Search results matching tags 'teaching science' and 'biology'

"No ideas but in things"

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:07:00 GMT

"No ideas but in things."
--William Carlos Williams

Stuff comes from stuff.
That's a big deal.

Everything you touch came from something else. If we ever truly taught science as knowledge, instead of as a means to magical goals, we'd get this.

If we ever taught science as knowledge, we would not need STEM initiatives.We'd need more science classrooms.

Somehow biology has become this brainy, biochemical abstract broth disconnected from the muck and the mud that have always fascinated children.

If a child knows more about his DNA that his poop, he don't know ***.

We really need to go back to what we know we know....

Intelligent curriculum?

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:08:00 GMT

When anyone suggests that we not teach evolution in school, he is suggesting that we not teach biology, and in a broader sense, science.

So let's be more frank about the discussion--do we teach science, or something else pretending to be science (which reduces science to superstition), or skip the whole thing entirely?

(And no, technology doesn't count--I can teach a child how to put together an automobile without her understanding much about combustion or friction or the basic laws of Newtonian physics.)

Letting go

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:15:00 GMT

I'm letting go this year. I'm going to trust the collection of young humans sitting in my class, brains honed by countless generations before them, each and every child with a lineage going back as far as the first protobionts that globbed together in the seas here billions of years ago.

I'm letting go this year. I'm going to remind myself every morning, right after the Pledge of Allegiance, that I am mortal, that my students are mortal, and that the "liberty and justice for all" means just that. Neither is cheap. Nor are our children.

I'm letting go this year. I'm singing aloud in class, because I can, and because it helps children remember, It helps them remember facts, true, but more important, singing itself helps us remember who we are. I may drop a couple on a used guitar. I don't play well, but I do play. I don't sing well, either, but I do sing. As the warm July sun sets, I hear the squeaks and squawks and chimmering and chammering of cicadas and cardinals and squirrels and bees and crickets and grackles and dogs. Even the fish around here make noise, croakers and sea robins grunting in protest when dragged out of the water.

I'm letting go this year. I'm going to overtly share my ridiculous love and awe for this marvelous universe, one that belongs to any critter with ribosomes and some nucleic acids. I'm sharing our emerging stories of the natural world along with the joy and fear these stories elicit. Squid flashing light signals to each other deep in the ocean, orgiastic balls of earthworms reveling , bacteria sensing each other before working communally to a common goal--stories about other lives that help us grasp ours.

I have no idea what worlds lie outside what we can sense and rationally infer. I do know that what exists in our natural world exceeds the imaginations of all of us. If a child's curiosity gets dampened in science class, you cannot blame the world.

Leslie's photos.

On matters of faith

Anonymous — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:23:00 GMT

Morning storm clouds. The light bit at edges, accentuating the few colors that poked through the gray dawn gloom. A brisk wind swirled from the northwest, a breeze out of Chocolat.

A cherry tree dumped its blossoms like a snow squall, surrounding me with impossible pink light. The heavy rain drops followed seconds later, soaking the pink petals so thick they hid the grass.

Even in the middle of it, I try to remember, and I cannot. Remembering anything other than those things that will keep us alive is a human conceit. Turns out I'm human.

Change is coming. As it has. As it will.

***

I am teaching about evolution, descent with modification. It is going better than most years have.

I spent a few moments talking about Charles Lyell and the concept of uniformitarianism, the idea that whatever natural laws apply here, today, apply anywhere and anytime. I dropped a small chunk of wood as I spoke. It fell each time, as expected, landing loudly on the desk.

This is where science relies on faith.

And it does. The kids relax just a tad. All year long I've assured them that we know less than we think, that the world is a wonderful place despite this, and that science requires, at a very basic level, faith.

Not the kind of faith many of them have been taught, but faith nonetheless. 8 months after we first met each other, things are starting to fall into place.

Of course the piece of wood will fall, each and every time, and we know this only because it always has. This may seem trivial, but it's the soul of reality, whatever "reality" means.

***

Were humans as inevitable as the fall of the block of wood I dropped over and over again? I leave it to the students to ponder. I'm not particularly interested in the question--we're here, and that's enough for me.

But they are, which is why I pose it. Their universe swirl around each of their own existences, and I just called it into question.

It's my hope that by June, they will know as little as I do.

Decision time....

Science snob

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:44:00 GMT

This one's for me. No need to read it, nothing to see. Move along, move along....

Everywhere plants
Flourish among graves,

Sinking their roots
In all the dynasties
Of the dead.

Seamus Heaney, from "A Herbal"

I believe, truly believe, that if you pay attention, real attention, to anything, you cannot help but be smitten by Seamus Heaney, soil, or horseshoe crabs.

Or smitten by any number of the seemingly infinite variety of life and circumstance around us.

So call me a snob. A science snob.

