Positivity

This is for Graycie and Old Math.

Old Math says he is giving up the blog for a while, basically because it's a bit depressing and old. I can relate to that. I try not to blog too negatively, and the result is that I don't write often. This blog was never meant to be a teacher's lounge bitching session, and I guess that wasn't the intention for other teacher blogs - even those who have degenerated into exactly that.

Graycie wrote last week that she was going to try to avoid the downward spiral by focusing on the positive things. This reminds me of how BizzyBlog inserts articles titled "Positivity" betwixt his writings on the economy and Ohio elections. It's refreshing, because most blogs who provide meaty content don't manage a lot of non-partisan, clean, wholesome positivity. I guess it just doesn't seem important.

Well, take some time to stop and smell the roses. And when the roses aren't in bloom, listen to this story on NPR about a "positive psychology" class at Harvard. On one hand, that sounds like a load of crap. But I am not just a physicist. I am also an amateur philosopher and economist, and we have to recognize that there is a demand for a course that tells college students that we aren't made to be in the rat race. Therefore, somebody must supply that course.

It is not mandatory, so nobody is having their time wasted against their will. And Tal Ben-Shahar sounds naive. But I have long recognized that my secret to personal happiness is to be childlike, without being childish. I know that the reason my students enjoy my class is largely because I enjoy my class. And a student who enjoys their physics class will learn a lot more than one who does not. How could this not be true in other subjects? I leave that for you to ponder. But keep in mind that not all of your students even know how to enjoy the subject you teach. Most of them have no idea why you would go study it in college or make it a career. And that means that they aren't getting as much out of the subject as you can give. Renew your excitement in your subject(s), and don't let the negativity stop you from being that (insert subject here) nerd.

I am proudly a physics nerd. I relish it. I revel in it. I have my Einstein necktie and my caffeine molecule coffee mug, and the last question on my every test is:
Physics is fun
a) true

(get it? There is no choice b!)

I know most of these kids won't go on to study physics, or even remember a lot of the principles and concepts. But they will remember the demonstrations, the bad jokes, and the positivity. And when they have negative attitudes, I will keep in mind that I am sending them out into a world where "positive psychology" is offered at Harvard University, so maybe they'll be okay if they don't understand Bernoulli's Principle all that well.

In the meantime, I am going to go smell something better than roses - my two preschoolers, who got out of the tub about three hours ago and fell asleep shortly after. And I will try to post more frequently, with more science articles and science labs, and with entries whose titles start with "Positivity". Good night.

ZooBank

When people find out that I am a scientist, they often think I know The Answers. Sometimes, they realize that my degree in physics does not afford me any expertise in other sciences... but sometimes they don't. And even within physics, there are many niches and specializations, and most physicists know very little about specializations distant from their own. The average astronomy professor may know more than you do about quantum dots, but don't bet on it. Even the microscopy experimentalist professor may be uninformed about them. Scientists don't know everything - we don't even know everything about our tiny corner of science.

But we do try.

An excellent example of how disorganized a field of study can be, and what scientists are trying to do to change that, can be found in taxonomy. From the February 9th edition of The Economist:

[N]early 250 years after Carl von Linné, a Swedish naturalist, invented the modern system of naming living creatures, taxonomists still have no official list of all the animals discovered so far.

Doesn't that seem like something that should have been done a long time ago? Frankly, I just assumed that such a catalogue existed somewhere - kept by some group of universities, or the Royal Society, or the Smithsonian. If I had grown up knowing that such a catalogue did not exist, I would probably be a taxonomist and software engineer today - I mean, it's obvious that a need for such would exist. We can't even keep track of a few dozen elements without creating a comprehensive table that catalogues them all into rows and columns by similar behaviors. How could biologists expect to have any sense of order regarding thousands of thousands of species, without some sort of comprehensive catalogue?

Although Linnaeus's big idea was that each species would have one scientific name, so that scientists could know immediately what they were discussing, the lack of a single official “telephone directory” has frustrated the entire enterprise. Around 1.5m species are thought to have been described so far, but more than 6m names have been used.

Because of this, a group called the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) at London's Natural History Museum has begun planning a definitive, open-access, web-based catalogue of species - the comprehensive, peer-reviewed Wikipedia of all living things scientists have discovered. The project is called ZooBank.

Zoobank would start with the partial catalogues that do currently exist. For example, both the Zoobank website and the Economist article I linked mention the Zoological Record...

...which is maintained in the British city of York by a firm called Thomson Zoological that makes its money by scouring the zoological literature, collating the results, and selling them.

That's a 150 year old project, and it catalogues over 17,000 species per year, but it misses an awful lot of potential listings. Still, it's a place for ZooBank to start.

They are still putting together a blueprint (and are open to suggestions), but they hope to get off the ground in the next year or two. I can't provide them with any financial support or taxonomical expertise, but I can give them a little tiny bit of publicity here, and I hope it helps.

Double Helix Nebula

To quote a friend who emailed me this article,

A double-helix-shaped nebula. Pretty cool.

Yeah, pretty cool. I have never seen anything like it. Better yet, astronomers haven't, either. The image is published in the current edition of Nature. The lead author of the article is UCLA's Mark Morris, who suggests that the strands were twisted by magnetic fields.

