Microwaves and Nutrients

We have an infant in our midst who is still new to eating solid food. One day my wife and I were talking about heating up our daughter’s food in the microwave to make it more palatable and wondered if using the microwave was “safe”. I believed it would be fine since I trust most of modern technology – not that the microwave would be considered truly modern – but my wife’s concern revolved around the loss of nutritional value as a consequence of the food getting zapped. As it turns out, this is an often-cited issue concerning microwaves and one that I had simply pushed aside. When thinking about the issue I realized it is not without some merit and though I am typically disdainful of fear-driven beliefs without substantial, empirical backing, I decided to check it out.


Microwaves lie on the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and radio waves, all of which have longer wavelengths than light in the visible range and sit on the opposite end of the spectrum from x-rays and UV. Microwave ovens use microwave frequencies around 2.5 gigahertz which are generated by the magnetron tube after stepping up the AC voltage from your wall socket to a high DC voltage. This frequency of microwaves is absorbed by fats, sugars and, more importantly, water. The microwaves affects the vibration of these molecules and it is this altered atomic motion that generates heat and cooks the surrounding bits. Unlike a conventional oven, the heat is not conducted from the outside in; rather it generates everywhere at once though wave penetration varies by substance and may generate hotspots and uneven cooking. The lack of external heat is also what causes the characteristic sogginess of some food you have probably encountered.


To address the question posed about nutrients, it appears that all legitimate sites state food cooked in the microwave is safe and the loss of nutrients is unremarkable in most foods when compared to traditional cooking methods. (If you wonder how I determine a site’s “legitimacy”, I typically trust sites with .edu in their addresses, especially if it is their own study they are reporting and sites that cite their sources are better than ones which do not, but those with emotional language or pleas concerning humanity or greatness of uncooked foods are out (didn’t humans develop the means to produce fire?). Dancing characters of any sort are also big deterrents.)


The largest cause of nutrient loss is due to heat over time, aka “cooking” – since there are shorter cook times in the microwave, food is often less affected by the cooking than with conventional methods. This is particularly true for blanching since the longer food is in the boiling water, the more nutrients leach out. There is even indication that bacon is better cooked in the microwave since it produces fewer nitrosamines, a carcinogenic by-product, through the process. Some noted exceptions to the above statement include a loss of ascorbic acid, which is damaged at a higher rate than through conventional methods and the deactivation of B12′s active form. Heating breast milk should also not be heated in the microwave because of the effects on it’s anti-infective properties; however, I wouldn’t recommend microwave warmed liquids for babies anyway due to the uneven heating and development of hot spots.


A noted study from Universidad Complutense Madrid in Spain discussed how different cooking methods affected antioxidant levels. They found that, along with grilled and baked foods, food cooked in the microwave maintained the highest levels of antioxidants varying greatly on the individual vegetable and antioxidant with ranges from no loss to around 50% loss from cauliflower, a few vegetables such as carrots, celery and green beans even increasing their antioxidant levels. It was again shown that methods which utilized water, such as boiling and pressure-cooking, were the greatest culprits in causing the loss of antioxidants.


What all this tells us is most foods are fine when prepared in the microwave. Though I prefer the subtle influences that are imparted by slower methods of stovetop simmering and won’t be serving up any roast and potatoes or chicken roulade a la microwave, I don’t feel a twinge of guilt placing my family’s leftovers on the turntable and hitting the “quick cook” button to reheat. We are careful with the temperature of our children’s food and have a pretty diverse diet to encompass a wider pool of nutrients so we are not concerned with some loss here and there. Microwave ovens are ubiquitous in our society and provide a safe convenience to modern life, but I don’t personally believe they should replace either the care or the art of the home-cooked meal.

Greene, Moss. “Healthy Microwave Cooking of Vegetables”. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52758.asp. Retrieved 2011-Jul-23.

Jiménez-Monreal et al. ”Influence of Cooking Methods on Antioxidant Activity of Vegetables“. Journal of Food Science, 2009; 74 (3): H97 DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-3841.2009.01091.x

Lassen, Anne; Ovesen, Lars (1 January 1995). “Nutritional effects of microwave cooking”. Nutrition & Food Science 95 (4): 8–10. doi:10.1108/00346659510088654.

