Fizzix not so hard?

The following is a Facebook comment that got to long to be just a Facebook comment (says me)...

I didn't actually take physics. I went to an all girls' Catholic high school, and went as far as chemistry. Physics had this intimidating "aura" about it--you had to go to the "brother school" next door, where you were taught by an actual Brother somebody-or-other, and he addressed all students as Mr. and Miss. Now, I don't want to make a big deal of being "intimidated" out of taking this class--I had a full enough schedule of honors and AP classes without it. The reason I bring it up is this--years later, I found myself scoring proficiency tests in a variety of subjects, including science. At some point I was a scoring team leader on a test that included physics items--this was for, I don't know, maybe 6th grade. But I'd never heard of "Newtons" before as a unit of measurement. (Just the commercials, telling me that Fig Newtons are not cookies, but fruit and cake. But I digress.)

Anyway, talking with co-workers, I learned that it is popular now to teach physics in elementary school, because it lends itself to so many great "hands-on" experiments. Isn't this kind of amazing--based on the educational philosophy of the decade or so you were going to school, a subject can have a completely different, um, mojo? Image?

And to really publicly confirm my status as a middle-aged person, I remember checking out high schools (going to a parochial school, there were three to choose from, as opposed to one option for public school--another thing that is very different today). My dad consistently asked of the people giving the tours, "Do you offer computer classes?" I recall one of the answers being something to the effect of, "Yes, but only for the really advanced students who have already taken all of the other math courses." One would assume that included the scary demon known as calculus. But really, doesn't that exchange, both the question and the answer, sound totally bizarre today, when children grow up with computers as part of the landscape?