The Joy of Text?

I'm working with a couple students on SAT Critical Reading. Some are native English speakers. Some aren't. They all generally do better in science and math, though some are quite accomplished in the humanities.

But all of them -- all of them -- struggle with critical reading passages from the 19th century.

It's not just the diction -- though that, I'm sure contributes. The meanings of certain words have evolved a bit, and at least, have taken on different primary meanings in conversational English. And yet, it's a minor reason -- the SAT, by its nature, includes words that students may or may not know, and an entire class of reading passages questions requires students to determine the meaning of a phrase or word in context.

It's not just subject matter. Yes the passages are narrative and often divorced from the social, cultural, and racial reality of my students. But so are, say, the philosophical passages, or passages focused on a particular minority group. Some of the students struggle on these as well, though to a lesser extent.

I've decided that the primary challenge is due to the fact that these passages are heavy on dialogue.

I've reviwed nearly a score of official SAT tests of the current variety. And it appears that more modern narrative reading passages are characterized by omniscient narrators, detailed prose descriptions, and a boatload of adjectives.

The older passages, on the other hand, consist almost entirely of dialogue.

That got me thinking: why should that make it harder for students? Isn't this generation infamous for communicating via text messages? And although behavioral psychology suggests this leads to a loss of over 90% of the information provided by nonverbal (or at least non-linguistic) cues from direct, personal communication, haven't they adapted by becoming closer readers of dialogue?

But it's not an issue specific to millennials. I have trouble with these passages. Older SAT tutors I know -- people who don't text at all -- have similar issues.

Maybe then it has to do with a phenomenon that spans a couple generations.

Round up the usual suspects!

1. Television

Television is a favorite whipping boy. But it might be at least slightly responsible. Why? Well, it provides the viewer with abundant visual cues, which a block of text doesn't supply. So although a screenplay may need explicit directions for the actor, the gap between the naked dialogue and the viewer's brain is filled with a raft of nonverbal cues supplied by the directed actor.

We don't read dialogue. We watch it.

2. The decline of plays in classroom instruction

I read a lot of Shakespeare in the classroom. Although one of my more perceptive English teachers told us (correctly) that Shakespeare wasn't meant to be read silently, we often did. And yes, the dialogue was often witty, and monologues and chorus provide at least some narration and background. But it's hard, unless one already knows the general plot, to understand what a given piece of dialogue means.

In order to interpret the dialogue, you need to understand the plot. But in order to understand the plot, you have to know how to interpret the dialogue. It can be done, in an iterative process. But who has time for multiple re-readings, especially on a standardized test?

3. The decline of poetry.

We don't read poetry. There are lots of reasons. I loved poetry, but realized it was making me overly pretentious. Some hate its indirectness and subtlety (the very things that others, including myself, love it for).

But what it does do -- at least when done well -- is force us to appreciate the subtleties of language. It demands, upfront, vocabulary, and historical sensitivity to connotation. Narrative prose does this too, though the lower restrictions on structure often lead even great authors to be a bit lazy and less economical with words. Clarity, not brevity, is often the emphasis, which lowers the barriers to comprehension.

In other words, the very inaccessibility of poetry makes it better training for tests that seek to differentiate students based on reading comprehension ability.

I don't know if any of these are true. It's possible that culutral context matters way more --  I find it boring to read about the upper-middle class Victorian lives of Jane Austen's characters. But it's something that I'm mulling over, especially as it is currently a roadblock for some of my students -- a block I have to figure out how to move quickly.

SAT Critical Reading Guidelines - in progress

Note: this is a draft, and will be updated. But as I know some people are taking the test in a couple days, this might be a helpful last-minute refresher.


SAT Critical Reading Guidelines
By Ryan Yamada

General Critical Reading test-taking strategies:

1. Take Notes.

You might want to consider taking notes as you read a passage. It might help clarify the main idea, secondary ideas, tone, type of passage, and narrator perspective (omniscient, objective, subjective). In addition to reducing the load on your short-term memory, it may help you think more critically and actively engage with the passage.

2. Use Cross-Consistency (carefully).

Occasionally, you have enough similar questions in a problem that you can check for cross-consistency. As mentioned, this is potentially very dangerous and can backfire. Still, if you're reasonably sure on two questions and struggle with a third, you might be able to help clarify the answer to the third.

3. Use line references.

By identifying the line references before you read, you may improve your focus. Be advised, however, that you should start focusing somewhat before the line reference starts.

4. Depend only upon what is written.

Leave outside knowledge, your emotional response, and your moral judgment at the door. They will not help you with the passage. Everything you need is written, and excessive internal commentary as you read can cloud your judgment and cause you to miss key bits of information/language.

Main Idea Questions:

1. Read the introduction to the passage.

Sometimes this gives a major clue as to the main idea.

2. Read the first paragraph or two carefully.

The main idea will definitely appear in the first 1-2 paragraphs. The first paragraph might be introductory, which can lead to a confusing impression of what the main idea is. It’s better to continue reading carefully through the second, just to be sure.

3. Take notes for each paragraph.

This is a general tool, but it does help with the main idea. As you read the passage, your notes will indicate the content of each paragraph. Find the common thread, and you have the main idea.


Secondary Idea Questions:

1. Use the main idea as a partial guide, but do so carefully.

The secondary idea will be connected with the main idea. But it won’t be the same as the main idea. In fact, the secondary idea might make a point seemingly opposed to the main idea (especially for an informative essay discussing two sides to an issue). Even so, the main idea might give you a clue as to whether or not you’re on the right track.

2. Don’t confuse main idea and secondary idea questions.

Main idea questions cover the entire passage. Secondary ideas cover a specific paragraph or line references (usually a few lines long). The secondary idea has to address the specific reference/paragraph, regardless of what the broader passage is saying.

If this sounds similar to (1), that’s because it is, But it’s doubly important.

3. Pay attention to all the sentences in a paragraph.

Sometimes, you will be given two plausible answers. The better answer will often hinge upon a single sentence or phrase. It helps not to project your own emotion, experiences or motivations into the answer – everything you need will be there, in the paragraph.


Vocabulary or phrase in context:

1. Break apart the sentence.

Pay careful attention to conjunctions and conjunction-like phrases like “…, as is” (which indicates that the information following  is distinct from the material preceding it). This gives you a clue as to the structure of the sentence, and therefore a clue as to whether the word or phrase in context applies to the entire sentence or just a part.

2. The correct answer is usually a secondary definition.

It makes little sense to create a context question for which the correct answer is the obvious definition. Usually, it’s a secondary definition. Occasionally, the word is being used as a metaphor for something else.

