Geography is intrinsic to our lives. The world is cruel, heartless, and horrific. The world is warm, compassionate, and staggeringly beautiful. Geography explores the duality of this paradox.
**Warning: This blog may offend the Ignorant, the Biased, the Prejudiced, and the Undereducated. Too damn bad.**
The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, From Stardust to Living Planet; by Robert Hazen. 2012. Viking Books. $28.
The first post/book review I failed to provide any maps. And, there are lots of maps I could have posted. Many places around on our planet illustrate the changes our planet has undergone in the brief 4.5 billion years our planet has been in existence.
With this post, I'm going to provide a few maps which will help us see the geographic distribution and variety of sampling locations on our planet which showcase the information we have access to.
The United States
I'm going to begin our journey where the author began his journey of study of the Earth's geology. Our first stop is Cleveland, Ohio. The author's boyhood home is near Cleveland. Within the environs of Ohio's 2nd largest city, many sites contain Devonian age (420-360 MYA) aquatic fossils.
One can visit places in Montana where the rock layer sequences are physically accessible. A visitor could literally lay their hands on rocks half-a-billion years old.
Later in our author's academic life, Dr. Hazen would take a field trip to the community of Nahant, Massachusetts. Rare shell-building fauna are exposed in Cambrian age layers (540-500 MYA) on this tiny spit of land hanging off the coast of Massachusetts.
I don't want to limit our experience to the United States, though. Yes, the U.S. does have an amazing abundance of fossil of all types, representing over 500 million years of life on Planet Earth. However, the U.S. is not alone in its abundance of fossil-bearing rocks.
China
In the southern province of Guizhou, China, we can travel back to the end of the Endiacaran Period, 580 MYA, and examine sponges with hardened spines. Creatures were beginning to utilize minerals in solution for building themselves little protective shells.
In the Anti-Atlas mountains of western Morocco we can find more evidence of Ediacaran Period sediments. Near the settlement of Anoun'Tout, Morocco, and near the Souss River, fossil-bearing rock strata provide millions of years of carbonate evidence.
But, at 500 MYA, we have only scratched the surface of Earth's lifespan. Can we go farther back than 500 MYA? Are there places we can visit which can yield more clues to the geologic and perhaps biologic history of the Earth? After all, 500 MYA is only about 1/9th, 11%, of the Earth's 4.5 billion year lifespan.
Canada
As it turns out, yes. And, as it turns out for Canadians and U.S. citizens, we don't have to leave North America to find our evidence.
In the Gunflint Range, a thin offshoot of the Duluth Complex, located on the western shore of Lake Superior, we can find what paleontologists say are cherts which hold the oldest "absolutely unambiguous fossils of photosynthetic cells on Earth." (173) Ancient microbial fossils have been dated back 1.9 billion years.
However, if we really want to go as far back in time as possible, to locate the oldest known evidence of ancient microbes, of photosynthetic microbes, and essentially life, we could visit Shark Bay, Australia. I know what you are thinking: Australia gets all the cool stuff.
Shark Bay, Australia, is home to stromatolites. The living stromatolites of Shark Bay are so unique and peculiar this place is has been recognized as a World Heritage Site. These stromatolites tipped-off paleontologists that other structures found around the world were the result of microbes building reef systems. Analysis of these reef systems have provided dates going back as far as 3.5 billions years.
Finally, to wrap up our small journey here I mention the Deep Carbon Observatory. Unlike a stellar observatory, or a space-based observation platform, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) represents an international coalition of organizations and scientists pooling research interests to better understand the role of Carbon on a planetary scale. We can visit their web site, but their physical aspect is distributed among the Univesity of Rhode Island, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The DCO also enjoys global support from a network of partners (map) and community member who contribute towards research goals.
The Story of Earth, by Robert M. Hazen. Viking Press. Hardback. $28
I'm writing this review early. I think it is important I do so. I learned something almost immediately, within the Introduction, in fact. Not even did I reach the first chapter before I realized how ignorant I have allowed myself to become. And, I pride myself on being "observant," almost to the point of being condescending to others. Then, I open this book, begin reading, and realize, Wow, I've been so blind. And, then my ego takes over and I think, If I've been this obtuse about science, then the vast majority of people - I don't mean Americans, I mean all people, everywhere - are ignorant, too. Probably many scientists, too, are just as ignorant. The only people immune to this pigeonholing are those in chemistry, or certain areas of biology, or certain areas of physics or geology.
