Hub got home in the middle of the night, and I hadn't slept well (oh, unlike every other night that I didn't sleep well while he was away) so today I was a mess. Out of adrenaline, exhausted inside but a billion things to do outside. So today dragged, but luckily it was Yummy Thursday in the office and somebody had brought in lots of chocolate cake. I had three pieces.
Seriously. and lunch. and snacks. and juice and two litres of water. still exhausted.
Anyway, I'm also taking an online course, and it's about theory in arts and social sciences. I know that I'm going to run into some science-bashing in this course, because for some reason that I don't understand, scientists are not very well respected by arts people. I had no idea. (No, I'm not being sarcastic.) Although the source of the antagonism isn't quite clear to me, it seems that part of the problem is that scientists think that everything is so cut-and-dried, direct, and linear.
My only response to that is, um, it's not?
Now that's not at all fair, because I know full well that people are absolutely not cut and dried (because then they would be desiccated and would have a hard time interacting with each other) and many situations that occur outside of science are not direct or linear, and science isn't concerned so much with people and their feelings....okay, not even the psychologists who think they're scientists doing all those tests, and I know BF2 that you will argue this but really? putting someone into an MRI and looking at their brains is fine. Looks like science to me, because the person isn't talking or doing anything, just lying there. Counting birds and figuring out their mating habits? borderline. Investigating learning methods and reporting on the two main theories about learning? not science, but interesting.
I digress. In fact, I wander all over the place like a drunken sailor.
Our newest assignment in our theory course, is aimed at forcing us to question what we read. The background starts out with describing two main schools of thought about learning strategies: The Common Sense Theory and the Dialectical/Dialogical theory. You can bet that the common sense theory is the one that is espoused and embraced (maybe the other way around, embracing first then espousing later, prior to the birth of little common sense babies.) by SCIENTISTS. It is in fact, not only embraced and espoused but also championed and popularized by science. It is the learning practice that has a teacher who is the master, and students who are subordinates...the master disseminates information in neat little packets, and the lowly students soak it up and then regurgitate it.
I'm exaggerating, a little bit. Mainly though, it is clear that my instructor is not fond of this method of teaching and learning, and in fact claims to "not buy into it".
Part of the problem, and I realize this, is that only a certain small percentage of the population are people who practice science. At the same time, science is always in the news, scientists are popularized, girls are pushed into science because there aren't enough of them in it, science science science. There may be a bit of a backlash here then, in saying that you can't just stand at the front of the room and relate information to people, because they don't learn that way. The reason for saying this is that most people don't learn that way. That's fine, most people don't need to learn that way. I know that there are studies that say that even scientists don't learn well that way...but my experience? is that they do.
I ask you though, and I'm quite serious about this, but how the hell else are you supposed to teach science? I'm the professor, and I know the subject. The people in my class are mostly going to be scientists of one form or another, and they want me to stand at the front of the room and give them information that they can assimilate into their own knowledge base. Grad courses aren't any different from undergraduate courses, although you might do more of the learning on your own. The difference is that instead of the person at the front of the room being the expert (or "master") it's the person who wrote the papers or the book or did the research and presented it at the conference. (with a beer in their hand)
It's not like we can have a nice fuzzy discussion about crystal field theory and high-spin/low-spin complexes. It's not up for opinion, it occurs and there are ways of explaining it and ways of observing its results. It's not a matter of interpreting how the orbitals feel that day and whether or not their in the mood for splitting (although we certainly anthropomorphize our molecules and theories) or in fact, anyone's response to the splitting. Does it make you a bit uneasy, this whole notion of orbital splitting? does it make you dream of greener pastures?
The dialectical theories don't promote the idea that knowledge is amassed incrementally, and rather, promote the idea that knowledge must be approached en masse. In other words, it doesn't matter whether you understand paradigm #1, because now we will move to paradigm #2 and you can go back to #1 after you've had some time to mull it around for a while, and in the meantime we'll skip along to #5 and then #4 etc etc. I see the value in this approach, but not for science. I can see how teaching science this way would make science students insane, resulting in widespread revolts and anarchy until order is restored.
While I respect both approaches for their different audiences, I don't like that I'm feeling defensive even before I read through half of our second assignment. I don't need to hold onto this feeling, because the argument between common sense and dialectical theories is not the point of the exercise (which is one which I will greatly enjoy, I admit) but I do feel like writing to the professor and asking her to tone down the science-slag and maybe just because you don't "buy into" a particular methodology, that it still has its value for its audience. As a non-scientist, she doesn't get science, and seems to feel safe enough in this course to say that scientists are icky. (my interpretation. She didn't say that.)
Hub told me a joke. Here it is, or my version of it, with footnotes:
A biologist, a chemist and an engineer were asked by a mathematician to prove that all odd numbers are prime numbers. (Okay, geeks...I know, not all odd numbers are prime numbers.) So the biologist says, "Well, one is prime, three is prime, five is prime...that's enough. All odd numbers are prime numbers.* The chemist looks at the biologist askew, and says, "Well, one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, nine is not prime, but 11 is, and 13 is prime...Therefore, all odd numbers are prime numbers, and nine is just an outlier."** The engineer just says, "one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, nine is prime, eleven is prime, thirteen is prime, fifteen is prime, seventeen is prime..."***
*Signifying that biologists are the least rigorous scientists. In the scientific genealogical scale, they are at the bottom, especially the fish-counters.These notes are for the non-scientists among my small number of readers, by the way. I'm not trying to be condescending, and I didn't make up that "science scale". From the bottom up: biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians. There are certainly sub-classes within each: for example, a fish-counter ranks below a molecular biologist, who in some cases might outrank a biochemist. Personally, I am way too dumb to be a physicist. Note that engineers are not included, because ... well, let's finish the joke and you'll see.
**Haha! those wacky analytical chemists! always quoting stats.
***See? engineers are not scientists. They are gods. They just have to say something, and it is so.
Well, that's enough of that, and I'll leave you with a picture, or actually, a cropped out part of a picture. My grandma made this dress over 55 years ago for my mother...you've seen it lying in a tub, now you see it on me (or at least, part of it):
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