3. Read the lines preceding the reference.

Sometimes you will be given the phrase or word in the problem statement, which makes it look like you don’t have to go back and read it in the actual passage. BIG MISTAKE! You need to go back, and read prior to the line reference. Depending on time, start from either the beginning of the paragraph or at least 1-2 sentences before the reference. Sometimes, the definition will be given to you in the preceding lines.

4. Use roots.

Although 1-3 should get you the answer, you can use roots if you have no idea what a word means. As with sentence completion, sometimes roots can help you distill the meaning of a word in context. But this probably won’t help much, as the word is probably being used with a secondary definition in mind.

Inference Questions:

1. Read like a third-grader.

If the inference cites a specific line, then read that line like a third-grader, paying close attention to subtleties of language (usually simple words).

2. Use only what is in the passage.

Make certain that you are not projecting your own feelings/background/knowledge into a passage/inference question. You have everything you need on the page.

3. Distinguish between author’s intent and any characters in the passage.

Similarly, It is particularly important for certain inference problems (and other problem types) to distinguish between what the character is feeling/thinking and what the author is thinking/feeling. Some answers that seem plausible actually confuse the two. 

4. Tone and main idea can help.

If you understand the main idea and tone, then it might help you with an inference question. That’s because main idea and tone give you a sense of the author’s intent, and therefore what devices/points the author might be trying to make, albeit indirectly.


Passage Comparison:

1. Treat this initially as two single passage sections.

Read passage 1, then do passage 1 questions. Do the same for passage 2 and its questions. Then answer the comparison questions. The reasons are obvious: this way, you don’t get the information from one passage confused with the other for questions specific to a single passage.

2. Take notes as you read.

You should be doing this for the longer single passages anyway. But this becomes doubly important for double passage problems. Your notes will help you quickly identify information that you might need, and in the correct passage, that would otherwise take a complete re-reading to discover.

3. Pay careful attention to the degree implied by verbs and adjectives when comparing passages.

Problems that have possible answer choices like “Passage 1… while Passage 2…” are potentially quite challenging. Often, the answer has to do with the degree to which it applies. There’s a difference between “cites” and “focuses”, and so pay careful attention. (In some wrong answers, the threshold is just too high.)

4. The entire answer has to be correct.

This is true for all questions. But it applies in particular to passage comparison. You can eliminate incorrect answers by realizing that they are making an incorrect statement for passage 1. Then eliminate more by eliminating those that incorrectly characterize passage 2. If you’re lucky, you’ll be left with one correct answer. If not, then use what you know about each passage to choose the best answer.

Tone Questions:

1. Tone is generally consistent with passage type and main idea.

Informative = objective, interested, appreciative (neutral to moderately positive/negative)
Argumentative = subjective, passionate, wry (stronger emotions)
Narrative = can be anything, pretty much.

2. Make sure you distinguish between author’s tone and a character’s emotions.

The characters could be undergoing intense emotions. But the author may choose to convey that in a very objective tone. Make certain you don’t conflate the two. Also, obviously, make sure you don’t project your own emotional response into the tone of the article.

Structure Questions:

1. Similarity questions

There are questions that ask for an example that “resembles” or “is most similar to” a cited example. These problems can be tricky, because they require you to (1) understand the reference, (2) understand the key relationships/properties of the reference, and (3) determine the answer choice that possesses all of the key relationships/properties in the original reference. Usually there will be two properties to identify.

Here’s how you solve these.

(a) Break apart the original reference into parts (probably two).

(b) Identify the relationships or key ideas in the parts.

(c) Check each answer choice and see if it conforms to both parts.

In some ways, this is like a double-blank sentence completion problem, except that you’re after the concepts and relationships embedded in the line reference. In some ways, this is the spiritual descendent of the “analogy” questions that plagued SAT students until sometime around 2005.

2. Identifying the purpose of a specific device

You should know about rhetorical devices: comparison, exaggeration, contrast, examples, etc. Each of these can be used to strengthen or develop an argument, analysis, or a narrative.

To solve these, you need to understand the connection between the line reference and the surrounding text (and, sometimes, the overall passage). This means figuring out why the author uses a specific piece of language.

Remember: why, not what. Do not confuse what is literally being said with its purpose.

3. Additional information that would strengthen an argument

To solve these questions, you need to make certain that you understand what the argument is. There should be only one answer choice that works. You can disregard the others because they will not relate to the specific argument being made in a paragraph, or because the form of the evidence is wrong. What do I mean by form? If the article is an informative scientific article, an opinion piece will not effectively support the argument.

How to be a tutor (work in progress - last updated 11/14/2013)

Sorry, J. E. -- this is long overdue. Also sorry, people who yelled at me at the wedding to follow through and post something.

This will be a work in progress. I don't have all the answers -- I'm still struggling to make this close to a full-time position.

I would actually highly discourage this as an option for people looking for more flexibility/pay than their existing jobs. There are many reasons, each of which I could go into at greater length. I'll simply list the ones I can come up with here:

- When factoring in prep time, driving time, correspondence, and billing, per-hour pay isn't great
- Local market may or may not be able to support you
- Cancellations -- lessons will be canceled because just aboute everything else takes priority
- Arguments with clients about rates -- you argue about salary with your boss once a year, but you potentially argue with each client about rates, and possibly multiple times.
- Low status -- this isn't South Korea, and so you might as well say "unemployed" when people ask you what you do for a living.
- Emotionally draining -- especially if you have defiant students, or tutor at homes with family drama
- Prep time ignored -- especially problematic if you're doing test prep, which is a bit more time-intensive with diagnostics
- skill degradation and resume decay -- every year you spend tutoring full-time is a year you're not doing something more closely related with your college training.


Let's say you're not dissuaded. What should you do?

Brian S., a tutor at WyzAnt, wrote a helpful guide about what to do when you get started. He has also penned another excellent guide here, once you're somewhat established and want to maintain or build your client base..

In addition to that, here are some things I've found, many thanks to discussions with David L., a fellow HMC Physics grad. (I use fellow loosely, and perhaps too familiarly -- he's damn good.)

1. Sometimes, the local market for tutoring is simply rough.

One of my undergrad friends is tutoring full time and has tons of students. He charges a pretty high rate (though he is worth every penny). I have a few students, but have struggled a bit more. Granted, he has a PhD in Physics from Princeton, and I "only" have a M.S. in Astrophysics from Cornell. But after some discussion, we concluded that he happens to be in a particularly good area for tutoring. It's a wealthy part of New Jersey with enough population density that he can build a client base.

I'm not as successful for a host of reasons. But one reason is my specific location. I'm in a reasonably well-off portion of Southern California. But it doesn't have quite the level of wealth, nor the high population density, that allows me to pick and choose clients.

2. Consider expanding your driving distance

Despite my friend's advantages, he's willing to commute 40 minutes for a job. This is feasible because he clusters his jobs. One day he might spend around Princeton, meeting three or four clients. Another day, he might head north. 

