Exploding trees

The trees are exploding.

We're getting a wet, heavy snowfall, and the broad leaves of our deciduous trees are catching snowflakes as well as they catch photons.

Their vessels are still swollen with sap, carrying nutrients back into the ground, stored in the massive roots of the underground world we fear.

Water starts to expand as it nears its freezing point--that's why ice floats. Still, I've never seen trees explode because of an early frost, so I'll blame the snow.

I stood out in the snow watching my daughter play football. The scene was surreal--several players had dressed up for Hallowe'en, dinosaurs chasing ninjas, Goldilocks chased by a pirate. Some players wore overcoats, a few dressed only in shorts. The snow was blowing sideways.

*CRACK*--a large limb fell from a massive tree just a few feet from me.

Had my brain caught the branch, I would have regretted not finishing a few things, but that's the way it goes. I worked for years in hospitals. Massive trauma, tempered by unconsciousness and ungodly jolts of endorphins, is about as good as it gets for one's final moments.

Now, a few hours later, my numb feet warm again, my skin dry, a few thoughts:

*My daughter turns 29 tomorrow. My son will be 26 in December. Watching her intensity playing football, hearing her laughter across the field, reminds me my biggest job is done.
*Had I been brained, the last thing anyone (I cared about) would have worried about would be an unfinished curriculum being written just to meet the demands of some acronym (QSAC) emanating from Trenton.
*We're finite, focus on what matters.

It continues to snow, I continue to breathe. But I appreciate the reminder.

Photo via Baristanet.

Arne's abominable approach to science

Students sing, clap, and dance about solids, liquids and gases. They learned the solar system through song. It's just one example of how having clear standards for students drives innovation in a school. 

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, talking about his children's school

Arne really doesn't get science, but he's got a pocketful of money, so his words carry some weight. I wiled away a perfectly good morning reviewing science terms for our state's test, time better spent doing science.

I've got no beef with children singing or clapping or dancing. I'd like to encourage more of this, pursuit of happiness and all that. (Jefferson was no dope.) But it's not science.

How clear standards drives this kind of nonsense escapes me--I'm still naive enough to expect a modicum of cogency from our national  leaders.

***

Memorizing the planets is not science. Knowing that the planets are lit by the sun is not science. Spouting off that the sun converts hydrogen to helium is not science.

Instead of memorizing planets, follow one for a few weeks, or even a few months--watch how it wanders around against the background of stars. If you "know" that planets revolve around the sun just because someone told you that, you're not fit to be a citizen in this great experiment called America..

Instead of knowing that planets are lit by the sun, take a peek at Venus. Watch its phases for a year or two. Galileo did this over 400 years ago using a crappy telescope. Or look at a ring's shadow cast on Saturn.If you don't have that kind of patience, you're not fit to be a citizen in this great experiment called America.

Instead of claiming you know anything about the composition of the sun, learn about spectroscopy. Helium was discovered on the sun decades before it was found on Earth. I can say this in class, and kids will write it down, and no one challenges me. If you don't have that kind of skepticism, you're not fit to be a citizen in this great experiment called America.

Arne doesn't care if you're a fit citizen. He wants you to better the economy, to go work for one of the many transnational corporations that would cringe at our Constitution if we dared make it matter again.

If all of us who teach remembered why we teach, for whom we work, and why we're "public," Arne would be as potent  as Bumble the Abominable Snowman after Hermey's dental work.

If a child needs a song and dance routine to learn science, it's probably not.

You can listen to a few songs for free if you click on the album cover.
Arne managed to cheapen both science and art in one speech.