The Laws Of Physics

‘WITH pensions in a mess and the NHS haemorrhaging money hand over fist, we can at least rejoice in the news that education is now problem free.

Wycombe’s new RE teacher looked familiar

So high are the standards in our British schools that, as the Telegraph explains, even a 65-year-old US professor with a PhD in physics from an Ivy League school is not deemed to be of a high enough standard to teach his chosen subject in a British classroom.

David Wolfe may have headed up the physics department at the University of New Mexico – containing 80 physicists, including Nobel Prize winners – but does he know what it takes to pass a GCSE?

The answer is ‘No!’, he does not. Dr Wolfe may have qualifications coming out of his ears, but he does not have even a GCSE in physics, which is the bare minimum he needs to teach it at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, Bucks.

Sure, the pupils love him – everyone loves a fool. But the Government’s rules are there to be obeyed and, until Dr Wolfe sits the GCSE exam, he is no longer able to teach.

But Dr Wolfe has refused to take the test – out of fear of looking stupid, no doubt. And his current headmaster, Tim Dingle, is up in arms.

‘I am incensed by the inflexibility of the rules and by the fact that David Milliband [the schools minister] has refused to even consider making an exception for this extremely talented physicist and teacher,’ says he.

But we disagree. Allowing Dr Wolfe to flout the rules would lead to a reduction in the high standards that now exist within our schools system.

How long would it before Russian Olympic gold medal-winning gymnasts were teaching PE, the Pope was taking a class in RE and Steven Spielberg was teaching media studies?’

Posted: 12th, October 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink