This is not a “cute” story. It’s an infuriating story about a school climate gone mad. And, although I suspect an organizational psychologist could give a nuanced analysis of the situation, that’s not my area of expertise, so I’m just going to tell the story.
Elder offspring was sent to the Vice Principal’s office yesterday. When the office called Dr. Free-Ride’s better half about the incident, the crime they reported was “saying the B-word”.
I should say right now, if you’re in earshot of an elementary or secondary school as you’re reading this post, please don’t read it out loud! I would hate to be responsible for your incarceration in the Vice Principal’s office.
So, Dr. Free-Ride’s better half actually had to go to the Vice Principal’s office yesterday, largely because elder offspring was hysterical and unable to put together a coherent sentence to convey the kid’s-eye account of the incident. Needless to say, the Vice Principal interpreted this as elder offspring “knowing that was a very bad thing to say”. The Principal, thankfully, was much less willing to convict on such flimsy evidence. Dr. Free-Ride’s better half was able to calm elder offspring sufficiently to return to class. After school, a more composed elder offspring was able to communicate these details:
Category Archives: Teaching and learning
How chemistry makes me feel. (One from the vault for National Chemistry Week.)
We’re just past the midpoint of National Chemistry Week, so I thought I’d share a “classic” post (from last year’s National Chemistry Week) about how studying chemistry can nourish one’s human yearnings.
Some academic links worth following.
There is a bunch of interesting stuff to read on the subject of teaching, learning, and being part of an academic department right now. Here are a few links I think deserve your attention:
Online AP science classes — with lab?
Adventures in Ethics and Science field operative RMD alerted me to a recent article in the New York Times (free registration required) about an ongoing debate on the use of online instruction for Advanced Placement science classes. The crux of the debate is not the value of online science classes per se, but whether such courses can accomplish the objectives of an AP science course if they don’t include a traditional, hands-on laboratory component.
The debate is interesting for a few reasons. First, it gets to the question of what precisely an AP course is intended to do. Second, it brings up the question of who has access to AP courses — and the special challenges presented for science instruction in some regions. Finally, I think it also prompts an examination of how colleges and universities deal with incoming student bodies whose preparation for college is rather more heterogeneous than homogeneous.
Full disclosure: As some of you already know, I regularly teach an online section of my philosophy of science course.* As well, about a hundred years ago, I was a high school student who took a bunch** of AP classes and AP tests.
“Stereotype threat”, women, and math tests.
Regular commenter Blair was kind enough to bring to my attention an article from The Globe and Mail, reporting research done at the University of British Columbia, that illustrates how what we think we know can have a real impact on what we can do:
Over three years, researchers gave 135 women tests similar to those used for graduate school entrance exams. Each woman was expected to perform a challenging math section, but not before reading an essay that dealt with gender difference in math.
Of the four essays, one argued there was no difference, one argued the difference was genetic and a third argued the difference stemmed from the way girls were taught in elementary school.
The fourth essay covered the subject of women in art; it has long been held by researchers that simply reminding a woman of her gender will negatively impact her test performance.
Any guesses as to the outcomes?
So much to blog about, so little time!
Things have been busy here, but there are some interesting stories I’ve been watching that I thought I should mention (as well as the usual fodder for rants, and a cartoon series that might be funny, if it’s not just seriously twisted):
Time to play “find the pattern”!
It’s no Puzzle Fantastica #1, but it’s what I have at the moment.
In a comment on my post about what I think the point of a college education is (or is not), Caledonian left this tantalizing comment:
What’s the point of a college education?
I started out thinking I was writing this as an open letter to my students, but it turns out I’m talking to you all, too.
* * * * *
I have very strong feelings about what the point of a college education should be. Maybe you do, too. It’s entirely possible that we would disagree about this issue, or that you are so happy with your own picture of the point of a college education that you really have no interests in anyone else’s.
That’s fine. But if you’re my student, certain things I get worked up about may strike you as mysterious if you don’t know what I think this whole thing is aiming for. On the off chance that you’d rather not see your instructor as eccentric or wacko, this is where I lay it all out.
A college education is not job training.
Free advice for would-be plagiarists.
Disclaimer: Plagiarism is bad. A quick search for “plagiarism” on this blog will demonstrate that I’ve taken a clear stand against plagiarism.
That said, if one were, hypothetically, planning a little online-copy-and-paste plagiarism, and if one’s instructor has earned a Ph.D., in Philosophy, from Stanford, one might reconsider using the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the source of several uncited sentences.
There is a better-than-average chance that the instructor is familiar with SEP — indeed, even with the specific entry you (hypothetically) are tempted to plunder.
Even if she’s not, she’s at least as handy with a Google search as you are.
Historical details which, if gotten wrong, might just make me lose it.
It’s Monday, it’s cold and overcast, and I’m grading papers. As it turns out, these are perfect conditions to make me grumpy.
Rather than wallow in it, though, I’ve decided to be proactive about trying to head off future grumpiness. My philosophy of science classes are about to embark on some exercises about scientific theory choice, for which they will be considering Ptolemaic and Copernican accounts of planetary motions. Having done these kind of exercises for many semesters, I know that there’s a good chance I’ll end up with stacks of papers that may make me howl in despair if I don’t read the riot act now. We’re not just talking the essay opener, “Since the dawn of time man has pondered X,” nor the conclusion, “In the end, how can we ever know?” We’re talking hard-core Bugs Bunny history.
I like Bugs Bunny as well as the next academic, but I prefer that historical claims in essays that I must grade not be outrageously false. So, here’s my attempt to innoculate my students: