journey preparations

The backpacking trips I've taken in the past few years have involved renting or borrowing or using cast-offs of other people's equipment. Zero gave me his old backpack, his pre-teen daughter has somehow been tricked into letting a geezer use her sleeping bag, and lodging has often come from a poor old guy who is too busy enjoying his new wife to give his tent proper use. My headlamp and flask were gifts. And I've even had to borrow other's bear canisters to keep the wildlife out of my food. Because camping has become a renewed annual tradition, I feel justified in acquiring my own equipment. Earlier this week, I inadvertently ended up in an REI store where I bought a new membership and my first sleeping pad, yet another vital piece of equipment I'd had to charm away from somebody else. The directions indicate the pad should not be stored all rolled up so it rests under our bed, partially inflated, and its presence has infused my dreams.

My mind is already thinking about gear for next summer's trip. Having always borrowed stuff, there has not been much advanced preparation beyond stashing spare undies and socks into ziplock bags. As I consider what type of sleeping bag and tent I need, I find myself weighing options that previously had not been part of my preparations. Before, I knew I'd get by with whatever color, weight, or sizes were presented. Now, I wonder whether a creamsicle orange sleeping bag is a good idea or not. The price is good, the filling is down, and the weight is low. Can I sleep with something so incandescent? Then there are the tents where "comfort" will be determined by some odd equation that juxtaposes weight against roominess.

None of these internal debates are troubling. I do wonder whether my desire to be toasty warm justifies the extra weight and expense of a bag that is rated for 15°F or colder. Similarly, once I know I can sit upright in a tent so I can put on socks, does it really matter how much space there is on either side of my sleeping pad? It's not like I require floorspace for a library or rock collection or multiple outfits. However, what strikes me is that having the choice of equipment prompts me to consider what is necessary and what is just convenient. Frankly, it's a great mental distraction. I envision a discretely colored tent concealed among the brush. I hold onto the dream of having no equipment lashed to the outside of my pack. I squirm at the notion of my pillow (last year's only equipment buy) nestled inside a large and lofty sleeping bag.

What does prevent me from falling asleep is wondering how to compel a novice researcher to nominate a theory – any theory – as a useful cognitive tool as she descends into a the swamps of interview transcripts. Because she has never had to find her way out on her own, she does not appreciate just how important it is to have packed the right equipment. She's got a canvas bag thrown over her shoulder that holds a digital recorder, a new notebook, and a rainbow assortment of sticky notes. Those will work fine only if nothing unexpected arises. And if nothing unexpected arises, then the journey was not worth her trouble. Had she taken advantage of previous research opportunities, then she might lay awake wondering whether there are sufficient tools for sorting through the mess of data. Or she might even have a couple of tools to consider and will make a final decision as conditions warrant. Unfortunately, the choice she appears to be making is the glorious presumption that the interviews and concept maps will all coalesce around intriguing and meaningful concepts. To distract myself from that impending disaster, I wonder whether I can find something like an Adirondack tin cup that would bring an East Coast flair to the Sierra and Cascade cups that jostle for hot water each morning.

knuckle sandwich

temptations

The holidays are a tough time to maintain a boyish figure. In contrast, during a backpacking trek, calorie consumption is not a concern. Even a twinge or hint of hunger is justification to haul out a robust energy bar. But when time is spent sitting at a computer and the only calories burned come from avoiding the need to grade projects, then all variety of treats are a terrible temptation.

On one of countless treks to the kitchen this weekend, I demonstrated admirable resolve. No, I didn't avoid all treats. Indeed, an average-tasting sample of chocolate crinkle cookies, a handful of fig newtons, and some so-called fruits in the form of dried dates were each crammed down my gullet. What I was able to avoid was eating the barbecue chips on top of the fridge. How was I able to avoid this deliciously deadly temptation? Mainly by avoiding eye contact. Yet there the bags reside, on top of the refrigerator – lurking and tempting me like two satanic consciences (one per shoulder), tag teaming me with the imagined delights of crispiness in the mouth and salty, spicy sugar being licked from my fingers.

Despite numerous plaintive requests to not have certain treats in the house, they still find their way from the stores and into my grubby hands. Candy corn and jelly belly beans are small and tasty. Once a bag has been opened, it is just a matter of minutes before it is an empty shell. Why do the continue to appear? Part of it is seasonality: candy corns arrive in October and jelly bellies are usually gifts for birthdays (mine in July and the return of the sun in December). But the BBQ chips: why did they make an appearance, and why now?! The answer is pure economics.

Our local supermarket has gas pumps at one end of its parking lot. For every $100 spent indoors, we receive 10¢ off each gallon when we fill one of our cars. Sometimes there are promotions. This past week, by spending $50 on groceries in one trip, an amazing 30¢ discount accrued for gasoline. My spouse is usually quite good about estimating the cost of items in her cart. This day, something she meant to get wasn't available and when her favorite clerk (yes: we've been here long enough to form opinions and make acquaintances) tallied only $40 in purchases, an expected savings was about to be lost. Needing to grab $10 of groceries in a hurry, she ran to the nearby large bags of potato chips. Four bags would equal ten dollars and then we'd save thirty cents times a tankful of gas -- about $3.60 when the Element's fuel light goes on. I suppose there is some reverse Polish notation that would show me how this constitutes a savings. For me, there's the ever losing battle to expend more energy (or even an equal amount) to what I cram into my digestive system. Perhaps the calculus will all become clear and this won't be a loss of 40¢ but instead a tip of the balances toward snacking bliss and poor judgment.

arrival of a piano

I was asked to be a little flexible about the start time for a meeting this morning. The occasion: the expected delivery of a $200 piano. Initially, I couldn't quite understand the excitement: "our very first piano!!!!" But then I realized how important piano ownership had been in my family. It occurred to me that my colleague and my parents shared the distinction of not only being first generation college graduates but advanced degree winners at that. I was puzzled about the appeal of listening to others struggle to master a tune — unlike the glorious and rare opportunities I've had to hear a skilled keyboardist). In my typically sluggish thinking, it gradually dawned on me that owning a piano is a social distinction. Perhaps the delivery of a piano is not only an acquisition but a signal that one has arrived at an important social status.

Such puzzlings were rewarded by a brief internet search. I uncovered a thesis entitled Entertaining a New Republic: Music and the Women of Washington, 1800-1825 submitted for a Masters of Arts degree in American Material Culture (remember when people only majored in science or art?). Somebody else also finished a study in 2011 in the form of a dissertation:  Reading the inventory: Household goods, domestic cultures and difference in England and Wales, 1841–81. That study examined "household inventories" to, among other things, discern which room pianos were located. I don't know whether we should be surprised but 38.5% of drawing-rooms contained pianos compared to just 10.2% of parlours. This is all to say that I am pleased that others have taken my momentary curiosity to the extent of complete studies.

Regardless, the delivery of a used piano on this rainy day in New England is a significant moment – perhaps in ways that strike a chord and resonate across the years. Another family has to now decide which room is the best spot for their new piano.

presenting research via dance

An insightful and wise colleague recommended this video to Zero and me. At its core is the notion that important ideas might not always be best presented via Powerpoint. The presenter goes so far as to tabulate the financial losses accrued by wasting people's time with the estimate that one-fourth of all Powerpoints are worthless and bad. In clever ways, his dancers are used to explain lasers and photons. Most profoundly, his talk concludes with the wistful hope that people might simply enjoy watching performance art for its own sake, or as the frame around the MGM lion recommends: Ars gratia artis. That this video offers multiple types of inspiration confirms this last point.

A more devious person who send this my way with the expectation that I'd become obsessed by the idea. Such an individual would chuckle knowing that I would begin to scheme how try it out in a public setting — a situation in which humiliation and/or infamy might occur. Unlike arranging for dancing Chinese lions or sporting a lobster costume in a banquet hall, thinking about dance is far beyond my imagination. And yet I couldn't help but wonder.

One reasonable question is whether there are particular gains to making a professional presentation via dance. The struggles of the urban student, the challenges of maintaining trust within a school, the resistance to stereotypes of failure versus excellence — each of these crossed my mind as valuable stories to share. In contrast, the TED talker does some odd things with easy chairs and footstools that are amusing but did little to extend his message. I've learned that doing silly things for their own sake is only partially fulfilling. In contrast, cleverness combined with deeper meanings resonates louder and longer. For example, the Nightmares event when Zero pretended to field a phone call from home was silly on one level; it also reminded us that we are more than the actors we portray during professional meetings.

For now, I don't see how dance will find its way into a presentation  at a conference. But if I were to proceed with this idea, the downloaded  moves (left) might guide my solo interpretive performance. Maybe it's not that hard to envision …

gustatory input substantially contributes to the preferential ingestion of beer

Bugs and Bass Ale

One year ago, I visited the NSF website on a very regular basis. I was in the midst of a glorious sabbatical (probably a redundancy) during which time I submitted two research proposals. Today I was on that site to update a budget for somebody's project they are resubmitting and for which I would be the evaluator if things work as planned. One interesting thing was that I had forgotten my password but could recall my NSF ID number – a nine digit sequence that my fingers remembered even though I could not have listed those numbers out loud. While navigating the NSF site, my eyes were drawn to a press release that included the word "beer." Neuroscientists at University of California-Riverside have been hard at work.

Apparently fruit flies are attracted to beer and the researchers wanted to know more. More than describing that Drosophila like beer, the scientists wanted to uncover a causal model that explained how the bugs were drawn to the beer. The flies were hungry and thirsty so they had been primed to go after something. Using Bass Ale as one temptation and yeast solution, rotting grapes, or smashed bananas as alternate choices, various strains of fruit flies were allowed to choose between the drinking options and regular sugar water. Some fruit flies had a certain gene removed from their DNA, a gene that would otherwise allow them to detect glycerol. In this diagram, the white boxes represent the strain of files with the Gr64e sequence missing from their bodies. Because they lacked that gene, their attraction to beer was much reduced compared to "normal" wild fruit flies. The quoted line that forms the title of this entry translates to: "flies with taste will drink beer." Not only is this an important discovery, it was sufficiently noteworthy to appear in Nature.

What'll you have, Bugsy?

I, for one, have no problems with paying a research team to do this work. Their article provided answers to some of my question such as "how did they know which liquid the flies ingested?" Turns out the flies were presented with beer dyed one color and another liquid containing another color. That sounds smart and resourceful to me. But I felt bad for the treatment of the satiated flies: "Starved flies were placed in the Petri dishes in a humidified box at 25°C for 2 h, after which they were frozen and scored for abdomen coloration." That's right: starved, allowed to feed, then captured, frozen and torn open to see what was in their guts! Gratefully, no images of this procedure were included in the report. What was also fascinating to me was that the researchers provided the DNA sequence for flies that could taste beer* as well as those variants who could not. All in all, a pretty nice linkage between DNA and behaviors. I wonder what sorts of petty machinations the researchers had to go through to buy beer. Why an Irish important rather than something more local -- even though Sierra Nevada brewing is a nine hour roadtrip away? Especially since NSF funded projects are required to use domestic air carriers for international trips (say, a conference trip to Belgium in 2013), it seems logical that domestic beers would be preferred instead of imports. Apparently the logic fails in this situation.

All of this got me thinking. What other research has been done with insects and beers? The tragic news is that drinking beer can make one more susceptible to mosquito bites. In the geography, that could result in malaria:

Body odours of volunteers who consumed beer increased mosquito activation (proportion of mosquitoes engaging in take-off and up-wind flight) and orientation (proportion of mosquitoes flying towards volunteers' odours). The level of exhaled carbon dioxide and body temperature had no effect on human attractiveness to mosquitoes. Despite individual volunteer variation, beer consumption consistently increased attractiveness to mosquitoes. These results suggest that beer consumption is a risk factor for malaria and needs to be integrated into public health policies for the design of control measures

The moral:

1. It is NOT impossible to receive federal funds to do beer research.
2. Beings who drink beer prefer its taste over other spoiled liquids.
3. If you are going to drink beer in malaria country, be sure to get your shots. Or maybe do shots instead of drinking beer.

* In case you are curious, Gr64a (5’-GGCGTTAAGCAGGTGGAGAG and 5’-CCAGATTCGAACAACTGCTGG),

jumping from a plane

Next Friday, I am scheduled to pitch a daring and innovative idea to administrators in my building. The particulars are less important right now than the process. What looms is not my capacity to articulate an ambitious vision. Rather, the challenge is to make the endeavor worthy even when the exact path is somewhat murky. In short, I am confronting a systemic attitude the infects everything related to education in this state. The editorial page of the capital newspaper phrased the condition this way: "Connecticut is genetically programmed to resist change, even when change is called for." While the paper was referencing a group of school superintendents who have some ideas for rethinking the purposes of K-12 education whereas I am proposing a new process for preparing future science and math teachers, the giant block that has to be tipped, toppled or eroded is uncertainty. What I need to decide is how much emphasis to put on the possibilities versus doing all that I can to convince others that there is essentially no risk.

As I think about the right strategy for this situation, I remind myself how glorious my life has been over the past several years because I have not been obliged to think along these lines. Today I am especially proud that my asymmetric compadre, who has helped co-father many a wild adventure, was the recipient of a prestigious award at his appropriately appreciative university. As I would expect, he prepared an unconventional presentation that ranged far and wide – not for the sake of being unconventional but because that is the only way to accomplish an authentic representation of his work and aspirations. There might be risks in announcing the possibility of applying money to buy beer. And as I hear the polite chuckles in my head, I want to explain that he's serious with the only question being whether I will be a peripheral participant in his purchases. Standing in front of a sizable crowd (I envision SRO with even the wait staff pausing to consider the wisdom and cherish the humor) to give a talk has the equivalent risk for some people as jumping out of an airplane is to others. There is an illogical aspect to both because neither is especially necessary. However, neither adventure – using newly discovered presentation software or leaping with others out of a perfectly viable aircraft – is stupid. Daring? Yes. However, I would like to emphasize how the two leaps are comparable.

Here is a photograph taken by one skydiver as a Chevy exited the back of an aircraft. We can see two other parachutists that are following the red vehicle having paused after pushing the car into freefall. At a very basic level, this is a clever publicity stunt and the resulting commercial will be sufficient to propel consumers to the local Chevrolet showroom. Personally, I am less puzzled why someone would go to this much trouble to film a commercial and am much more confused about how this scene makes one think it's a good reason to take out an auto loan. Which is all to say that I enjoyed finding out what the skydivers and videographers were thinking as they prepared for their task:

You look at the situation and you say, "Okay, this is what can go wrong." Basically, you step back from it and look at all the variables. "Okay, what am I going to do to minimize risks?"

With the falling Chevy, I would think minimizing risks would translate into making sure the parachutes were extra big to ensure gentle landings. With the presentation, wearing a reliable (I almost typed "depend-able") pair of trousers is a brilliant strategy for minimizing risks and reducing the scope of things that could go wrong. In brief (!) a wise person anticipates problems and makes adjustments to bring the uncertainties down to an acceptable level: lots of preparation and a great deal of thinking, rehearsing, double-checking and more thinking. There remains the understood uncertainties that will reveal themselves and that's all part of the preparations. Ultimately, those efforts occupy a considerable factor of time greater than the duration of the actual event:

You're putting things together as best you can — and then it all boils down to that one minute.

Too often, I fail to remain fully cognizant of the culmination of the experience when I'm in the midst of it. Perhaps this is reasonable given all the hours I've rehearsed possible response to the various scenarios. When the magical time arrives, I have to jolt myself to realize that this is IT -- and I need to soak it and do my best to etch it into my mind. With that comes the need to enjoy the outcome of the accumulation of plans and preparations. There are more opportunities in the future to make more plans. But the instant when the plans are put into motion have almost escape my noticing:

It's just about being in the moment. And this is where I want to be.

I am depending on the guest speaker today to have found moments he can freeze in his mind enough to hold onto forever, or just long enough to pass along to me. Maybe a caring partner or public relations cub reporter will capture the event with a snapshot. As for myself and next Friday's sales attempt, with the possibility that this will serve as the seed crystal for another amazing adventure, I need to remind myself to be in the moment and appreciate that it is just where I want to be. It isn't just the outcome, but it's the free fall of almost uncontrolled tumbling that can be equally important. Whereas the descending automobile had many videographers along for the ride, I don't know that I should expect such in the Dean's office. Maybe I'll stick my digital camera in my pocket just in case. Or maybe I can find ways to be entirely engaged in what happens without also losing myself. What fascinates me about this video is that I was completely unconcerned about how the landing turned out. Instead, I was transfixed by the journey. I trust today's talk has a similar feel: the leap, the rush, the sense of accomplishment.

SONIC from Drea Cooper on Vimeo.

 

processes of becoming

The embarrassingly trivial tenure and promotion guidelines used within our school are finally being revised. In the past, the categories were simplistic and vague. If there was a benefit to this (writing as a faculty member) those ambiguities were not used to evil effect. But they could have been. This Wednesday, all 27 pages of the newly drafted guidelines were placed before members of our department for discussion. To paraphrase Taylor Mali, it was the best time we’d spent together since Christmas. The conversation was honest, respectful and varied. The document served as an object to direct our comments. What then ricocheted around the room was quite revealing.

