‘Sir, this is what you wanted': Physics teacher gets schooled by students after he demands they plot graph, despite not knowing the range of values upfront

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    Font - Posted by u/BrilliantRhubarb2935 17 hours ago Physics teacher demands we plot the graph 'as we go' despite not knowing the range of values upfront. OK then, would be a shame if we deliberately chose an incorrect scale to make our point.
  • 02
    Font - This occurred many years ago at AS level physics in the UK (16-17 year olds). I can't remember the exact experiment but it was something like demonstrating the youngs modulus, basically you are expecting a straight line, until a
  • 03
    Font - point whereby the material yields and strains much further than expected by hookes law. So we've been asked to get on with the experiment and like sensible students we are all taking our measurements and noting them down. Then once we have our results and know the highest
  • 04
    Font - and lowest value for each axis we can choose a sensible scale and draw the graph at a suitable size, we also aren't exactly sure where the yield strength is so don't know how much stress we'll have to apply to demonstrate the experiement.
  • 05
    Font - However, midway through our experiment our physics teacher angrily asks us why we aren't plotting any graphs, I explain that we are taking our measurements first so we know what scale to draw the graph at.
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    Font - This is not an acceptable answer, no apparently we need to draw the graph as we take measurements because this will allow us to spot any errors earlier during the experiment rather than afterwards (this is a bizarre argument in my opinion).
  • 07
    Font - Well you are the teacher, I guess we'll have to comply. So then myself and most of the rest of the class immediately start plotting what data we have, but with clearly not enough space to accompany the entire experiment. Eventually we run
  • 08
    Font - into the edge of the paper. Sir what do you want us to do now? Even angrier than before he gets some sellotape and another piece of A4 graph paper and tapes it together to double the size of the graph paper, with
  • 09
    Font - some choice words including calling us smart alecks (which is fair because we are being deliberately annoying but it is also unreasonable for us to have correctly guessed the yield strength of a random piece of
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    Font - copper wire before doing the experiment, to adhere to some nonsense idea of plotting a graph by hand as you take measurements). Realising what is about to happen, most of the class start
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    Font - laughing. Someone else also requests extra graph paper, and then another, and then another, I think pretty much the entire class requests a second bit of paper. Of course 2 pieces of graph paper stuck together isn't enough, we need more. The teacher had to run to supplies to
  • 12
    Font - get another set of graph paper (not happily mind you). I think eventually I needed a 2x3 of A4 graph paper stuck together to make my comically large graph, most of the rest of the class with similar results. There were also other issues like our 30 cm
  • 13
    Font - rulers not being long enough to draw the hookes law part of the graph ect. which of course we made the teacher aware of. Eventually the teacher throughly pis ed off at this point is just standing silently at the front of the classroom.
  • 14
    Font - "I bet you think you are all so funny don't you." Before storming out the classroom early. Yes sir, we thought we were hilarious and your rule ridiculous as demonstrated.
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    Font - Funnily enough, he dropped it the next time we did an experiment. In the years after this incident many of us went on to get degrees in physics and several of us are practicing scientists. We had a reunion recently where we
  • 16
    Font - recounted some of the incidents we had with this particular teacher, including this one. None of us can see any reason why he came up with that particular rule, we can only assume he misinterpretted something on the syllabus, or was just trying to exert control.
  • 17
    Font - Red_Cathy 16 hr. ago You could have gone the other way and set your scale 0 to 10 billion and crammed all your data into one small corner. Vote Reply Share
  • 18
    Font - Kendota_Tanassian · 16 hr. ago I actually did something very similar in a similar situation, I chose a scale that was large on purpose to be able to plot all the points, and wound up with a very small plot because of it.
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    Font - If I recall correctly, the teacher wasn't happy because she couldn't tell from the graph if I had plotted the points correctly, but I didn't get marked off for it. Vote Reply Share
  • 20
    Font - LibraryMouse4321 +2 16 hr. ago · A good teacher would have learned from the students, and admitted a mistake as a learning experience. A math teacher I know gives extra credit to students who find her mistakes. ↑ Vote Vote Reply Share
  • 21
    Font - Vast_Sweet_1221 · 16 hr. ago Your teacher led you to conclude via the scientific method the superior approach for recording the experiment results. What a great teacher! Even all these years later, you still remember the lesson hahahaha.
  • 22
    Font - SerDuckOfPNW. 16 hr. ago I'm concerned about a teacher that gets so angry that he storms. out of a class room. Maybe AS level isn't what I'm thinking it is? ↑ Vote ↓ Reply Share
  • 23
    Font - BrilliantRhubarb2935 OP. 16 hr. ago The man was barely qualified to be a physics teacher, let alone at a-level. Himself got a D at physics a-level and a 2:2 in a non-science degree at uni, I'm not one to shame for academic
  • 24
    Font - credentials but his issue was his skill level simply wasn't up to teaching a group of physics students shooting for the top grades. Unfortunately, my school wasn't a particularly good one so we didn't have the best of teachers, although our
  • 25
    Font - other physics teacher was amazing. Worse he took it personally, so it didn't help when we as a class would be forced to point out basic algebraic mistakes and effectively had to argue with him on relatively basic
  • 26
    Font - physics points whilst he consulted the syllabus to find out we in fact were right again. This lead to a breakdown in our student teacher relations even though we were a great engaged class to teach otherwise.
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    Font - He eventually got sacked due to a mix of repeated unexplained absences and reports from some of the girls of him acting inappropriately towards them. Vote Reply Share

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