Abstract
Gron Jones, as he was known to all, was a champion of Physics Education and his death, shortly before his eightieth birthday, robbed physics teachers of a colleague who fought many battles on their behalf. He was not shy of taking issue with anyone in authority who might be putting forward policies which would harm his great love: Physics Education and Physics Teaching.
His photograph shows a man with an impish grin, looking friend and foe alike straight in the eye, before delivering the death blow to an argument which was founded on less than common sense. At other times he would listen patiently to the woes of colleagues before offering them fatherly/grandfatherly advice so that whoever was on the receiving end would go away feeling better for the encounter.
Gron was born in Swansea and educated at Lewis Boys Grammar School in Glamorgan before entering University College Cardiff first of all as a mathematician before graduating in Physics in 1941. After his war service in the RAF, working on signals and radar development, he returned to do an MSc in X-ray crystallography before completing a PGCE in Bristol. What then passed for teacher training in all institutions left him wary of returning to train teachers himself but after 14 years spent teaching physics in three schools he returned to Cardiff and began a 25 year career in teacher training. He and his two colleagues, Clifford Othen (chemistry) and Douglas Hillier (biology) built up the Cardiff Science Centre as a focus for initial and in-service science teacher training in South Wales. The triumvirate was well known and a power to be reckoned with. They created links between the University Science Departments and the Schools. Gron knew the local schools and their physics teachers intimately. Cardiff became a focus for science education both nationally and internationally. He was a frequent attender at both ICPE (International Commission for Physics Education) and GIREP (International Physics Education Research Group) conferences and he was much respected wherever he went.
Two of my early meetings with Gron illustrate the care that he took. Late one Sunday night I went with one of the Cardiff students to collect apparatus for teaching practice the next day. Sitting in the lab on the pretext of issuing apparatus, but also encouraging and helping students, was Gron (who I didn't know at the time). He had no need to be there but his friendly words sent students on their way ready for Monday morning. There are many teachers who remember him not only as their tutor but also as their first colleague and friend, who would move mountains to smooth the passage of students from training into teaching. In their turn they became his mentors for students who themselves were to follow into teaching. He gained the respect of his students because he showed them that he knew what he was talking about from his grass roots experience of the classroom in both academic and challenging schools. He was a great sharer and wanted to share his knowledge and love of physics with all his students. On another occasion I have seen him reading borderline O-level examination scripts and really trying to understand what a candidate was trying to say in order to find the occasional mark which would give the candidate a well deserved pass.
He was a devotee of Nuffield Physics because it reflected his own experience of teaching; he saw the laboratory-based argument and discussion as central to students building conceptual models. The physics had to be right but it was cloaked in humanity. He was an expert in using his common sense to cut through the paperwork. He didn't suffer fools gladly and had a quick wit which was often used in defusing tense situations. He was a tower of strength to many who crossed his path. No-one who met him could forget him.
He was loyal to his friends and that included the Institute of Physics and the Association for Science Education both as Institutions and individual members. Gron served the Institute well, both as Chairman of the South Wales Branch and as a Member and Secretary of the Education Group. When it was difficult to find people with the time to take on the job of secretary he took it on when he was well into his retirement. He would catch the early train to London both to attend committee meetings of the Education Group and to stand in for other members of the committee who couldn't be released from work. He never missed an Education Group Conference nor an IOP Congress. He served, too, on the Editorial Board for Physics Education. In 1989 he was honoured by IOP with the Bragg Medal and in his humility he always wondered why. He was always ready to name others who should have received it. In 1986, through the Education Group, he instituted the Teachers of Physics Awards and wrote the aims in such a way that the honours would only go to those serving teachers who had remained in the classroom, or rather the laboratory, encouraging the next generation. Nothing thrilled him more than when pupils nominated a teacher by writing in glowing terms about what their physics teacher had done for them. He also served on committees of ASE and was made an Honorary member on his retirement. It seems that he invented the phrase `I'm past my sell-by date'; he used it frequently and it usually preceded some earth-shattering illumination on a problem that everyone else had missed. Many of us feel we took him too much for granted and we failed to thank him properly for all he did.
Gron was Physics Education in South Wales and many teachers and former students mourn the passing of a great professional; he will be missed by many. We, his friends, offer our support and sympathy to his other great love, his family; to his wife Clare, his children and grandchildren.