our entire approach is screwed up. We need to teach calculus first, then physics (I’m also not quite happy with all of this algebra based physics) then chemistry and finally biology.
So what approach to you take to Calculus, geometric ? IAC, I am reminded of the 1960s when a lot of bright people developed a very intense physics and a mathematics curriculum for the schools, and it got all “frakked up,” because the teachers by and large, couldn’t handle it and because parents couldn’t relate to it. So we get kids with a lot of jargon who can’t do simple arithmetic, because the schools can’t figure that arithmetic and algebra are different fields. We then have the further complication of the civil rights revolution and black kids who are even more ignorant than the white ones are brought into the mix. So the schools—being the political institutions they are—thow up their hands and begin the process of dumbing down that continues to this very day.
our entire approach is screwed up. We need to teach calculus first, then physics (I’m also not quite happy with all of this algebra based physics) then chemistry and finally biology.
Your approach ignores the cognitive development of the child's brain. Much of the high school biology curriculum is descriptive, so teaching the scientific method and biology first teaches foundational observation and analysis skills that most students in early high school can grasp. Meanwhile, they are completing the foundational algebra skills required for a more quantitative approach to chemistry - including the ideal gas laws etc. Again, the students are simultaneously building math skills. The problem comes with physics. Very few students take calculus in high school and those who do are rarely prepared before their senior year. This means you have two choices - either teach an introductory, algebra - based physics course to a wider audience or teach a calculus based physics course to a few high school seniors who are simultaneously taking calculus. I did the latter, but worked my tail off that year (it was good for me...) and it was a very small class.
Physics before chemistry is way more successful.
The public schools have it backwards, as usual.