From: wthyde1953@gmail.com   
      
   Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   > On 2025-09-21 16:57:26 +0000, RonO said:   
   >>   
   >> [ … ]   
   >   
   >> As an assistant professor I was required to do public education   
   >> outreach as part of my job.  I started doing projects at my kid's   
   >> elementary schools.  I'd bring in an incubator and hatch some chicks.   
   >> In middle school we did some embryology along with hatching the   
   >> chicks.  I stopped in middle school.  Anyone could likely repeat what   
   >> I did and find the same thing that I discovered.  The kids start out   
   >> as sponges in kindergarten.  You have trouble keeping them from asking   
   >> questions over each other.  They want to understand just about   
   >> everything down to how the incubator works.  This type of inquiry   
   >> slowly gets beaten out of them as they are taught to take the tests   
   >> instead of learn anything.  It would tick me off when a college   
   >> student would interrupt a lecture to ask if what was under discussion   
   >> was going to be on the test.  What I found out was that this behavior   
   >> was ingrained into the students by middle school.  Most of the   
   >> students in middle school were no longer interested in learning   
   >> something new, but they wanted to know what would be on the test.   
   >   
   > In 1977 I spent a winter quarter teaching a Master's Course on enzyme   
   > kinetics at the University of Guelph.   
      
   A high school friend of mine, Linda Sadler, was planning on a   
   biochemistry degree at Guelph.  If she went on to to a Master's, she   
   might have been in your course.   
      
      
     Two vignettes from that experience:   
   >   
   > 1. Guelph is not the most exciting place to spend a winter weekend   
   > alone, and every Friday  night I took the bus to Toronto, where I spent   
   > a couple of nights staying with my aunt. I was typically the only   
   > non-student in the bus, and I had a lot of opportunity to find out what   
   > students talked about when there were no professors around. They didn't   
   > talk about football; they didn't talk about ice hockey; they didn't talk   
   > about romantic engagements; they didn't talk about films they had seen;   
   > they didn't talk about vacations; they didn't talk about books they had   
   > read. They talked EXCLUSIVELY about what had been in last week's test   
   > and what they thought would be in next week's test. That was it.   
      
   At exactly that time I took a very similar ride from Toronto to Waterloo.   
      
   While I mostly read, I do recall one conversation that lasted the whole   
   trip, about Bonaparte and Hitler.  The people I was talking with were   
   history students and were genuinely interested in the topic.  Of course,   
   as history students they were plagued with essays, not weekly tests.   
      
   On the other hand, I did tutor (in the North American sense, i.e.   
   basically taught a class rather than properly tutoring) mathematics and   
   found that the pre-med students were only interested in getting the   
   highest possible marks, for which I cannot blame them given the absurd   
   admission requirements of the time.  Only a few students were at all   
   interested in the subject, one of them a future lawyer.  I kept him in   
   mind in case I ever needed a good lawyer, resolved to keep away from   
   them if I needed a doctor.   
      
   When I arrived at a university in Texas as a postdoc, I found that the   
   faculty was almost entirely American.  But, aside from those sent us by   
   the military, the grad students were almost entirely foreign.   
      
   In my group there were three postdocs and six grad students, hailing   
   from Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and  Canada.   
      
   The irony of this is that my supervisor had chosen a position in  Texas   
   in part because he noticed that undergrad physics students in local   
   universities didn't go on to grad school.  Many went into banking or   
   stockbroking instead.  He felt that by livening up our department he   
   might attract some.  But no.   
      
      
      
   >   
   > 2. In the course of the second lecture I mentioned that Maud Menten was   
   > the first woman and maybe the first Canadian to make a major mark in   
   > biochemistry. About half the students were women, and virtually all were   
   > Canadian, but from the looks on their faces they were all thinking the   
   > same thing: why is he telling us this stuff that is not likely to be in   
   > the exam? There were two professors auditing the course (probably   
   > reporting to the department  on my qualiies as a teacher, but I was too   
   > naive to think that at the time; I thought they were just interested).   
   > Both of them agreed that my interpretation of the students' reaction was   
   > correct. (In 1977 very few people knew that Maud Menten was a Canadian   
   > woman.)   
      
   Well, at least you tried.  I took first year chemistry the year after   
   Herzberg won the Nobel, but he was never mentioned.  I didn't come   
   across his name, except in passing, until I took QM two years later.   
      
   William Hyde   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)