From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 9/22/2025 2:44 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   > On 2025-09-21 21:28:19 +0000, William Hyde said:   
   >   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > I don't recognize the name, but after nearly half a century the memory   
   > fades.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   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   
      
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