Author: Bogusia Gierus

As babies, if we never learned to walk, could we still survive in this world?  I think so.  In fact, it is much easier to keep your balance on four legs rather than two.  It is hard to learn to walk, with all the falling down, the trial and error, and mostly error at the beginning, all the bumps and bruises, the tears.  Why do we even bother to teach our children to walk?  Well, walking does make life a lot easier, and maybe in the long run it’s worth it.  For instance, it is much faster to get around on two feet, rather than crawling.  When getting around in the street, all of our clothes and hands don’t get dirty, only the soles of our shoes do (again a convenience created for “walking people”).  Also, it is much easier to carry something while walking rather than crawling (multi-tasking).

Recently a reader posted a comment on one of my blog entries about Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada where I compared salaries of teachers across various cities.

She writes: “Sure, we are paid fairly well but our working conditions are difficult. I know for a fact from several teachers from Quebec that we, in Alberta are expected to put in all sorts of after school time. I don’t get to walk away when my school day ends. And let’s not even talk about the fact that I could by 3 houses in Quebec for the cost of my ordinary bungalow in Calgary! GRRR.”

Growing up, children have a plethora of experiences that have to do with the concept of force. Even before they start talking and knowing the word “force” they have an intuitive understanding of the concept of push and pull. It doesn’t take long for a child to figure out that pushing their brother will result in him moving in the same direction. Babies realize from very early on that things fall down. (A common game among babies and parents is the “baby drops toy – parent picks up toy – repeat many times until parent loses patience”.) This environmental input of the force of gravity acting on an object, thus accelerating it towards the earth gets absorbed by the child’s awareness, and becomes second nature to the child. Most children will ask a parent about these phenomena. The parent then tries to explain these phenomena in terms of sophisticated words such as force, gravity, energy, power, and push / pull. The adult might go in depth or just quickly dismiss the inquiry, depending on the adult’s actual knowledge of the phenomenon, the parent’s interest in scientific principles, or even the time and place of the question. Based on these explanations, and the instances of hearing the words of force or gravity in context, children start to associate what force actually means in terms of their world around them. Their understanding however might not be in alignment with the physicist’s definition.