From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 9/22/2025 11:21 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   > On 2025-09-22 15:00:21 +0000, RonO said:   
   >   
   >> 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 kin   
   ergarten.   
   >>>>>> 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   
      
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