What grade do I teach anyway?

For the past few weeks, I've been reading the teaching suggestions of Rafe Esquith, a 25 year veteran of an elementary school in Los Angeles. First it was There Are No Shortcuts and now it's Teach Like Your Hair Is On Fire, which I heard about on NPR. Rafe (this is what his 5th graders call him, so I'm gonna dispense with formalities) has some great suggestions for teaching 5th graders, which begs the question - why am I reading his books?

I teach college kids - mainly freshmen in an entry level Biology lab. In a past life I did do environmental education programs for grade-school kids but I was not their regular teacher. I'm still not a regular teacher, since I only see my students once a week for 2 hours. Or am I? The definitions must change when kids transition to college. What I'm pondering here is whether what I do can be compared in any way to what Rafe does. When I started my PhD, my advisor told me that teaching college kids is a lot like teaching 4th graders so I would have no problem teaching.

And I don't! For 3 years now, I have received pretty good reviews from my students regarding my teaching. But reading Rafe's books I am beginning to wonder if I'm doing enough. Now granted, I am a student myself and I certainly have this dissertation thing to finish. Giving the kids more time than what is allotted for lab is probably not feasible. Save this strategy for when I am a professor. However, I wonder if I should be teaching the kids more skills in addition to waling them through the labs. Should I teach them tricks for studying effectively (but shouldn't they know these already)? Should I do drills to make sure they've figured out the concept of null hypothesis testing (odds are - they haven't)? And a big question - how much should I care when they fail? Don't get me wrong - I DO care. But sometimes I find myself feeling indifferent when the students don't seem to care and then that gets me wondering if I should ever pester anyone who doesn't do well...

...like the kid who just scored 16% on the 1st lab quiz. Does she get a lecture, a gentle talking to ("What's up with this grade?") in the hall, a wry smile, or a downward glance as I hand her the graded quiz? What if she just doesn't care? The guy who oversees all of us TAs tells me not to worry about the students - if they're concerned, they'll come to you. So then, they're not to be treated like 4th graders, I guess. Or is he right? When does hand-holding become a bad thing?

And more on Rafe's books - one of his prime points is that mediocrity has become the norm in our society. I think he's right! Hell, I am a great example. I was in the 21st percentile in high school and a low A student in undergrad. Only as a graduate student did I consistently maintain an A average. This might sound ok to some people, but I feel like I could have done MORE!!!! I know I don't work as hard as I could on a daily basis. And I'm not gettin' any younger, as they say.

I think my students are getting off really easy...the material they're learning is simple, they continually use the same equipment over and over in lab, their quizzes are pretty darn easy...and yet some of them are making 16%. I guess I should console myself with the idea that these students are probably good at something else - just not biology. But could that be different if I choose to set the bar for myself at a point higher than mediocre?

Travel with a conscience

OK, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and probably will offend a few people. I just got back from a regional meeting. I drove about 9 hours each way - by myself - to get there. It took about 30 gallons of gas for the trip. I feel guilty because I didn't carpool with anyone else, but I didn't know anyone who wanted to travel there with me.

This meeting was at the edge of our region, so many of the attendees chose to take planes to get there. Since we're biologists, I am wondering what kind of an impact our little meeting had. I have to find the "right" carbon calculator to figure this out. How many trees should we be planting to neutralize the emissions we created with our travel to a 2-day affair?

Edit***OK, I checked on one aspect of this. It looks like my husband and I need to plant 36 trees/year just to offset our own emissions. This begs the question - is planting trees enough? We have so many trees in my region that I wonder if this would really be effective at combatting global warming.

Edit 2****Alright, figuring that 50% of the people at the meeting drove and 50% flew, then we would need to plant 500 trees to offset our emissions for the conference. Although I realize that some people carpooled, I also know that I did not factor in electricity in my calculations. Now the question is: how do I convince meeting organizers that we need to do something to neutralize our emissions?

School is Not Closed

Despite my certainty that the university would be closed today because of snow, I was surprised to come over the hill I cross on my way to campus to the sounds of yelling at 7:30 am. Apparently, the students had gotten the word and decided that the best way to spend their day off was to throw snowballs at each other and at passing cars. The field normally reserved for frisbee was covered in snow and gleeful college students. I imagine when I walk back later today there will be an array of snowmen watching me as I tromp back up the hill.