This only works if you can (1) find sufficient numbers of students in a given area to make it worthwhile to drive out there in the first place, and (2) convince them all to meet in a given place. Otherwise, you'll be eaten alive with fuel and maintenance costs, not to mention the opportunity cost of driving between lessons.

3. Consider picking up subjects that are outside your core, but still within yourcompetence.
In the beginning, I was a bit too cautious about my qualified fields. I thought that, because it had been a couple years since I had a statistics course, I wasn't qualified to tutor statistics. However, I discovered that, with a good textbook and enough clients to make it worthwhile, I was able to retrain myself in beginning statistics. I'm nowhere near my previous level of proficiency, but I'm confident that I can competently tutor any AP Stats or beginning college stats course -- a belief that has been proven correct from experience.

Again, it varies by location, and my experience is limited to math, science, and some of the social sciences. But I would say that physics, chemistry, and calculus are generally in high demand (partly because any out-of-college adult reasonably skilled in this probably could get another job). Econ and stats tend to be sought after, though in raw numbers there may be fewer students taking those courses. Biology has a lot of demand, but also a lot of supply. 

4. Consider tutoring college students.

I don't have a preference one way or another as far as tutoring high school students or college students. (But I generally don't tutor anyone younger.) But if you think about it, tutoring can't come anywhere near to a full-time gig if you're limited to the hours after school gets out (barring crazy hours on weekends). One way to fill that gap is with college students, many of whom have openings in the morning or early afternoon.

Now, not all college students can afford expensive tutoring. So you might opt to charge a reduced rate for starving students. It depends upon your college market, and on whether or not you can tutor an upper-division class. But even for general education classes, there might be some demand. A few students (or their parents) are perceptive enough to realize that a small investment in tutoring might actually be a better deal than paying to take the class again.

Good luck!

Tutoring advice for parents, students, and tutors

How pretentious: I'm claiming to offer advice to all parties in the tutoring process! But if you bear with me, I hope to actually offer some helpful advice.

Some advice for parents:

It’s easy for a parent to feel guilty. “I have to provide the best educational experience possible for my child. If I don’t, I’m a bad parent and a bad person.” Combine that with a lack of clarity about what “best” is, and it’s not wonder that there’s a lot of insecurity about this. Unscrupulous tutors take advantage of that.

Do yourself a favor: take a breath, and breathe. You are not solely responsible for everything regarding your child. You, of course, have many responsibilities. But your first and most important obligation is to raise your child in a loving, safe environment. Nowhere is it written in the contract you signed when you became a parent that you will be held accountable for how well your child does in precalculus. Remind yourself, explicitly, in writing or audible speech, that you are a good parent regardless of how well or poorly your child does in school. I’ve met parents who are terrible who have straight-A students. (The students are secretly, or not-so-secretly miserable.) And I've met outstanding parents who have C-students.

For the sake of your sanity, and for the sake of better results, ease the pressure off yourself. It spills over on the child and on the tutor, and doesn’t translate into good results.

But if your expectations are reasonable and clearly stated, hold your child and tutor to them. If the tutor understands your expectations and can’t deliver, then you need to find someone else.

Some advice to students:

You are approaching adulthood. The hallmark of an adult versus a child is not age, but the level to which a person accepts responsibility for his or her actions or inaction. It’s hard and challenging, and maybe you’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s the teacher’s responsibility to teach you. That’s bull. You have the most responsibility for that, because you are the one who will have to deal with the consequences of not learning. Your teacher will keep on churning out poorly instructed students, and get a fresh crop next year. But you will live with the results for the rest of your life. A bad class might not ruin your life, but it is a missed opportunity. If you miss too many opportunities in life, well, you miss life.

If you need something, ask for it. Your parents and tutors might say no or be unhelpful. But if you really need something, don’t give up on it. Be your own advocate. It may not always seem fair, but it will give you better results than passively accepting what you’re given. “Character may be manifest in the great moments, but it is built in the small ones.” There’s no time like the present to build, piece by piece, your character.

Some advice for tutors:

Manage those expectations! Not only is it ethical, it is good from a self-interest point of view. A parent might not always hear you when you say that you can’t promise a certain grade in a certain time frame, but it’s on you to explicitly say that. Do your best, of course. But don’t overpromise. Although you can get away in the short term with doing that, in the long run your reputation will be ruined. And it’ll be your own fault.

As you manage their expectations, manage your own. Your student has been shaped by a decade or two of outside forces. You, as a tutor and teacher, are a tiny blip on the great narrative of their life. It doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference – perhaps a life-changing one. But you can’t expect to force it. As with other relationships, problems arise when you don’t respect the personhood of the other, and that includes, at some level, respecting their desire to be idiotic, stubborn, or otherwise foolish for as long as they like. To borrow terminology from leadership theory, ou may want to be a transformative tutor, but you might have to settle for being a transactional one.

And please be organized. You’re a professional, not some student who straggled in off the street to regale the audience with your antics and hopefully sprinkle some knowledge. You’ve got a job to do. Do it. This may seem like a relatively easy job, but if you’re doing it well, it shouldn’t be. Send updates, be punctual, and be prepared going into a lesson – not only in terms of subject matter, but in terms of who your student is (in a substantive sense), and how your student learns.

The nightmare of hiring a tutor

In principle, hiring a tutor is an enterprise that is anticipatory and deliberate.

It involves anticipating what potential problems might crop up, using a student’s history and self-evaluation. Tutoring can also be in response to a desire to advance more quickly; it’s not always used to “fix” a “problem”. A parent might consult with friends, or with the student’s teacher, to obtain personal referrals. After interviewing a number of possible tutors, the parent and child, together, choose the tutor that embodies the combination of empathy, subject knowledge, teaching ability, and cost effectiveness.

If this sounds like you, congratulations. No need to read onward, to find out how the rest of us in the real world live. If this doesn’t sound like you, don’t worry; you’re not alone, and I promise this won’t be a “you should feel guilty about this” post.

Here’s how tutoring often works in practice.

A student starts struggling in a subject, but that isn’t noticed by the parents because of some combination of being busy with work and student denial/subterfuge. The first test reveals that a student is in serious trouble. There might be an exchange in which the parent chastises the student for not letting the parent know about the struggle; the student, in exchange, either blames the parent for being inattentive, or claims that it’s possible to salvage the grade.

Perhaps the parent tries to tutor the student directly. But the parent might not know the subject. Even if the parent knows the subject, the general tension that exists between all parents and children makes it such that the student resents the advice, and the parent is tempted to be overly critical. There’s just too much history and baggage, even in the best families, for it to work. (For this reason, I’m perpetually amazed at the relative success some people have with homeschooling.)