For one, the energy of the conversation demonstrated the substantial need many had in voicing their notions about “the academy” and what it stands for. That many spoke, novice and veteran, was an indication that several are struggling with these notions. This was a rare opportunity to be heard. What was intriguing was how an otherwise mundane department meeting "degenerated" into such a revealing and useful conversation. Beyond its rarity, it is not the first time where a dull document opened doors to deliberations that were not anticipated but ended up revealing a great deal. I don’t typically view my department as rich in quick thinkers even though they are warm and nurturing teachers and advisors. Nevertheless, and I don’t want to be misunderstood as labeling my peers as dull, the discussion brought to mind this excerpt from John Dewey’s How We Think:

As the metaphor of dull and bright implies, some minds are impervious, or else they absorb passively. Everything presented is lost in a drab monotony that gives nothing back. But others reflect, or give back in varied lights, all that strikes upon them. The dull make no response; the bright flash back the fact with a changed quality. An inert or stupid mind requires a heavy jolt or an intense shock to move it to suggestion; the bright mind is quick, is alert to react with interpretation and suggestion of consequences to follow.

In trying to lighten the load in my file drawers at home, the previous weekend I disposed of the just-found personal statement I submitted when I went up for associate professor almost fifteen years ago. My recollection was similar to what I read before the document went into the bin. Then I made the case that my research was not necessarily all along the same path but still showed some purposefulness even though others could misconstrue it as wandering. At the recent department meeting, I found myself taking exception to a young scholar who was advocating that a quality tenure dossier ought to show a clear research trajectory. I don’t fault his perspective because that was his training and he has done a very admirable job following that path. While it worked well for him, and I have been a clear beneficiary of his scholarship as has the field, I was reluctant to endorse that as THE sign of being worthy of associate status.

Just as students in an undergraduate non-majors physics class can be seen as in the process of becoming, I have been wondering about newbies to the academy. How can we describe what is expected at the outset from those who will pursue promotion six or so years into the future? Beyond the end products, what ought to take place along the way — what do we expect or hope for among this who plan to become tenured faculty in an education department? The corollary is to exit those who choose not to use the academy as we feel they should. Added to this, what are the various ways we might allow people to become, including those who are not living in the same world or coming to the work along the same path as me? Whether a person is referencing their students as they work quizzes about muon travels or considering how to specify what it means to become a professional academician (or educator) it seems that having high ambitions combined with considerations of differences is both a challenging and a refreshing way to contemplate the growth of others.

taken for granted

New England has suffered a plague of bad weather. Even though Hurricane Irene was demoted to a tropical storm before it struck in August, it inflicted impressive damage to trees and electric lines. Those in the countryside might be thought to be self-sufficient: well water, septic systems, wood stoves, vegetable gardens, and so on. In contrast, those of us residing in towns are subject to the vagaries of the water, trash, and sewer utilities. Much of the distinction between the city mouse and country mouse vanishes when electric service is disrupted. My friends in the woods don’t have water when the pumps’ electricity is caught off. Fans and motors that move heat, air and so on are also rendered useless. The latest snowstorm came through four days ago and the accompanying map shows how widespread the damage has been as measured by power outages. Without electricity, each and everyone of us feels the pinch of a primitive existence.

When the electricity cut off at our house, these realities came home. The clever wall mounted devices that turn a room from dark to brightness were suddenly nothing more than heavy duty plastic clickers. As late afternoon transitioned to evening, the house was quiet. The laundry was certainly less agitated as it took its time soaking. The hum of the computers’ fans went silent. We watched the pinkish sky filter through the trees which were in turn showing off their golden foliage. But with the dimming light came concerns about the increasing chill. Heavy winter blankets and quilts were pulled from closets. A new high efficiency gas furnace is nothing without electricity to give juice to its control panels. While the water was still flowing and before the nearby water tower drained, I stocked our home with water. Once again, I counted my blessings to be a home brewer.

Unlike the August storm, heat and hot water were a priority. In my all-grain brewing package was a wonderful insulating pouch that has proven its ability to keep 6 gallons of water quite hot for many hours. So one brew bucket was filled with piping hot tap water with the knowledge that hot top water would be at a premium in just a few hours. This was supplemented by three, six-gallon containers of non-heated water for other sanitary uses. Next was the concern about lights. In addition to candles, I found my camping headlamp and a crank radio that gives some light, too. The gas stove wouldn’t light on its own but a handy grill lighter allowed my partner to boil water for spaghetti and heat a jar of sauce. No meatballs alas because we had to keep the refrigerator and freezer sealed against thawing over the coming days.

Others who lost power several days before ours gave way have been at work. It allows them to access the web, use a shower, and sit in a chair without wearing coat, gloves and hat. None have actually spent the night in their office as far as I know but who could fault anyone for contemplating such a thing. After all, going to work is in some ways a blessed convenience, even for simple things has having a toilet seat to rest on that isn’t icy cold. And having considerable light at one’s command is another glorious phenomenon along with on demand music, beverages heated to near boiling in a couple of minutes, and ambient warmth. This is all to say that I realized just how much I was taking all of this (and more!) for granted. For those 65 minutes between when the electricity left and when it returned, I renewed my admiration for the miracle of modern conveniences.

Dear Subscriber,

Many thanks for taking the important step: you have chosen to receive email alerts each time a new blog entry is published. As you may be aware, our productivity has been a little irregular as of late. At this moment, it appears nearly two and half months have passed since the previous posting. While some might suffer guilt for not writing over the time frame, our production team is pleased to report progress on other fronts during that time. These include:

• Our sources indicate that over this brief timespan, nearly 15,728,924 new human souls have been added to the planetwide tally. While we are not about to take credit (nor blame) for this increase, this is a trivial piece of information. Whether 15.7 million births is an outside limit for time between blog entries is an open question. There is the assumption that this escalating rate at which people hump and squirt babies out of their private parts will only increase in frequency. Frankly, we don’t have the energy to do the math so if this intrigues you, have at it.

