Last night during class, I asked the students to imagine explaining something to their mothers. One student immediately asked, “Why mothers? Is there something special about mothers.” Oops. So I quickly changed my statement. I said imagine explaining this to your parents. She shot back. “Isn’t that ageist.” I was caught again. I love students with sharp minds. Some of you readers might think this is about political correctness, but you would be wrong.
My Mother
My mother comment can probably be traced back to some advice I got when I was preparing one of my first presentations as a graduate student. I was told that I should make it understandable to a general audience and that a good rule to follow is to imagine giving it to my mother. Why my mother? I don’t know, but physics was mostly men when my advisors were in school, it was was mostly men when I was in school, and it is still mostly men now. That fact probably has much to do with it. The term for this sort of thing nowadays is mansplaining, and it is hardly unique to physicists. Plus mansplaining, I think, can occur whenever one person regardless of gender assumes that another lacks knowledge of a subject because of some unrelated factor like gender or age. I’ve said other stupid things in class, like the time I told a class that I was going to give them a softball question. A woman in class asked what that was. Now I don’t know if she truly didn’t know or was politely pointing out that I just said something stupid. I played some softball in grad school. There was this informal league of grad students from various departments. There were men and women of all sorts of athletic ability. The pitcher threw slowly and every effort was made to ensure that people hit the ball. Plus lots of beer was drunk. Lots and lots. Some of us would even run the bases with a cup in our hand trying very hard not to spill any. That’s my idea of softball, so a softball question is just one that’s easy to answer. But when she asked what a softball question was, the first image that came to mind was women’s softball, and if you’ve ever have seen a softball game, you know that there’s nothing soft about it. I like the fact that I’m still capable of learning.
All of the professors in the physics department at the University of Missouri had a substantial impact on who and what I am. Three, however, deserve special mention, because they had an outsized influence on me both as the physicist and teacher that I am. David Cowan, my research advisor, taught me to see science as one big picture. Henry White demonstrated much confidence and a lot of patience in a graduate student and allowed me to be one of the first two graduate students to teach an undergraduate course. Brian DeFacio. I could always count on him for a conversation. In my acknowledgment section of my dissertation, I included a joke that that only those who knew Brian will get.
I thank Dr. Brian DeFacio for innumerable conversations.
These never occurred in his office. Sometimes in the hallway, sometimes before or after class, but usually in the physics department lounge. Breaking news in physics? Brian would be all too happy to discuss it with you. An interesting problem in a course? He wouldn’t necessarily help you with it, but he would put his own special spin on it. Sometimes he would relate personal stories. A favorite - Brian was serving in the armed forces, Army I think, and stationed at a Nike missile facility. There was this young lieutenant who didn’t think too highly of Brian and often pulled rank. Brian was on guard duty one night when this officer came by his post. Brian challenged him, and the officer did not respond with the correct counter phrase. He then ordered the officer onto the ground and held him at gun point until others arrived. What you should take from this story is how he treated people. Brian always treated us grad students as colleagues. He never used his position as anything other than teacher, mentor, and friend. In the classroom, he was a wonder. No one could fill a blackboard like him. Room 305 held at most eighteen people, and it had boards on three walls. Brian would start at the front on the left, and after half an hour would reach his starting point, and we would then start the next lap. I remember inventing a DeFacio dictionary that I kept in my head. Note taking because much easier. So when I wrote “linear, isotropic, and homogeneous,” I just thought something like “the usual case.” One day, halfway through the lecture, someone caught a sign error. After correcting it, he told my favorite story of one night while working at home, his wife asked him if something was wrong. Brian said that he was trying to find a missing minus sign. She asked him why don’t you ever try to find a missing plus sign. Brian also had a way of making you come up to his standards. I was in his Condensed Matter I course. We had two homework assignments and a final exam. I didn’t do every well on the first homework set, but I did all right on the second. I missed one class that semester. He saw me the next day and said I had missed the best lecture he ever gave, one on Anderson localization. When the final came along, there were two facts of life. Because I did poorly on the first homework, I had to do well, and I had to know Anderson localization. I nailed that test. Perfect answer on Anderson localization. After checking with some classmates, I suspected I had the highest score on the final. So I was a little miffed when Brian gave me a B, but that lasted about 30 seconds, because he was right. I blew off the first assignment; he knew it, and I knew it. He wanted us to do the best we could at all times. Toward the end of my comprehensive exam, Brian raised his hand to ask a question. Now I was prepared for this exam. I knew my research topic. I could have answered nearly anything the committee could throw at me. So what did he ask?
