Looking out for the wobbly middle!

No, this isn't a reflection on my post-christmas likely state.

Earlier this year I took a new job at Northumbria University working on a project to encourage young people to see science (particularly physics) as a springboard to interesting things.  There has been a lot of work recently (see the ASPIRES project) about why students don't study science.  A lot of the findings appear to support the idea that students like science in primary and early secondary school, but don't see themselves 'doing science'.  They have an (incorrect) idea of what a scientist is, and know that they don't want to do it.

Of course, I know that scientists don't look like this:

 

Image search results for 'scientist'

But children and young people don't.  This is what scientist is according to popular culture, and on the whole this is what they DON'T want to be.

Part of the work of my project is to try to develop more of an understanding of what doing science (and STEM) might look like as a career path.  We are developing case studies and careers materials showcasing people who have studied Physics to A-level and finding out where they are now, and how they got there. [Ad] These will be available on our website thinkphysics.org [End Ad].

However, one of the other things we're trying to do is to target some of our interventions at what I'm calling the 'wobbly middle'.  The middle-set kids who are doing okay in science, probably going to get an A or a B.  They could do sciences at A-level, but they often don't.  We want them to have a successful experience of doing science so that it becomes something that they can see themselves doing.  It's not that we don't want to work with the kids the school identifies as 'Gifted and Talented'* but in many ways, we feel we can have more of an effect with those wobbly middles.  We're helping our partner schools to think about how they can support these students, rather than focusing exclusively on the top or bottom of the cohort*.

It's not that I want every student to study science and go into a STEM career - but I do want them to have the opportunity to do so.

* I'm hopeful that the progress-8 measure will help in some ways.  It will ensure that there is a reason for the school to think about how to work with every child to improve their results, not just around the borders.

What's the point of surds?

I spent some time on Wednesday and Thursday at the North East Skills event with Think Physics.  We were there with 'spinning things' - gyroscopes, tops, plates, yo-yo's and a giant gyro-ride.  The event is aimed at young people between 14-25, though most are between 14-19. During the day schools brought groups of young people, and on Wednesday evening it was open to the general public (i.e. parents who brought their kids along).

Our stand at a quiet time.

Our aim was to show the visitors to the event the physics behind a simple toy, and then link that with the uses of that in their lives.  It seemed to work. There were a number of lovely 'woah' moments when we showed gyroscopes balancing on pen tips, or hanging horizontally from a piece of string.  We linked the toys to the GCSE curriculum (by analogy with Newton's first law*), and to life (artificial horizon on planes, direction systems in satellites etc).  

As well as that, we spent time talking with kids and parents about choices at A-level and beyond.  Because we weren't at the event trying to recruit for any particular organisation, we were able to give fairly independent advice.

At one point on Wednesday evening, when it was a little quieter, two girls (Yr 11) came to our stand, attracted by the plate spinning.  They spent some time working at getting the plates spinning, all the time chatting away like a comedy double act.  My colleague and I talked about school, lessons and what they wanted to do with their lives.  At one point during the discussion, they started ranting about their maths lessons.  They both said they enjoyed their maths, particularly algebra, but 'What's the point of surds?' they asked.  'Do you know what they are?', 'Have you ever needed to use them?'.  'We asked out teacher (who's lovely), but she couldn't tell us what they were for.  What is the point?  Why are we learning about them? When will we ever use them?'

I answered them: 'You might never use them' (Hah, knew it! they both said). 'But,' I continued, 'what you will use, is the skills that you've developed while learning about surds. The fact that you can identify important information to answer questions, that you can handle numbers, that you can work through problems to get to a solution. Those skills you'll use.

'When you go to apply for a job - those are the skills your boss will care about. Not that you can do surds, but that you've got the skills to do so.

'But the thing is. You can only develop those skills by learning stuff. By doing problems with surds.  That's the use of surds. Not that they are useful in themselves, but the skills you get from learning about them - that's why you learn about surds.'

The girls were convinced! 'Why didn't our teacher tell us that? That would have made sense.'

And the moral of the story?

I'm not sure, to be honest.  But perhaps we don't need to always justify our subjects in terms of usefulness in 'real life'.  Maybe relevance isn't always about where a child will make use of a particular topic. Perhaps we sometimes need to spell out the (thinking) skills that are being developed through the subject.

Annie, winding the string onto a gyroscope again.