People often have this general notion all scientists have perfect knowledge of "science." I know I generalize but we see evidence of this in the news. Climate change science is one area where we see this. How often have we heard, "I know this guy. He is very smart, an engineer. He says climate change is bunk." Guess what? He isn't a climate scientist, and depending on the type of engineer, his "opinion" is only marginally better than a person selected at random off the street. Simply because someone has a degree in a field does not necessarily make them an expert in that discipline automatically, even if they hold a Ph.D in that discipline. People specialize the deeper they delve into research. An archaeologist may need to seek out the help of chemists, physicists, geologists, microbiologists, etc. to help them develop a context for a particular dig or site.
I have witnessed the same nonsense when state school boards debate the hot topic of Evolution versus Creationism or Intelligent Design. From Louisiana and Texas to Kansas and Kentucky, numerous people and groups strenuously strive to embed religious doctrine into science curricula. If you (or know someone) fall into this category, you won't like The Story of Earth. Hazen provides indisputable evidence and details which lay bare the falsehood of the 10,000 year-old, or the 6,000 year-old Earth. Still, if you do fall into this category you should read this book so you will understand why those fantastical notions simply hold no water. The universe does not subscribe to the "Surprise Party Theory of Everything," whereby a Prime Mover decorated our apartment in advance of our arrival only to flip on the lights to have everything look just like it does. There is zero evidence of such "design" and this certainly cannot be construed as science. Philosophy, yes. Science, no.
Look, science is not trying to debunk the concept of a Prime Mover, an Omniscient Intellect. In reality, science does not care whether or not a Prime Mover exists. Science is simply the pursuit of discovering "why things are the way they are." Creationists and Intelligent Design enthusiasts, on the other hand, feel threatened science is trying to diminish the power of their Almighty Deity. I'm not saying some scientists would like to disprove the need for a Prime Mover; that is the personal goal of an individual, and not a reflection of Science, in total.
What does this diatribe have to do with how Hazen's book illuminated more of my own ignorance? Good question!
I've been interesting in geology only so much as I think rocks are pretty, earthquakes are cool, volcanoes are neat, and my uncle has a degree in geology, a degree in geochemistry, and a degree in geophysics. As a child, I revered him. He was the smartest person I knew for all of my childhood. But, that is about it with regards to my interests in rocks.
I've taught Earth Science labs, and have been invited to teach an introductory Earth Science course. I turned down the invitation. 50% of the course would have covered geology, and at the time of the invite, I didn't feel I could teach the course in good conscious since I while I may have the knowledge, I lacked the enthusiasm, drive, and now what I see as the fundamental understanding of why the material should be important, beyond the obvious incorporation of rocks and minerals in the materials of our daily lives. I felt geology was sort of boring, compared to cosmology and astronomy. Or economics. Or physics. Since my perspective on the course was rather bland, that I didn't see how I could bring any particular insight or revelations or any enthusiasm into the course, I declined. In fact, I put off reading this book for months as my own bias shelved the book in favor of others detailing black holes, wormholes, and quantum mechanics.
Perhaps I simply wasn't mature enough to accept my own bias was preventing me from learning. I was sniffing my own vapors; I was believing my own hubris. My ego told me, I already know this. Why should I read what I already know and understand?
Yep; I'm a dummy. I admit I made a mistake.
At the root of my mistake is the story of a few elements, notably hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, iron, and silicon. Hazen's book could have a subtitle, "How Hydrogen, Oxygen, and other Elements Crush Young Earth Creationism." We take these elements for granted. Their presence around us is unavoidable, thankfully. Hazen has divided the Earth's history into a timeline represented by the color the Earth may have looked to someone observing from a spaceship, with the exception of the Earth's infancy, the coalescence of our planet from chondrites. Then, our moon is formed as a result of a collision, called the Big Thwack. Next, our planet evolves over time, from Black, to a water Blue, becoming more dark, basaltic Grey, which results in a rusty Red Earth. Our Earth then transitions to snowy White before becoming lush Green. Each of these colors is related to a portion of the Earth's geologic history. Our author is simply using taking some liberty with changes in the Earth's chemical composition, associating a peculiar color with each stage in the Earth's evolution.