Calculate the power output of a fly.
I haven’t seen or spoken to Brian in twenty years. Now there are no more opportunities for discussions, but in a way, that’s okay, because of all those conversations that were too many to count.
You have probably already seen this test; it's been all over ABC News, FaceBook and has been emailed back and forth. It comes courtesy of the Bullitt County History Museum.
On the museum site with the test's answers, the curators warned that
obviously it tested some things that were more relevant at that time than now, and it should not be used to compare student knowledge then and now.
However, it's quite clear not everyone has read this advice. Here are some comments from the Huffington Post:
For all the arm chair critics, what this shows is how far our expectations have fell.
What this test shows is how low our expectations are for what children ought to know today.
You feel threatened by this test because it shows how lacking our education system is.
They valued education much more than people do today.
This test reflects a decided dumbing down of the US population to my mind.
By the way, can anyone find the grammatical error in the first comment?
Students use linear equations and systems of linear equations to represent, analyze, and solve a variety of problems. Students recognize equations for proportions (y/x = m or y = mx) as special linear equations (y = mx + b), understanding that the constant of proportionality (m) is the slope, and the graphs are lines through the origin. They understand that the slope (m) of a line is a constant rate of change, so that if the input or x-coordinate changes by an amount A, the output or y-coordinate changes by the amount m ⋅ A. Students also use a linear equation to describe the association between two quantities in bivariate data (such as arm span vs. height for students in a classroom). At this grade, fitting the model, and assessing its fit to the data are done informally. Interpreting the model in the context of the data requires students to express a relationship between the two quantities in question and to interpret components of the relationship (such as slope and y-intercept) in terms of the situation.
From the reading standards for information:
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
From the writing standards:
Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
From the speaking and listening standards:
Delineate a speaker’s argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and identifying when irrelevant evidence is introduced.
From the language standards:
Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.a. Use verbs in the active and passive voice and in the conditional and subjunctive mood to achieve particular effects (e.g., emphasizing the actor or the action; expressing uncertainty or describing a state contrary to fact).
I could go on with the literacy standards for history, social studies, science, and technical subjects, but I won't. I'll get to my point.
People often confuse knowledge with intelligence. Knowing what the name of the climate zones is still important, especially today with the rate the climate is changing, but knowing those zones is useless out of context; that is, unless you're appearing on Jeopardy or playing a bar trivia game.
Smart people know a lot of stuff, but smart people know what do do with that information.
Utah state Senator Aaron Ormond wants to let kids to choose to go to school. I'll let him speak for himself. The statements below are from The Senate Site, a blog maintained by the Utah State Senate.
Some parents completely disengage themselves from their obligation to oversee and ensure the successful education of their children.
I agree. In the time I spent consulting with a preschool - 8th grade school, I saw varying degrees of commitment from parents.
As a result, our teachers and schools have been forced to become surrogate parents, expected to do everything from behavioral counseling, to providing adequate nutrition, to teaching sex education, as well as ensuring full college and career readiness.
Before I began my work with children, I never appreciated the responsibility that teachers took on. Want to see a hero in action? Visit a classroom.
Unfortunately, in this system, teachers rarely receive meaningful support or engagement from parents and occasionally face retaliation when they attempt to hold a child accountable for bad behavior or poor academic performance.
Unfortunately, I've seen this happen, too.
First, we need to restore the expectation that parents are primarily responsible for the educational success of their own children.
