In his years as a physics teacher, students often asked Mark Whalley why they had to learn the subject ... should simply accept that they should learn something because it is on a specification. But ...

Well, if we really listen to what students are saying to us—especially when they say, “Why do I have to learn this?"—then we know that we have to do something different in how we educate them.

E.g.: Because you have to know it to take calculus, which you have to do to get into a good college ... the reality that my students did not know why they were taking the course or that what they ...