The AAPT–AIP Regional Counselor Program a counselor’s report

The Regional Counselor Program was launched jointly by the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics in October 1961. The broad objective of the program, as stated in the initial news release dated October 10. 1961, is “to improve high‐school teaching of physics”. This objective it shares with other agencies and groups, and with Admiral Rickover! Perhaps the most notable of these is the Physical Sciences Study Committee, which has been in operation a great deal longer and has evidenced its activity by the production of what many of us believe to be an outstanding text for the teaching of physics. The unique contribution of the AAPT‐AIP Regional Counselor Program is in recognizing that any major improvement in the teaching of physics must come about through local action, through the efforts of people well known in their communities, and to a large extent with the resources we already have. Good as they are, the PSSC texts will be to no avail if they are not adopted widely through the high schools. This will require that constant encouragement be given school boards, teachers, and administrators, as they encounter the many problems inherent in any program to improve teaching in physics. It is evident that encouragement and help must be primarily local.