• The second edition of our textbook has just been released. Our company sent us a half dozen examination copies and we have received a report from Chicago that a colleague’s bookstore has assured her there will be a supply available for her students in early 2012. Interestingly, one can order a used copy for 20¢ less than the listed price for a new copy. I wonder if used versions will extend their price difference by an additional 10¢ per day as time marches on. Quite amazingly, a request posted this summer asked us to send a free instructor copy to an adjunct instructor – with the plea to also autograph the book. Audacious!

• Two highly botched graduate level education courses have been unraveling. The first is loosely based on the material embedded in the above-mentioned text. But with a ragged start (i.e., just one class meeting in September) we have yet to establish any momentum. Five students were missing this past week because of food poisoning, feeling ill, traveling back from ROTC training, another stranded by the snowstorm – and the fifth for reasons that are still unknown. The other course is a weekly seminar associated with student teaching. There is a hodge-podge of reading materials (including an educational graphic novel) and a loosely structured set of requirements: open-ended reflections and lesson plan outlines. The reason this week’s class will not go badly is because that regional campus has now been closed for the remainder of this week due to power problems and downed trees.

It is feasible that few of these things would have been accomplished has there been more attention given to this blog. If we are able to kick-start the writing machine, it may well be that fewer books will be written, fewer children will be born, and a smaller fraction of graduates will sustain class meetings where the professor is so distracted that they aren’t sure he knows where he is. Time will tell. If this all sounds interesting, then the subscription service will suit you well. If you want to unsubscribe, you’ll have to figure that out on your own.

unfinished business

A recent season of the Amazing Race was called Unfinished Business because it was composed of previous race participants who had not won. Similarly, the last day of our secondary science methods class within TCPCG used the same theme. I indicated that Jenna and I had provided them all we could and that now it was a matter of becoming immersed in actual classrooms with real-live students. In addition, I revealed that studies of experts suggest that it requires 10,000 hours of thoughtful practice to become really good at one's craft. Thus, while the course was officially ending, there remained considerable business to finish. On the other hand, there was a great deal that they had mastered and the last class meeting was their opportunity to demonstrate as much.

The premise of the competition was this: A local school was interested in hiring the teacher candidate and there was the expectation that a Demonstration Lesson would be delivered by the applicant two days from now. Using the key ideas we had taught to our preservice teachers, they were to use resources at their disposal to develop an exemplary Lesson Plan. They were to work in groups of 4 and there were several challenges dispersed throughout. The first challenge was to identify the elements named in a song being rapidly sung by the actor who plays Harry Potter.In this picture, you see the Yellow Team working on this problem:

On the BBC program The Graham Norton Show during Series 8, Episode 4 (broadcast in November 2010) the actor who plays Harry Potter sings a song about chemistry. In this show, what element came just before and what element came just after when he sings the name of the element whose chemical symbol is Sn?

I thought this would be a difficult task because the words fly by very quickly, the element names are not especially easy to discern, and I anticipated they would eventually search for the lyrics for this famous Tom Lehrer song. But each group figured out their answers in just a few minutes. In addition to being surprised how quickly they decoded the challenge, we were even more surprised how quickly they dashed out of the room to receive their next clue from our administrative assistant. They ran full tilt, took two different stairwells, and Monica said she knew when she needed to be ready because she heard their thundering approach. Turns out one of our students who had been told there would be a competition that required some physical activity had actually brought sneakers for the occasion. Apparently, we had been mistaken in our worry that they would not engage with this activity.

Inside the envelope (see sample here) they received a fictionalized email from their host teacher. I would remiss if I didn't acknowledge the extraordinary design and assembly work by my co-teacher. Her passion for marine biology is matched by her enthusiasm for crafts. A week ago, she showed a video of a commercial that several of her friends had forwarded because it reminded them of Jenna. The class saw the similarities. Sure enough, by the end of the day, the classroom tables, floors, and even our faces were enhanced by glitter ("So much glitter!"). Why was their glitter? Because one challenge was to create a door hanger that would be a visual reminder of some aspect of science teaching that the novice wanted to keep in mind (e.g., wait time). Hot glue, colored markers, and glitter. Big jars of it.

In addition to the crafts, the teams were also required to generate a Lesson Plan outline that attended to the structure we had emphasized since the first day of class. Beyond addressing each component, that Lesson Plan had to be ambitious, collaborative, and public. A nice thing about our program is that everyone has a laptop and they could have done this work on a google doc or through some other collaborative electronic media. However, the closet from which glitter and glue sticks emerge also contained buckets of sidewalk chalk. Thus, each group had to generate their Lesson Plan in the parking lot.

I tend to believe I have a pretty good imagination. This was much more impressive than even I had the right to expect.

The only disappointment is that my next methods class is held at night in a building far from a parking lot, and concludes in the winter. So until then, I have these pictures to remind just how much fun it can be to set people up with a challenge, encourage them to enjoy themselves, and then stand back and capture it with a camera.

teaching science reality show

As with many great ideas, this one arose during an offsite meal during regular conference hours. In brief, I was talking with a former grad student now assistant professor about how to help preservice teachers learn to generate great lesson plans in short order. If my memory is accurate, I was probably lamenting (another common precursor to brilliant advances) how in the spring after I taught them science teaching methods in summer, many of my science teaching candidates forget all that they learned. This all comes to a head when one of them is invited to teach a lesson as part of the job interview process. They panic and send me drafts of their lesson. These are so bad, that I have used them as counter-examples in subsequent courses.

I suspect future teachers come to their preparation program with preconceived notions about teaching-as-performance. What else would explain why a middle school candidate, when told to do a lesson on magnets, included in her plan a video of a frog suspended in a magnetic field. Luckily, even via email, I was successful with having my former student recognize the folly of her plan. And in sharing this story, my crepe-munching companion suggested that I should train them to prepare lessons as if they were on the Amazing Race. If you aren't familiar, the signature moment is when the competitors tear open an envelope to learn their next challenge. What if instead of rushing off to eat live octopus or find objects in a rat-filled building, the competitors had to develop a winning lesson plan?!