“Microwave cooking and nutrition”. Family Health Guide. Harvard Medical School. http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Microwave-cooking-and-nutrition.shtml. Retrieved 2011-July-23.

O’Connor, Anahad (October 17, 2006). “The Claim: Microwave Ovens Kill Nutrients in Food”. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/health/17real.html.

M. A. Osinboyejo, L. T. Walker, S. Ogutu, and M. Verghese. “Effects of microwave blanching vs. boiling water blanching on retention of selected water-soluble vitamins in turnip greens using HPLC”. National Center for Home Food Preservation, University of Georgia. http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/papers/2003/03iftturnipgreensposter.html. Retrieved 2011-Jul-23.

Quan R, Yang C, Rubinstein S, et al. (April 1992). “Effects of microwave radiation on anti-infective factors in human milk”. Pediatrics 89 (4 Pt 1): 667–9. PMID 1557249.

Scanlan, Richard A. “Nitrosamines and Cancer“. The Linus Pauling Institute – Oregon State University. November 2000.

Fumio Watanabe, Katsuo Abe, Tomoyuki Fujita, Mashahiro Goto, Miki Hiemori, Yoshihisa Nakano (January 1998). “Effects of Microwave Heating on the Loss of Vitamin B(12) in Foods”. J. Agric. Food Chem. 46 (1): 206–210. doi:10.1021/jf970670x. PMID 10554220. http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jafcau/1998/46/i01/abs/jf970670x.html.

Books of 2011

As the year comes to a close, I look back at the books I've read. Here is my list with stars beside my favorites.

Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

The Garden of Eden - Ernest Hemingway *

Imperial Bedrooms - Bret Easton Ellis

Sunstorm - Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter

The Odyssey - Homer

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

Banana: The Fruit that Changed the World - Dan Koeppel *

The Prism and the Rainbow - Joel W. Martin *

Moonlight Mile - Dennis Lehane *

Unscientific America - Chris Mooney

Jurassic Park - Micheal Crichton

The Lost Books of the Odyssey - Zachary Mason *

Napolean's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History - Penny Le Conteur and Jay Burreson *

FirstBorn - Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter

Uncle Tungsten - Oliver Sacks

Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones *

The Mystery of Edwin Drood - Charles Dickens

For the Love of Physics - Walter Lewin *

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein

Galileo's Dream - Kim Stanley Robinson *

Book of Daniel - E. L. Doctorow

The Planets - Dava Sobel *

Atonement - Ian McEwan *

Comfort of Strangers - Ian McEwan

Solar - Ian McEwan

Tabloid City - Pete Hamill

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler *

Beating Back the Devil - Maryn McKenna *

God, no! - Penn Jillette

The Nature of Human Nature - Carin Bondar *

Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart *

The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth - Richard Conniff *

The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell * (I think this is probably the one that I was impacted the most by.)

Contact - Carl Sagan

Wow, I think this was a Sci-Fi year. A lot of good books and a few great ones. I was introduced to several new authors and enjoyed previously unread classics. I also read more non-fiction than usual and most of those were starred above.

My top five from the above list?

1. The Sparrow

2. Atonement

3. The Garden of Eden

4. Napolean's Buttons

5. Galileo's Dream

If you have any thoughts about the list or any suggestions for 2012, let me know.

Enjoy the Show!

Let's Talk About Evolution

I was introduced to this video recently through various social networks. It contains several scientists I follow through twitter and their individual blogging endeavors. I feel obligated to share since I often write about my own mediocre thoughts concerning evolution in my posts. If you have already seen the video, you certainly don't need any additional commentary from me. If you haven't, then, all I can say is here ya go. I think those in the video are much more capable than I. (I will add an aside. Dr. Carin Bondar's analogy sums up my thoughts concerning the debate.)

Let's talk about evolution


Enjoy the Show!

My Daughter is a Monkey and so Can You!

I have noticed a lot of evolution talk lately. I don't know if it's a hot topic because of the phylogeny changes written about in Science and discussed on Coyne's site, or because of the stupid comments made by Bill O'Reilly regarding Richard Dawkins in their ongoing feud - or should I say O'Reilly's crusade. Maybe there is something special going on to which I am not privy. Is November "Evolution Month"? Perhaps there's absolutely nothing special going on and it's somewhat random. Whatever the reason, I can't think of a more serendipitous time to post this piece.

