Space Oddity (Part I)

“And all the science, I don’t understand,

It’s just my job 5 days a week.”                                         

Elton John, Rocket Man

While I’m tutoring my students, I tend to unnerve them by suddenly asking:

• Is there gravity in space?

Going up?

 And

• When the space shuttle takes off, what path does it take?* 

Invariably, I get the wrong answers to these questions.  Especially if the student has a GCSE in physics.  Then it’s almost certain they’ll get it wrong.

So why is this?

How do I know they’re going to get these wrong?

Because they are questions that they are never asked.

Students are asked questions where they already have been given the answer in some previous lesson.  Then it’s just a question of whether they remember the answer.  Questions that are different from this in any way completely throw them.

This is because children are not educated, but fed information.  This is taken to be the same thing. 

Another example I saw in a school science textbook was, “Insulin converts glucose into glycogen.”  Test question – “What does insulin convert glucose into?”.  This doesn’t teach what glucose or glycogen are or why this is important, what they do or anything!  It just appears from outside that something is happening, something is being taught, when in fact absolutely nothing is going on. 

Richard Feynman, one of the most highly regarded theoretical physicists of the 20^th century and a Nobel prize winner, used to loathe this kind of education and first became aware of it in Brazil while on a visit there.  He noticed the students all passed the exams, but when they were asked a question that wasn’t the same as the exam, they had no idea of the answer or worse, how to figure it out.  He stated that ‘No physics is being taught in Brazil!’ even though there were many schools and universities churning out ‘physicists’ and almost caused a diplomatic incident.

Thinking differently

It was a theme he found himself returning to in America where he was asked to evaluate high school textbooks.  He found the same thing.  Even the vetting process for the choice of textbooks followed this ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ phenomenon as committee members voted on a book without reading it – which drove him mad. 

However, he was right.  This is what is happening in schools and textbooks in the UK.  Maths and science are taught in this way.  That is why children aren’t able to do these subjects, achieve nationally low pass rates and worse, lose interest in them.  They are not taught why things are, but how to pass an exam on it.

There can be nothing more dull then learning to pass an exam, the details of which mean nothing to you.  And when you ask why things are and show some curiosity, you are shouted down and told the immortal words, ‘It Just Is’.  I once discussed with a maths teacher why a minus times a minus is a plus – because she was complaining that her students were asking her why it was! – and I eventually got her to admit that she didn’t know why.  Of course, IT JUST IS.

So what’s the solution? 

My idea is to use what the students already know.  Use their intuition to teach them concepts.  Then when it has been confirmed they actually do understand the three rules of maths, use inductive learning to figure out all the techniques required to be able to manipulate numbers, algebra, trigonometry and calculus.  Because when you take this approach, it can be seen to be all the same.

Tutoring, this only takes a few days of one-to-one tuition.  I bet it would be more efficient to tutor each child individually for 3 days then to teach them nothing for 10 years.

I’ve had students in year 10 who when they first come to me, can’t multiply two numbers like 23 x 41.  If that’s the result of 10 years of class education, something isn’t working.  Even if they can multiply numbers together, they do it in a horrendously complicated way, either by the misnamed ‘Grid Method’ or by ‘Long’ Multiplication which is almost as bad.  But worse than that, try asking what multiplication is for.  What do we use it for?  They have no idea.  They’ve not been asked that one.  They can just do it.  Maybe.

They’re also not shown how to know if their answer is correct.  They have to ask the teacher ‘Is this right?’.  Instead, they should be able to check easily and quickly whether it is correct.  Why?  So they become independent learners, who use logical thinking skills to solve problems.  That is one of the main reasons to learn maths and science – apart from its applications. 

We could have a world where these subjects are exciting, interesting and spark creativity and new thinking.  Where a child asks…”Well, if that’s true, what about this situation?” and they come up with something new!  It’s time we think different.

I hope this is going to change in schools.

I would hope the students become inspired and energised.

But I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…

*these questions to be answered in Part II...see you then.

Titanium Isn't Bulletproof

“For well you know that it’s a fool, who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder.”  

Paul McCartney, Hey Jude

Properties of Titanium:

• High strength-to-weight ratio
• Ultimate Tensile Strength 434 MPa
• 45% lighter than steel
• Name originates from Titan as in ‘Titanic’

It is NOT bulletproof.*

Neither is the human body. 

