When it comes to high school science instruction, Bob Goodman says we have it all wrong. New Jersey’s 2006 teacher of the year believes it is time to throw out the 116-year-old standard sequence for teaching science and move to a more modern approach, known as algebra-based “physics first.” “It just seems that we made a mistake back in 1892,” he says.
Goodman, a physics teacher at Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro, refers to an order that was established in the nineteenth century by the Committee of Ten (educators who standardized the U.S. high school curriculum), which determined that a biology-chemistry-physics sequence is the way to teach science.
At Bergen Tech, Goodman is turning that sequence on its head. Students there begin with physics, followed by chemistry, then biology. “We have a very efficient program because the kids never go backwards,” says Goodman. “There are no dead ends, whereas if you do it in reverse order, what you learn in biology is pretty much memorized without understanding how chemistry and physics fit into the equation, and then you learn chemistry without being able to skillfully apply the laws of physics.”
Goodman’s evangelizing does not end with physics. He contends that improving public education—particularly science—should be a priority as the nation gets swept into globalization. As someone who helped turn around failing companies, his approach to education is business-minded: He advocates on behalf of teachers who, he says, are on the front lines of education and should be given more seats at the policy table alongside administrators, professors, and textbook publishers. He favors curricula geared toward advanced-placement (AP) testing and believes high school students should choose majors so they can pursue excellence in a field.
An MIT graduate (class of ’75) who spent most of his career heading technology companies and designing speaker systems, Goodman, 54, became a teacher when it dawned on him that teaching high school would allow him to spend most of his time focused on the kind of tangible physics he loved. Goodman lives in Ridgewood with his wife, Nancy, and has two kids in graduate school. He began teaching nine years ago at Bergen Tech, and it quickly became obvious to him that the traditional order of instruction had to be changed.
Bergen Tech was just beginning to function as a full-time high school, so Goodman had a blank slate for developing the pre-engineering and science curriculum. “We started with pre-engineering students taking bio and physics together in ninth grade, and when the schedule required us to move one [course] out of ninth grade, it was clear physics should stay,” he says. “Then other students petitioned the principal to also be allowed to take physics in ninth grade. Over about four or five years, more and more students made the change, and eventually everybody is doing the same science and math sequence.”
Now all students at Bergen Tech take ninth-grade physics, which requires only algebra (rather than trigonometry or calculus) and covers 40 percent of the AP test curriculum. This allows the ninth-graders to learn algebra in math class and simultaneously apply it in science class. That, says Goodman, helps solidify the learning of both. Students who later choose to take higher levels of physics can learn calculus at the same time.
“There’s nothing cooler than using knowledge from one class to do the homework for another,” says Yafim Landa, 19, a Bergen Tech graduate originally from Garfield who is entering his sophomore year at MIT. “This correlation really improved my math skills. All sciences are pretty much closely connected to one another—through math if nothing else. I don’t really understand why any school would choose not to use Mr. Goodman’s approach.”
Tom Sidoti, a 21-year-old from Franklin Lakes who expects to graduate from MIT next spring with a major in physics and a minor in math, studied physics all four years at Bergen Tech. “I was definitely more prepared than other students for the introductory physics courses and for calculus,” he says.
Larisa Berger, a mechanical engineering major entering her sophomore year at MIT, agrees. “In a lot of schools, physics, chemistry, and biology are treated as discrete subjects, but that’s completely not how the world works or how my professors at MIT look at it,” says the 19-year-old from Fort Lee. “Had I not learned science in that [physics-first] sequence, I probably would not have been able to get as far in math, and by the time I got to physics, I may have been turned off by all the math.”
Armed with such success stories, Goodman has taken his ideas on the road, pushing other schools around the state and across the nation to take a new look at the way science is taught. Nationwide, only an estimated 3 percent of high schools follow the model that Goodman champions. In New Jersey, only a handful of high schools have bucked tradition, including Montgomery Township, Northern Highlands Regional, North Hunterdon Regional, Ocean Township, and Voorhees. (Goodman points out that they use a variety of approaches, and not all employ an algebra-based physics course like Bergen Tech’s.)
Although she says she is open to change, Sandra Alberti, director of the New Jersey Department of Education’s office of science and math education, is skeptical of Goodman’s theory. “Anytime we say ‘Here’s the answer, one size fits all, a magic bullet,’ there are real risks in that,” she says. “As we continue to look for best practices, we’re certainly interested in promoting different approaches, and that’s absolutely an example, but it’s not the only example.”
The example Bergen Tech sets goes beyond its healthy crop of MIT-bound graduates. Half of the school’s new tenth graders opted to take AP physics for the 2008-09 school year following their initial taste of physics in ninth grade. Compare that to the more than two-thirds of U.S. high school students who have never taken a single physics course, let alone an AP physics test.
At Bergen Tech, students in 2007 took the physics AP test at thirteen times the rate of the rest of the state, and passed the exam (by getting a three or higher on the five-point scale) seven and a half times more often than other New Jersey students. Similarly, twice the number of Bergen Tech students take the AP biology test compared to the state average, and four times as many take the AP chemistry test, with students passing the test at 1.3 and 2.2 times the rate of the rest of the state, respectively. (True, Bergen Tech is a specialized school that draws students who achieve a certain grade-point average. But the school competes for students with the long-established Bergen Academies, which attract high-achieving students, and generally ends up with the middle 70 percent of the public-school population in the county.)
