Ponderings of a Scientist

I’ve decided (reaffirmed) that I don’t work well in teams.  Pretty much I’m ornery and get easily aggravated by people.  Especially in reference to this newest pet peeve:  when a person refuses to listen to/agree with anything you say, however later when someone else has the same thought they listen and agree.  This is particularly annoying when working in a group, where you seem to be the only one to realize that you have extensive knowledge in the group’s to-be-performed task.  So your ideas are shot down, until an outside of the group person states them again.  Then the most aggresive opponent in the group reiteriates said ideas as his/her own, when really you had them days ago.  I don’t like to think of myself as caddy, but I do like to get credit when credit is due.

Donald Rumsfeld resigns!  YEAH!

Looks like the Dems took the U.S. Senate as well as the House!  Double YEAH!

This is the best Wednesday after the first Monday of November, in years!  Go democrats.  Both U.S. House of Representative seats held by Republicans in NH went to the Democrats (Yeah Shea Porter), the entire NH Senate went Democratic, the U.S. House is now Democratic, the majority of U.S. governors are not dems, and the list goes on!

Yeah for the minorities!  Deval Patrick, the first MA African-American Governor (and the best candidate) and Nancy Polosi (sp) the first female Speaker of the House!

The only annoying thing:  NH has me registered as Undecided (their name for Independents).  Im definitely independent, but I don’t like to think of it as undecided:

• I’m very much decided that I’m not either a Democrat or a Republican
• I’m very much decided that my views are not represented by any party
• I’m very much decided that I vote for individuals based on their values, not based on their party affliation (disclaimor - I voted all democrat yesterday, based on values, not on party)

The way I see it, we have a fair chance of things now improving with the political landscape on the U.S.  Of course, nothing we truly improving until we have campaign finance reform and no longer allow big business lobbying to own our politicians.

As an informal educator (sorry Alan!) I spend a lot of work time thinking about how “kids these days” learn (boy when did I become that kind of adult).  How can we engage them and teach understanding, rather than teach to pass standardized tests?  How can we foster education which will allow students to grow into productive adults?  The solution is obvious, if you look at any teenager - technology, and lots of it, coming at them via multiple sensory streams all at once.  It seems our pollution of the planet, which has resulted in chemicals which disrupt brain activity and grew a cohort of ADHD kids, may not be all bad (being sarcastic here).  However, since they are ADHD, let’s blast them with tons of high tech information, instead of one monotone teacher lecturing on one disconnected topic.  This blog is a great commentary on using technology to teach!  I also appreciate this sentiment from a conference attended by my co-workers…. A 18th century scientist would not recognize a 21st century laboratory, however a 18th century teacher would feel quite comfortable in a 21st century classroom.  Is it time to change our pedagogy?  Perhaps!