NO SURPRISES

Imagine living in a place where you can't go barefoot because there are parasites in the dirt that can bore into the soles of your feet, and if they do they will move through your blood stream populating and reproducing in whatever part seems appetizing--your eyes, your liver, your kidneys, your intestines.

Imagine living in a place where you have to spend two hours every day walking to a well where you can fill a single, large jug full of water, then carry it back to your home.

Imagine living in a place where you have only one item of food to eat--rice, for instance--and that's it.

Imagine a place where you can't walk down a street without the high likelihood of being shot by a sniper.

Imagine scrambling your brain with drugs while in college to the point that you end up living in Pasadena as a street person (as is now the case with the guy who was my best friend when I was in high school).

With the exception of that last scenario, all of the situations depicted above are being experienced widespread by young people on this planet at this very moment . . . but not by you.

You, as is the case with myself, live in a relatively pleasant situation. Certainly, you have your travails. What teenager doesn't (in fact, what HUMAN doesn't).  And yes, you have been seriously inconvenienced over the last few years due to the covid pandemic. But in all probability, you don't have to worry about where your next meal will come from. You have a place to go to to get out of the rain. You have shoes to wear. You at least occasionally have money with which to buy things. You almost always have freedom to do things (this, ignoring the period during which you were required to stay at home).    You don't need to think much, in other words, about survival. You can think about other things.             

One of the "other things" you will be thinking about over the next nine months will be the mechanic of how your world works. That is to say, you will be studying two major fields of physics.  This is a good thing. It has the potential of being challenging. It has the potential of being enlightening. It has the potential of giving you something to complain about. It has the potential of being, dare I say, fun.

Going on the assumption that nobody likes surprises, the following is designed to lay out for you what I'm hoping to do for you, and what I'm expecting you will do for yourself. Please read it carefully. If there is something you don't understand, talk to me.

What I intend to do for you:

1.) I'm here to help you understand the discipline of physics. That's my job. I've been doing this here at Poly for a long time. Nothing brings a smile to my face faster than having an entire class earn an A on one of my tests.

Put a little differently, my goal is for you to understand the physics so well that you can use it to confidently take apart problems you have never seen before using nothing more than your wits. Everything I ask you to do for homework and everything I do in class will be designed to lead you to that end. I am on your team, to put it in sports terms. It is us against the monster, not you against me.

2.) My professional life, such as it is, is wrapped around teaching young people the ins-and-outs of physics. By its very nature, the class will move along, but anything I do in the way of presentation that diminishes your ability to grasp the material needs to be rectified. If I am talking too fast during class, say something and I will slow down. If you don't understand something I've said, put your hand up and ask for another explanation. If you still don't understand the "other" explanation, come in and talk to me later.

The intent of this class is not to confuse you. The intent of this class is to help you grab hold of the physics. You need to be attentive. Assuming you are being so, if there is anything that is diverting you from that goal, let me know and I'll do my best to fix it.

3.) Learning physics is a lot like learning a foreign language. You need to understand the words (these are the laws of physics in our analogy), but you also have to understand how to put the words together (i.e., how to use the laws to analyze situations). Like any language, it is going to take some time to get used to the syntax (i.e., the flow).

Anybody can listen to me talk about a problem and think, "That seems easy enough." The trick is to furrow the neurological pathways in your brain so that you can do problems without prompting from me. You have to do the physics to understand it, and you have to do it over a period of time to have it stick.

When I test you, I'll not be testing to see how good your short to long term memory is. I will be testing to see how well you have developed your analytic skills. If this sounds daunting, don't panic. The class is designed to help you learn how to do this.

4.) This class is cumulative on all sorts of levels. If you don't understand something now, you are going to find understanding stuff later harder because you lack background knowledge. This lack of background can be as subtle as zoning out for a minue or two during class, then finding you have no idea why the class is where it is when you come back to attention. I can't tell you the number of times I've had a student ask a question, not understand my answer and come away thinking I've done a lousy job explaining the topic because the explanation didn't help.

There are lots of reasons why students don't understand explanations in class, but nine times out of ten it is the consequence of the student not understanding the previous ideas upon which the new material was based.

You have to immerse yourself in this stuff. Again, like a foreign language, the more you experience it, the better you will do with it.

In short, you have to chip away at the material over time. You have to do a little every night, even if there is no formal assignment for a night. If you don't do this chipping process, there will come a time down the line when the cumulative nature of the material will stop you dead in your tracks. When that happens, you won't understand much of anything from then on, and you will probably blame me for the failure. Kindly don't let that happen. Allow the material to seep into your pores. In the long run, it will make life a lot easier for you.

What I expect of you:

5.) My greatest frustration is to have students who don't understand the material because they aren't being attentive in class. You can't not listen for a day and expect that what is said the next day will make sense. Physics just doesn't work that way.

6.) My ability to explain something you don't understand rests on my ability to ferret out the information you haven't understood previously and fix that first. It should be obvious that if you wait too long in this process, you aren't going to be able to recover. That will substantially crimp my first priority, which is to help you. Again, please don't let that happen. Understand the material AS YOU GO.

7.) The trick to this class is not to try to memorize everything in sight. You'll never succeed in doing that, and if that is your main focus you will probably fail when a test problem comes along that is similar to one you've seen but has been slightly altered. Your effort, especially when doing homework, is to think your way through the problem as though it was a test problem. That is, try to see how to use the analytical approach that is applicable without looking at the problem's solution. That is what you will be expected to do on tests--analyze problems from first causes. Indeed, if you are completely stumped and you've spent serious time trying, look at the solutions (they are all provided). But that should never be your first resort.

And by the way, if this is not your style--and if it's not, you are not alone--don't panic. Nobody has keeled over dead as a consequence of taking physics at Poly, at least not in the forty years that I've been here. And nobody, not even students whose modus operandi is to memorize everything in sight, has so blown the class that their grade has kept them from going to the college of their choice. Students have had butterflies before physics tests, and there have been the occasional tears, but on the whole if you stick with the program, use the class resources and do the work, you can succeed in this course. Literally thousands of Poly folks have done it before you, and they haven't been any brighter than you. You just have to work smart and ask questions when you find yourself in a hole, and that's the truth . . . (thank you, Ruth Buzzie . . . you know, from "Laugh In" . . . you know? . . . oh, you poor, culturally deprived soul . . . :)

8.) You all have parents who want you to do well in life. They want you to succeed at being a nice person; they want you to succeed in being happy; they want you to succeed in your education.

I can't guarantee any of this.

What I can do is be kind to you even when you are being an ass and probably don't deserve it; I can attempt to lighten your day with an occasional bit of humor; I can be there to answer questions when you are feeling clueless about the physics.

In short, I can do for you the best I can do under all circumstances, and that is exactly what I intend to do.

9.) As for the physics, if you have problems, come see me. They pay me well to help you understand it. I'm actually pretty good at it. Don't be bashful about making me earn my keep.