Most times, physicists are an idealistic bunch. We study physics because of a strange and desperate yearning to know how things work. Not out of any particular desire to exploit this knowledge for fortune or fame. We just want to know. Perhaps because we never grew out of the adolescent/tourettic urge to ask “But why? … But why? … But why?”

And most physicists are just as keen to share what they know with others. Ask a physicist a question about the fundamental nature of the Universe and you will have a terrible time getting her to shut up.

But when it comes to teaching others how to spread the knowledge to which we’ve dedicated our lives, we suck. We *really* suck. Or so it would seem from the conclusions of the National Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics, formed to look at how physics teachers are taught in the US and to develop strategies for doing better.

On the first day of the APS conference, Valerie Otero, painted a dismal picture of the state of physics teacher education in the US. Only a third of the 20,000 US high school physics teachers majored in physics or physics education. This may go some way to explaining why the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment placed American 15-year-olds in the bottom third of OECD nations for the scientific literacy.

And yet, a survey of physics majors who intended to go into high school teaching found they were discouraged from doing so by their professors, often told that they should pursue research rather than waste their talents on teaching.

Among the taskforce’s key findings were:

1. Few physics departments are actively involved in training physics teachers. When approached, most seemed to feel this was somebody else’s problem.
2. Of the few institutions that seemed to be doing a good job at teaching physicists to teach — demonstrated by their producing two or more physics teachers per year (really, that’s all it takes to be considered to be active in teacher education??!?) — *all* were driven by a single ‘champion’ dedicated to the cause. And with few exceptions, these champions get little to no support from their institutions. That is, the production of good teachers is not a factor they can include on promotion applications. And they get few additional resources for the job.
3. Institutions that only award Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees are more likely to have active teacher training programs than those that also offer PhDs.
4. Physics department and Departments of Education within the same institution almost never talk, let alone collaborate.
5. Programs do little to develop the physics-specific pedagogical expertise of teachers.
6. Few programs provide support, resources, intellectual community or professional development for physics teachers.
7. Few institutions offer coherent programs for the professional development of in-service teachers. Again, despite the fact that only a third of physics teachers have majored in physics.

So where do these professors think future physics majors are going to come from?!?

Or to put it more simply, WTF?