Many of my teaching strategies are designed to help manage my own petty frustrations. For example, I thought it unfair that a student could earn all the points in a class to earn an A and have poor attendance. Rather than become perturbed, I created a policy whereby I would calculate a final grade based upon the lower of two percentages: points earned or attendance rate. No-shows didn't trouble me at all because it had the potential for influence their GPA. I also felt as if that policy reduced absences. Fast forward to 2011 where I'm irritable that all the best instructional strategies we discuss and rehearse are put in a box and shoved under the bed once a teaching interview arises. This summer, I have been emphasized the Grand Unified Lesson Plan (GULP) as the lesson framework:

Step 0. Identify topic and Translate into Big Idea

Step 1. Pre-assess Every Student

Step 2. Engage: Build Public Representation

Step 3. Explore: Small group activity

Step 4. Explain: Combing Findings with Teacher Input

Step 5. Access Scientific Information: Quick Read

Step 6. Extend: Application Discussion

Step 7. Evaluate: Closure / Exit Slips

In an effort to reinforce this framework and the associated expectation, on a whim I proposed that this was much like "Iron Chef." You know in advance that you have to prepare a multi-course meal. You must have the necessary preparatory and plating skills along with some creativity. It isn't until the secret ingredient is revealed ("Frozen PEAS!!") that you are able to channel your skills and expertise toward a product. Several students nominated this analogy as valuable in their weekly electronic reflections. And so the trap has been set for the last class session.

On that morning, students will be divided into four person teams representing a cross-section of science certification areas. After a few preliminary bits of foolishness (e.g., "what element is sung immediately before and which is sung immediately after the element whose symbol is Sn?") the troops will receive the topic that is to be the focus of their lesson plan. They are to create an entire GULP format lesson based upon this supplied term. They are to also employ accommodations for English language learners and make sensible use of an educational technology. Actually, we may have to scratch the latter because it feels unrealistic. But in many ways it simulates what should transpire in the days and hours leading up to delivering a sample lesson to a roomful of strangers. Furthermore, it forces the participants to engage in debates about instructional design. Ideally, it will also induce them to engage in the spirit of collaboration that we believe is so central to the profession yet rarely demonstrated -- let alone practiced.

And that is our plan for now. Otherwise, I'm working on concepts that would be useful whether a person has allegiance to biology, chemistry or physics and have some evidence of a variety of student misconceptions. Currently, those topics are Oxygen, Energy Transformations and Conservation of Mass. Admittedly, it's not as clever as turning sheep fuzz into footwear. But at least I won't have to imagine how it all comes together.

WTR: WTF in ATL?

Apparently the miraculous improvements in Atlanta Public Schools can be explained by cheating. There are many reasons this is disturbing. One is that it undermines the possibility that Americans might be coming closer to the belief that all children can learn. This trend was something that occurred to me when I finally watched Waiting for Superman. While many claims in the film were left unsubstantiated, including the statement that schools of the 1950s were doing a great job but lost their way in the 1970s. It is convenient imagery but not the truth. Regardless, what I most appreciated was that this film makes it much harder for mainstream citizens to hold onto the belief that inner city parents don’t care about their children's education. The other myth eroded by this film was that it is impossible to overcome the burden of poverty when it comes to educating a child. That these entrenched falsehoods are slightly undone by this film was my reason for hope. Perhaps the public would change its perspective about the value of educating all children. That the Atlanta Public Schools were a success was another piece of evidence -- until the curtain was pulled back and cheating was discovered.

By examining student answer sheets, officials can identify unusual response patterns. One metric they use is WTR: the number of erasures changing a Wrong answer to the Right choice. The first indication that cheating might be taking place was when some schools in Atlanta had an average of 14 WTRs on a 40 question multiple choice test. A startling statistic but circumstantial — except that after an investigation of schools with high WTRs in 2009 showed a dramatic drop in erasures for 2010. Sadly, those were accompanied by plummeting scores in some schools. A subsequent investigation (think: "mixed methods") involved interviews of hundreds of people. Many, many individuals confessed to cheating. Sometimes a teacher would tell individual students to change their answers. In certain schools, the principal made it clear that changing student responses was a desirable strategy. There were also reports of “changing parties” in which groups of adults systematically corrected mistakes.

As expected, many see this as evidence that standardized tests are inherently evil and the pressure to raise scores provoke such behaviors. If this is true then the solution would be to simply stop using standardized tests. Somehow I can’t believe that this is sufficient. After all, at some level adults were aware that their dishonest actions were harmful to children. Many who would have received educational intervention services because of low performance were not identified. And yet they and their parents were never alerted to their academic struggles. What puzzles and intrigues me is more than how widespread the problem is but rather that it is proving to be systemic. Evidence is mounting that coercion and intimidation trickled all the way down from the then-superintendent's office and to individual classrooms throughout Atlanta.

A common refrain about reform is the difficulties of making change systemic. The Atlanta situation proves otherwise albeit in an insidious way. Rather than praise the superintendent for influencing an amazing number of people to do things they might not have otherwise done, one wonders whether there is any hope for a similar transformation that is more honorable. Could we realistically imagine energy being invested throughout a large school system that would produce genuine learning gains rather than artificially inflated scores? Or is this an example where a simple solution took hold and spread whereas the more honest approach is so fraught with difficulties that it is naive to expect anything different? I would like to believe that there are leadership lessons to be learned from Atlanta that that would resonate across a school system but by drawing upon the goodness in educators and parents rather than draw out the scheming and self-interested aspects of far too many people.

image © NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/
2011/07/22/opinion/22letters-art.html

parlay view

English has been my language for quite some time. I tend to be in places where it, or some variant, is what everyone is using. The longest time I have spent outside of the USA was during my father’s Australian sabbatical when I was in eighth grade. My Midwestern/Southern ear failed on only a few occasions. It was several months before we realized that the little guy next door, who we and his family called Tiny, was actually christened “Tony.” Similarly, a trip to Ireland was made all that much easier because knowing how to translate in order to ask for the toilet or a beer was not a necessary prelude to using or abusing either one. For the most part, my travels have not been impinged upon by language differences.

