it sends the wrong message to kids to let them see guns. I think (1) is blown substantially out of proportion. Imagine, in any of these arguments, replacing “gun” with “a dangerous thing.” Should there be an absolute prohibition against every dangerous thing in a classroom? No hazardous chemicals, no driver’s ed, no power tools in shop class? Dangerous things should be handled with care, but that shouldn’t lead to a complete loss of perspective.
The second argument, that simply letting the kids see a gun up close leads to familiarity and it’s a short step from there to Columbine, has it exactly backwards. The reason why American students go to college and engage in frequent binge drinking and other irresponsible behavior isn’t because they are exposed to alcohol too much in high school — it’s because the concept of underage drinking is a taboo that they can’t wait to violate. In other countries where children are allowed to drink in responsible amounts in a respectable context, there isn’t any outlaw romance associated with the concept of getting completely plastered once you escape from your family, and the rampant alcohol abuse that U.S. colleges have to deal with is much less widespread. I’d be very happy if the total number of firearms in American households were dramatically lower than it is, but I’d also be happy if kids were taught basic gun safety, and thought of them as tools to be used properly rather than toys out of movies and comic books.
And if they learn some conservation of momentum and other “complex formulae” in the process, so much the better.
Don S, I didn’t write that very well. I meant something along the lines of ‘if it is illegal, he’s an idiot’.
I don’t have any problems with a teacher using a gun for a demonstration in general any more than I have a problem with a teacher using a mains transformers to produce a 13 000V ‘rising spark’. If they’re done safely and legally, it’s up to the teacher and the school to decide.
On the subject of ‘consultation with parents’, the fact is that they’re the customers (not the kids). How much you should consult with them depends on a number of factors, not least ‘how often they want you to consult with them’. A few activist parents shouldn’t be enough to change things much if the parent body as a whole are involved in the school and so on; if they can, then that’s how it is (perhaps move to another school where a handful of angry parents punch far above their weight). Either they trust you or they don’t (or perhaps they trust you to a particular extent) and those are the conditions that you work under. Yes, they can be irritating and annoying and ill-informed, and some of them aren’t even acting from good intentions, but they’re the customers. The happy medium between teacher independence, headteacher’s control and parental involvement is a negotiated one, not an absolute one, and the biggest factor in what it turns out to be is what the parents want.
Moshe, I don’t think we disagree on much either, except that somehow you won’t shake off the conclusion that the teacher didn’t follow procedure or that he somehow broke the rules or conventions in producing his science demonstration:
“seems to me the guy got this discussion going by not following a proper procedure.”
The teacher followed procedure, he broke no laws, he followed school district procedures and he had each demonstration signed off. He followed every proper procedure.
The ONLY reason this discussion got going was that ONE SINGLE PARENT raised hell about it. The credulous author of that original piece bought into it and the rest is history. Hilarity ensues. We’re having this discussion because of a fantastic overreaction to the tool, a gun.
Yeah Don, I think you are right. I was under the impression there was a more widespread outcry, which for me would indicate that no proper consultation was taking place. However, the article indeed only cites one anonymous parent.
Surely we can agree this is a terrible article, right? none of the information one needs is there (e.g. what are the relevant qualifications of the teacher), it all fits neatly into a familiar mold, and in the center of the story there is a red herring (the criminal case)…
Red Herring or not, it sets up for some “further thoughts.” 🙂
Very consistant in the “approach and handling” of the subject by some.
Good lesson in itself:)
My high-school physics teacher did this experiment for my class (in England). Unfortunately, being an old school, it had been done a large number of times before with the same wooden block, so the bullet hit another bullet in the wood, which ricoched off and came to rest inside a pupil’s arm. No permanent harm done but a valuable lesson BOTH in the conservation of momentum AND in the danger of guns.
An interesting and cautionary tale from another Adam; didn’t Rutherford do an experiment a bit like this? I recall a demonstration (again in an old English school) of the thermite reaction – between aluminium and ferric oxide, and pleasingly exothermic – that burnt through the master’s bench, the floor and into the geography class downstairs. That certainly made an impression that stays with me to this day.
I clearly remember my Physics 106 class “Mechanics” (UIUC, Fall of ’75), where the instructor (researcher, Relativity) shot a dart from a cannon, at a falling chimp. It was all set up for the dart (ballistic trajectory) to hit the falling-chimp (gravity free-fall).
It was a perfect shot, worked the 1st time. The students in the auditorium cheered.
The instructor was a full blown theoretical researcher..teaching an undergrad physics class, & he NAILED the “experiment”! Who say Theoreticians can’t do Experiment?
Fill in this blank:
“The difference between a Theoretician & an Experimentalist, is that _______”
Get a load of this blooper:
“Kid comes to high school with telescope, as part of more Science-friendly initiative in Education. IDIOTIC administrators
[ “those who can’t Teach, ADMINISTRATE”..direct quote by a retired California Science teacher ]
have the telescope confiscated, student SUSPENDED!”
