I didn't have a very good teaching day today. For whatever reason, I got very frustrated with my students not listening to me and questioning me in very bizarre ways.
I guess mainly I get worked up when students completely misunderstand how education works. They complain en masse, doing this group-moaning thing which grates on me, whenever they receive any information contrary to what they've been previously told. It's not that they just give weird looks and ask why - they actually shut down and stop listening completely. I sit there and explain that science changes every day, that from the time I studied until now, many things have changed and even books aren't 100% right...ever. Well, it's a hard pill to swallow.
I guess the root of it is that there's no connection made between school and life. If you study a plant, you should be able to ascertain its medicinal or nutritional value when you eat it that night. If you study the geography of Mozambique, you should be able to figure out why it flooded in 2000, etc. The information learned - er, memorized - in school is only seen as applicable for school purposes, the only feeler getting outside the bubble of school being the certificate you receive that magically leads you in to the world of employment.
And so the workforce can't do simple math, predict basic chemical reactions or speak sufficient Portuguese in many cases. Which would take a miraculous educational system, to be sure, but it seems that this one is on the other side of that spectrum.
And so though I may try to motivate my students to learn genetics because I seem to enjoy it, there is very little internal motivation especially when most applications of it are so foreign and require so much education. They just want to pass the exams and I'm inclined to agree with them.
Peace
John