That begins with restoring the parental right to decide if and when a child will go to public school. In a country founded on the principles of personal freedom and unalienable rights, no parent should be forced by the government to send their child to school under threat of fines and jail time.
That begins with restoring the parental right to decide if and when a child will go to public school. In a country founded on the principles of personal freedom and unalienable rights, no parent should be forced by the government to send their child to school under threat of fines and jail time.
Oh. Irresponsible parents can then choose not to educate the children.
Utah’s constitution requires that we provide the opportunity for a free public education to every child. But public education is not free—it costs taxpayers billions each year.
Wait until he sees the cost of an uneducated child.
We should take a close look at repealing compulsory education.
And we have a new candidate for Stupid Politician of the Year.
David Taylor, a former student of mine and current materials science student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, did this wonderful calculation and posted it on FaceBook.
I have only a couple of notes to add.
1. Units 2 and 3 of the San Onofre Generating Station north of San Diego each generated 1 Gigawatts when they were running.
Imagine that you're a young man dared to drink a quart of soy sauce. Would you do it? A first-year student at the University of Virginia was pledging Zeta Psi fraternity and was goaded into doing it. He was later found having a seizure upstairs at the frat house.
He was taken to the university's medical center where he was diagnosed with hypernatremia, too much salt in the blood. According to Medscape, an online resource, this is usually found in the elderly who are mentally and physically impaired. It is most often brought on by "impaired thirst and/or restricted access to water, often exacerbated by pathologic conditions with increased fluid loss."
Eating enough salt to induce hypernatremia is rather rare and usually results in death. The doctors who teated him say that "the patient's peak serum sodium … is the highest documented level in an adult patient to survive an acute sodium ingestion without neurologic deficits."(1) The brain damage can occur because of the brain cells shrink due to the diffusion of water out of the cells.
Chinese food, anyone?
(1) Survival of Acute Hypernatremia Due to Massive Soy Sauce Ingestion, David J. Carlberg, MD, Heather A. Borek, MD, Scott A. Syverud, MD, Christopher P. Holstege, MD, The Journal of Emergency Medicine, June 2013.
I'm grading final exams, feeling wistful. After spending one and a half years with these people, you sort of grow attached to them, and when they transfer to a university, I am glad to see them go happy to see them so successful.
In this group here, we have future alumni and alumnae of Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Cal Poly, Cal State LA. A few will be physicians and pharmacists, some will be engineers, and one will be a math teacher. The reality of teaching is that I will hear very little of their future successes. They have lives, and their time here at Rio Hondo College will be a distant memory. Every semester when we all say goodbye, mixed in with the happiness I can't help but feel a little glum.
I suppose by this time in my career I should be accustomed to never seeing people again after becoming invested in their lives. Maybe I am, and the sadness is not strange, but simply an appropriate reaction to the situation. “Accustomed” does not mean “immune”.
NOTE: I originally published The Digital Cuttlefish's remarks on May 24, 2012 under the title Student Barometers.
California Assemblyman Scott Will of Santa Clarita introduced AB 1306, a bill that would create the New University of California. What's new about this institution? No faculty.
The New University of California shall provide no instruction, but shall issue college credit and baccalaureate and associate degrees to any person capable of passing examinations.
Students will just gain the knowledge and skills on their own and then pay the New University to take the final exam and receive academic credit.
Students - just think. No homework, no papers, no labs, no group projects, no tests except for the final, no all-nighters, no falling asleep in class, no professors droning on, no problems finding open seats in classes,…
CREDIT: The University of California Los Angeles
Who writes and proctors the exams if there're no professors? The New University will buy them from "qualified entities" who will also give the exams. Who would drive over a bridge designed and built by civil engineers alumni of the New University? If this idea is so wonderful, why restrict it to associate and baccalaureate degrees? Who wouldn't see a physician who earned their M.D. from a medical school at the New University?