The two-week China adoption trek (already five years ago!) was so tightly managed that I never even contemplated trying to acquire any Mandarin. In my role as support staff (aka "the Manny") I would only ever be on the receiving end of messages. It was clearly brazen when I traveled to Colombia with nary a sentence nor even a phrase book. We were confident our host and hostess would translate anytime it was necessary. The flaw in this plan revealed itself when our flight departing from Colombia was cancelled. Nothing like being frustrated and anxious AND mute. My upcoming trip to France promises to offer some linguistic challenges since Lyon is best known for its gastronomy and the associated displeasure with those who attempt to speak only in English.

Beyond plans to tote a French phrase book, I bought an introductory language CD that contains eight, thirty minute lessons. I had to re-listen to Lesson 1 four times before I could follow the introductory conversation. In general, I can mimic phrases with close to the right intonation. However, the stereotype of the nasally Frenchman struck me as far too comical for me to authentically copy. In Spanish while the r’s are rolled, in French there is a preponderance of throat-clearing. My goal was to produce sensible words in a French restaurant, not a sample of slime from far back in my mouth. So I was conflicted: how to sound French without making myself laugh at my own voice.

Having mastered the exchange in Lesson 1, I girded myself for Lesson 2. It turned out to be basically a review and only introduced a couple extra word variations. This was a great distraction since at the time I was driving on an essentially deserted stretch of interstate. I was bored, it was blazing hot outside, and there was no shame in talking to my digitized tutor. In trying to speak loud enough to hear myself over the air conditioner fan, I began to find my voice. Simultaneously, I was realizing there was not a lot of French I was going to master over the next month. The combination of my loud voice and the recognition that I wasn’t on pace to become conversant turned into an increasingly pitiful call-and-response:

CD: Say: “I don’t understand.”
Me: Je ne comprends pas. Je ne comprends pas!
CD: Say: “I don’t understand French.”
Me: Je ne comprends pas le français. Je ne comprends pas le français! Je ne comprends pas le français!

As the volume grew, I was startled by the urgency in my voice. What might have been amusing in my pronunciation was overwhelmed by the earnestness. I believe you would have felt badly for me even if you could not understand my words. The meaning was clear and I felt it to my core. I imagined being at the train station ticket counter, money and schedule in hand, unable to make a purchase to get from Paris to Lyon. I continued repeating the phrase, beating my fist and becoming louder and more plaintive. I envisioned myself rising from my table at a nice bistro, first addressing the waiter and then appealing to the other patrons to take pity on me. Hungry, thirsty, tired, far from home: I don’t understand French!

meeting the new principal

Three or so years ago, in what seemed like a doomed search for schools to pilot test an urban ecology curriculum, I chanced upon an assistant principal at a local magnet school. She had worked in biology labs at Harvard and actually knew E.O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould. Somewhere along the way she discovered that urban schools were where she wanted to spend the balance of her career. In the time since I met her, she has completed her doctorate at a Hartford university and also served a one year internship with the superintendent of Hartford Public Schools. This spring, she hit the jackpot: a former preK-6 elementary school is being transformed into a middle school with an expeditionary learning theme. And she has been appointed the principal. She has a muralist updating office walls, a moving company taking out the tiny chairs, her custodians are vigorously emptying the closets, and she is rehiring just 5 of the existing staff while bringing in an additional 30 people. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to tour her school and witness her interactions with a couple of her staff. The most amazing scene occurred when she suggested we make a candy run before I departed.

We walked across the street and into a classic bodega, the kind most of us have only experienced by watching movies. Just inside the door was the counter on the right, framed by plexiglass. Two local kids were laboring over the candy choices displayed on either side of the cashier’s window and below. Surprisingly there were also fresh vegetables and locally baked bread available to purchase. My friend had been here before and knew where the plain M&Ms and Sour Patch sticks could be found. Understandably, she wants to become known in the neighborhood. While I would have been content to simply observe the confectionery conversations, Stacy asked the taller boy what grade he was in: “Eighth” he answered brightly. His buddy was going into sixth. When Stacy uncovered that they were going to the “new” school across the street, she offered her hand and introduced herself as their principal.

The delight on the boys' faces as they left the store to get on their bikes was something to witness. It was more than the glow of having met a celebrity. Their faces suggested an unexpected eagerness about the next school year. The regular neighborhood school they had attended just a month earlier was being transformed over the summer. It was going to be a new place. And now they had met the lady who was going to be running the place. Excitement, anticipation and hope. Stacy has an incredible amount of work to do between now and the first day of school. Over sandwiches she and a couple of her team members were trying to figure out how to rotate three grade levels through a tiny cafeteria. And then there is the matter of who will supervise the children as they eat. But even with the countless tasks required to physically whip the place into shape, I envy Stacy and am proud that she also noticed the glow that her handshake pumped into her future students. Things are going to be different, things are going to be better, and if I am wise then I’ll find ways to contribute and reap benefits.

boxes

Our town issued each resident a rolling tall recycle bin. Somehow we ended up with two that are emptied on a biweekly basis. Plus the green one for trash that is collected every week. Because of a trip to Maine, we missed one recycle event. It ended up we were clearing stuff from the basement and the boxes and now useless paper scraps filled both blue bins to capacity. The absence of any real work schedule has made it easier to chuck old files. I even found a syllabus from 1993 that I decided I could now discard. But it had to wait until this Friday morning because there was no room at the bin. Saturday, I returned to the basement and making considerable progress with again filling the bins.