[ this got a lot of airtime in the sci.astro.amateur Newsgroup, since amateur-astronomers are involved with Science Outreach. They often partner with Astronomy profs at universities, bringing telescopes for Public star parties ]
Is that OUTRAGEOUS or what!! Yeah, the Telescope looks like a gun, therefore in the 9-11 Era..it’s possible Terrorism. *sarcasm*
Sounds like both incidents are manifestations of High School Administrative stupidity..COME ON!!
A former 6th grade History teacher of mine (Master’s Degree UIUC, Woodrow Wilson scholar) finally gave up Teaching & said to me recently:
“It got TOO COMPLICATED”
Meaning, the Education system is a flat-out MESS. Chaos Theory in practice.
I was a student of Mr. Lapp’s. The demonstration is great. Below is a letter I wrote to the Tamalpais Union High School District Superintendent. He also does a wonderful Physics in Music workshop as well.
Dear Superintendent Ferguson,
I was extremely disappointed in your decision to ban Mr. David Lapp from doing his ballistic pendulum demonstration as reported in the Marin IJ.
I am a third generation graduate of Tamalpais High School. Mr. Lapp was my physics teacher. Currently I am pursing my Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale. From my graduating class, there is one person at Stanford earning her Ph.D. in genetics, one at UCSD earning his MD/Ph.D. in bioinformatics, one earning her Ph.D. in geology and numerous others who have gone into careers in the medical field. When I talk to professors and fellow graduate students here at Yale about my classmates they are surprised at the numbers especially when I tell them Tam is a public high school and the class size was 181. One of the main reasons my class has this wonderful level of continued participation in the sciences is due to the the excellent teaching we received in high school from the likes of Mr. Lapp and Ms. Brumbaugh that taught us science is not the facts found in a textbook but rather a method of studying the world around us to understand how the universe actually works.
That lesson is just as valuable for those that pursue interests outside of the sciences. They need to be able to evaluate risks and rewards. They need to fully understand just how ludicrous it is for those action heroes found in movies and video games to evade bullets like they do, to understand what a gun can actually do. To have any fears they have regarding guns based on reality and not media hype. They need to be able to apply textbook knowledge into the real world to evaluate whether fears are real or imagined. To do this, science teachers have to be able to engage students by doing demonstrations and having the students do experiments. I have seen and done the ballastic pendulum experiment at other schools, the demonstrations were not as effective in teaching the principles nor in engaging the students.
The greatness of the science teachers at Tam is that they are able to engage not just those interested and planning careers in the sciences but also those who are not while not sacrificing the knowledge, skills and lessons to be learned. That is rare.
My question to you, is why ban the demonstration? What is the relative risk as compared to other experiments/demonstrations done in science classrooms/labs? Are you banning it because of irrational fears or because the risk is far greater? Your quote in the IJ, “‘He does a lot of things to grab students’ attention. However, this garnered more attention from the public'” argues you gave into the former which is a shame. You are giving into the very irrational fear that science combats by denying a science teacher the means by which to combat irrational fears. The motto of the district is “preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s world”. Your students will be making decisions in the future with regards to global warming, stem cell research, genetic manipulations, flu pandemics to name a few. They need to be able to separate the fact and rational thought from false claims and fears. When a school administrator takes the easy route and gives into the irrational what lesson is taught to students? When those in leadership positions fail to lead? Fail to make a stand?
Where does it end? Do you ban the chemicals used in chemistry courses because they could be used to poison or to make explosives? Do you ban phenol/chloroform from being used in nucleic acid extractions? Where are you drawing the line? What is your rubric?
One of the major bedrocks of democracy is scientific thought. The critical reasoning allows for a society based on rational thought and not the irrational. If we continue to erode science and give into such fears, we will continue to move this society further from its democratic ideal.
Well, if it’s interesting when done with a gun, think of how much MORE interesting a pendulum experiment would be if done by a woman with extremely large boobs. Of course, in that case you certainly wouldn’t want any guns around.
Thought experiments- do them now, before the Brain Police come to take us away.
kstrna, thanks very much for sharing your letter. It’s always the enthusiastic and passionate teachers who get in trouble somehow.
Interacting with parents can be a minefield for a teacher. Teachers are normally pretty confident in their understanding of the issues surrounding kids, and their education (reasonably enough); parents are normally pretty confident that they know their own kids (this is sometimes a reasonable assumption and sometimes not, but it’s at least a natural one). Teachers have a serious professional stake in being able to do their job without excessive interference; parents are (ideally) very invested in ensuring that their kid(s) get the best school experience to put them in a strong position for later life. Add to that the fact that people on one or both sides can be, how to put it, arseholes, and things can get quite fraught.