Assemblyman Wilk to his credit does realize that even if there's no faculty, the New University does require eleven trustees and a chancellor. This chancellor will be "authorized to employ and fix the salaries of, employees to assist him or her in carrying out the functions of the university."How many administrators does it take to run a university that has no campus, no faculty, and no buildings?Probably more than we can imagine.
The problem of access to higher education has a simpler solution that the ones proposed by Wilk and Darrell Steinberg.* Invest in the existing systems: the Universities of California, the California State Universities, and the California Community Colleges.
* Steinberg introduced AB 520 that will require the state's colleges and universities to accept credits earned in Massive Open Online Courses.
Columbia University requires all undergraduates to complete a set of courses "considered the necessary general education for students, irrespective of their choice in major." One of those courses is Frontiers of Science.
The course is designed both to introduce students to exciting ideas at the forefront of scientific research, as well as to inculcate in them the habits of mind common to a scientific approach to the world. Each semester, four scientists in different disciplines deliver a series of three lectures each describing the background, context, and current state of an area of research; readings and other activities supplement the lectures. Consistent with the Core tradition, the course also includes small seminar sections in which these topics are discussed by students.
Professor of Physics Emryn Hughes took a rather unusual approach to introduce freshmen to the concepts of quantum mechanics. He stripped down, changed clothes, lay on the floor all while a strange video played on the screen with the audio being Lil Wayne's Drop It Like It's Hot. Then some ninjas showed up and stabbed some puppets.
Here's the link to the Vimeo video uploaded by Bwog.
While this is an approach I would never take and for as strange as it is, his explanation at the end of the video makes some sense.
To understand quantum mechanics, you have to undress everything, start new, and forget all the bad stuff.
Dumb is a word that I try hard not to use. To me, it always seemed to have a bit of playground cruelty to it. It's a word that kids used when they really wanted to be mean, although maybe today's youth have graduated to more colorful language.
That being said, Louisiana state senator Mike Walsworth is D-U-M-B, dumb. The video below was taken during testimony involving Senate Bill 374 that would repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act.
This anti-science law seems rather innocuous. It states that the state board of education will allow and assist school districts
to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.
Notice how it singles out the politically controversial topics of evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. Jerry Coyne, professor of biology at the University of Chicago, sarcastically noted,
Yep, we don’t need more critical thinking in areas like physics, chemistry, or medicine—just human cloning, evolution, and global warming.
The attempt to repeal the law never made it out of committee.
But I digress. Back to the dumb state senator.
During testimony on SB 374, the senator asked Ms. Reeves, a retired science teacher with 31 years of experience, if there were any experiments that demonstrated evolution. She began describing Richard Lenski's E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project. He interrupts her and asks,
They evolve into a person?
Remember the old saw about there being no dumb questions? This is a dumb question. Does Senator Dumb-Dumb really think that biological theory predicts that humans evolved from E. coli? Does he think that biological theory predicts that this occurred over a few generations? Does he even begin to comprehend what 4.5 billion years is?
Yet there is some good news from Louisiana. Zach Kopplin, a 17 year-old student, is leading the fight to repeal the idiocy. The Orleans Parish school board prohibited the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, and the Baton Rouge Advocate asked why the Loch Ness monster, presented as evidence against evolution, is part of the science curriculum. The paper went on to call for the education department to
open its eyes to this kind of educational malpractice before children’s futures are endangered.
Jazz great, Dave Brubeck, died on December 5, 2012, a day shy of his 92nd birthday. I was surprised to learn that in college, he was originally majoring in veterinary science.
He turned to music when the head of the zoology department at the College of the Pacific gave him this piece of advice:
Brubeck, your mind's not here. It's across the lawn in the conservatory. Please go there. Stop wasting my time and yours.
CREDIT: Frank C. Müller
Had I been that professor we might never had experienced Take Five.
An end note. He graduated with his bachelor's degree without learning to read music.
Every once in awhile, students will show their appreciation by giving me a present. I discourage this; a thank you is more than sufficient, and even this I don't expect.