If you've read some of my previous posts, you'll know that I have a bit of a - relationship to the subject of evolution because of my childhood. I believed it was an agenda-based belief system that was outside of science and an affront to religious understanding. My view has since changed. I hold a fascination and a lot of respect for the subject. I haven't converted or been persuaded by a believer. I once denied evolution out of hand, but now I know better and so can you. Simply open your eyes and look around.
Let me start by saying my daughter is a monkey.
This, of course, is not true. However, if you were to see my daughter you might have to think about it. Imagine the infant here with much lighter coloring and less hair and you might actually have my daughter in mind. I love it!
I was watching my wife feed our daughter recently and it really struck me how animal it appeared. I didn't think, "How sweet!" or "Isn't it beautiful and wonderful?" I didn't ooh and ahh at the calm bonding of the woman and child before me. Perhaps I've grown desensitized by having seen each of our four children breast-feed for a year apiece. Perhaps my daughter's noisy gulping or the use of her feet during eating is simply too distracting. I don't mean to present myself as a detached or cynical observer. I do see the beauty. I love my children and marvel at my wife's nurturing capabilities. (My wife just said it's 'cause she's like a comic -that's a reference to my use of 'marvel,' by the way. You must understand that my wife's sense of humor is underdeveloped and hasn't yet evolved.)
Just by chance, I had been reading The Nature of Human Nature by Dr. Carin Bondar. The synopsis on the back begins with, "Members of the human species behave as though we are vastly separate from other animals." That's such a great statement, isn't it? I had wanted to read this book since I first learned of it because of its premise. It's a fun foray into the subject, covering lots of examples and the easy style with which it is written makes it accessible to a wide variety of experience levels. One of my favorite facets of Dr. Bondar's book, and her persona across the web, is simply the enthusiasm she brings. We should see our natural world enthusiastically and be constantly considering how we figure into it alongside our biological brethren.
My own imagination has put into mind several things. The first and foremost of which is how incredible it is that our children, derived from ourselves through our genes and then influences, emerge as fully individual entities. As they socialize (i.e. learn new tricks) I see them for the animals they are which is not hard to do with four kids. However, despite all the similarities to our hairier cousins, the striking point is really how far we've come as a species.
The purpose of all this rambling really comes down to, as a father, I see our connection to the rest of the animal kingdom and therefore, suggestions of evolution all the time. In fact, I can no longer image the world of people without evolution. Watching my children develop is akin to a curtain blowing open just a bit to where I have discerned the stage and players in between sets of a production.
And it's brought up all kinds of entertaining questions.
*Warning - Spoiler Alert* The following statements are purely the musings of an evolutionary novice and father of four equally yet independently crazy children. My wife and I share our bed with the youngest: i.e. haven't had a complete night's sleep at home in at least two years since we had also previously shared it with her brother. So one should not take anything that follows as gospel.
Question #1: How could we ever have evolved to a point where we must take care of our children for so long? Where is the fitness in that?
Those of us who are normal collectively have only enough children to keep the population at a plus, the others have television shows and book deals. This means that we really don't produce a lot of kids and early on the growth in population would have been slow. Obviously, we now have the ability to keep our children alive in ways we didn't possess when we walked out of Africa. As we tarried north during the last ice age, was it our budding mental capacities that kept us alive? I can't believe that the energy lost during the raising of Sally-gluck-gluck for so many years helped out much.
I'd like to think that we could somehow conceptualize or anticipate the difficulties of the move and the need for us to cozy up to our newly acquired constant companions the dog or our dumb but warm cousins the Neanderthals helped us survive. At some point our thoughtfulness led to survival and completely belied the extremely long bout of virtual helplessness that our children continue to exhibit.
(I must interject here that my two year old just came to me to show how naked and therefore unprotected he currently is. This is clearly not a survival instinct.)
Now, yes, I know that evolution is not intentional or "upwardly" directional and hasn't been leading to us. There is no chimpanzee that thinks, "I like these cigarettes so much that I want to be human so I can buy them myself."