When geologists, geochemists, and geophysicists map distributions of isotopes of common elements found in the rock layers of Earth, like carbon and oxygen, patterns emerge. These patterns indicate not only age, but chemical processes, along with location. The presence of certain isotopes, like those of carbon, can indicate the presence of fossil cells. Methylhopaniod molecules lead scientists to ponder the presence of oxygen, since these molecules are tied to cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen by photosynthesis. Traveling to western Australia and sampling the black shales of the Mt McRae provides evidence that 2.5 billion years ago, photosynthesis was occurring. Manitoba, Canada, and the countries of Namibia and South Africa are a few other locations where samples of ancient rocks reveal details of Earth in its early years. Cratons, the building blocks of continents, are among a few of the remaining places which have not been caught up in the constantly churning and recycling of the Earth's crust, and provide clues about our Earth's history.
Oxygen is a scavenger which is why it has gained popularity among cleaning agents, and why we constantly have to fight rust on our cars, trucks, and other mechanical equipment. Oxygen, in spite of our need for it in our body, is quite a nasty substance, and too much oxygen is not a good thing. If I were to ask you, "Where is most of the oxygen on Earth found?" What would your answer be?
Would you reply, "In our atmosphere?" or would you reply, "I'm walking on it. It is under my feet, bound in the rocks in minerals in the Earth's crust and mantle." Most people would probably say, "In our air," I would guess. But, no, 99.999% of all oxygen is under us. Hydrogen, too. In fact, most of the water on Earth is found in our mantle. According to the author, the mantle contains the equivalent of 80x's the amount of water found in our oceans. Not liquid water, mind you, but hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms bound in the molecules of rocks and minerals, minerals like olivine, pyroxene, and garnet. Quartz is another example, silica dioxide, one atom of silicon and two atoms of oxygen. When you hike a mountain, or walk a beach, you are walking on oxygen, silicon, and other elements and compounds.
The Story of Earth is also the Story of Life. At a fundamental level, we are all composed of cosmic elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, and a host of others. These elements coalesced from the remnants of supernovae, and over billions of years gave rise to the amino acids and sugars upon with life is based. Our DNA is composed of the same elements as our sun, our moon, and our Earth. We don't yet understand how the chemical chains of our DNA became organized. Yet. Eventually, we will understand what ignited, what catalyzed those first amino acids and provided them the ability to self-replicate.
The study of geology is almost the study of ourselves. The author proposes the study of the Earth and the study of life on Earth cannot follow two different paths; they are the same path. Organic compounds need minerals to evolve, and minerals need organic compounds in order to form. Not that minerals are sentient and need to know this, but organic compounds given enough heat and pressure, form other important substances. Remember, only carbon atoms are needed for organic chemistry.
The Story of Earth challenges us, OK, me, not to think about a rock as a rock, or even a collection of minerals. No, The Story of Earth challenges us to contemplate the structure of our universe first, to think about how our universe cooled, allowing hydrogen, helium, and lithium to form, first. Later, upon more cooling, the other elements would form, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon (I left out Beryllium and Boron, or did I?). Then, we are asked to think about how these elements combine, how their atomic masses and number of electrons are important. Then, we are asked to think about, what happens when some elements combine under heat and pressure? What happens when some molecules enjoy a particular bias versus other molecules? Can molecules be susceptible to adaptation, that is, are some molecules more likely to be able to survive while others become less likely to survive?
When we get right down to it, we are a collection of minerals, sugars, and amino acids which have the special capability of reproducing. Sugars and amino acids are collections of molecules, and these molecules are collections of atoms, the atoms representing the variety of elements forming after the first 500,000 years of our universe's existence. How these atoms combined to form sugars and amino acids of of great interest, and why they formed as they did, with right-handed sugars and left-handed amino acids?
Page upon page, Hazen discusses and reveals some answers to the above questions. He also states scientists do not have all the answers right now. Some questions may go unanswered for a long time, maybe until we can travel to another solar system to obtain first hand evidence of what planet-forming really looks like. That some questions must remain unanswered, though, does not mean the questions lack answers, or provide evidence that some problems are insoluble, opening the door for a Prime Mover.
We have to bear in mind we have really yet to scratch the surface of what we know. We have only recently reached a level of technology to really begin exploring our environment. Our computers are better - the fact that we have them at all is a good start! Our sensors are more sensitive, our math is better, our access to good equipment is better. We have only yet to begin our true scientific quests, in my humble opinion. We are eons from knowing all there is to know.