Some stuff has to be kept. Now I could probably scan in the old photos of me with Cleveland kids, or with four nieces and nephews on my lap (now all high school graduates) and even before that, photos of my adult Boy Scouts in Illinois. And since some pictures were a little stuck together, it would make good sense for me to spend a day converting those to an electronic format. Otherwise, when I'm in the retirement home, I'll have no way to recall what color kerchiefs the men in uniform wore nor how cute and innocent the third graders were at the time. I also found a small moose antler and a jester's hat in gold, green and purple … a great deal of junk. Even random pages from an old Far Side calendar. If I don't decide what gets trashed, those dispositions will be determined by some other force, either human or mildew.

None of these feel like cares and woes. But it is strange to find bits that remind me of experiences I might have otherwise never recalled. I'm not sure whether those reminiscences are valuable. Truly, it's more of a curiosity to stumble across, for example, the list of words distributed during a conference Buzzword Bingo game. Again, nothing profound or revealing. At best, it confirms I was here and maybe indicates that I can appropriate the eulogy offered by Frank Turner: "But on the day I die I’ll say: “At least I fucking tried!”, and that’s the only eulogy I need."

innocence lost during interviews

Maybe it was innocent. Perhaps it was naive. All I know now is that asking future teachers to speak about diversity can be an intense experience. The conversations were only an hour in duration. Further, the event was bracketed by several formalities. With all of this, there was no expectation of my exhilaration and awe. I suppose I’m waiting for potency to fade before going back to the data. For now, I feel I ought to confess that whatever hint of remote and objective research is gone. The sterile glass container has shattered and I’m shocked by all that has poured forth. Even as it spills over me, it is still too sudden to decide whether the contents are scaldingly hot or bracingly cold. There is a much longer story to be told. But for now, I wanted to report that I had not expected all that emerged.

I made use of the recommended Seidman interview protocol. First, I asked them to describe their experiences with diverse populations, in school and work, prior to entering the program. I then shared with them their responses to the surveys and we looked to see where their views had changed the most. I also invited them to describe any “critical incidents” (what they renamed as “whoa” or “wow” moments). I had expected and hoped that they would describe a pivotal course reading, classroom debate, or even a confrontation during their field experiences that shook them and shaped their views. While some of that did emerge, there were other revelations and disclosures that caught me off-guard.

One physics student told me that he graduated from the smallest high school in our state and experienced almost no diversity at that time. He recalled, as he was at a private New England school, how he would occasionally see the one black student (a woman) on campus and being struck by her presence. In contrast, his student teaching experience was in the largest high school in the state. He spoke with such respect and admiration for his students that it was hard not to be moved. He was reverential but also quite clear that his direct interactions with individual students shattered any stereotypes he might have had about urban youth. Not everything was ideal and he reported his revlusion when another teacher spoke disparagingly of "those Spic students." Despite that individual, this novice teacher could not have been more complimentary about the students.

Another graduate described growing up in the rural south. She met her future spouse over the web and during a courting phone call, he revealed that he was Jewish. She had no sense about the potential significance beyond this being a religious background. A third revealed that he student taught in his former high school and that he was witnessing a substantial demographic shift, a shift to which not all faculty were responding an in admirable fashion. Another (also physics) was deeply influenced by the notion of hegemony and found Paulo Freire to give him intellectual tools that he desperately needed to make sense of his chosen profession.

Two interviewees were especially striking. Both persons were unknown to me before the interview and yet were sufficiently willing to share their views that we exceeded their one-hour scheduled times with me. The first tearfully described a conflict in a multicultural course where her classmates expressed dismay by her racist comments about Middle Eastern Muslims. They were troubled by her claims that members of that population operate within a culture where human life is undervalued and where violence is an almost expected trait. Truly, her comments sound harsh. My understanding is that the course instructor struggled to manage the explosion of words on that day. But she was tearful during my interview, I believe because she felt so strongly and was not being fully understood. She also explained that she lived in Israel for over two years (as an adult), has gained Israeli citizenship, maintains close contact with folks there, and returns as often as she can. All of this to say that her "racist" comments arose from direct experience. She knows people who have died from attacks. Her views of diversity, while not uniformly accepting, are so much better informed than mine.

The other striking interview was a student who also was raised in a homogenous and privileged setting but was placed in another tough urban high school setting. As with the first student, she developed immense admiration for her students and came to understand why they behaved as they did. But this was accompanied by an ever-growing horror about how adults in the school interacted with the students. The worst offender was her host teacher for reasons I'll reveal some other time. She spoke so glowingly about her students and was so sincere in her efforts to accommodate their language difference and home backgrounds that I asked if those factors were influencing her job search strategies. I was knocked speechless when she said she had decided to not be a teacher but was pursuing a receptionist position in NYC. Her passion for her subject matter (esp. poetry) and her delight with passing that appreciation along to urban students failed to alert me to just how awful the things were that she witnessed. It came down to her host teacher who was devious and manipulative -- yet powerful and well-regarded within her school. That person drove this ambitious and dedicated individual away from the profession.

Beyond their willingness to share, there was a startling intimacy that thrilled and frightened me. The stories they told were incredibly evocative and stirring. I became lost in what they were sharing and stopped being a researcher and instead became a witness. I am by how vividly they could relate their experiences and emotions. In addition, they felt free to do so. In turn, i believe I had a physiological response, a combination of the empathy I felt for them in their uncomfortable circumstances as well as a drive to use what influence I have to make things right. But when the stories ended, I came back to the realization that it was just the two of us, separated from everyone else but now simply in a small meeting room. The incident was over despite how powerful it had all been just moments before. And then the interview reached its end. I thanked them for sharing, invited them to select a water bottle, and they shook my hand as they left. I appreciated what they had to say and was pleased that I had been able to create a space for them to feel comfortable talking about their views. But still, the intensity of this encounter startled me and I wonder what to do with the confusion of sensations. I have since discovered that others have written about similar feelings but with much more difficult topics (e.g., survivors of violence or responding to death of someone close). I knew there was something valuable regarding diversity that could emerge from individual interviews. I just had no warning of the immense intensity that would accompany the story-telling.