Finally, the parent decides that, even though money is never abundant, it’s time to call in an outside tutor.  But it’s too late to go through a lengthy interview process with several tutors. A parent might turn to their friends for a reference; on the other hand, they might not want it to be known that their child is not great at everything. Invariably, they turn to either a local academy or an online website, where they hire someone who is some combination of appearing to be inexpensive and appearing to be qualified.

The student, by the way, might not think he or she needs tutoring. This attitude can persist throughout the actual tutoring, with predictably bad results.

Thus is the tutoring relationship formed. It involves bringing in a stranger that may or may not be qualified, may or may not be a good instructor, and may or may not have a good rapport with the student. And, given that the arrangement is made under duress, the parent is reluctant to break it because it will take time (and stress) to find another one. Also, if we can be honest, the parent might not know whether this tutor is good or not; a bad tutor can fly under the radar for a depressingly long time.

If this sounds like you, don’t feel badly. This is common, more common than anyone wants to admit. And it’s no one’s fault.

Teachers and schools, for a host of reasons, often don’t have the time or resources to develop a framework to support those who are struggling.

Parents, especially parents who are working, don’t have the time or, quite frankly, emotional energy, to help their kids with some of these subjects.

Students might struggle with incompetent or inattentive teachers (who, as mentioned above, just might not have the resources needed to deliver customized help). Given that looking stupid is about the worst possible sin, in school and in life, the student might do his or her best to conceal poor performance, or mentally code the subject as “something that doesn’t matter, anyway”.

Tutors can be tempted to exploit this insecurity to bill more hours. We may, explicitly or implicitly, overpromise, and temper the anger at underdelivery with vague promises of improvement just around the corner.

Sometimes, the tutor doesn’t actually say anything; the parent and student project expectations, and don’t listen to efforts to manage it. Or, maybe a realistic assessment means not getting the job, forcing the tutor to choose between professional integrity and paying bills.

Everyone’s just too busy. Everyone’s anxious. And it’s really hard to measure educational quality – hence the perennial arguments about education in America and elsewhere.

In the next post, I offer some free advice to parents, students, and tutors. Remember as you read: just like in tutoring, you get what you pay for.

What's Different With Online Tutoring (My writing sample for tutor.com)

I forget the prompt, but it has to do with three differences between in-person and online tutoring, and what I will modify in my tutoring style to make certain the student learns effectively. Leaving it here, because it seems somewhat important for me to revisit later.

Both online tutoring and in-person tutoring require the tutor to be knowledgeable, empathetic, and perceptive. However, online tutoring has distinctive properties and challenges. A proficient tutor will be aware of these differences and adapt his or her methods in order to rectify these challenges.

Online tutoring that is chat or voice based lacks the visual feedback that would be available if the tutor were in the same room as the student. Behavioral psychology teaches us that over half of the emotional cues and feedback between two individuals in ordinary conversation are visual. Body language, facial expressions, and gestures provide important information. The situation is even worse with text-based tutoring, as over a third of feedback comes from vocal tone, quality, and speed. 

Additionally, online tutoring can be limited by the available software platform used to convey information. Ideally, the platform will provide an opportunity for both the tutor and the student to be able to enter in equations, draw, diagram, and convey other visual information effectively. Even if these requirements are met, this requiers both the tutor and the student to be sufficiently skilled with the interface to be able to communicate effectively.

Finally, online tutoring is potentially vulnerable to a decreased level of commitment for both the tutor and the student. Although we are now more wired than ever, it is still more difficult to establish commitment and emotional connection remotely than with a person that is seen in person. This can make it challenging to initially develop trust. It could even lead to a higher chance that appointments might be missed -- because the other person isn't met directly, they may "feel" less real to the other party, and subconsciously might not be accroded the same level of courtesy and commitment someone in person would experience.

Due to the issues listed above, I am particularly aware of the need to modify my own methods of tutoring. Because I can not depend upon nonverbal clues from my online students, I have to spend a bit more time and effort explicitly asking them for feedback and probing their knowledge with related questions. The innoncent but destructive lie of "I get it" when the student doesn't actually understand is more difficult to detect, meaning that I have to more actively require the student to explain concepts back to me, or demonstrate his or her knowledge by solving additional problems that I might generate on the spot. 

On the software issue, the only solution is to become intimately familiar with the software interface provided by Tutor.com. I also have additional resources online, whther it is the Online Latex Equation Editor, WolframAlpha (for graphs), or another tool that I've discovered in my years of tutoring.

Finally, to address the commitment issue (both for the student and to adjust for any subconscious bias on my part), I make certain to convey my thoughts, expectations, and my empathy through text. Like any writer worth his or her salt, I have developed an ability to convey emotion as effectively as I can through typed words. I'm not a professional writer. However, I am fortunate enough to have plenty of expereince, training, and interest in writing in order to develop some skill in it. My ability to type relatively quickly will also help the sentiments expressed in the tutoring session seem more geninue. (They are, in fact, genuine, but a delay can make it seem a non-technical missive less spontanous and less trustworthy.)

Arete

I bake only one thing: pineapple upside-down cake. It's not quite from scratch -- it's based off a yellow cake mix. But by all accounts it's pretty good. (It is sugar and butter.)

I have made this cake over a hundred times. The recipe comes from a kindly churchwoman, Joanne, who once advised me that most cooks find ways to make it easy on themselves. Although accoplished at making things "from scratch", Joanne is a practical person who doesn't value the artificiality inherent in a cultlike worship of authenticity.

Today, after making it successfully and error-free for, say, the last 60 times, I botched it.

While moving the pan onto the oven grate, I accidentally splashed a tiny bit of batter into the bottom of the oven. Perhaps because I'm a somewhat inexperienced cook, I didn't realize how quickly this would turn into a terrible situation. (My mother, who is presumably far more proficient in cooking, saw this and also didn't think anything of it.) I set the timer ( to precisely 34 minutes, as experience suggested), and went to go work on some email.

After about ten minutes, my mother alerted me that smoke was coming out of the oven.

I opened the oven, and was rewarded with a faceful of the worst smoke I had ever experienced in my life. It burned my eyeballs, and reeked like burning plastic. The smoke detector went off, crippling a third sense. After flailing, baking sheet in hand, to shut off the beeping, I fumbled with the vent switch.

The cake was tossed, and now I have to scrub the bottom of the oven. If I'm impatient or inattentive, I can look forward to injuring my sense of touch as well. If that happens, I might say fuck it, and eat some of the nasty half-cooked mess that was going to be my hundred-something pineapple upside-down cake.

I'm not mourning the failure; hell, it's just a cake. The church people will have to put up with a store-bought, substandard substitute.