That's pretty amazing. Had to share.

70,000 Waiting

Blogging is light because I've been wrestling a water heater out of a confined space in my laundry room and replacing it with a brand new one. You know, with all of that spare time and extra cash I had.

In the meantime, I'd like to direct any readers to an Ed Wonk article I've been meaning to write. When President Bush mentioned funding for 70,000 new AP math and science teachers, my first thought was,

HA! Where are you going to find them? 70,000 mathematicians and scientists who would take this job, but aren't already doing it?

Ed is slightly more eloquent but he makes the same point I would.

Interview Your Teacher

Found at the Education Wonks:

Pupils at a school in east London are so involved in the running of their school, that they interview all prospective teachers - even the head.

What a fascinating concept! I don't have any problem with this, either.

The 70 pupils involved in the "Making Learning Better" (MLB) scheme regularly observe teachers' lessons and make suggestions about how classroom displays, teaching styles and discipline can be improved.

"We know how we want to be taught as pupils," says Casey, 12, a "lead consultant", or senior pupil adviser, for art.

"Teachers are only teaching, we're the ones being taught. Lessons have to be fun and every person has to learn something - the lesson has to have a purpose to it."

Well, sure... but what do the observers say when one of their fellows is falling asleep or misbehaving - a disruption of the fun learning environment for all? I am sure this is more a generalization, and the pupil advisors are realistic. Oh, wait...

The management also hopes to roll out a student disciplinary committee next year, where disruptive pupils will have to explain themselves directly to their peers.

If done well, this could be very interesting and productive. I don't see it catching on, however. You know, resistance to change and all. Full BBC article here.

Great Geysers on Enceladus!

(That's fun to say. Try it.)

NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion - that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

High-resolution Cassini images show icy jets and towering plumes ejecting huge quantities of particles at high speed. Scientists examined several models to explain the process. They ruled out the idea the particles are produced or blown off the moon's surface by vapor created when warm water ice converts to a gas. Instead, scientists have found evidence for a much more exciting possibility. The jets might be erupting from near-surface pockets of liquid water above 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), like cold versions of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone.

"We previously knew of at most three places where active volcanism exists: Jupiter's moon Io, Earth, and possibly Neptune's moon Triton. Cassini changed all that, making Enceladus the latest member of this very exclusive club, and one of the most exciting places in the solar system," said John Spencer, Cassini scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder.

This was actually emailed to me by someone who read it on Drudge before NASA officially released it. This is exciting stuff!

Military Wins Important Battle

(This article is cross-posted at AtlasBlogged)

A coalition of 36 law schools including Yale, Harvard, and Columbia were defeated by the First Amendment today, despite their best efforts. It is an uncontested fact that universities who wish to ban military recruiters from equal access on campus are free to do so - we have the right to associate freely, after all. But SCOTUS ruled 8-0 that the federal government does not have to continue to fund such institutions if they don't provide recruiters with equal access to students on campus.

The universities sued to challenge the Solomon Amendment on the grounds that military recruiters represent a violation of the campus policies of the schools not to assist employers who discriminate based on race, sex, or sexual orientation. The military, of course, does not allow open homosexuality.

The law schools argued that, at a minimum, they shouldn't have to actively help military recruiters by distributing their literature or arranging interviews with students. Chief Justice Roberts responded in the decision;

A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message,

I could have sworn that I had written on this issue in the past, but I can't find it... I must be thinking of comments I posted on another blog. I remember watching the arguments on C-Span back in December, and noting that the justices seemed very clear in their opinion at that time. One noted that it is highly unlikely that any student could mistake the military policy on homosexuals to be a policy endorsed by the universities where recruiters would interview prospective legal officers. The thought of a Columbia law student sitting across the table from a JAG officer and assuming that the recruiter represented the university - well, let's just say I got a kick out of that image.

So now what will these schools do? Can they turn their backs on the money, over the principle of treating gays (but not recruiters) equally? How much money is at stake?
From Bloomberg:

The federal government provides almost $35 billion a year to universities through research grants, government contracts and other sources, according to the American Association of University Professors. The financial stake is one reason almost every law school has agreed to give equal access to the military.

Emphasis mine. That's a big twinkie. The schools will allow recruiters on campus, and will bend over backwards letting students know how they feel about the recruiters and the policies of the military. And that's fine with me - let them tell the students anything they like, provided it is truthful and the recruiters are given the same recruiting opportunities that other employers are.

More from Bloomberg:

The Defense Department has listed only three schools -- New York Law School, Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont, and William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota -- as being in violation of the Solomon Amendment, according to Joshua Rosenkrantz, the lead lawyer for the challengers. All three schools are independent institutions, so their actions don't jeopardize funding for any other university departments.

At one point, the Solomon Amendment included a threat to withhold student financial aid. That provision was removed in 2000.

By the way, the full text of the Rumsfeld v FAIR ruling can be found here.

