Preparation for Teaching Physics in Secondary Schools

Abstract

College physics instructors may well question whether their traditional lack of attention to the preparation of teachers is not an evasion of responsibility. In particular, they may ask whether they are giving sufficient attention to the achievement by the student of an understanding of science. Recently suggested or proposed changes in certification requirements fail to recognize the essential fact that almost all high school science teachers must teach two or more different sciences, and it appears certain that basic changes in curricula, rather than the prescription of certain traditional courses, are needed if we are to prepare teachers of the tenth through twelfth grades.