But it did remind me that, even after a successful track record of doing something incredibly well, it is possible to have a failure. 

This wasn't quite negligence, or overconfidence as my mother so helpfully observed. It was inexperience with this specific type of failure. Maybe a touch of fatigue contributed.

Why does this merit a post? Why does anything? Maybe that cake is life, or work, or anything that we do often enough that we feel like we have this down, and, rightly or wrongly, however insignificantly, becomes a bit of our identity. Even people who enjoy the challenge of pushing their limitations and challenging themselves constantly have things they value and enjoy because they know how to do those things well... special activities that are comforting because they are familiar and mastered. And when those things get screwed up... well, it's unwelcome, and possibly forces us to reexamine the painful, impossibly vast gap between mastery and perfection. If the person is older, maybe it prompts him to think that, just maybe, he is Stevens from Remains of the Day, in denial about the decline of his powers and competence in the twilight years.

Or maybe it's just a damn cake. Mistakes happen, and there may be no more signifcant lesson to take than the vague prescription to "be more careful next time". There is some necessary tension between a pursuit of excellence and a tolerance for human frailty. Jerking back and forth between the two poles is disconcerting; allowing oneself to be pulled in both directions at once is the mental equivalent of drawing and quartering. (Would it be drawing and halving in this case?)

I love how the word arete means both "excellence of any kind" and "a crested mountain ridge formed by glaciers". It's a great metaphor: slow, grinding shaping that, after eons of great force, forms something unnaturally sharp and distinctive. It is natural, but not accidental -- it is slow and deliberate.

I have met no true savants. I have met only people who, gifted, even geniuses, have won their excllence through persistent effort, focus, failure, and, perhaps greatest of all, desire. I'm not sure "hard work" is a useful description, but I suppose it applies, given what most people regard as work. If anything, Edison underestimated the importance of "perspiration" with his famous quote on genius.

If I make this cake well, it's because I have done it over hundred times, sometimes bothering to tweak and adjust, even experiment--yet still retaining the sound foundations of the mechancial processes of melting butter and brown sugar, draining pineapple, measuring (or eyeballing) liquids and solids, mixing to a proper consistency, layering the pineapple, pouring the batter, cooking to a time within the three minutes or so window bracketed by states of undercooked and slightly burnt, cooling an appropriate time (during which it continues to cook) and remembering to flip before  the sugar and butter cool and congeal, causing it becomes irreversibly stuck within the baking pan.

Even with this, I'm not a cooking genius. I just make a damn good cake. People enjoy the end product, and that's fine by me. But most geniuses I know do, at least on occasion, get frustrated with a culture that sees only where they have arrived, not where they've been, a culture that also seems willing to find fault, or celebrate their failings or weaknesses.

I swear, my mother was slightly happy to see this cake fail. "Usually I'm the one who burns things on the stove." For some reason, it reminds me of a time when she expressed joy when I brought home a C on a 6th grade math test -- I think she was relieved that she had some evidence that I wasn't that different from her.

It's just a cake. Except it's not. It's life. I need to do something--anything!--professionally in a way that mirrors the process of proficiency and mastery in making this single cake. It's time to let go of what I think (and what others think) I'm "naturally" good at, and just pick something that I care enough about to tolerate years of slow, unsteady (but hopefully, on average, increasing) improvement.

Of course, maybe the cake is more instructive than I think. Had I set out with the goal of actually improving the cake recipe from the beginning, it would've taken maybe only 10 or so tries before it reached the present state of quality. The process would've been slower and filled with more mistakes, but maybe I would've ended  up with a better cake sooner.

But that wasn't the goal; a hundred-something cakes ago, all I wanted was something that I could do reasonably well. I suppose, in terms of jobs and relationships, that's okay too. At my heart, despite my scientific training, I'm not much of an empiricist. And as I mentioned before, even the most die-hard empiricist needs things that are safe and predictable.

Even then, failure is possible, and should be expected.

I have a better sense of what arete demands at 30 than I did at any point in college or grad school. I just hope I'll be able to work half as hard as I think I did during undergrad, when effort, not brilliance, helped me succeed when other, better prepared and brighter people did not.

Korea Day 6: Exercise and thoughts on the SAT

I've been running nearly every day. For whatever reason, I feel motivated to lose weight and feel better. So far, so good. I don't think I've lost any weight, but I think I look healthier. My diet is, generally, healthier than it was stateside -- less meat, less everything else, and no juice/soda. One thing I do have to watch is vitamin C. Fruit is somewhat expensive here, so it doesn't show up in many meals. If I'm not careful, I'll end up with a case of scurvy. Arrgh.

Yesterday, it rained consistently throughout the day. The sidewalks are quite slick, and I didn't trust the grip on my shoes enough to really run. It was still somewhat relaxing to walk/jog in the early morning, amid a sea of umbrellas and gradations of dress, from full suits to slacks and white shirts to student clothes.

There are a couple small parks near my residence. Each one has some modest athletic equipment, in addition to a playground. One in particular has a worn rubber track, which will be my running spot of choice should it be raining. The first time I walked into that park, I noticed that the highest pull-up bar was missing; the next day, it was replaced. I don't know if it was coincidence, or a mark of Korean efficiency. Either way, I'm too fat/weak to do more than a couple.

Although I'm not officially working, I have been helping out at the office with certain things -- manipulating Excel spreadsheets to eliminate repeated and misspelled vocab words, writing proficiency exams for TAs interested in tutoring students at the camp, etc. I've sat in on the head teacher's class, and later had to apologize for being a bit too participatory; I have to remember that it's really, really important to not split the attention of the students. I blame all the material I'm reading about Teddy Roosevelt.

Lately, I've been going through the study guides on critical reading and writing. The latter, in particular, has forced me to really think about what it takes to develop good writing skills -- both the kind that is rewarded on the test and a more generalized facility with words. It's tough -- so much depends upon things that have to be done well in advance of the test. If the students don't read, or don't care about writing, or decide they need to demonstrate fancy vocabulary, or are simply slow thinkers, then they are bound to struggle mightily to write a 4-paragraph essay in 25 minutes. Some of this can be practiced away, but some of it will require some shift in values/ambitions/priorities/habits between now and the test.

Critical Reading is also something that really requires a great deal of time to cultivate. Reading good books and articles helps a lot, though with some questions, it's clear that critical reading as tested on the SAT is a bit removed from ordinary life. There are techniques I can and will teach -- get the main idea of the passage, look for a tone, paraphrase, don't choose an answer just because it uses similar words to the referenced passage, make sure the entire answer is reflected in the excerpt, and depend upon context, not definitions learned previously, to define words highlighted in a question. But real success depends upon these students being readers in the first place.

Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--
And thus we half-men struggle

I confess, even with my anxieties about the camp, I'm excited and thrilled.

