LEARNING TO LEARN
Could a fusion of English and Physics help to narrow the STEM gap ?
Rosie McColl
Two subjects , both alike in dignity , but polarised within the school curriculum . One celebrates fiction ; the other celebrates fact . One delights in stories ; the other delights in systems . Statistically , one is more likely to appeal to girls ; the other more likely to appeal to boys . In schools , the worlds of English and Physics rarely collide .
But what if they could ?
What if the clock could strike 13 in the Physics classroom ? What if Ada Lovelace could be brought to life in an English lesson ? Could a change in approach help to challenge girls ’ attitudes towards Science , Technology , Engineering and Maths ( STEM )?
This is the story of how I sought to do just that by crossing the English / Physics divide . And like all good stories , it has a beginning , a middle … and an end ?
The Beginning
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a good education is less likely to choose a career in engineering than her male counterpart .
A gender gap exists . Numerous initiatives have been launched but , in 30 years of focus on ‘ enthusing , fascinating or encouraging ’ girls into STEM , ‘ nothing has worked .’ ( Wisecampaign . org 2016 ) Numbers of girls studying Physics post-16 are consistently low . While numbers for Biology and Chemistry are healthy , only 21 % of Physics A-Level students are female and the numbers at Berkhamsted mirror this national picture .
A survey conducted at Berkhamsted in 2016 revealed that , by Year 8 , girls have already fallen out with Physics . Of the Year 8s surveyed , only 10 % of them ranked Physics as their favourite of the three sciences . In the same year , only 6 % of Year 11 girls opted to study Physics at A-Level .
Why don ’ t girls like Physics ? According to the Year 8 responses , girls struggle to engage with the abstract nature of the subject . Biology was favourable ‘ because it is more about normal life ’, whereas Physics ‘ does not affect us ’ – or , as one girl at my old school in Yorkshire put it : ‘ Physics is full of shadows and stuff .’
In 2016 , the WISE Campaign launched its People Like Me initiative , the basis of which is the acknowledgement that girls and boys articulate their self-identities in different ways . Using evidence drawn from social science research , the WISE Campaign suggests that ‘ girls are more likely to articulate their self-identity using adjectives , while boys are more likely to talk about themselves in terms of what they do , using verbs .’
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