Smoking Chimp

There's no Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics driving others to gain our big brains and bad backs. So it must have been the mutational development of those big brains that allowed us to out-survive our hardier kin.
I realize that what we are currently is nothing like what we were then. I don't mean our technology and society, rather our ability, physically and mentally, to generate those things. We couldn't have just gone from an animal that walked on all fours with our young tucked away in a nest of sorts to one walking upright with screaming babies on our backs. There had to have been earlier versions of we were to become. Case in point: my daughter, who is totally mellow most of the time(the rest of the time she's awake), screeches at such decibels that it makes our older children's previous volumes seem muted. I'm not sure, but I'm fairly certain that, given half a chance, predators of yore would not have allowed that attribute to persist.
Question #2: Even with our evident loss of animal instincts, how can anyone deny our stupid animal-like behaviors?
It's hard enough being a parent. There is a constant re-evaluation of what matters and what makes sense. In addition, on any given day, my children invoke their inner monkeys, dogs, squirrels, birds and fungi. If we had arrived fully form, made from scratch as it were, without any intermediate forms, then why must we socialize our children? Why should we need to tell them to lower their voices, stop running with dangerous objects in their hands, stop hitting their siblings and stop playing with their genitals at the lunch table? Our actions and attitudes as children so closely mirror behaviors seen in the animal kingdom that it's hard to discount the connection.
Even as adolescents and adults we exhibit behaviors that are not supported by our societal norms but rather suggest our lineage, such as certain posturing and mating behaviors. They don't compare in complexity or beauty to the rituals of various bird species we've become familiar. (There is currently a buck outside our window that is missing one antler and has a bloody back flank. We don't have to go through that, thank goodness.) Perhaps our species would be better off if we did participate in a more elaborate mate-selection process. Would we all look like Greek heroes with brains like Einstein? I don't mean that we should practice eugenics or anything, even dogs don't do that. Besides a distinguishing aspect of humans as a species is our society and our sense of responsibility to and for our fellow members and those of other species.
Question #3: Sure, we are still very limited in our experience of the rest of the universe and it doesn't help that we know of no similar life out in the cosmos, but what is so unbelievable about evolution? Why is it so hard to accept that we are part of the same system that regulates the rest of life?
I remember thinking as a child that if evolution were true then we would see monkeys becoming humans all the time. I now realize how flawed my logic had been and am disappointed when I come across similar statements from others. It's okay to not understand evolution, but I feel that any adult saying something to that effect is ridiculous. I previously posted some thoughts on this topic. I also mentioned a guy who said to me he believed in evolution, just not human evolution. When I hear anyone make a declaration like that, it makes me want to jab 'em in the coccyx. Look, we're all in this boat together. We eat, breathe, sleep, reproduce and die in such fundamentally similar ways that evolution is undeniable in my book. The thing that distinguishes us most is our complex culture. Just as whales have a culture and ants have a culture and bees and birds and monkeys each have cultures, we have our own distinct and varied culture. Of course, for humans geography is our greatest determining factor, whereas other animals are governed by their species.
My last point is I think it's a shame that many people with a faith-based belief system feel a need to discredit the obvious. If you're a believer, then "...with God, all things are possible." And how awesome is His creation? If you're not a believer then how awesome is this mechanism of nature? It's a net win either way. I overcame my prejudice and learned something in the process and so can you.
In summary: my daughter is not really a monkey, but she looks like one. My kids are all crazy animals but have no survival instincts and many of their actions probably reduce fitness, but I love them anyway. Neanderthals were probably dumb yet warm friends- with-benefits. And even religious people can believe in evolution without giving up their faith.
Expect more from me about this in the future, but for now I need to go and save my son from himself.

