I know that universities and the Perimeter Institute would love it if we (high school physics teachers) spent more time on modern physics. You know what? I would too, but is it really possible?
Today we spent some time at the zoo looking at the strange (if you can pardon the pun) things living there; bosons, leptons, and hadrons. We looked at the quarks, and even had some fun building protons and neutrons, along with a meson or two. It was great, and I think everybody really enjoyed it, but did they enjoy it for the pure academic exercise and the weird look into the bizarre quantum world, or for some other reason?
I have my students trust. I can lead them through time dilation and length contraction, and even though I get my fair share of 'but really's, they go along with me. Better still, they revel in the mysterious. They love the quantum weirdness of it all... but could they do it for half the semester? Could it keep their interest if I dealt with things so outside of their ordinary realm of experience? I doubt it. This could speak to my lack of ability or creativity. I've tried the cloud chamber and looked for particle tracks... but beyond that, and the many computer simulations, what am I to do? I spend one month (approximately) in modern physics and for now, we all like it that way.
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