gout78,
I have to agree with you that some amount of math is required to permit kids to get concepts. Not necessarily a huge amount and some physics can be done freshman year. But the teacher needs to truly accept that this is not going to be a trig/algebra II based class.
My mom tells me the high school I graduated from is doing physics first. I thought it was likely a good idea-- but I don’t actually know. I’m sure it can be implemented well or badly. (I went to Woodlands in Lake Forest.)
copperboom,
I’m going to guess that your daughter’s text book is “Hewitt”? It’s winter which makes it a bit difficult to suggest something that can help a lot– after all, if he hasn’t grasp Newton’s 1st-3rd laws or a few other key things, she’s now got himself in somewhat of a trough.
That said: I might recommend your son watch the videos here:
http://www.conceptualphysics.com/hewitt-drew-it.html
These videos tend to focus on the concept, give a bit of an example and provide a simple application. She’ll have to click through the groups of 10 to find the topic she is currently trying to master. These videos can sometimes help a student and if he finds them useless he can set that notion aside.
I can’t give better advice without knowing more specifics about the class (what his teacher actually expects, is covering order and so on.)
The videos would be even better if connected the student was given follow on questions after each to let the students test whether the really “got” the video. (I’ve done that for students I tutor to make sure the “got” the main idea. The student is assigned the video and then they can answer a few online questions I coded. But I don’t have that squared away as a “product”. I’m not aware of anyone who has made anything like that available either.)
FWIW: It seems to me good teachers tend to resemble each other rather broadly. Bad teachers are often bad in entirely unique ways. Even only semi-bad ones tend to have unique bad ‘issues’. I tutor physics and I know physics is taught in widely different ways at different schools. That makes it challenging to give better advice.