***

Yesterday I found two new "wasps" in my roly-poly terrarium. Then I stumbled upon Seamus Heaney's latest book, Human Chain, while warming up in the Montclair Book ~~Store~~ Center. I bought it.

Last night I saw Michael Franti. Hugged him, even. He reminds me why this human thing rocks.

Stared at morning glories at noon, flared open in the dying October light. Our brains tell us that daylight is daylight. The morning glories say otherwise.

Today I got to kick leaves with my toes on the Green.

I chatted with a new security guard at school--turns out I was her doc way back when when the big blue bus visited her neighborhood.

Then I learned that my black wasps were really harmless soldier flies--I got this from The Dirt on Soil, one of my favorite blogs.

All in 24 hours. None of this expected, none of it earned.

The soldier fly on the finger photo from Rock Hill High School, via The Dirt on Soil blog.
The morning glory is mine.

Leslie babysat Seamus' kids over 30 years ago.
Funny how that goes.

Melomel, cosmos, and teaching biology

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 21:21:00 GMT

Yes, I know, same old same old...I write for Leslie.
When I walk, I walk with Leslie.
When I eat, I eat with Leslie.
When I sleep, I sleep with Leslie.
When I share melomel, I share it with Leslie.

This morning I watched a couple of bees trying to suck nectar from pink cosmos flowers. The breeze was topping 25 mph. I suspect the bees were spending more calories than they were getting, but they keep trying to get to the flowers, because that's what bees do.

And now I am writing stories about the bees, because that's what humans do.

And it's all good.

***

I'm drinking peach melomel--peaches from 2009 fermented with honey made from flowers in Michigan. A few dormant yeast rest in the bottom of the bottle, poisoned by the ethanol they created.

I took a walk on the today--October beaches have more carcasses than life. The light is fading, and life fades with it. We forget this when we pal around with modern 21st century humans. Except when we don't, and make a formalized ritual out of dying. Which is OK, I guess, but I think I can manage it on my own. I hope I die under the sun, and I hope I'm alone. But we don't talk about this in polite company.

We started farming about 10,000 years ago. It's why I can sit in a permanent structure sipping wine made from cultured peaches and cultured yeast.

I get a little sad when I reflect on the culture we pretend can be sated. It cannot. I get a little sad when I think about my death, too. Contemplating either, however, reflects an ingrained narcissistic and very human attitude contrary to this life thing.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.

-- D.H. Lawrence

***

I like being outside. Even when I think I won't, I always do. I have never regretted a single moment outside. And yet I teach my lambs inside.

I like walking barefoot. I am barefoot almost always, except when in school. I have rarely regretted a moment barefoot (though I have had the occasional spectacular bleed). And yet I wear shoes when I teach.

I like making bread, making beer, growing plants, singing, dancing. I have been sneaking parts of all of those into class. That I have to sneak them into the curriculum instead of trumpeting their presence in my classroom speaks to my cowardice and to my role as a government agent. It also speaks to a very weird social situation where I may talk more to a particular child than her parents.

I teach biology. It's messy. Always has been. It's wet, and chaotic, and real, and scary, and, ultimately, about death.

And life.

***

And what do I do?

I wear shoes in class.
I avoid death so I do not disturb my lambs.

But each and every one of us grows plants.
And every day, every day, I remind my students that the plants make stuff from their breath.
And in a few months, we will eat the fruit from the plants.

I do not, of course, call it communion, and would not for a whole lot of reasons.

But I will say this much. Though I have long given up on the Transubstantiation of the Host (but not the miracle of CO₂ and water to food), and though I will teach what I am hired to teach, I am closer to death than birth, and I will not lie to my students.

Ever.

You want a biology teacher? Someone who will put the logos (λέγω) of life in the classroom?

I'll do it.

A good biology course will change your child. If your child has not changed in my classroom, I've wasted her time.

The photos were taken today in North Cape May.
The cosmos were as alive as I'll ever be, and the crab as dead.

Courage, NJ biology teachers!

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:12:00 GMT

I saw Willa Spicer, the Deputy Commissioner of the N. J. Department of Education, at an AP conference Tuesday. She made the opening remarks, with platitudes on the courage of teachers.

It doesn't take a whole lot of courage to not be laid off, so I was a bit confused (a common state for me), but the coffee was good, the company even better, so I checked it off as one of those things you do at a conference before the real stuff starts.

Today the state announced the biology end of course pass rate, perhaps better called the fail rate.

Courage, Doyle, courage!

***

Some of my kids are still wrestling with English.
Many of my kids come in believing fire is alive and plants are not.
Don't even get me started with evolution....

***

Here's an idea--test them the day they come in, then again in May. Did I make a difference?

I went to a state conference in March to learn more about the state EOC exam.