Yet we claim to be.  When we go through relationship break-ups, difficult parental disagreements or emotionally trying times, we try to be tough and not show how much it hurt.

We see the hard men at the cinema.  Bruce Willis in well, any film really...shot, bleeding, in pain, tired…but he’s bulletproof to attacks and criticism.  Rocky Balboa…doesn’t matter how hard he gets hit, he gets up again.  Arnie, Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise.  The list goes on. In literature, we have If by Rudyard Kipling, never breathing a word about his loss.  And heroes in novels, such as by Dick Francis, where it seems the main character is made of iron.

Emotions aren't bullet-proof

We’re indoctrinated into believing this stuff.  That’s one of the reasons, I believe, soldiers suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  They’re convinced that they’re not meant to find war emotional, but like it or not, their gut reacts before the brain.  They mistakenly believe they’re meant to be hard and should ‘man up’. 

Songs do the same thing.  We put them on the iPod – Fighter by Christina Aguilera, Titanium by David Guetta/Sia, Survivor by Destiny’s Child, I Will Survive by every karaoke singer in the world…and er, Bulletproof, by La Roux

But it’s all bluster.  Otherwise why would we even mention it?  Songs like this are deceptive and vengeful.  They are trying to get back at the person who caused the hurt, saying ‘Ah, but actually that didn’t hurt me, you should know.’ 

When actually it did.  (Alanis Morissette is better at this, she admits it hurt.)  Sheryl Crow has an attempt… but comes clean in the end – “It don’t hurt like it did, I can sing my song again…. It hurts worse, who do I kid?”

Criticisms are like bullets.  It doesn’t matter who they are from, they still tear open wounds.  We are not immune to them, we turn them over in our mind and try to figure out first, are they right? And second, why are they being so nasty?

As much as we’d like the criticisms to ricochet off, they certainly don’t.  Even if we give that outward impression. 

I don’t like to criticise people.  I avoid it whenever possible.  I don’t see any value in it.  Yes, there have been times when I have, out of frustration.  But I’m not sure criticism achieves anything.  It certainly has no advantages in education or when I tutor maths.  Before criticising, I try to think ‘What am I trying to achieve?’ and normally criticism has no place in that.

Some people are compulsive criticisers – their brains are hard-wired to it.  There was a car advert a few years ago where this lady was criticising the restaurant she was in, nit-picking about every little thing.  During the car journey she was silent.  As soon as she got out of the car, she restarted. 

Funny.  But there’s no joy in that.  How can there be wonderful, life-affirming, we’re-only-here-once JOY in pointing out what’s wrong with everything?  And how does it make the people you criticise feel?  Are you transmitting joy to them or sucking the life out of them?  Is that really what you’re trying to achieve?  Hope not.

I’m here to experience joy.

Since becoming a father, I’ve noticed that I am more susceptible to crying.  But even before then I would cry at moving films like Mr Holland’s Opus.  At the end especially, where he is made redundant and all his old students surprise him, honour him and perform his symphony.  That has me crying my eyes out.  (although it may have something to do with a teacher being recognised by his students – Freudian, maybe).  Now, I only have to hear the music and I choke up. 

There are many other examples.  Watching the Kelly Holmes 2004 800m and 1500m runs in the Olympic Games has the same effect.  And for some reason I don’t understand, so does BBC Sports Personality of The Year.  I can’t watch Children in Need – just can’t.

If people criticise me, it doesn’t ricochet.  I’m not bulletproof.  I don’t want to be.  I would lose so much.  You can’t have armour on and successfully connect with people.  Paul McCartney said it right:

“Remember, to let her under your skin, THEN you begin, to make it better.”^

Shoot me down, I will fall.  And it is not weakness to admit that.  It is strength. 

I am NOT titanium.

*Kevlar is bulletproof.  It’s UTS is 3,620 MPa.  About 8 times stronger than titanium.  As much as I love you Sia, get your engineering facts right J 

^For Beatles buffs, if you listen carefully, the actual recorded line is:

"Remember, to let her under your skin, CHORD! F*£king H*ll, THEN you begin, to make it better."