Educational philosophy, revised

Educational Philosophy

My educational philosophy can be organized around five values: (1) Independence/Interdependence; (2) Anchoring knowledge; (3) Modeling; (4) Social Diversity; and (5) Economic Mobility.

1. Independence/Interdependence

The teacher’s goal ought to be to promote independence from the teacher and interdependence among the students. A teacher must fight the desire to be the center of attention and be prepared to cede the spotlight in order to develop students’ abilities. This does not mean a hands-off approach, especially in the early stages of learning. But it does mean structuring the class to provide greater opportunities for teamwork.

2. Anchoring knowledge

New knowledge must be anchored in old knowledge, both within and across subjects. My subject expertise, broad educational background and varied personal interests mean that I can generally come up with surprisingly apt analogies and tie-ins that relate to their world. By putting in the work to anchor new knowledge in their existing world, I’ve reduced the sense of inaccessibility and irrelevance that plagues science classes. Once that initial bridge has been made, anchoring occurs within a subject; this is especially true for physics, which depends upon earlier mastery in order to understand and solve progressively more complicated problems.

3. Modeling

Although the ultimate goal is to have students become collaborators and the teacher to become less a provider of information and more a facilitator of learning, students need to have a clear idea of what is expected and the accepted, proper ways of organizing and communicating information and understanding. Experience means nothing in itself; it is only experience paired with proper technique, process, and understanding that will take students toward greater mastery, both in the classroom and outside it. To this end, I make certain students see, clearly, how to solve problems in an organized, clear way, and emphasize process more than product (the right answer). The right answer matters, of course, but getting the right answer (or even asking the right questions) can happen reliably only if students have a solid, reliable understanding of the process of scientific inquiry and scientific problem-solving.

4. Social Diversity

Better decisions are reached when there is a combination of a diversity of backgrounds and a common purpose. An educational setting, and especially a community college, is built for that confluence of factors. I have had the challenge and opportunity to work across a wide variety of cultural, economics, and social lines, and one thing has become clear: there is an opportunity for every person to develop their awareness and appreciation of the universe. In so doing, the language of physics and astronomy provides a common experience and set of knowledge, one tied to the historical traditions of many cultures and peoples. Everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, ethnicity, economic means, or disability, can and should participate in the learning and doing of science.

5. Economic mobility

Scientific education isn't just about nurturing the soul. It’s about nourishing the body. I know that many of my students will be immigrants and refugees. Most will be near or in poverty. Historically, STEM training has been, and continue to be, a critical step in entering into higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs. I don’t expect, or even wish, that my students pursue academic research science careers. Instead, what they need, and what I hope to provide, are the fundamentals of problem-solving, technical knowledge, abstract reasoning, and deductive logic that will be fundamental to their success, whether they pursue a STEM career or not. To that end, I will make certain that, in every aspect, my course accommodates students of limited means without limiting their ambitions for a better life.

Educational philosophy

This is a very rough draft of my educational philosophy, in response to a prompt required by the San Bernardino Community College District for a tenure-track faculty position.

I confess; I feel a bit appalled that I never tried articulating a formal educational philosophy in writing. Granted, I've known it's more complicated than "make people less dumb". But even that four-word philosophy has a lot embedded in it. What are the better and worse ways of achieving that? Do you treat all people equally? How do you measure dumbness?

Hopefully, these (draft) principles seem less theoretical and are anchored in the practical.

Feedback welcome. I'll probably edit these shortly, but I have some tutoring to do, and wanted to solicit ideas before I submitted any sort of philosophy statement.

Educational Philosophy

1. Independence

The teacher’s goal ought to be to promote independence and mutual interdependence among the students. A teacher must fight the desire to be the center of attention and be prepared to cede the spotlight in order to develop students’ abilities. This does not mean a hands-off approach, especially in the early stages of learning. But it does mean structuring the class to provide greater opportunities for teamwork and collaboration, using current best practices.

2. Anchoring new topics to students’ existing knowledge/interests and fostering curiosity

Science is fundamentally about curiosity. I dislike the trend toward edutainment, in that it has, as a built-in assumption, that science in itself isn’t interesting enough without a song and dance. I do engage my students, and my broad background and interests mean that I can generally come up with surprisingly apt tie-ins that relate to their world. It might mean relating a topic to a popular movie, or a mechanical principle to a concept in business. This challenges an assumption that subjects are discrete and unrelated, and provides an opportunity for students to become curious across disciplines.

3. Combating phobias and stereotypes and developing confidence

Many students carry with them fears about being unable to comprehend topics like physics and advanced math. These are often traced to bad mentorship from teachers or family members. As a tutor, I drew directly from the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy to encourage students to verbalize their subconscious (or conscious) insecurities, and directly challenge them. Although classroom instruction and the limits of time make it impractical to do this on an individual level (except through the incidental casual conversation), it is still possible—and absolutely necessary—to do so in a group setting. It is only by directly addressing and combating those fears and insecurities and actively working to develop confidence through mastery that a student can begin to own a new , more positive identity in regards to his or her ability to understand and “do” science.

4. Shaping through example

Although college ought to be about shifting learning from a hierarchical classroom structure to peer and independent learning, the professor still plays an important role. However, the role that a professor ought to be asked to play is that of facilitator and example, in addition to expert and source of knowledge. If I want students to have a more nuanced view of science and scientists (other than a one-dimensional point of view shaped by popular culture), then I need to be somewhat nuanced and complex. I may have to work against type, both to reduce the intimidation many students feel and to allow a broader group to feel comfortable identifying as a “scientist”, or to value science.

5. The importance of providing an example for how to succeed at school

Great educators can and do spend a great deal of time working on how best to communicate the subject matter to their students. I believe that we often neglect the reverse flow of communication: we can do better to train our students to not only know the subject, but to communicate that knowledge effectively. To this end, I feel it is important to use examples and sample solutions, both to illuminate the process of solving a problem and the process of conveying that mastery back to me.

6. The role of diversity in the scientific and educational enterprise

Diversity's relative importance is not reflected by its position on this list. It is practically axiomatic (though also supported by research) that better decisions are reached when there is a combination of a diversity of backgrounds and a common purpose. An educational setting, and especially a community college, is built for that confluence of factors. Students have diverse ethnicities, primary languages, ages, belief systems, sexual identifications, genders, and life experiences. I have had the challenge and opportunity to work across a wide variety of cultural, economics, and social lines, and one thing has become clear: there is an opportunity for every person to develop their awareness and appreciation of the universe. In so doing, the language of physics and astronomy provides a common experience and set of knowledge, one tied to the historical traditions of many cultures and peoples.