But as I wrote, every once in awhile someone will give me a souvenir bat (St. Louis Cardinals even though I grew up a Cubs fan), some small forks from Cambodia, a decorative vase, a Galilean thermometer, and even a fossil fish. You can see these displayed in my office.
Last week, I received my first poem. The author is Selene Ramirez.
This is a YouTube video of a student, ABillyRock, saying goodbye to the University of Utah. I don't understand her. She complains that the university "bills itself to be a world-class university," yet she has presumably spent the last four years there. She derides her Theatre department as "third world class." She spent four years there despite it being "waste of my time and a waste of my money." She whines, "I'm so sick of paying for it."
Here's how I see it. ABillyRock may have wasted her money, but she wasted mine, too. The University of Utah uses both state and federal taxes to subsidize her education. She seems that she didn't take advantage of opportunities afforded her nor did she appreciate them.
I really don't get people of this ilk. They complain about the American education system all the while being a part of it. ABillyRock had other choices. There are plenty of private institutions - why didn't she choose NYU, Northwestern, Stanford, USC, Tufts, or Yale. All highly rated theatre departments. Later in the video, she reveals her politics. Once she did, I wondered why she didn't attend a for-profit institution such as the University of Phoenix. [For the record, Phoenix don't offer a theatre degree.]
Courtesy of the University of Utah
She goes on to "commiserate with any of you who have ever gone to or are currently attending public university."
"Public education from primary all the way through university - for the most part, in my opinion - is complete bullshit."
"It is a factory turns out statists by the millions."
Did you see/hear that? Statists. Simply put, a statist is a believer in a government that has substantial centralized control like a federal style government. Like the United States of America.
The only people I have ever heard use the term statist are right-wingers. If I remember my US history courses correctly, we tried a non-federal system. Remember learning about the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union? It states "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated." The US's first government was so weak, the founders knew they had to replace it with a much stronger, more centralized, federal one. I would ask her if she would prefer going back to the confederation, but her history courses were probably a waste of her time, too.
Then we get her philosophy of education. "I favor how we used to learn trade. Apprenticeships, that sort of thing. How you actually learn a trade. Not sitting in a class hearing about how Karl Marx is Jesus."
She means neither apprenticeships nor trades. Usually a trade refers to a job requiring expert manual skills. Examples of trades include electrician, plumbing, and carpentry. In many trades, aspects of the apprentice program has been replaced by on-the-job training and vocational programs at community colleges or for-profit institutions like DeVry. Theatre has never been considered a trade; it is an art.
She may be referring to mentoring. The mentor relationship, an experienced person counseling and training someone new, is important in academia, the arts, and business. Unfortunately, ABillyRock probably never tried to develop a relationship with one of her professors and so deprived herself of the very thing she desired, a mentor.
"Karl Marx is Jesus." I'll give her the benefit of the doubt here. I assume somewhere, sometime in her 16 years of public education a teacher explained hyperbole.
I'm not writing about pieces of lab equipment; rather about "something that reflects changes in circumstances or opinions." So what's a student barometer?
Do you have them? They don’t show up every semester, so consider yourself fortunate if you get one, and powerball-level lucky to get two or more in a class. These are the students whose faces are an honest reflection of how well you have explained something. If you are less than clear, an eyebrow might go up, or a head might tilt just a bit. Another student might be nodding in agreement, but frankly, always nods in agreement, even if you are presenting the old, wrong, out-of-date view you are about to demolish.
But the barometer student is skeptical. Listens. Processes. Understands. And (most helpful to you) it’s written on her or his face. Just spoke with one of three such students this semester (lucky me!), who I would have sworn was lukewarm about this class. I could not have been more wrong (I blame cultural differences; this student was from overseas). Once again, I am a happy Cuttlefish. And a sad Cuttlefish, because this particular barometer (indeed, two out of three of this semester’s barometers) is graduating, and the odds are we will never meet again.
I suppose by this time in my career I should be accustomed to never seeing people again after becoming invested in their lives. Maybe I am, and the sadness is not strange, but simply an appropriate reaction to the situation. “Accustomed” does not mean “immune”.