What Science Means to Me

Before I joined the Army, before I became a bonafide science nerd, I was a literature student -you can infer whatever you want with that information. I feel compelled to reveal that despite having written a paper on Bartleby the Scrivener, I've never finished Melville's opus Moby Dick. I read enough to have a favorite sentence stick in my mind, though. It is not the famous first, "Call me Ishmael." It is the fourth:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet: and especially whenever my hypos gets such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principal to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

If you're like me, you might be wondering, "What the hell is hypos?" A quick Googling will give a couple of hits. Hypoglycemic? Well maybe the confusion associated with being in this state. Hyposulphite? No, that's now referred to as thiosulphate. Perhaps you're one who already knows it means, "a morbid depression of spirit". - Isn't that beautiful? (If each of these suppositions was accompanied with a strong sense of I don't give a shit you should probably stop reading now.) Also, you might wonder what any of this have to do with science. Hint: it doesn't have anything to do with the taxonomy of whales.
It was my own sense of this feeling which Ishmael describes that led me to join the Army in 2000. I was sick of explaining to counselors that a literature degree was not an English degree and that their university studies program didn't apply to me since I was also on a separate education track. Besides, I didn't want to work in a restaurant or play the role of someone's punching bag for the rest of my life. Instead I wanted to live in Germany and perhaps pursue my other interest, medicine. (That "ER" really made me question my choice in not going straight to college. )
What I discovered through this dramatic restructuring of my life was that I really enjoyed time in Germany, providing care for people who truly needed my help and a previously unfelt desire to continue my education. My education ultimately didn't lead to a medical degree (see previous post), but it did cause me to uncover a love for science that I hadn't realized I harbored.
Science, in its various incarnations, has since filled my imagination. I want to spread my affection for science to others - the Theatre ZOO is one venue to have sprang from this drive. Friends and family sometimes laugh from my presentation of correlations concerning practically everything around us. I "see" physics in light and water and sound everywhere I go. I consider biology wherever I go and have been found recording birds on my phone or staring at tree structure while at military trainings. I get defensive about topics concerning education spending and delivery, evolution and even space exploration.
Since I am not currently a science practitioner, I must be content with being an enthusiast.
Below is a short list of specific examples to illustrate the impact science has made on my thoughts.
Bio 102 - Though I took a lot of other, higher level Biology courses, my first and one of the fondest memories and impacts came from talking genetics in this early course. My professor, Lesley Blair, started each class with music. She wore vests and laughed a lot at life. She ranked better than any of the professors for the "serious" courses. For our genetics lab, we were each given a set of numbers and could only "mate" with others that fit into a certain range. It was initially an awkward, high school memory-inducing period, but it was also funny and informative. Once the males in the class got over the whole homoerotic aspect, people loosened up and tried to get better mates. In the end we learned how species divergence happens - a topic I further explored through evolution. During that time I looked at my children differently. As parents, we often find ourselves staring at our kids in a way one is not permitted to do so in polite society, but this gave me a new filter. "Where did those dimples come from?" It was no longer merely a matter of he has your hair or your eyes or skin tone. My ears have been more tuned in to certain subjects on the news. Genetic links to personality, friends and political affiliations have been found and discussed a lot lately. I learned more information in my actual genetics course, but it was trying to hook-up with a mate in lab that really started my understanding and interest in the subject.
BB 541 - The summer that I was taking my biochemistry series, my wife and I were expecting our third son. We were approaching the due date and I was approaching a midterm. During the summer sessions OSU packs a ten-week course into four weeks, so one doesn't want to miss any classes since so much is covered each day. The professor was an intelligent, though socially inept, individual who looked like Kenny Rogers and once got lost in his own example of protein folding. He was discussing amino acid synthesis. I imagined these described microscopic interactions taking place at an exponential rate inside my wife, adding layers of proteins to skin, bones and muscles, developing lungs that would soon breathe air and a gut that would need food. I told my professor of the upcoming event and he readily excused me from the exam in case it happened on a class day. I think it was that very evening as I was about to go to work that my wife suggested I come home instead. Though I don't remember the specifics about the lesson, I do remember the images - ala Hollywood - of our growing child streaming across the screen of my mind.
ST 351 - I really didn't care much for Statistics.

