OF HORATIO CHUTE

SCHOOL SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS

VOL. XI No. I CHICAGO, JANUARY, 1911 WHOLE NO. 84

AN EXPERIMENT: THE TEACHING OF HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS IN SEGREGATED CLASSES.1

BY WILLIS E. TOWER,

Englewood High School, Chicago.

As was indicated in the report upon fundamentals given by Professor Galloway yesterday, our far-sighted educators are emphasizing in these days the motivation of the high school course of study.

This is leading to a careful scrutiny of the incentives and interests of the pupils in our science classes, particularly so by teachers of physics; in this subject, we have as students two groups of individuals, boys and girls, who come to our classes with different experiences, interests, and anticipations. If physics is to have its proper motivation for these two distinct groups, some differentiation in presentation or in subject matter is indicated to the educational practitioner.

In many schools, the number taking physics is not large enough to justify the formation of separate classes for boys and girls. In our larger schools where it could be done, while many have considered the proposition, some would without. doubt question the desirability of such a procedure. For as a part of our educational inheritance from the past has come the idea that all pupils in a given subject should have the same training, so that all may be equally fitted for college or for life.

This idea of the same training for all is being seriously questioned in these days, when we are learning of the great variation in individual capacities even in such selected groups as high school and college classes.

We are at the dawn of a new era in educational progress in high school instruction in which the pupil rather than the subject studied is to receive the greatest consideration and when

1Read before the Physics Section of the Central Association, at Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 26, 1910.

we see the necessity of going down to a pupil's level and skillfully leading him up to some of the mountain peaks of scientific thought rather than sitting in state and issuing directions for the journey over the course that we have previously traveled.

We are learning to ask, What are our pupils' real needs? and can we satisfy them by our teaching?

It is a common observation of thoughtful teachers of physics that marked differences exist between boys and girls in their stock of experiences and ideas, that are of service in the subject of physics.

Boys have many opportunities to learn about machines, electricity, properties of matter and illustrations of the laws of motion that rarely come to the average girl, especially to the girl born and reared in a city. It is a matter of common experience that in high school classes in physics, girls are often timid about asking questions especially on topics in which boys are apt to be proficient, fearing to expose their ignorance, or perhaps fearing more the smiles which arise when their inexperience leads them to ask foolish questions. Some consideration of these facts led me some years ago to ask permission of my principal to try as an experiment teaching physics in segregated classes. Approval for this plan was doubtless facilitated by the fact that in the Englewood High School boys and girls are taught in separate classes during the first two years. Several advantages are found in this plan which keeps the boys and girls apart in their recitations in the first two years of the high school, at a time when the girl is ahead of the boy in mental development.

Permission having been secured, a start was made in February, 1909, when at the beginning of the second semester a girls' class, a boys' class and a mixed class were arranged. In order to make the test as scientific and complete as possible it was planned to conduct the experiment in two stages. In the first, the instruction in all the classes was to be made as nearly alike as possible and, after the results of such a course were obtained, to take up the second part and present a course somewhat modified, giving boys more mechanics and electricity and girls more heat, sound, and light than would be assigned to the usual mixed class.

The prosecution of this experiment has not as yet passed beyond the first stage as outlined above. We are still testing. results from teaching the same physics, i. e., the same topics

and the same laboratory work to all classes. I had planned to change to the second step this year, but being engrossed with a second pedagogical experiment which involves a shifting of the order of topics in mechanics to one that seems to me a more natural development of the subject in the mind of the average high school pupil, I am still presenting the subject as nearly alike to all pupils as possible.

In the first place, one finds that it is practically an impossibility to teach physics to a girls' class just as you would teach it to a boys' or to a mixed class. So that there is but little question that despite care on my part to prevent it, I have been presenting in a way three different courses. This is indicated by the fact that a boys' class in physics can cover as a rule ten to twenty-five per cent more ground in a recitation period than a girls' or mixed class, especially in mechanics. This is due in part to the previous experience of the boys, giving them many practical ideas, that must be developed in a class containing girls.

Another result of my observations has been that there is much more unity in a boys' or girls' class than in a mixed class. That is, the individuals in a segregated class have more nearly the same ideas, experiences, and interests, and you can appeal more successfully to the class as a whole by a proper selection of illustrations and experiments.

As an illustration of this idea, the principal of the school, Mr. Armstrong, was invited to give a lecture on some topics in sound to the three classes. Among other points, that of the tempered scale as applied to instruments with fixed tones was mentioned. The girls' class was intensely interested and raised numerous questions showing clear comprehension because of their interest in and knowledge of music.

The boys' class listened respectfully but no questions were heard.

In the mixed class but two or three girls asked questions.

Our school records for last year contain the results of teaching physics in segregated and mixed classes. The final averages attained for the year have been tabulated and graphs constructed which give the percentages of the pupils reaching certain grades. These graphs have been run off on the mimeograph and will be given to you at this time. The graphs show no marked differences between the several classes. In fact, the similarity between the several graphs is striking and as far as

the statistics go, it apparently has made but little difference whether the pupils were in mixed or segregated classes. This was not unexpected. It may be partly explained by a discovery made through the experience with segregated classes in the first two years. It has there been brought out strongly that Per Cent

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successful methods with a boys' class and a girls' class are often markedly different, and further that a teacher may be a conspicuous success with girls and a failure with boys or vice versa, and that his success with mixed classes is no certain criterion of his results with segregated ones. The same methods, topics, etc., having been used in all the classes no striking differences were expected, in the first part of the experiment.

We will recall that physics is one of the studies that appeals more to boys than to girls. The boys show more interest in it and are often the more successful students. I believe that this is due, not only to the subject matter but also to the method of presentation. It has usually been presented from the point of view of the boy, and in it have been emphasized some topics which may later be of use to the technical and to the research student though of doubtful value to the majority of our pupils. Some recent texts have shown that these points are being given. thoughtful attention by their authors, though a text in physics adapted to the girls has yet to be written.

I asked my girls' class the other day whether they had a preference between a segregated and a mixed class in physics. Out of 29, 24 favored the segregated, two the mixed, and three were indifferent.

In a boys' class of twenty-six, twenty-one favored the segregated, one the mixed, and four were uncertain.

The same question raised in my mixed class brought a different answer. Of fourteen girls, ten favored a mixed class, four the segregated, while of nine boys, three favored the mixed, six preferring the segregated.

Of the reasons advanced by the girls, one especially interested me: "In a girls' class, the girls have to do their own work, and do not depend upon the boys."

The boys like to get into the boys' class where, as they say, there are no girls to hold them back. On the other hand a majority of the girls prefer the girls' class where they feel that they can ask questions and express themselves more freely. Some of the girls say they like the mixed class because they receive the benefit of the boys' questions and ideas.

Some consideration is to be accorded this point. In fact, it is the one most often mentioned by the girls in favor of the mixed classes. Its value, however, is more apparent than real, as its application frequently permits the stronger members of the class to do the thinking for the weaker or less experienced ones, whereas these latter ones are those most in need of exercising their reasoning powers, and these will develop best when these pupils are placed where they are obliged to do their own thinking.

The general results thus far show: Ist. That teaching physics in segregated classes is fully as successful as in mixed ones.