Why did people hate science in school?

[Blandmum]

Follow on from the cross country thread and others.

There are lots of people on mn who hated science in school, I find this hard to understand mt self

But an honest question, and the answer would be useful to me to help stop kids now from hating it.

Why did you hate it in school? It would help if you can be specific in your answers, so if 'It was boring' is the answer if would be useful if you could also tell me why it was boring IYSWIM

Many thanks!

We don't do much dissection at any point, and all the bits have to be food grade from the butcher. It is never compulsory.

Dissection was interesting, although gross. I had to collect the bulls' eyes from the local slaughterhouse, yuck!

Oh I loved it, loved it, loved it!

Loved physics, loved biology (particularly human) and did a degree in physiology and pharmacology. Still work in medicine now!

I do have a very scientific brain though - maths, physics etc suited me down to the ground, took after my Dad.

Who was it who said Physics has no bearing on every day life??? EH?!?!? It impacts everything!! Understanding physics is extremely useful!

gdg, as a biology teacher, is pains me to say it, but you are quite right. Everything is physics. Biology is physics st its most interesting!

I absolutely loved biology and chemistry but that is partly because the teachers were very good at teaching it - physics however was a different story!! The teacher was an old man who was boring - he had no passion for what he was teaching - either that or he just didn't like kids!! I didn't, and still don't, understand it - things like voltage and ohms and neutrons etc. I know the general idea but get easily confused!!

I think if a teacher is passionate about what they are teaching and can pass thzt on to the children they are teaching it makes a huge difference to the way the children react to learning.

I'm a true science nerd. Loved Biology, Chemistry OK, hated Physics.

Did degree in Microbiology (yes I find bacteria fascinating ) still love anything medical/biological now.

GDG It was me who was derogatory about Physics although I did not say it has no impact on everyday life, just that I have no every day use for it. Dh entirely disagrees with me but then he has a degree in mechanical engineering and still works in engineering design. Of course, he uses physics every day.

Go on then, give me one example of how I use Physics in my everyday life, bearing in mind I am a SAHM.

I'm not a scientist, but when you drive a car? And when you manage to stay on the planet, rather than floating off into space? Whenever you use an electrical device?

No, I mean, when do I need to know about physics. I don't need to know about gravity to stay on the ground!

Think we need HMB to answer that question. Wiring a plug?

Yup you've got me there because I don't know off by heart the colour coding for plugs. But, on the other hand, all appliances these days come with the plug already on, and last time I had to wire a plug, there was a piece of card inside teiing me which wire was which and showing in a diagram where each one should go.

I wish I did know off by heart, just to be able to answer general knowledge questions, but otherwise, I think I don't have to worry too much about that.

well, you need some basic knowledge of electricity to use it safely! For example to understand why you shouldnt stand under a tree in a thunderstorm, or dry your hair while standing in the bath.

Dont you also have some curiosity, to know why your electricity bill goes down if you switch from radiant to convector heaters and get insulation put in your house?
or why a bullet comes out of a gun fast?
or what happens when you switch the tv on?
and are you content to think that mobile phones work by magic?

I think what I struggled with in science at school was the experiments. I was happy to read in a book and accept that a scientist named Joe one day mixed some blue stuff with some green stuff and it turned red, and therefore he was able to work out that ooblejump had happened. I would have been happy to leave it at that.

But instead we would start with the experiment ourselves, and invariably when we did the experiment in class and I mixed the blue stuff with the green stuff it turned yellow with pink spots. The teacher would be unable to explain why mine had turned yellow with pink spots, and would simply say that it should have turned red, and from that I should be able to conclude that ooblejump had happened.

As you can tell from my example (!) science and I never really progreessed very far, possibly because I remember this sort of thing happening on several different occasions - in chemistry and in biology - and I found it deeply unsatisfactory.

Oh dear nightynight, I know I am going to sound like a complete philistine here, but.....do I have any curiosity about the things you mentioned? I am so sorry, but .....no! Mobile phones are powered by magic aren't they? I don't know, I try not to use them at all.

