After a gratifying and successful career as an educational and non-profit leader spanning 40 plus years; from substitute teacher to, principal, to superintendent to New Mexico’s first Secretary of Education; I found myself settling into semi-retirement, happy to continue my work with my consulting firm and enjoying my newly found free time. When I was approached by Dr. Glushchenko to help carry out the vision of Physcira to bring quality physics education to America’s students, I thought who me? I never have endorsed a curriculum and never thought of myself connected to the instructional materials industry, let alone in the area of physics.
So, why did I say yes? After many years of supervising principals and teachers; and years of analyzing data, I learned that, not only New Mexico; but the entire country has missed the boat in science education and especially in physics and physical science. It wasn’t the teacher’s fault, or the principals’ fault-it wasn’t anyone’s particular fault but rather the failure of the system that prepares our teachers in the United States. I became convinced of this fact after I spent time learning from the founder of Physcira and inventor of Physics in a Box, renowned physicist and educator, Anatoliy Glushchenko. He explained that as a physicist educator he was required to take four years of pedagogy. Then I remembered the time I spent in Singapore, looking at their best teaching practices…they too spent more time teaching their teachers how to teach (pedagogy). I was stunned… typical educators in the U.S. take a fraction of courses in pedagogy. The other problem is that for the most part elementary and middle school teachers don’t have to take more than 6 hours of coursework in mathematics, or physical science to be able to teach these classes. My experience with middle school teachers who are certified as elementary school generalists tend to shy away from physical science being more comfortable with life science. Did you know that middle students in the United States are presented with a fraction of lessons in physical science as compared to their Asian and European peers? And we wonder why we are outperformed by other nations, and why our students tend to avoid physics in high school, and in many cases, we have to import our STEM workforce.
Physics in a Box offers an innovative delivery system. First you don’t need an expensive laboratory; everything you need to teach for example electricity is in a box containing durable and high-quality crafted materials; not cheap plastic props that are going to break after a year; and the teacher doesn’t have to run around scrounging materials. Secondly, each box comes with well researched lesson plans; and yes, there’s more…the teacher receives one hour of professional development a week. Most instructional materials come with consumables which means the school district must annually pay to replace used materials. Not so for Physics in Box, all the materials you buy you won’t need to replace for years to come. Plus, it is a sustainable full- service program with quality materials, internationally benchmarked lessons and weekly professional development. I’m convinced that Physics in a Box is the most innovative and game changing curriculum I have seen in my career. It is going to make physical science in the middle school a place where children can work in teams, engage in hands on-project based learning and develop their critical thinking and math skills, while learning physics. Students will now be better prepared to take advanced math and physics when they go to high school and beyond. It will open the opportunities for many more students to have the skills to do well in STEM college courses and/ or a STEM related career.
Join me in transforming our educational system.
Dr. Veronica C. Garcia, Ed.D.
Senior Vice President for External Affairs, Physics in a Box
