About Teaching Quantum Mechanics in High Schools

Teaching quantum mechanics in classrooms other than those of (some) university departments, let alone speaking about it to the public, has been a taboo for almost one century. However, in the last few decades, it has become clear that it is time to release this taboo, both for an urgent need for professional figures that can understand the principles of quantum information and computation without being physicists, and for the intellectual honesty that obliges us to tell anyone, and young students in particular, the truth about how quantum mechanics shapes our world. In this chapter, we will first discuss the reasons that have relegated quantum mechanics into scientific academic education for such a long time and present our opinion about why these reasons are not valid anymore. We will then present a proposal to introduce the two main postulates of quantum mechanics, namely the state- and measurement-postulates, using a simple formalism that yet allows us to discuss some of the most revolutionary aspects of the theory. The proposal is then revisited to give some guidelines to design formally correct and yet educationally effective approaches to quantum mechanics. Finally, we will comment upon possible strategies to let the principles of quantum mechanics enter at least some high-school programs.