The Story of Earth requires little background in science to read and understand. If you can accept SiO2 has one silicon atom and two oxygen atoms, then you have the prerequisite knowledge to understand the material. However, if you cannot accept the concept of radioactive decay, that uranium will eventually become lead, then you'll have trouble understanding science, in general, and specifically the concepts outlined in this book. But, lets say you fall into the first group. A high school student with a couple semesters of science could read this book. And should, really.
I needed to read this book, and I'm glad I've gotten into it. I needed someone to figuratively slap my face and say, "Hey, you realize some stuff, and that is good, but you are missing some obvious details."
There are few nitpicky details that bothered me initially. I like my numbers to add up. The author tends to play fast and loose with numbers. For example, the author invites us to take a Mental Walk in hopes doing so will help illustrate the age of the Earth. Walk one mile (5,280ft) and you've traveled back in time 175,000 years. Twenty miles are then 3 million years (actually 3.5 million). Walk 20 days at 20 miles per day and you've gone back 70 million years. My math says you've covered 60 million years (20 days x 3 million years equals 60 million years. If you use 3.5 the math works out). But, like I say, this is nitpicking. The author also states "there is no outside to our Universe." From what I've read by Alan Muth and Lawrence Krauss, this may not be true, and could be testable in the future, based on observations of the Cosmic Background Radiation and improved sensor systems, and whether one believes our universe is the only universe and not one of countless "bubble" universes.
If you like science and perhaps need a wake-up call as to the importance of geology, outside of the current focus on petrology with emphasis on fossil fuels, then you should, by all means, read this book. Hazen does a great job of explaining in very simple and down to Earth terms why studying geology parallels the study of life on Earth.
I'm probably wrong, but bear with me as out outline all of my errors for you.
Over the last two decades I've seen student performance noticeably decline. Students fear math. Not calculus, but merely simple multiplication and division. Ask any student to calculate a percentage, i.e. "The population of the United States is 310,000,000 people. Kentucky has a population of 4 million people. What percent of the U.S. population lives in Kentucky?"
We can estimate an answer very quickly. Thirty-one million is 10%, and 3.1 million is 1%, and each 0.1% is about 310,000 people. We can then say 310,000 x 3 = almost 1 million people. If 1% is 3 million people and 0.3 is one million people, then 1.3% is about 4 million people. Finally, we can say the population of Kentucky represents about 1.3% of the total United States population.
But, I teach geography and use numbers like this all the time. My students examine demographics of countries, statistics like death rates and birth rates, literacy rates, and labor force participation rates, and HIV/AIDS prevalence. People need to understand simple ratios in everyday life, though, for doing simple things like calculating gratuities, or figuring out how much our discount at JCPenny's is going to save us.
More importantly, as our politicians increasingly take advantage of the growing apathy, or ignorance, of U.S. citizens while leveraging differences in religion income between neighbors, we need every advantage to overcome egregious misinformation by our politicians and their media minions.
The majority of students in my courses fall into one of two categories. As one might guess, most of my students are early academic career Freshman or Sophomores, not long from high school. I also have several adults "back in college." I have also been an instructor at three community colleges. Community colleges may lack cultural diversity, but what they lack in cultural diversity, they more than compensate by having vast socioeconomic diversity. I have had grandmothers with zero college experience to career professionals in my world geography courses, true freshman right from high school to people straight from military service to people retraining due to job loss or wanting a promotion.
This fall, I have roughly 70 students. This is a light semester; a typical semester is twice this number. All of my courses include numerous writing assignments, usually 4-5 essays. The vast majority of essays have fundamental structural problems. Paragraph indents either do not exist or are too large, e.g. 1" indents. Few students spell-check. The use of sentence fragments in place of a proper sentence is common. Most student cannot effectively communicate using examples even after being told to use "people, places, things, and ideas" mentioned in the podcast or video. Many writing assignments simply end, stop without completely discussing the material, or providing a summary. The writing is crude, lacking a range of vocabulary, attention to details, and organization. Essentially what students are submitting as final drafts of writing assignments I consider to be drafts which never should be submitted.
