From: me@yahoo.com   
      
   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 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.   
      
   Incidentally, French students are no more interested than those of   
   Guelph in history, in my experience. A few years ago I was talking   
   about Monod, Changeux and Jacob in a lecture. I showed a picture of the   
      
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