7. Economic mobility

Scientific education isn't just about nurturing the soul. It’s about nourishing the body. I know that many of my students will be immigrants and refugees. Most will be near or in poverty. STEM courses are a critical step in achieving economic mobility and entering into higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs. I don’t expect, or even wish, that my students pursue academic research science careers. Instead, what they need, and what I hope to provide, are the fundamentals of problem-solving, technical knowledge, abstract reasoning, and deductive logic that will be fundamental to their success, whether they pursue a STEM career or not. To that end, I will make certain that, in every aspect, my course accommodates students of limited means without limiting their ambitions for a better life.

Kiera Wilmot

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/04/florida_teen_girl_charged_with.php

When I first read this story, I was horrified. But, learning from various other cases, I resolved to wait a full 24 hours before reaching judgment. I thought the story worthy of posting in the interim, but didn't sign any petitions or write any letters. After all, sometimes there is some additional evidence that comes out that, in retrospect, justifies the decisions by law enforcement.

I just read the publication date of the article. It's six days old.

And needless to say, I'm livid.

Some have tried to make this case about race. It may or may not be about that, and I don't think race needs to be a factor at all to feel passionately about this. But I understand if some people view this case through the lens of race.

And it'd be easy -- perhaps easier for me -- to make this about the science culture wars. After all, given the recent noise from Lamar Smith (R-TX), current chair of the House Science Committee, about making political oversight the determining factor for NSF grants, it's clear that one political party (you get two guesses) has adopted a pretty anti-science position, even as it seeks minority opinion to try to make settled issues appear somewhat unsettled. I hope to hell she does get into a good program that gives her the opportunity to get a great science education; she has more native curiosity about science than I did at her age, and if I was good enough to get an NSF fellowship, she probably will be, too. (Who knows? She might even complete her PhD, unlike yours truly.)

But it's not about either of this. This is about childhood, and about America.

It's about whether we, as a country, are so paranoid of our own youth that we can't exercise judgment and come up with proportionate punishment.

Maybe this would've been different if the Boston Marathon bombings hadn't happened. Maybe many are still a bit paranoid about the potential for young people to inflict mass casualties using relatively simple devices. Maybe we've gotten so used to hearing stories of heinous crimes committed by younger, and younger people that it's only natural we've begun criminalizing the young.

Maybe we've become a nation of cowards.

I believe in an America that can't be defeated by one bomb, or a hundred, or a thousand. I believe in an America where our native, sometimes sickeningly naive optimism triumphs over the paranoia and cowardice that are invitations to unchecked power.

Have we become so weak, so pathetic as a country that a little bang on the field is enough to bring down the security apparatus of the state?

If so, we deserve the horrors of the worst paranoid fears realized, for we are no longer a nation worth defending.

You have a 16-year old young person, who happens to be black, happens to be female, happens to be bright, curious, and, by all accounts, a good person. She is now facing two felony charges for something that appears on Youtube, for combining very, very common items.

Did she display a lapse in judgment? Sure. I don't know the details yet about the amount of reactants used, but I suppose she could've seriously injured her eye if the ejected bottle top had hit her in the face. I'm also curious why she didn't get permission from her teacher, and who the mysterious friend is that allegedly told her to do it.

A 16-year old's judgment could be worse. We're complaining about a 16-year old girl who would do a science experiment to impress a friend. There are 16-year old girls who spread their legs to impress someone. Or do drugs. Or break into a house.

Was it uncommon? No.

At my college, we used to blow up things, like, oh, large weather balloons filled with flammable material. Those were stopped before my time. But someone did try to detonate an ice block with thermite once. Yeah, there was some trouble about it, but it was all resolved without a felony charge. And I think there were occasional magnesium fires in the courtyard. All of these were more dangerous than the poof generated by aluminum and toilet bowl cleaner, outdoors, in an uncrowded field.

Was it criminal? I hope not.

It's pretty much impossible to write a good law that covers all possible cases. That's why law is evolving, dynamic, and imperfect. Maybe she did technically break the law (though it's not at all obvious from what I read). But if so, does it make sense to charge her with felony counts?

The whole reason we have a trial by jury, DAs, and judges is that there is, and ought to be, some leeway regarding which cases to bring to trial, which cases merit a guilty verdict, and, even in those cases, some level of judgment regarding sentencing.

I have not seen any of those fine aspects of jurisprudence on display in the last week. What I do see is half-hearted excuses by weak individuals unwilling (with the exception of the school's principal) to stand up and say, this is wrong. We are not doing right by her. We are not doing right by all of the youth we regard, by default, as threats.

I'm disgusted, and will sign petitions, and write letters, and contribute to her legal defense fund. Also, I'll encourage Harvey Mudd College, recently recognized for its success in growing its female student body, to start sending her application materials.

Could something come up in the next few days that will leave egg on my face? Sure. Then I'm sure some people will mock me for running to defend someone not worth defending. Bullshit. I'll choose the promise of youth over the cynicism of the old every day, any day. And if that means I'm wrong occasionally, so be it.

But it looks pretty damn ridiculous right now. Florida has definitely demonstrated some high profile madness in a number of criminal cases in recent years. Here's hoping they get this one right, and let her get back to school soon.

Why Mr. Weaver was both the best and the worst physics teacher ever

Given all the physics education stories I've told, I'm surprised I haven't written about this before. Granted, it was a while ago (pre-9/11), so my memories (and associated emotions) aren't nearly as strong. But it's worth writing, so non-Rosemead High School students get a taste of where I was coming from upon entering Harvey Mudd College.

In 1999, Mr. Weaver was a late-50s man who, by his own admission, was a burned-out mechanical engineer that had somehow ended up in teaching. I don't know if he started teaching right after college, or if he had been a practicing engineer until the aerospace layoffs of the 1970s or 1980s.

He bore a disturbing resemblance to Hannibal Lecter. Appearance-wise, not so much; he had a full head of hair, always parted to the left, and was less physically imposing than Lecter. But he did have these blueish-gray eyes, at once piercing and vacant. More than his appearance, his soft, vague, enervated tones made one think of Dr. Lecter.

It's not just me and my unhealthy fascination with serial killers, real or fictional. The Lecter-esque quality has been confirmed by multiple classmates. His language was not nearly as eloquent or energetic as Lecter, but was filled with these vague, straight-faced quirks of speech.

Anyway, this was how AP Physics B shook out. The first day, Mr. Weaver stood in front of class and gave a brief lecture about general things about this class. I honestly don't remember what he talked about, but some of it went over my head. I think he sprinkled a bit of statistics in there, and I would not take that [excellent] class until next year with -- and I'm not joking -- Mrs. Flaws.

During the next 180 or so days of instruction, there wasn't a single lecture. Not a one. He'd assign homework by writing it on the board. But, if memory serves, he wouldn't address the class as a whole again (barring, say, a fire drill).