In the last year, I've argued with an assistant principal at a local high school and have caught two Education student blatantly plagarising. A close friend of mine, working on her education degree has encountered numerous peers who lie, cheat, plagiarise, and have a work ethic not suitable for a person choosing a career in education. In the case of the assistant principal, she did not understand plagiarism. Each semester, I have 6-20 high school students taking my college courses. The assistance principal supervised one of these students, and helped her with her writing assignments. Each writing assignment the student submitted was completely plagiarised, coming from newspaper articles, from Time or Newsweek articles, or from web sites. She offered no links, no "Works Cited," no "Reference," and no footnotes. I found the plagiarism by googling selected sentences. With each submission, the student received a zero and a warning.
On my 3rd warning (this is a high school student, so I was using these assignments as a teaching mechanism to showcase how not to plagiarise) her principal called me.
I don't understand how you can say she is plagiarizing, she declared. She is doing her own research! She shouldn't have to cite anything.
No, you are mistaken, I replied. Your student (and mine) is not doing research, she is doing reporting. She is researching a topic and reporting on the work of others. Because she is reporting on the work of others, she has to cite her articles properly using in-text citations with a Works Cited page. Even if she were conducting her own research, she would not being doing such research in a vacuum, she would be basing her research on the research of others. Therefore, she would still have to cite previous efforts. There is no way around this.
The assistant principal admitted she still didn't understand how the student could be plagiarising, as she had helped the student find her resources and read her essay. My response was rather blunt, that the reality was, the student needs to abide by the rules as stipulated within my syllabus and abide by the university's academic honesty policy - if she wants to continue in the course.
One of the education students I caught plagiarising told me I was the first professor to have caught her cheating in her two-plus years of college coursework. My close friend worked in a group with a fellow education student who professed to have never written an honest paper in his entire 4-year university career. He then went the following semester to begin his student teaching.
Several current student-teachers have indicated no willingness to take home assignments to grade, or to perform many of the extracurricular duties expected of K-12 teachers, such as being a club advisor for chess, speech and debate, or an assistant for a sport. A philosophy of not needing to know "more than a 4th grader because that's the highest grade I'm going teach" is pervasive.
Why do you need to know more than the kids you are teaching? The answer has little to do with the information being communicated to the child. The answer lies with opening and revealing a little more of the world to a young mind. I not saying someone has to be an expert in all fields; that simply impossible. A teacher, an educator, needs to appreciate the learning experience, and the revelations associated with exposing old knowledge to new minds.
A former student of mine is married to a 3rd-Grade teacher. She came home one day, exasperated. Her student-teacher refused to take home work to grade. To add insult to injury, she had asked her student-teacher to calculate the mean scores on some homework and compare those scores to a report.
"I'm not good at math," was the reply.
"It's OK; it's 3rd grade math. You'll be fine."
Evidently, the results were calculated wrong and the classroom teacher had to re-work what amounted to figuring the mean grade.
So, I see problems developing for higher education.
I see problems which will be getting worse, not better. I see problems coming from high schools from the current students, teachers-to-be, and unfortunately, from the administrators. My friend working on her practicum teaching was placed in a classroom containing typical students, plus 6 students who spoke no English. Four of the students were Hispanic Spanish-speakers. Two of the students were from Somalia, by way of Iraq, by way of Louisiana.
"We don't even know where Somalia is. Is Somalia in Africa?" This from both the teachers and principals. "What language do Somalis speak?" OK, that one might qualify as a good question.
Yes, I see problems.
Today, on Twitter, I entered into a debate with an "education professional" who works at a large university in the Midwest. The topic was "Should remedial courses be taught at university?" I may have misunderstood her stance; at first, I thought she was advocating against teaching remedial courses at university.
Later, though, she evidently supported more professional development (PD) and modified tenure conditions for faculty in what I can only assume implies she is an advocate for an expansion of teaching remedial students in higher education. I have to assume because after I drew the analogy the conversation ended.
Teaching remedial courses at university is like trying to fire-fight a burning building while the arsonist is still running from floor-to-floor setting fires in the building. This was my analogy. We have to train people to live in a building which will catch fire on regular basis.
"Here is your fire extinguisher. You are responsible for putting out all fires on your floor. Maybe you can work with the other residents and develop a plan to put out fires. Even-numbered apartments might be the firefighters on M-W-F, odd-numbered apartments fight fires on T-Th-Sa. Ask for volunteers for Sunday."