Statistics

It wasn't very difficult or anything, it's simply that it was bullshit. Sure it's important and in the right hands can be used for good. However, as my friend wrote in my notebook during class, Stats = best guess. I did enjoy the number play and that is what I think about concerning the discipline. There was a regular customer who came into the restaurant I worked who had been an engineer and consequently loved both statistics and physics. Something had come across the news one day, I think it concerned Bush being a good president - I don't remember exactly what it was other than that it concerned Bush. Whatever it had been irritated him enough that he felt compelled to utilize his knowledge of statistics to figure out the intelligence of our populace. He posted his conclusions on a blog with all his data and pretty charts and graphs - he was an engineer, as I said. His findings using a mean IQ and typical Std Devs ultimately showed that most people were morons. It was completely manipulated and biased and funny as hell.
PH 201 - I'll be brief concerning physics. Much of the field is admittedly beyond me, though I maintain a respect and awe of the subject. I imagine arrows in light rays and the forces that cause water to roll over itself. In a nutshell, everything looks different to me now.
These are only a few examples, but the give a good sense of how science has since impacted my viewpoint. I still read as though it's my sustenance, but now fiction is interspersed with books about mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics. I don't find that there is a disparity between these two aspects of my interests. The answer to the question from above, how my interaction with Moby Dick plays into science is simply this; I want to know things that others may not care about. Reading has generated a love for the stories of life and science has enriched my understanding. Each is a kind of investigation; one is for the emotional world and the other is for the physical world. I still battle my own hypos, especially in this economic environment, but I feel that someday, with the knowledge I have gained, I will find my white whale. Until then, call me Ishmael.BI 445 - I took evolution as an elective while I was waiting for a military course I needed to attend after graduation. I really don't understand why this is not a mandatory class for every science student. I'm pretty sure that the straight Biology students needed it, but it wasn't required for the general science, pre-med or nursing tracks. I know it's touched on in general biology and then one takes genetics (which is also touched upon), but one doesn't get the richness of the subject until one attends a dedicated course. This class affected me as much because of my background (see previous post again) as anything else. It was like getting stitches taken out. I no longer had to support it with such rudimentary understanding, I could now support it with college credit to back up my support. Speciation is my favorite aspect. Perhaps I think of it as a type of relationship where individuals ultimately part ways because of differing interests and paths. I don't know. Maybe it's enabled me to rebel even more against my childhood. Maybe it just made sense to me. Whatever it is, I now look at the life around me through a different set of eyes.
Enjoy the Show!

