The Teaching Bog

On May 22, the first commercial space rocket left earth headed for the International Space Station. COOL!

The Falcon 9 rocket along with the Dragon capsule is loaded with the hopes and dreams of hundreds of students from around the USA.

Not only is it super awesome that a kid can now dream of a working for SpaceX, but that same kid can realize the dream early, by contributing the space science while still in school. AWESOME!

Here is a truly fascinating example of unlikely science. Mold, it turns out, serves not just to sabotage once-tasty foods (and play a crucial role in the environment, whatever), but also can exhibit strangely intelligent problem-solving skills.

An interesting fact about this slime mold is that it is highly intelligent — or at least it behaves as if it is. In locating food in its environment, it builds networks that have been shown to be optimally efficient in transporting the nutrients over the area in question. If placed in a maze, for instance, with a source of food outside the maze, the slime mold will discover the shortest path out.

I wonder what future STEM researchers will make of this information. Will they find a way to harness slime’s networking capabilities? Will they emulate its unique strategies? How will you encourage your students to engage with slime? How will you teach them to respect it?

A delightful collection of famous authors and their perfectly awesome favorite beverages.

Raymond Chandler: The Gimlet - The gimlet didn’t catch on in America until Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe introduced it in The Long Goodbye.

“A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s lime juice and nothing else.” - Terry Lennox in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye

Not something I’d necessarily share with a class of anyone under 21, but a colorful look into the influence of alcohol on writers and our lives.

More or less everyone learns about synonyms antonyms at some point. Until just recently, I thought those were the only two such existing conditions in the English language. Not so!

The word contronym (also antagonym) is used to refer to words that, by some freak of language evolution, are their own antonyms. Both contronym and antagonym are neologisms; however, there is no alternative term that is more established in the English language.

Some examples:

out - visible (e.g., stars), invisible (e.g., lights)
out of - outside, inside (e.g., “work out of one’s home”)
oversight - error, care

As if all the other compelling reasons to engage students with potent reading material were not enough, a recently published study suggests that what you read can, literally, change your life.

When you identify with a literary character, like Katniss Everdeen of the “Hunger Games” books, there’s a good chance you’ll become more like her, new study shows.

Researchers have found that when you lose yourself in a work of fiction, your behavior and thoughts can metamorphose to match those of your favorite character, according to the study published early online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

My first thought upon reading about this effect: manipulate kids! Give students access to powerful characters who overcome the odds to achieve their goals (duh!). Alternatively, I might consider obscuring access to materials populated with weak-willed, dependent characters (ahem, Twilight).

As a child, I remember strongly identifying with Roald Dahl’s Matilda and being inspired to read through my troubles instead of taking the “easy” route of emulating the novel’s less savory characters. I look forward to steering more students toward this path and have already begun developing a classroom library full of fascinating books about really awesome characters.

I’ve always been critical of the “zero-tolerance” approach to discipline and this more compassionate approach seems to be a step in the right direction. These numbers are pretty convincing.

2009-2010 (Before new approach)

798 suspensions (days students were out of school)
50 expulsions
600 written referrals

2010-2011 (After new approach)

135 suspensions (days students were out of school)
30 expulsions
320 written referrals

“It sounds simple,” says Sporleder about the new approach. “Just by asking kids what’s going on with them, they just started talking. It made a believer out of me right away.”