Perhaps teaching remedial courses at university might be like fighting a forest fire while the ignorant campers are still moving from campsite to campsite creating fires. Either analogy pits a group attempting to stop damage against a group which is causing the circumstances to continue, either knowingly or through ignorance or apathy. But the firefighters job is folly when no effort is made to stop the arsonist or to track down the irresponsible campers, or the attempts to track down the the wrong-doers is haphazard. To take this analogy to the next level, the educator advocating expansion of remedial education at university is essentially advocating for people to get used to forest fires, arsonists, and irresponsible campers, and learn how to stomp out fires in addition to our other job duties. We must educate Forest Service employees and train them to get along with and accept irresponsible campers whose actions cause physical damage, monetary loss, and potentially loss of life.
Recently, a local school district bragged,
"We have 100% graduation from our high school. We received a bonus of $____."
This is not impossible. I do not doubt a few public school systems in the United States can make this claim. But, 100% has to be a rare situation. In Kentucky, for example, the drop-out age was recently raised from 16 to 17. Progress is being made. Socioeconomic situations vary greatly, as does parental supervision and support. Some high school students simply don't have familial support to make it through school. However, as in this case, students were forced from the high school rolls by assigning them to Alternative School. Also, there is some indication the rigors of high school, what rigors exist, have been eased.
Another local school district has a "Zero Senior-Year Homework" policy. Wouldn't that have been nice, not to have any homework our senior year of high school.
As states vie for more education funding, and states explore ways of creating incentives for schools to improve their "learning outcomes," I worry incentives merely inspire people to find creative measures to show improvement where no improvement really exists.
A second comment by the Twitter educator bothered me. I wonder, she stated, if your peers know about teaching to students at different levels [I paraphrase.]
The comment may seem rather innocuous, but I assure you, she has uttered a mouthful. In K-12, educators are instructed to evaluate students in their classroom, assess aptitude, more or less. Lower performing students may get a unique Individual Educational Program (IEP.) Today's classroom contain kids of all abilities. Today's classrooms may also have mentally handicapped students, a process known as "mainstreaming." Today's classrooms may also contain students who speak little to no English. Today's classroom may contain the next Richard Feynman, Elon Musk, or Caterina Fake.
Teaching to students at different levels? Seriously? I wanted to ask. University historically has not been about teaching students at different levels. University exists to further education and knowledge, to promote science, technology, engineering, mathematics, plus develop critical thinking skills, and fundamentally question our universe. Students are supposed to arrive from high school, or community college, with the fundamental skills necessary to move their intellect to the next level.
The earlier comment recommending expanding remedial services through professional development and modification of tenure to accommodate students who arrive lacking fundamental college skills in math and writing is ill-conceived, in my view. Vocational schools exist in nearly every school district in the United States. Vocational schools should be available and made attractive to people who would prefer to avoid college yet develop a career-oriented trade or skill.
Community colleges exist in every state in the United States. Community colleges exist to build or enhance skills in order to prepare for university. Community colleges also provide vocational schools and are retraining centers for people who have lost employment. A framework already exists to support people who neglected to take high school seriously, or who lacked appropriate high school education. Why do we need to re-build a wheel which was built-in the first place to serve primarily the same purpose as university-based remedial education?
In Kentucky, for instance, every public university is facing another round of budget cuts. A lower tax base and reduced revenues means lower state income, which translates into less available for higher education. Most Kentucky universities will lose another $2 million dollars, minimum. Every year since 2007, Kentucky universities have had their state apportionment reduced. No raises most years, not even COLA (cost of living allowance.) Computer labs are refreshed every 4-5 years. My computer labs operated for 9 years on the same computers, in spite of my pleas to chairs, directors, and deans for financial support.
I have been advocating for technology-lab fees for my area, and each time had them declined. Except this year, when I told my dean he should simply eliminate my department if he wasn't going to support my labs. How does one do GIS and remote sensing on 9-year old computers? Answer: rather shittily.
In the face of fewer and fewer education dollars available each year in Higher Education, how are universities going to be able to teach an increasing number of students in need of remedial education simply to get them to the point of being able to be accepted into university? Are we supposed to stop teaching our actual 100 and 200 level courses, our fundamentals courses, so we can teach students remedial courses just to prep them for our 100 and 200 level courses.
In a past post [here], I provided some anecdotal stories of statistics reported by regional news sources.