My Sad Education

There's been a lot written about education and the education system lately. The stories include cuts in education due to the economy, the Wisconsin Governor taking away teachers' rights to collective bargaining and other financially centered dialogues. There has also been a bit, albeit in smaller, specialized circles of talk concerning actual teaching and learning.
Two interesting articles that I've come across and will refer to tangentially are Andrea Kuszewski's The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience and Jeanne Garbarino's Education Reform in the Wrong Direction: High-Stake Consequences for New York State Teachers and Their Students. (Both posts appear on Scientific American's excellent new blog network.) Each article addresses important problems that our educational system faces and I recommend checking them out and following wherever they may further lead you.
My own story started a long time ago in a land far away, East Texas during the 80's and early 90's. Though I wasn't self-taught, I was a competent early reader. The only reason I believe this is because it was a significantly odd enough event that I would read to a girl who I shared puppy love with as we waited for her bus to arrive after school during 2nd grade. (My son A, who I will mention later, reads 100-1000x more than I ever considered at that age.) By third grade I was already publicly considering skipping a grade. My parents and teachers did not put this into my head and I have no idea of where the notion came from. All I know it that I already showed signs of discontent with the system. It didn't manifest itself in a 'I hate school!' manner but rather as an 'I want more!'
Not surprising, a collage of my early academic memories reflect more the setting than any scholastic endeavors. In the mixture are various social situations, projectile vomiting, a fourth grade teacher sending me to the office for having sucked hickeys onto my arm out of boredom, a friend demonstrating his break-dancing skills, bathroom hi-jinx, witnessing behavior that was entirely inappropriate for our ages, getting paddled for jumping on some hay bales which were setup for game day and performing something like 20 pull-ups during my team's turn on that same day. In fifth grade I decided that I wanted to be an accountant because I enjoyed math so much. My teacher said, "No", that my handwriting was too messy. She told me I should be a doctor. I don't think she based this on anything academic.
In middle school, I had some clashes with an art teacher who really liked my art (the less effort I put into it, the more she seemed to appreciate it) but didn't like my attitude. The Challenger exploded shortly after take-off as schoolchildren across the country watched. The classroom I happened to sit in didn't see it but I got to hear many of the kids in the halls claim that it had been the Russians. I can't recall anyone in the administration refuting the claim. I didn't actually discover girls at this time; rather, I discovered that girls were becoming even more interesting than I had previously believed. I also discovered that my abilities at participating in school sporting events were lacking. You can make your own inferences on how these two discoveries worked together. At some point in there, my parents bought me The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible and Noah's Ark and the Lost World. The day I took my advanced placement exam for mathematics, I had a fever and performed poorly before getting sent home. The next year I floated through math and urged my teacher to let me skip the pre-algebra stage. Thankfully, she did.
In high school I was your typical underachiever. I took more 'honors' courses than our valedictorian, but I rarely felt challenged or driven and never learned any proper or effective study habits. I continued to enjoy math, excelled at algebra and performed well in the courses up through Trig -Calculus wasn't offered until the year after I graduated. I also liked the other sciences whenever I maintained my focus. However, when I discovered that our physical science teacher believed in evolution, I remember declaring that I would walk out of the room if she tried to teach it to me. (My awesome biology teacher would never commit to her stance on evolution. I realize now that had she discounted it she would have said so. She was a smart cookie and knew the political ramifications of any response she gave whether it was given on or off the record.) My physical science teacher never addressed the issue, and my initial resistance was replaced with an appreciation for her intelligence, patience (something I fear teachers very much needed with me) and friendliness, though her teaching capabilities and command of the classroom was lacking. A distinct memory I have concerning her is when she received our school's first laser, a friend and I were given virtually free range to experiment with it. Though we were never successful creating the hologram we attempted, we had lots of fun sending the beam down and around the halls with pocket mirrors where it ended as a giant splash of swirling, pulsating red light. I think she enjoyed our enthusiasm as she anxiously graded papers. In addition to teaching physical science our freshman year, she taught chemistry to us in 11th grade and that year she made a bet with me that I could get an 'A' on the following exam. I told her that I knew I could, so, for her benefit, I attended a study session which mostly consisted of me dickering with some odd piece of equipment while the others in the group studied. I got the A and my teacher beamed, "See, I knew you could do it." To which I replied simply, "I knew I could, and now I never have to prove it again." Her face fell and I felt somewhat saddened that I had caused that expression.
Histories held little interest for me in high school, but I did possess a passion for literature. It was evident enough that during 10th grade a conscientious coach allowed me to study in the library or read during my half year of required P.E. following an incident with a bully and a bat (nobody got hurt, by the way, but the bully did later go on to commit suicide). I enjoyed verbally sparring with my intelligent, yet somewhat testy freshman English teacher, barely knew my 10th grade teacher -who incidentally looked like Ursala from The Little Mermaid, retired mid-year to sell dried flowers, had a good 11th grade teacher but held little respect for my 12th grade instructor. I felt she was disingenuous, using gimmicks to get her students' admiration. ("Why should you not assume? Because it makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me." Really?) Here are the two situations that most confirmed my initial impression: Assignment 1)Write a short story consisting of a group of vocabulary words (this project I actually got excited about). My story ended up being about 25 pages. She actually let out a sigh when I turned it in. I got an 'A', but the problem was that there were absolutely no errors or corrections. I'm not that good now, I wasn't that good then. Assignment 2)Research paper. We were given 6 weeks in class to complete it, several weeks of which we sat in the library. I chose to attend college English that year, forgoing high school Physics since I couldn't stand to be at that school the extra hour it required. As it so happened, that research paper was also assigned. We were given two weeks on our own time to complete the work. I got a 'B' on my college paper and failed the high school report. That, in itself, was enough suck but the real kicker for me was that I didn't really fail. The paper had an initial passing score of 70% -I admit that I hadn't put much effort into it - written in the standard red ink like everyone else but added, or rather subtracted, below that in black ink sat a -1, bringing the final, recorded grade to a failing 69%. I shrugged it off as an amazing display of audacity. Luckily, as I mentioned above, my high school English experience wasn't a complete wash; I did have a good 11th grade English teacher. She respected her subject and respected her students. She mentored appropriately and was firm when required. She taught one period of debate which, because of her personality, I also took. I did alright for a novice and enjoyed myself in their small circle. That is until I got myself arrested.
I won't go into it here, but I will say that the reasons were all tied into my academic experience, as well as the aforementioned suicide, and I learned something more valuable from the incident than what curriculum the school taught. I grew even more cynical of the environment - my guidance counselor served as primary word twister and situation over-blower -, I but continued to desire knowledge. Fast forward through some college in England -undertaken for England's sake, not education's-, several unrelated courses, a crappy novel while working as a busser and finally a genuine attempt at a literature degree since it became obvious to me I wasn't going to write full-time. I grew disillusioned by the literary racket the more I learned. My motivation dropped to nil so I chose to take a sabbatical and joined the Army as a medic.
*Cue patriotic music* I found myself in a place where I couldn't quit, removed my 'self', in a sense, from the equation and did very well. After several years in Germany and a couple of deployments -should I include getting stationed in Oklahoma?- I requested to be discharged and allowed to go back to school to study science with the intent of returning as a military doctor. *You may return to regular soundtrack now* My study habits underwent a severe overhaul and I had to fight an uphill battle of circumstances. Though I never quite reached the level of achievement I had hoped for, I did raise the flat 'B' from two years as a Literature student to almost a 'B+'. Not too bad considering I hadn't taken a math or hard science course in over 15 years, but we all know 'not too bad' is not good enough for medical school. This was a difficult concept for me to accept at first, but my re-found enjoyment of science has helped to cushion the blow. My mind has been exposed to countless paths to which my interests turn depending on the hour of the day or by whatever topic I am exposed. As a young man I may have fantasized that I could become some kind of savant, but the wisdom I've gained has revealed otherwise. Heartbreaking, right? Well, I live vicariously through, and hold an amount of pride in, knowing that most of my friends are more intelligent than I. It's not so bad since it helps keep me grounded and interested. So, I suppose what I really wanted to drive in, since I am currently waiting to enter into a graduate program about 15 years late, is that I have been going through a lot of reflection lately. I have come to acknowledge my own faults and failures, my own strengths and limitations. As well, I realize the obstacles within my earlier environment and the weaknesses of the system.
This all leads to my interest in Andrea Kuszewski's and Jeanne Garbarino's articles. You can read the articles yourself and I highly recommend that you do. It will give you a better idea of the situation that our nation is finding itself in and will clarify the remainder of this post.
After reading Kuszewski, I performed a little test of my own with my oldest child. It was a simple sequencing series. The instructions that I gave 'A' were merely to complete the series. He probed me for more definitive guidance but I refrained. Below are the results.