Pat LaFontaine's Jersey Retired

I have mentioned before that I am a big hockey fan. I grew up watching the Buffalo Sabres on both Buffalo and Toronto stations, and I have wonderful memories of going to games in a blue and gold jersey with my name on the back. Now that I live in Virginia, I usually make at least one trek per season to see the Sabres when they visit nearby Washington. My son wears my old blue jersey when I play with him and my daughter in the cul-de-sac, with that little orange hockey ball and some short sticks. I'm a big fan.

I'll be honest, the only reason I want cable TV is to watch hockey games. There is nothing else I put on the screen for myself.

I remember seeing Pat LaFontaine play for Buffalo. I remember his team-record 148-point season in 1992-93. I even remember seeing him get into a fight at the game where Tim Horton's jersey was retired - a game where I got the autographs of Rick Martin and Rene Robert.

I hated seeing his career cut short by injury. I wish I could have been there last night when the Sabres retired his jersey.

I admit, I might have shed a few tears when Sabres announcer and emcee Rick Jeanneret closed the pregame celebration by leading the crowd in the old familiar, "La-la-la-la-la-LaFontaine!"

I just wanted to give the Hall of Famer a little salute, and remind myself of how beautiful it was to watch him on the ice. So, here's to Patty!

Richmond School Board: Sex, Drugs, Rock-n-Roll!

Back in December, the chairman of the Richmond School Board stepped down (as chairman, but stayed on the Board) due to the controversy over his bare-chested photo being posted on an explicit dating website. My comment at that time was;

I have nothing against Mr. Johnson, and it certainly does not bother me if he is gay, but his decision to post this type of singles ad was so ill-advised as to be worrisome. Would you want someone this foolish holding such power over the schooling of your children? What are those children to make of the example he is setting here? This is a member of their School Board!

Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson was back in the news this week. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Richmond School Board member Stephen B. Johnson says he will resign from the board after being caught with marijuana at Richmond International Airport.

He had three joints hidden in a pack of cigarettes. He was trying to take them on a flight to California, where he would attend a conference on home schooling. That's right, a business trip.

Johnson claims the marijuana was for medicinal purposes. I once again wonder how he would feel if a teacher were in a similar situation. The news article tells us:

Richmond Public Schools describes itself as a "drug and alcohol-free workplace."
The School Board policy says employees outside the workplace who are charged with possession or use of illegal drugs are subject to disciplinary action up to termination.

Mysteriously, he wasn't charged. Which I guess means that a teacher in the same situation would be just fine... right?

For the record, I have zero moral objections to the web posting he did in December, or towards the possession and use of marijuana, whether for purposes medicinal or recreational. I've never smoked pot, but I think it should be legal. To me, the issue is not the objective value of what Mr. Johnson does. The issue is that a member of the School Board should be livng to a higher standard than this. He or she should be a model to students, and should not engage in any behavior that cannot be encouraged in teachers. As Times-Dispatch staff writer Michael Paul Williams wrote today;

even his most ardent supporters must ask how such a capable School Board member could exhibit such an inexplicable lapse in judgment while under the microscope. And he now has a problem overseeing a school system that describes itself as a "drug and alcohol-free workplace."

We wish him good health and appreciate his service to the board. But he has a credibility problem. Johnson's decision to step down is the correct one.

The Board should have asked Johnson to step down in December in light of his poor judgement regarding the pornographic web site. It might have saved them the embarassment of this current situation.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

I had a student offer to teach the class today. I had just finished attendance and fired up the projector for a power-point presentation on the physics of fluids, when one of the darlings offered to present it to the class. She's not one of my top performers, but she is smart and generally has a good attitude. I don't doubt that she would be an "A" student if she felt that my class was more important than sports.

So I handed her the remote and sat down in her seat. I'm game.

She read the first couple of slides very well, without making it sound like she was just reading. She kept looking around the room to see who was paying attention, and she patrolled a little bit, like teachers are supposed to do. But after the first couple of slides, I was in for two big surpises.

1) She did an impression of me that was very funny,
2) These kids really do pay attention.

I sometimes come home after work and tell Mrs. Wulf that throughout the course of the day, not one damned kid listened to one damned thing I said all damned day. It's so frustrating, considering the amount of time I spend preparing the lessons, and considering how much I could be making in another field. But today, when this student started doing her impression of me, she and the class convinced me that they do listen, and they have been learning.

It started with a deepening of her voice, and soon the mention of "Back when I was in the Navy...", which everybody appreciated. And soon, she was ad-libbing some connections between the images and definitions shown on these slides, and those from previous chapters. "You remember this equation from previous chapters," and "Think back to the last chapter; I mentioned polar molecules. Do you remember why?" Several students called out, "Ionic compounds!" That really blew me away, because nobody got that right on the test.

Some of the slides have questions on them. The students somehow knew all but one - they were really having a ball. And when nobody knew the answer to that one question, I raised my hand. When called upon, of course, I said...

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

Turnabout is fair play.

Geography

This is not a post on geography teacher and Bush hater Jay Bennish.

I just wanted to note that there is a really nice interactive geography quiz at this website. I managed to ace South America and Asia, but Africa was really too much. I don't remember West Africa at all. I know Eastern Europe would really be a puzzler for me - admit it, how many of you still see most of that area as "USSR"?