Boy Did I Step In It This Time ...

I am not normally one to voice my opinion on political causes to students for fear of having undue influence over them. For the most part, I would have them become independent learners and persons of thoughtful conscience. I do sometimes influence the direction of that conscience towards caring for others and ideals of social justice, but I am neither heavy-handed nor am I overt in my approach for the most part.

My coworkers, on the other hand, know that I lean politically to the right and that I favor a more conservative, and what I deem as "common-sense" approach to the environment. Of course, since I do not jump on to popular fads, many of them believe that I am "anti-environment", which I am not. I just prefer to use credible scientific data to make informed choices about environmentalism. I am neither reactionary, nor am I revolutionary. I do not jump onto a cause because it is popular, and I do not dismiss a cause because it is popular. I try to see what the actual issue is and what the most rational and reasonable solution is that will benefit the most people and the environment simultaneously. Clearly, this opinion is difficult to capture in a few sentences, so I get labeled as a "anti-environment" guy.

With that preface out of the way, let me explain what happened at my school today. The seniors had a 45 minute presentation on alternative fuels today, and I went with an open mind hoping that the person would have some good things to say. The presenter, however, was not a scientist, but rather was a businessman who raised venture capital for green companies.

This would have been fine if he had confined his topics to businesses having a social conscience, and talked about why he was involved, and how he wanted to do his part. However, he tried to justify it from a semi-scientific angle, by showing slides of glaciers in 1904 vs the glaciers in 2004 to get a dramatic impact about global warming. Again, much as I dislike the level of specious reasoning involved, I kept my mouth shut and let the kids ask any questions they had (he had solicited that anyone ask questions at any time) - none were willing to. Since it was not my place, I maintained crowd control and paid attention to the speaker because I wanted to model appropriate behavior. This is really the way I approach anything at the school whether I agree or disagree, because it is generally not my view that it is my roll to interact in those situations.

However, (yep - one more use of the word however - it just seems to work for me here) he made such an egregious scientific error that I felt it necessary to interject, something that is very uncomfortable and difficult for me to do. I was very sincere in not putting my own politics into it, and I tried to give this Yale graduate a way to salvage his dignity. (That was how he was introduced - blah, blah, worked for Apple, blah, blah venture capital for CleanTech, blah, blah, graduated with a Bachelor's from Yale)

So here is what he said, and here is how I responded. He had been making several comments about global warming and carbon emissions and such, and was talking about sea level rise, and glaciers melting... then he used potentially the worst and dumbest analogy in history...
"So you've got a glass of soda and you put some ice in it... then the ice melts and the soda level starts to rise."

That is where I jumped in, because every frickin' fifth grader has seen the experiment where ice that is already submerged does not raise the water level. It has to do with displacement, volume and the fact that ice is less dense than water, but when it melts it has the same density so it takes up the exact amount that the submerged piece did - not everybody remembers why, but everyone should know that fact!!!

Before I mention what my response was, I will say that I could already sense the students in the room scoffing at his response; a good 30% or so had incredulous looks and, to my mind were going to shut off from anything good the guy might have to say. Those kids would talk to people around them, and not everyone would have been distracted, but he would have lost a majority of his audience - or so I thought. I could be wrong in my assessment, but I feel that I can tell when our students sense blood in the water - and they are the type to pounce if they can, or disengage completely if they can.

So here is how I responded. I remember what I said almost perfectly (credit social anxiety disorder for that, I constantly analyze and re-analyze what I have said). I said, "Wait a second, you probably don't want to use that analogy because it is flawed. You really want to be talking about ice that is not submerged, because when that melts it will raise the level of the water". Of course a number of students made some noise (no hoots or cheers, but just under that level), and he tried to correct himself - I really figured he knew what he was talking about, so I felt he could clarify his statement. When he floundered a bit and clearly didn't understand the distinction, students began to get a bit rowdy, so I interjected to quiet the students and explained that if glaciers on land melted that could contribute to sea level rise - which is what he was trying to say. The students settled down, and listened, but they began to ask questions themselves at that point, and he could not answer many of them.

And I credit the students - they asked good, on point questions, that were not loaded against him, but were thought provoking. For example, when he talked about how solar panels were manufactured, a student asked about energy and resources it took to build one, and how long before the energy they produced would offset their energy cost. Now that is a great question, but the guy didn' t have the answer, he hemmed and hawed, and said "I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I imagine that it is sooner than you think". Other questions included questions about battery life and use of resources to create the batteries, disposal problems with the batteries, etc. Again he couldn't answer, but he did respond very well with, "Those are some of the major issues, and that is where research is being done, and if you pursue a science education, you can help with that research". This was a great response on his part, because he acknowledged the weaknesses of the proposed solution, but showed where they could have a clear and positive impact. The problem is that anytime he got a science question, he would fumble a bit, and look to me for help - which I was unwilling to provide because my statements would have been in direct contradiction to some of his statements.