The top row is pretty straight-forward. His middle completion is interesting because it wasn't the sides that he added but rather the corners (the third image I drew in the series has marks where he showed me what he was attempting since he wasn't satisfied with his final product.) The bottom, I found to be his best. 'A' stated flatly that he felt he wouldn't be capable of adding additional lines to the series so he simply drew a hashtag in its place. He acknowledged his limitation as a 7 year old and reinvented the parameters. (Perhaps I'm just a proud papa, but I've seen this kid create a pattern with colored macaroni complex enough that his teacher didn't see it. I discovered the sequence through accident and a cup of coffee and had my suspicion confirmed by having him describe his intent to me.) Andrea was right! Children will find more novel approaches if left to devise something on their own. Other issues she addresses in her article and my own prejudices concerning the current methods are the reasons we pulled our school-aged children out of the system.
However, though schools should and need to allow for thoughtful creativity and a significant free flow of discovery, the responsibility can't sit solely on the shoulders of the teachers. As my own experiences can attest, the students have to be held somewhat accountable. They must put in the effort and meet the standards set before them. We can't determine the value of the teacher merely through the performance of the students. As Garbarino discusses, doing so will simply incapacitate our teachers, lead them to "teach the test" and further degrade the system.
We need to encourage a new paradigm for both the teachers and the students to increase the effectiveness of our schools. I don't know that there is any 'silver bullet' method to address either of these problems, but I agree with both Kuszewski's call to actually use the methods that have been demonstrated to work and Garbarino's assertion that teachers shouldn't need to become robots in the classroom to retain their jobs.
During my own sad education, I fought against every effort to subjugate me or box me in. However, the teachers who allowed me more freedom to show creativity, and those who pushed me and held me more accountable were the ones who got the most out of me and I don't hold them liable for any of my own shortcomings. For those willing to make the effort, I am grateful, I only wish I had realized more fully what they were trying to say to me sooner.