Next consider the statistics of incoming freshman students needing remedial courses prior to even enrolling in college. In 2010, the Fairbanks, AK Sun-Star reported “50% of incoming freshmen entering the UA system require at least one remedial course.” In 2011, the Columbus, OH Business Journal wrote, “the share of students under 20 needing remedial help has grown to 39 percent from 36 percent in the past five years, while that same measure for older students has grown to 46 percent from 40 percent.”
These remedial courses never count towards a degree, by the way, but they cost the same as a university course. This has the effect of increasing a student's student loan amounts. Depending on the student loan conditions, students may be limited by time and/or the number of hours the student can enroll. I have run across a few cases where students have run out of financial support early. Students are required to take remedial courses, then run out of loan support in their senior year because the loan agency imposes a limit on the total number of credit hours for which a student can request financial support. Sometimes, support ends after eight semesters (4 years). However, due to remedial courses, a 4-year program might become 4.5-5 years. The downstream effects have the effect of increasing the cost of Higher Education.
These remedial courses are simply an answer (not a good one, in my opinion) to correct a flawed education being promulgated in high schools.
Should we not be working on improving high school education?
Should we not be working on improving vocation schools across the country?
Should we not be working on improving community college education and university transition programs?
Should we not be focusing on those nodes within the currently existing national education framework and making sure those institutions are performing?
Should we really build a new node-within-a-node to correct problems originating at lower educational levels?
To me, these questions sound reasonable, rational, and logical.
What are the answers?
Audit every high school?
Audit students, the teachers, administrators, and curriculum?
Audit the environment, teacher morale, student attitudes and activities?
Audit parental attitudes, the neighborhood around the schools, and school district support?
A local high school, for instance, has too few teachers and more students than desks. Students sit on lab stools, 30-35 in a room, while other classrooms sit dormant, unused, due to a lack of teachers. Needless to say, that environment is good for no one. How adequate is that learning environment for building a 21st century knowledge base? I'm probably missing aspects to measure, assess, etc.
I sit chagrined when I read comments by people with Ph.D's in Education, Education Leadership, or Higher Education who purport to solve problems within the university. Having worked at university for 16 years and community college for 13 years, in rural Kentucky, many of their comments seem baseless and out-of-touch with reality. Many of these experts advocate "mainstreaming" all kids, putting kids of all abilities in the same classroom, yet developing lesson plans based on individual talent. One class may have 7 or more individual lesson plans based on the abilities of the kids in the room.
Why not simply create three or four general groups, place kids into a group which most closely represents the kid's ability. Do this for all the classes in a grade. Then, all kids in the Blue Group meet in a classroom, all kids in the Green Group meet in another classroom, and all kids in the Orange Group meet in a classroom. Then, a teacher can work with all kids of a certain ability. Teachers can rotate groups so no teacher has to work with the same group all the time.
I've proffered this idea to Ph.Ds and have been met with what I can only call derision.
"We can't separate kids based on skill. That's absurd. That is segregation. And segregation is bad."
Yes, segregation based on religion, or skin color, or sexuality, or gender is bad. Though, I do like having gender-segregated bathrooms. And, I am glad the Baptist, Lutherans, Methodists, and Catholics have their own places of worship. And, I do enjoy eating at restaurants which specialize in Japanese, Thai, Chinese, or Indian cuisine. I'm sure the people with handicapped tags enjoy having parking places closer to the front doors. I'm sure the little kids at the Burger King playground appreciate not having giant obese adults wrecking TubeTown. I'm sort of glad claustrophobic people and overweight people are discouraged from going on some of the Mammoth Cave tours. I remember driving a very small car and enjoying being able to park in the "compact car" spaces. But, I make too much money to be on Medicaid. I'm too young to take advantage of any AARP discount. I'm too pale for a McNair scholarship to work on a Ph.D, and I'm too clumsy to play professional basketball. Yeah, society is not segregated, not one bit ...
My bias comes from my experience in elementary school, junior high, and high school. My classmates and I were placed in groups according to ability. Three groups, numbered 1 to 3, into which kids were placed based on math and reading skills. Each group was given work according to their ability. Kids in each group were also given plenty of chances to improve and develop skills. We had 2 recesses per day, plus designated gym class, music and art. After school, we had "afterschool activities," a chance to stay after school and do homework, play on the playground, or do any number of activities. I don't remember any issues among my peers. I don't remember any bullying directed at kids in other groups.
