How did I learn physics in India?

Professor Tom Greenslade  is Millikan Medal winner, a living resource on the history of physics & classic physics laboratory experiments, and prolific author of over 300 research works. So, I was absolutely thrilled to receive a sweet note from him on my meter stick demo paper.

He shared with me the details of how he got started in physics education and I wrote him a long reply on my family background and what it was like learning physics in India. Our emails brought back so many memories and I started thinking about the differences in the way physics is taught in the United States and India.

As it happens, AAPT WM2021 had a whole session dedicated to international perspectives on teaching/learning physics. Not sure it is a new initiative but I cannot think of a better way to expand AAPT’s reach and inform physics educators around the world how their counterparts in other countries teach physics.

Two presentations in WM2021 caught my interest. The first was someone who had their high school and undergraduate physics education in Srilanka. She detailed how high school or college students in their classes in Srilanka are never encouraged to ask questions or to meet their professors outside of class. Students are entirely on their own as far as making sense of the material is concerned. I could relate to most of her presentation having experienced things very similar in India. Just like her, I had to surmount the language barrier - learning all the school subjects in my mother tongue (Tamil)  till Grade 11 and then switching over to learning everything in English .

But left unsaid was how much students depend on TUTORING which happens entirely outside the school or college. Dedicated academic support services run within educational institutions simply do not exist in India or Srilanka or any of the South Asian countries (as far as I know). But there are thousands of privately run ‘coaching classes’, prep courses, YouTube channels and neighborhood tutors for every subject. So, in this sense, students are not entirely ‘independent learners’.

The other presenter gave a somewhat opposite point of view and argued that students learn best when teachers go out of their way. The presenter suggested that the best way to improve learning is for educators to play Mom and Dad and envelope students in tender loving care.

I am, as in many other areas of life, from the Twilight Zone. I did not have access to any kind of physics tutoring in or out of college or high school. My siblings, physics majors no less, tried to tutor me and we ended the torture fifteen minutes into it by mutual agreement. Nor was I lucky to have physics educators who were great at teaching or had the time and energy to care truly about student learning. I have always been an independent learner and the lack of a support structure can be seen in my career trajectory. 

But physics experiences early in life have a way of staying with you. I was raised by my grandparents in a small town in South India. My grandfather’s prized possession was a pan balance with a set of weights (masses, rather) which he used to weigh old newspapers. (In those days, one could sell old paper to recycling collectors and make small sums of money.). Milk vendors would come home and measure out the required amounts in liter and milliliter containers. 

Growing up a girl in patriarchal society meant staying home all day and training how to be a good housewife. That meant lots of time observing my mother in the kitchen. I learnt how to cool hot milk quickly by placing a long metal spoon in it so that the heat could be conducted away. I watched as she placed hot food on a stainless steel plate and left it on the floor. Since the coldest air in a room is denser, it stays close to the floor and placing food in metal container on the floor guarantees faster cooling. I also understood why stew that boils quickly is a huge problem if all the vegetables in it need to cook completely. 

Having no access to a public water distribution line and facing a drought in the area, grandpa had to dig a second well in the front yard. I would overhear well diggers talking about the pipe length needed to pump water out of the well.

Now I realize why torque, static equilibrum, density and heat transfer are my favorite introductory topics to teach!