International Commission on Physics Education

5. Relations with Unesco

As mentioned early in this article, the Commission has had a close relationship with Unesco, and this has led to some of the Commission's most significant activities and publications. The Survey of the Teaching of Physics at Universities (Kelly 1966) was a detailed and impressive study of all aspects of university physics education in six countries covering a spectrum of academic traditions and structures (Czechoslovakia, France, United Kingdom, U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and West Germany). A more global survey (but restricted to post graduate education will be part of the output of the 1980 conference in Prague. A rich sourcebook (Lewis 1972) on secondary school physics teaching was published as the result of collaboration between Unesco and John L. Lewis, working in his capacity as Secretary to the Commission. The New Trends in Physics Teaching volumes are a direct result of Unesco initiatives, and Unesco support has been important in the production of the l.C.P.E. Newsletter and of what has been perhaps the Commission's most widely noticed publication to date - its book prepared in commemoration of the first centenary of Einstein's birth (French 1979).

This fruitful partnership is only one small component of the relationship that Unesco has had, ever since its foundation in 1946, with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) of which the Physics Union (IUPAP) is one of about twenty members. Through a long standing arrangement, Unesco gives to ICSU an annual subvention, which is then apportioned among the various Unions and their individual Commissions. Over and above this, Unesco enters into individual contracts for the support of individual projects.

In the main, this association of Uneseo with ICSU has been productive and enormously beneficial. In the background of the relationship, however, there remains the fact that Unesco is a creation of the governments of the world’s nations, whereas ICSU is international but strictly non governmental. The ultimate control of Unesco lies with its General Conference, a political body made up of the official representatives of individual countries, which meets once every two years. Unfortunately, we have seen instances in which the political forces have sought to influence or limit the ability of scientists to participate, regardless of national affiliation, in international professional meetings. In such cases it has been essential for the scientific bodies, such as our Commission, to make clear that the apolitical nature of science, and the assurance of free circulation of scientists, are paramount principles, and that the acceptance of Unesco support is possible only on this basis. Such problems are fortunately rare, and have no bearing, in any case, on the friendly relations and the superb cooperation that our Commission has always had with the professional staff of the science education sections of Unesco.

6. Assessment, and looking ahead

'International Commission on Physics Education' is a fine sounding title. Have the Commission's achievements measured up to the expectations that its name may engender?

It is important to recognize certain sober realities. The Commission is, in itself, no more than a committee of individuals scattered over the globe. As mentioned earlier, they are not able to come together more than about once a year, and in the long intervals between meetings they have, for the most part, very little collective communication. As a matter of policy, they are chosen to represent different countries, different academic traditions, different cultures The one thing that draws them together is their common concern for the improvement of physics education. But this group of ten or a dozen individuals, with a guaranteed annual budget of only $500 a year from IUPAP, cannot by itself make any appreciable impact on the shape of physics education. Its only possible role is to act as a catalyst for activities involving large numbers of other people.

Working within these considerable constraints, the Commission has - as I think many physics educators would agree - built up a rather remarkable record of achievement, as described in the earlier sections of this article. Each conference sponsored by the Commission has involved the setting up of a special planning committee, a quest for supporting funds, and an assiduous effort to bring together an appropriate group of participants and speakers. To maintain the momentum for such activities requires a great deal of work and enthusiasm, and there is no doubt that a large fraction of this has been provided by the Commission's very dedicated Secretaries, of whom there have been only four in the lifetime of the Commission so far - Norman Clarke, W. C. Kelly, John L. Lewis and P. J. Kennedy. These same people have played a major role in initiating and maintaining the activities of the Commission in general.

One may, of course, still question the ultimate effect, on individuals and on educational systems, of the numerous meetings that the Commission has organized and the substantial body of published material that has resulted from its activities. My own belief is that these influences tend to be slow, subtle, and often indirect, so that it is rare that one can point to an obvious cause-and-effect relationship. The situation here is, I think, very similar to the process of teaching itself. It is a fortunate teacher who can feel sure that he or she has been directly responsible for some dramatic improvement in a pupil's performance. More often, it seems to me, the effort that one puts into teaching is a sheer act of faith, based on the hope that perhaps, in a few minds, one may now and then plant a seed that will flower elsewhere, many years later. If we tried to assess our effectiveness in terms of directly attributable consequences, we would probably give up in despair!

Perhaps one of the most valuable things the Commission can do, and has done, is to help give to physics teachers across the world a stronger sense of community. This can be particularly important for teachers in countries far removed from the densely populated and technologically advanced regions of Europe and North America. The Commission's Newsletter has been remarkably effective, out of all proportion to its modest cost of production, in responding to this need. It may well be worth many a conference, especially when the conferences inevitably involve only a tiny fraction of the population of physics teachers. The conferences do, however, play an irreplaceable role in their potential for direct impact on those individuals who are able to attend them. Ideally, the published Proceedings of the conferences would communicate this experience, albeit in less vivid form, to a much wider audience. It must be admitted, however, that this does not happen to any great extent. The printed records are not exactly best sellers; they tend to languish, unnoticed and soon forgotten, on library shelves, and renewals of actual personal contacts at the international meetings are vital — an acknowledged fact in all areas of scholarship.

And now, what of the future? To quote Shakespeare's familiar words, "What's past is prologue" (1623). The recommendations made at its first conference in 1960 laid out a programme that has amply occupied the Commission until now. Should it simply continue to thrash over the same agenda, or has past experience begun to suggest new areas of concern and different sorts of emphasis? Such a sharp dichotomy of the possibilities would be unreasonable, but I believe that a real 'new trend' has begun to be apparent. The 1960 recommendations placed great emphasis on the impersonal aspects of physics education: curricula, examinations, information about national educational systems, etc. But after two decades of active concern with such matters involving such rich and valuable curriculum projects as PSSC, Nuffield Physics, and the Harvard Project — I think that physics teachers are becoming more and more conscious of two things. First, that the attributes of the individual teacher are far more important than any particular curriculum. (I remember reading about the wise though uninstructed adolescent, preparing for confirmation, who was asked "What is the outward and visible sign of baptism?" Instead of giving the canonical reply, "The cross inscribed on the forehead with holy water" he answered, cogently and devastatingly, "The baby.") Yes, I feel sure that the absolutely central role of the teacher, and the fact that physics education is still ultimately a human activity, will become a more conscious focus of future endeavours. Second (as emphasized earlier in this article) I believe that we are coming to realize that much more thought and effort need to be directed towards the place of physics and physicists in society as a whole. This does not, of course, imply any dilution of physics as a rigorous academic subject, the preservation of which is the natural concern of most professional physicists. In addressing most of our past efforts to that area we have been doing things that were important but relatively easy. Now we are being confronted with our relative failure to educate the general public in scientific matters, and with our own inattention to the social ramifications of physics research. At this point we could use some of the drive that such men as J. D. Bernal, Lancelot Hogben and C. H. Waddington brought (from a particular point of view, to be sure) to the questions of the social responsibilities of science. The emergence of technology in the developing nations heightens the urgency of such questions, and I would hope that the Commission on Physics Education would find ways of contributing usefully to their solution. But the teaching of physics as a subject in its own right will never cease to be one of our major concerns. In conclusion, I should like to thank the editor of Contemporary Physicsfor inviting me to prepare this account. It is so easy to equate physics with research that I am glad to have this chance to draw attention to some of the challenges that physics education presents to us, and the role that the International Commission has tried to play in answer to these challenges.

References
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Page prepared by:

• E. Leonard Jossem