To be sure, there was plenty of bullying. I was bullied for 3 straight years, from 4th grade to 7th. I played cello, was smart, and was a bit of a fighter, if someone pushed me, or my sister. My cello made me an easy mark, plus my mile-walk home. But, I don't remember kids picking on other kids for being in a different math or reading group. We all played together outside, ate in the cafeteria, and rode the same buses.
Perhaps my classmates felt stigma from being in other groups. If they did they never mentioned anything about it. We were all in school, faced with tasks, exercises, and homework. For most of the day, we were all together, except for math and reading, when we met with our assigned groups.
I know I personally felt some stigma in junior high and later in high school. Junior high stigma was felt after I missed being placed in a gifted group by literally 1 point. I scored a 94; the threshold was 95. Sorry, Michael, no soup for you!
Every time the bus for the "gifted" kids left, which literally contained 98% of my friends, they would also ask me why I wasn't on the bus. In high school, despite having the GPA, I was never approved for National Honor Society until my senior year, despite nominations. Years later, I would learn from one of my teachers I had angered two other teachers and therefore my NHS status was not approved until senior year. In the meantime, from freshman year through junior year, I had to deal with questions from my peers as to why I wasn't in Honor Society. Funny, as during my Senior year I was appointed "Most Scholarly" by my classmates for our yearbook.
Why did I call this post "Education is like a dysfunctional family?" I'm hoping what I have written has made my point for me without explicitly making my argument. But, education in the United States is like a dysfunctional family. Think about any episode of "Intervention" you've ever seen. One person clearly has a problem and is in complete denial about their problem. The family has members who help the person purchase drugs, or eat, or cover up thefts, or give them money, who keep the problem alive. Some family members try to get the addict help. Some family members refuse to interact with the addict. Everyone frets and all adjust their lives accordingly around the life of the addict. Eventually, some crisis occurs bringing action from all members and an outside therapist is brought in to evaluate the family.
I find considerable parallels can be drawn among the various education institution cohorts. Secondary education I would place in the role of the addict. State and Federal education agencies are other members of the family. The agencies might recognize a host of problems with secondary education. The agencies might fret and wring their hands, and try different tactics to coax better performance from high schools. Local school boards and site-based decision-making boards (SBDM) increase the size of our "dysfunctional family." These boards may also recognize problems, or may also be part of the co-dependency problem. They may think no problem exists where one actually does. For instance, school boards or SBDM boards who advocate non-science as science, such as the teaching of Intelligent Design, Creationism as Science, or climate change denial, or a Young Earth or any other biblical stories as science. To further the analogy, local high school administrators and teachers may scrub tests to improve test scores in order to gain more favor, i.e. money, from state and federal officials. Finally, we have serious issues in Higher Education Teacher Education which potentially promises an endless continuation of our dysfunctional family. More filtering of students is needed, more oversight is required, but faculty are overwhelmed and rely on local teachers to provide feedback rather than conduct on-site visits.
Higher Education Teacher Education suffers from constant disruption as policies are updated, modified, or instituted mid-semester or mid-program. Some of these changes are top-down, as Federal laws are enacted. Other changes appear to be whimsical or capricious, arising not from state statutes or federal law, but from local Higher Education administrators and faculty.
To refer back to my friend, she indicated to her middle-school placement adviser an interest in applying for teacher training workshops in inner city Chicago, New Orleans, and Albuquerque. She really wants the experience of working with inner-city youth. Several good schools, Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard, (I think we recognize these names) have teacher-training programs in these cities which allow students in teacher education programs across the United States to apply. Her adviser told her if she were to be accepted by any of these programs any teaching hours would not be valid and she would still be liable for the 200 practicum hours required by the program.
When she related this conversation to me, I was stunned. My friend applied, anyway, and was denied. Hypothetically, had she been accepted, she would have worked for 6-8 weeks with inner city youth as part of a program developed by Stanford, Harvard, or Princeton, yet a woman sitting in an office in rural Kentucky has the authority (and audacity) to deny those teaching hours, on the basis the experience is not applicable to rural Kentucky. Holy Sh*t! (As an aside, this person has since been removed from her position and replaced by a rational person.)
If you haven't watched Sir Kenneth Robinson, then, here, watch this:
I see problems in Education.
But, like I said at the onset, I could be wrong; probably am.