I learned that writing the questions is very expensive.
I learned that teachers are not allowed to see the questions, even (or maybe especially) when proctoring the exam.
I learned that even though the state curriculum has changed, not all of the question will reflect the changes because, well, it's really expensive to make new questions, and they have some they've already paid for.

Ms. Spicer once chaired the NJ Performance Assessment Alliance, the crew that developed the open-ended test questions the last few years. We were allowed to see the NJPAA performance assessment questions.

Imagine a question developed by a committee of "parents, educators, and the business community." Toss in horseshoe crabs, a creature as foreign to my kids as escargots bourguignons. Add language that befuddled even the proctors.

I have no idea how the tests were scored.

***

45% of New Jersey's students failed the end of course biology exam this past May. Even more depressing, the passing score was 53%.

105,000 students took the test. If it counted, then nearly 50,000 diplomas would be at risk.

I have an idea--let's give the test to every teacher in the state, everybody in the department of education, every administrator drawing a public salary. What passing score would be needed to guarantee that even half would pass?

I want my kids to pass. But I won't teach to the test.

I can't--I don't know what the test tests....

The photo of Ms. Spicer comes from "School Board Notes."

The cartoon figure of the thylakoid comes from here.
Biology's not the cute froggie course it was a generation ago.

Know your place

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:39:00 GMT

I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth?

Aldo Leopold, 1949
Sand County Almanac

I caught a few fluke today. I picked a few beans. I saw jellyfish under my paddle, black-backed gulls over it.

The yellowlegs are already heading south for the winter--the sun blazed today, but not quite as long as yesterday. The days are shortening.

And in September I'll have over a hundred kids who know nothing, who have been trained to know nothing, and most will know nothing when they leave.

They take biology because the state says they must, if they plan to graduate.
They take biology because that's what follows physical science.
They take biology because it's what sophomores are expected to do.

I teach biology because I, even (or especially) as I age, marveling more each moment I breathe. I am drunk in July with sunshine and sea water, staggering around the garden in the late hot sun, trying to see every creature I can see.

I have never regretted a minute under the open sky. (Oh, I've regretted stepping on bees, getting caught in storms, swimming through jellyfish, but never being outside.) You cannot teach biology under fluorescent lights.

What am I doing? What are any of us doing?

That's Leslie a couple of evenings ago--we play a lot on the bay.
We all need to play. even high school sophomores.
Especially high school sophomores.

6th Great Extinction? (Don't scare the kids....)

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:27:00 GMT

What do you teach a young adolescent? How much of the truth do you dare bare?

We are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction. Technology got us here, and I have my doubts it will get us out.

I have faith in life--creatures live in the deepest depths of the oceans, in scalding hot springs, deep within the Earth's crusts will survive whatever we might do in the next few generations.

I have faith in the sun--it will continue to beam on us for a good few more billion years.

I have faith in love--not that it will save us, but that we're redeemable, all of us.

I do not, however, have faith that the current culture has any inclination towards self-preservation. A bumper sticker on a Prius will not save us, no matter how near zero its emissions may be.

And here on the Fourth of July, in a land blessed with water and soil and a temperate climate, on a day marking the signing of the Declaration of Independence, most of us would starve to death without some sort of cash flow.

The man credited with writing the Declaration of Independence also wrote these words:

The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed... It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785

What do you suppose he would say in my classroom today? In your classroom?

Photo from Poplicks here.

Our horseshoe crab trip

Anonymous — Sat, 22 May 2010 12:47:00 GMT

What did you imagine lies in wait anyway
at the end of a world whose sub-substance
is glaim, gleet, birdlime, slime, mucus, muck?

from Why regret?
Galway Kinnell

Yesterday we took over 160 high school students to Sandy Hook to see horseshoe crabs.

A few had never seen the ocean before.
A few dared let a fiddler crab tickle their palms.
A few touched a live striped bass, a yard long and just pulled from the ocean.
A few saw an osprey glide of the bay.
A few held comb jellies in a sea water puddle in their cupped hands.
One lost his flip flop to the muck.

I have no idea how much "biology" my lambs learn in the classroom. I suppose they learn as much as anyone else required to sit for the New Jersey EOC Biology Exam, and after 10 years of mandatory schooling, they're pretty good at taking tests about things they do not get (as no one does) to please folks they never met (as we all do).

I have no idea how to test what a child learns as his foot gets caught in the muck, a gray cloud now hiding his footprint, the sweet smell of life and death mingling in mud.

I do know this. The children were as alive as I have ever seen them. I suspect that many of them will carry vivid moments tucked between their amygdalas and their cortical gyri.

We are trained to keep the mulch and the muck hidden from the children, the classroom is safer (and much easier) that way. It was fun to teach real ~~biology~~ life for a day.

I bet even Arne might get it if he spent some time mucking around....

Yep, same photo--I love it. Look at the twists and turns, decisions made
by a chilled tiny horseshoe crab on a late February morning.