For Goodman and others, physics is not just about teaching teenagers how to build bridges or understand thermodynamics. It is about preparing the next wave of inventors, engineers, and scientists to keep the United States competitive in a global market. The nation faces stiff competition in teaching the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields from China and India—developing countries churning out large numbers of engineers, computer programmers, and scientists.
“What made New Jersey strong was Thomas Edison, Bell Labs, and its strong industry—we were strong because of STEM,” says Jeff Osowski, vice president for learning and teaching at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City and former assistant commissioner of education in the state. “The same is true for America…. We’re just not turning out enough raw material for our colleges and businesses, and that has implications for everything we do, from preschool right up to graduate school. We need to be more science-oriented in our education system if we’re going to keep up with development. We either make a strong investment in STEM careers or we lose.”
In Osowski’s view, physics first makes sense, though he will not go so far as to push for its adoption statewide. “I believe there can be multiple pathways,” he says.
Still, he agrees that it is easier to build on knowledge when students start with physics fundamentals—and that a better science curriculum benefits even those who have no interest in becoming scientists. “What we need to do is elevate science literacy for every single one of the kids in our schools,” he says. “Everyone needs to think like a scientist, because how we vote, whether we recycle, the debate about where we tap new energy sources, understanding global climate change, even fixing your bicycle brakes—you need an understanding of science for all those things.”
Missy Holzer, who teaches earth system science and AP environmental science at Chatham High School, expands on that idea. “A part of the story I think is overlooked is what are called second-tier college science students who may not be research scientists, but have a tremendous interest in the subject, and would want a career in the periphery that ties their love of science into business, art, music, literature, journalism, etc,” she says. “Students in high school need to know what type of [science-related] jobs are out there.”
To Holzer, however, physics first is not the answer. “There is no research that says that sequence is best for our kids,” she says, citing a Rutgers study that shows no difference in student comprehension whether they take physics or another science first. “The practices of each science are different, and therefore each one offers students a different way of learning and thinking. Our students need to be in all sciences in order to get a sampling of the nature and practice of science. This is what’s important, not the sequence.”
Alberti, Goodman, Osowski, and Holzer all stress that science appreciation is more likely to emerge if the subject is emphasized at an early age. “Becoming a scientific thinker doesn’t start with the decision to take a science course as a freshman,” says Osowski.
Elevating science education in earlier grades is something Alberti is striving for at the state level. “We consider it to be a K-through-12 issue,” she says. “When we have good systems in place and students have good experiences, we’ll end up with more scientists.”
Since its launch in December, Alberti’s office has moved to require that all high school students complete biology, chemistry, and a third year of an inquiry-based lab science in order to graduate. “We’re raising the rigor to prepare students for college and workplace training,” she says.
Goodman is less enthused. “I really would rather not require any of them, because the need to get every student in the state to pass each test will drive us to create a very low standard for all of the tests,” he says, pointing to Bergen Tech’s use of AP exams to shape a rigorous curriculum. “On top of that, by doing it without physics, they’re knocking out the possibility of doing it in a sequence that makes sense, because schools will say, ‘Well, if the kids need this to graduate, then that’s all we’re going to do.’ Physics is so under-taught as it is, and in an attempt to create more rigor, they’re going to create less.”
Alberti, a former high school biology teacher, disagrees. “It’s a challenge, but we hope by bringing science to the forefront, we’ll be able to increase the quality, and students will be more interested.”
The new standards start this year with just biology and will go into full effect for the class of 2014 in keeping with the state’s “NJ Steps” high school redesign, proposed earlier this year. The changes are significant. A 2005 Department of Education survey showed that 69 percent of New Jersey high schools required biology to graduate and 35 percent required chemistry. Those levels will now be 100 percent, but what will happen to physics is unclear. As of the 2005 survey, only 14 percent of schools made physics a graduation requirement. Mathematics is in better standing: Starting with the class of 2012, algebra I will be a graduation requirement, and geometry and algebra II mandates have been recommended to the state board.
“You leave high school and can’t continue in the STEM pipeline unless you have higher-level physics and math,” Osowski says. “If you’ve only taken lower levels, you can’t stay in. Bob’s approach is aimed at elevating all students. What we need to do in our education system is ensure that we elevate general science literacy, but also boost those students who are on a trajectory for a STEM career.”
The physics-first approach, which opens the door to four years of physics, is not easy: Goodman says it took several years to make the switch and that no major push to improve STEM education is simple. Bergen Tech principal Andrea Sheridan says it helped to have the support of an administration and enthusiastic teachers. “We were able to make decisions and a lot of people had to put in extra work,” she says. “But we look at the final product and the kids are happy, well rounded, and prepared for college.”
For Goodman, the difference is not just in test scores or the prestigious colleges that welcome Bergen Tech grads. It’s also reflected in what he sees every day in the classroom. “I’m a big believer that what you don’t use, you lose, so if you learn something and you never use it again, you may as well not learn it,” he says. “These kids keep building on what they know. They aren’t turned off by the math. They’re tuned in because they get it.”