I liked biology because I could relate to it and it felt 'real'. I like transgendered worms and the way birds' feathers were made etc. Physics didn't feel real at all. And it was also hideously mathematical and I couldn't see the point of it. Whole lessons passed in a blur. Dimly recall something turning purple at one stage, so that must have been the captivating bit.
Science wasn't nearly as ghastly as maths or sport, probably because the teacher was sweet (as opposed to being a psychopathic bully!). The biology teacher was quite fierce actually, but the physics teacher was a dear.

but life is so much more INTERESTING if you do know these things!

Oh, I disagree. Just makes your brain hurt!

Always makes me laugh that if I was catapulted into the past and told everyone about telly and computers and mobile phones and they all said, 'but how can we create these marvellous things' I'd say, "um, dunno"!

Science at school mainly involved reading from the textbooks and re-writing it in your own books. Practicals were nearly always carried out by the teacher. The school had very little equipment and most of what they had was ancient and no longer worked properly, eg clamps that didn't actually grip anything. Test tubes were never cleaned properly so when you did get to try out the experiments for yourself the chemicals would turn a completely different colour to what was expected - yet we were still expected to write up the 'right' result in our books.

Ds1 absolutely loves everything to do with science and is always asking questions that I just can't answer. Anyone know why people have a chin, for example?

No Nightnight, life is so much more interesting knowing what happened in the past, how commuities came together, what they fell out over, how problems were resolved, why people acted as they did, what they believed in, what motivated them, where things happened, what things looked like, even how the land has changed over centuries and millennia.

I am sorry but how a mobile phone works is of no interest to me whatsoever. Mainly I think mobile phones are a bloody intrusion into private lives, although it did stike me yesterday that in some way they serve to lessen the physical divides that have sprung up in our lives of late, eg, although we no longer live in the same village as our extended families, as generations before us did, we can still have day to day, in some cases almost hourly contact with our loved ones via the mobile phone. You see, I am an historian, a psychologist, a geographer, a philosopher, anything but a physicist!

Ah, but that's biology and falls into my 'real' category!

Did Physics o level but don't remember much of it. Was too squeamish to do Biology and never "got" Chemistry - defeated by the equations and periodic table !

mb - to answer your original questions - I also found physics boring up til A levels.
I didnt really know what physics was all about for the first 3 years, didnt understand any of it, and nearly gave it up at O level. I think this was because it was so theoretical, and as someone else said, even the practicals weren't terribly interesting. A lot also passed me by without me understanding it, which also contributed to my lack of interest I guess.

Chemistry was more interesting because it was more to do with the natural world (rocks, crystals, elements etc.). I also found biology fairly interesting for the same reason.

lonelymum - I also have a fascination with the past, but I still want to understand the present. Interestingly, your opinion of mobile phones is about their cultural influence rather than the technology. Actually, I rather agree with you that it is undesirable to be on the end of a mobile all the time.

However, the technology is far more interesting, specifically the air interface. That is when a phone connects to the nearest base station.
When the on button is pressed, the phone and the base station have a complex dialogue, during which each one is looking for correct responses from the other. And each message has to be formatted correctly, and transmitted as the correctly modified electromagnetic wave for the other side to be able to read it.

It is true that a lot can be learned from history - but we also need to understand technology. For example, if someone wants to build a mobile mast near your house, how can you judge if its dangerous or not? should you support a community protest against it or not? how do you know the motives of the people who are telling you its dangerous? Are you just taking part in 21st century mass hysteria or is there a genuine danger?

I am sure you have a point NN but I only had to read the words "air interface" and my mind went blank! Modern technology just leaves me cold.

If I could, I think I would just escape into the eighteenth century and have done with it. I have a theory that our ever changing world is not a safe and stable place for us to be. I think it could be argued that we are moving too fast for humanity to cope. Does that make sense or do I sound like I am an ostrich with my head in the sand?

I wanted to like and be good at the sciences but poor teaching was my undoing. My first science teacher was a lovely man but a mad-professor-type who expected you to get it all first time and couldn't understand why anyone couldn't understand, iykwim. Then I had a teacher who I am sure would be behind bars nowadays - always taking boys off to store rooms to beat them etc and at the same time held girls in disdain. I was okay at biology, though, it seems to make more sense!

I think the sciences are presented in a much mnore interesting way now and of course children begin science in primary school, which I think is great.