One of the things that he showed was the Tesla - a really cool car that you all already know about, 0 - 60 in 3.7 seconds, fully electric, uses 8,600 little batteries (the same ones strung together to run laptops), trying to impress them with green tech replicating the high end stuff. Here is the problem - he didn't know his audience. The kids who are uber-green at our school are also big into social justice, and so bristle at the extravagance, the kids who are analytical want to ask questions on the science, and he was unprepared for both. (This is not to imply that the pro-environment are not analytical, but just that they accept more of the green PR line and approach the topic from an emotional and social justice angle, as well as analytical). So he had one girl talking to him about how profligate and wasteful and impractical it was, while another asked him whether there were any numbers on whether plugging into a carbon generating grid was a more efficient and less pollutive. Both were valid assertions, both should have been addressed, but he could address neither.

He seemed like a nice guy, and I felt bad for him, and in retrospect, I am not sure whether what I did was right or not, but in some way I feel that it needed to be said, and that the students needed to feel like their voices could be heard. I think, however, that the rumor mill is going to ramp into overdrive about my roll in this, and some people are going to be pissed even though they weren't there.

That was the other thing that pissed me off. We have about 350 seniors, all of them and their teachers should have been there. Since our class sizes average 26, and many are smaller, we should have had about 15 to 20 people there. There were fewer than 10 teachers in attendance.

And now for my most major faux pas, which I have only recognized in retrospect, but which an outside observer may view as very insulting. As a result of the aforementioned social anxiety, I do not like to deal with situations with large groups, especially ones where I am forced to express myself, as I was then. In these situations, I tend to grab whatever is closest to me an fidget with it. In the past, this has been a pen or pencil, maybe some change, anything to keep my hand occupied - it forces me to focus on what is in my had so that the anxiety I often feel is dimmed to the background. But lately, I have been carrying a Rubik's Cube in my pocket, and I reached for that and idly started fiddling with it. I was using one hand, and not looking at it; for me, it was just a way to deal with stress (maybe I should get the pair of metal balls a la Captain Queeg). Of course, in retrospect, both students and faculty could see that and might perceive it as insulting - I picked apart a weak statement and then didn't pay attention and fiddled with the cube. Not a good image, and I will probably have to do some damage control with some faculty, but I really do not like talking about coping mechanisms for mood disorders to people (strange how the anonymity here makes it really easy to discuss), but I may have to cop to that.

I doubt it, though because anyone who sides with me will ignore it, while anyone who thinks that I was insulting will look at it as an excuse.

What to do? What to do?

Anyway, that's all folks, thanks if you made it this far, and I look forward to hearing your comments - my recollections are as unbiased as I could make them, and I think they display an accurate picture of what went on at this event.

Back to Education

In response to the comments of my good friends thediscourser and supergoober, I do want to mention a bit of my intent in introducing the numbers. Unfortunately what I said was hastily written as I was about to go out (as is this), but I will attempt to clarify what I was saying. As I reread my post, and the responses, I realized that I did not define terms well. It is a fact that in this state, with a 68 billion dollar budget and 6.2 million kids, we do technically spend $11,000 per kid. What I failed to mention is my main problem with this, which is very similar to the issue that thediscourser raised. It is true that at the classroom level, only about $6000 per kid is disbursed. So what we really have is an educational system that is shackled with layer upon layer of federal, state, and local bureaucracies that consumes close to fifty percent of the total expenditures. This is, to my mind, absolutely insane. While we do need several aspects of administration, in our current public education system, I would argue that there are many expenditures that have little, if anything to do with actually educating our kids. Couple that with societal norms that show no value in education, deification of idiocy (pop stars, athletes, movies, "My Super Sweet Sixteen", etc), and an absence of family structure to promote advancement through hard work, and it is pretty easy to see how we got the mess in which we are currently enmeshed.

Do I have any solutions? Well, no not really. We should incrementally try to introduce my version of the principle of parsimony for bureaucracies. The principle of parsimony in science and philosophy is that you should not multiply entities beyond necessity. I don't know if it has ever been used in this sense, but if I am to coin it for this, then so be it. In the most efficient use of resources, problems are addressed as close to the source as possible. In education, for example, in a dispute between a teacher and a student (about a grade, for example), the teacher should handle it, if at all possible. If this is still unsatisfactory, the administrator must step in to handle it. The administrator, who must be involved in the day-to-day running of the school, should not be making classroom decisions that a competent teacher could make (though he/she might have to make the call on whether said teacher actually fits the criteria of being a competent teacher). This is much like the chain of command for an efficient military, and while I am not saying that the schools should be run like the military, I am advocating for less micromanagement. This would go a long way to solving much of the problems with the schools but will likely never happen because of the amount of people in government invested in the system staying as it is.

As to how to address the family situation, I have a number of possible proposals for that, but that is for another time. So for know, lets dub this "new" principle - theprofessor principle - that is, micromanage as little as possible. The leaders of a school provide vision and direction for the school, with an eye on serving their community, the teachers and students are responsible for implementing that vision.

And yes, I am living in a fantasy world ;)

johndrake6