So all of my introduction to physics was self-taught. I was helped along by the competitive pressures (some would say harassment) of a precocious Vietnamese student who was probably two or three years ahead of the rest of us in both math and science. (Contrary to expectations, he didn't major in physics -- he went the med school route, which I believe has been more financially and personally profitable than a physics trajectory, anyway. Huy, if you're reading this, you're welcome.)

We did have labs, and to his credit, Mr. Weaver did show us how to use the air track and other equipment. But only if we cared enough to ask.

Needless to say, without management, classroom management fell apart. The seniors were the first casualty -- a lot of them stopped doing homework. Seniors and juniors would use the class (after lunch) as a second lunch hour, sitting cross-legged on the tables in circles to eat. After telling one of my students the story of this class, he asked, "Wasn't he worried about getting caught by the principal?" The answer had to be no, which I suppose demonstrated the systemic nature of the problem. My personal experience indicates that there was more attention paid to the slipping of the word "necrophilia" into the school newspaper, or illicit trips to the In-n-Out burger during classroom hours, than to physics instruction.

So yeah, almost no one cared. I remember doing a lab in which I was doing error analysis while the rest of the group was watching American Pie. I do remember generating some messed up system of error analysis; this is also the class where I taught myself Excel.

He did grade the homework and labs submitted, and did give tests.

Around second semester, some of the seniors started to realize that they were failing this course, and that an F in this (and other) courses could jeopardize their admission to various colleges. "Ruh roh!" (I think that's a direct quote from Mr. Weaver.) I don't know if he pity-passed anyone, but it was mildly amusing to see someone try to muscle through E&M and optics, having paid zero attention to any of the preceding physics.

Also, at some point, he dyed his hair brown. He then disappeared for a couple weeks. When he came back, we learned he had married a Japanese woman. Weird.

Yes, he was the worst physics teacher I'd ever known. He wasn't hostile; he wasn't ignorant. He was simply a non-factor. He demonstrated all the fucks he didn't give before the meme existed.

I don't know if people in those classes hated physics. It could be argued that they are actually more positive about physics than average precisely because it was less instructional, and more food-centered.

So my preparation for physics going into Harvey Mudd College was, well, less than adequate. And it probably did contribute to the disconnect between what I thought physics was and what it actually was.

But maybe he was a secret genius, and a master teacher. Maybe he knew that no one could get through a physics degree without a great deal of self-motivation. And I, being tested by the crucible of a nearly worthless teacher, learned to learn on my own, and passed this life test of self-learning.

Or maybe he was a useless piece of crap protected by seniority, union rules, a relatively inactive parent pool, and the fact that he didn't commit any actual crimes while teaching.

So to all of you who had legendary teachers that set you on the path to learning, I applaud you and celebrate your good fortune or the blessings of a good zip code. But for the rest of you, please don't use a bad teacher as an excuse for poor knowledge or hatred of a subject. Our wisdom and understanding are shaped by our experiences. But we do have agency of our own, and sometimes discover different and important things about ourselves when forced onto more lonely, less familiar paths.

Why is physics scarier than other math/science classes?

After some discussion with my student (geometry/chemistry) tonight, I think I have an answer to a question that plagued me for a while: why is physics scary?

It's scary because it's the first (and last) exposure to multi-step, multi-tool problem solving in math and science.
I had a high school student who found precalculus easy (or at least manageable, even that nasty stuff toward the end) but struggled mightily with physics problem solving. I couldn't figure it out for a while.

At first I thought it was that I found it easier to teach precalculus; the book is set up nicely, and I don't have to worry about abstract concepts (except insofar that I tried to tie it to useful stuff).

Then I thought maybe it had to do with the student having a weak science background. But by her own admission, she had both a weak math and science background.

It wasn't work ethic; this student worked a lot, both in class and outside. (I was dorm RA, so I knew studying was happening even outside of school hours.)

And I couldn't just chalk it up to "being Chinese", and the stereotype that Asian education consists of rote memorization and drills, leading to mathematical fluency but deficient creativity. (I secretly suspect this is an excuse perpetuated by Westerners to ignore the severe gap in educational readiness vis a vis other nations.) "Western" students in the same classes exhibited this pattern, too.

Eventually, it came down to this multi-step, multi-tool problem. Both she and I determined this independently.

***

In the typical high school math class, you solve problems by using a single trick or tool.

In biology, you mostly memorize a bunch of concepts and vocabulary, which are evidently important skills in the first year of med school.

Chemistry presents perhaps the strongest challenge to this thesis. It is possible to generate a multi-step, multi-tool problem in chemistry. There's a reaction, and you have to figure out it's yield and reaction type. First, you might have to do some stoichiometry to balance the equation. Then, you might have to figure out Lewis structures to determine the number and type of bonds, and then calculate the binding dissociation energies. You can then figure out if the equation is endothermic or exothermic. Maybe you adjust the calculation using phase transitions. Then you can determine molar masses, and compare the expected mass to the measured mass, or some other contrived number that allows you to calculate the yield.

So maybe chemistry is the first opportunity. But my experience indicates that plenty of students muddle through chemistry and hit a solid brick wall when they take physics. So there's something different about it.

I think chemistry, in principle, can be taught with emphasis on using multi-step, multi-tool problems to solve chemistry problems. But in practice, it looks like that's not done. I don't have a good explanation why that is; I've never taught a chemistry course. (Those who tutor, teach or study chemistry: your input is definitely welcome.)

***

In general, in the sciences, the problem statements are longer and more involved, making it less practical to have students do a number of problems on a single concept to hammer it in (as it's done in math). As much as we'd like to think otherwise, repetition and drills really do help cement a concept.

Maybe physics would be better if we could better segment subject material, and have more practice problems limited to one topic. This is different than how most textbooks are set up. Most of the better textbooks I've seen have, at the end of the chapter, problems grouped by topic, and prefaced with qualitative questions. It's not like a math book, where the section/chapter problems are divided into clusters in which you are asked to basically do the same thing over and over.

Physics, as a multi-step, multi-tool discipline, requires that all the tools work, and all the steps are clear. Maybe in other classes, even chemistry, a student can half-ass Lewis structures and still get an A. But it's just not possible to half-ass, say, linear momentum and be able to learn the rest. (Chemists: feel free to quibble and argue that the analogy ain't fair; I'll argue that even precious PV=nRT can be botched without irreparable damage to the rest of chemistry learning and the final grade.)

I'm not arguing that physics is better, or necessarily more complicated. But it is different.

Anyway, I think I'm going to revise how I teach physics. I basically need to generate drills, in addition to the problem-solving organizational methods that I'd ask them to use to convey their knowledge in a solution.