I have had to spend a great deal of time and energy thinking about and dealing with the charges leveled against my colleagues, and I am fatigued, tired, worn out, weary, and pooped.
But last night I was reminded why I do what I do.
My Physics 213 students have spent three (long!) semesters with me in PHY 211, 212, and 213. It may be a bit egotistical for me to say this, but I believe my engineering and science majors are the best students Rio Hondo has, and I am privileged to able to teach and mentor them. I make sure they work hard, and they return the favor. I frustrate them with all my questions, and they frustrate me when they don't get it as fast or as deeply as I want them, too.
So after these three semesters which now seems to have gone too fast , I take them out to Pizza Mania, and we spend a couple of hours away from the books and the classroom. The conversation can go from what we're doing during the break to where they are transferring, to some research one student is doing with rats and methamphetamine, and then to this crazy video of a solar flare passing Mercury.
What I have always come away with from this event - including a full stomach - is that they get it. They understand what they've been doing these past three semesters.
As we left the restaurant and said goodbye, they all said "thanks," and I realize there's one thing they didn't get. It's that I thank them for everything they've done for themselves.
"You can not tell how the dots will connect." Steve Jobs
In this post, I am doing something, I almost never do - give advice when it hasn't been requested, but I hope you will read what I say and consider it.
Earlier this week, I posted to FaceBook a link to an article in The New Republic entitled "Bad Job Market: Why Media Is Wrong About Value Of College Degree."The gist of the piece is that "[Nothing] has stopped the nation’s leading news outlets from regularly publishing terrifying stories about college graduates unable to find decent work, particularly during economic downtimes when unemployment and insecurity were on the rise." The author's claim is that these reports are just wrong.
I happen to agree with the author. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that "Adults age 18 and older with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $51,554 in 2004, while those with a high school diploma earned $28,645." Those without a high school diploma earned an average of $19,169." If you happen to have a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) degree than your prospects are even brighter. Check out the data from PayScale.com.
But there's more to the story.
A degree is not a guarantee of a job in the field. I have often used my friend's experience to show the utility of a physics degree. One Ph.D friend after graduating went to work for the research and development department of Goodyear Tire Co. Another used his skills with computers and landed a position at an Austrian bank. Another one who earned an M.S in physics is leading the development of chips for the cell phone industry. Yet another friend has had success in IT. Four physics students of mine from Whittier College went on to engineering jobs at Boeing.
John Shumway, physics professor at Arizona State, commented on my FB post that universities are promoting the idea that a degree is some sort of ticket to a job, and he's right - they are not. There's a big push in the California community colleges to create more Associate degrees. Why? For those transferring to a four-year institution, the A.A. and the A.S. won't mean much beyond the sense of personal accomplishment. The biggest reason for the push is someone decided that a community college would be rated on the number of degrees it awards. Some CCs are actually going through the records to find former students who are within a few courses of a degree and encouraging them to return and enroll in those courses.
But there's more to the story.
Life sometimes sucks. And it sucks now. The guy who worked for Goodyear - he is now seriously underemployed. Prof. Shumway related that he knows too many people with all levels of degrees who are having trouble finding jobs. Just a couple of days ago, I chatted with a former student of mine who recently graduated and was getting phone interviews, but couldn't get any further.
But there's more to the story.
Very few people follow a path in life. I won't bore you with the various forks in the road I either chose or were chosen for me. The important thing is what Steve Jobs said. "You can not tell how the dots will connect."
So now for the two pieces of advice.
1. Everyone will tell you to study and get good grades. True, but in a few years, no one will ask you what grade you got, because no one will care. What will make the difference in the long run are the skills you develop.
2. There's some truth to the saying "it's not what you know, it who you know." Develop a network. Keep in touch with your classmates. If you have the chance to go to SACNAS or the Society of Toxicology or a meeting of any professional organization, GO! Say "Hi", shake hands, exchange business cards, follow up. You never know.
