I hate the sensation that I've passed a student who promises to be a menace to society. I'd deserve it if it were my fault for being a softie, but I use my tenure to do my best not to be one. This is not without considerable effort, often fighting other people whose jobs it should be to maintain standards. (One is our Incompetent Dean of Students, who does precisely nothing whenever I report plagiarism to him.)
What I mean here is that queasy feeling I get whenever a student who legitimately has passed, fair and square, but promises to do real harm, anyway. I know what to do with engineers who can't do math, or with premeds who can't demonstrate expertise in science: flunk them, and design my courses so that they do flunk. And I do, and too many for the comfort of our Provost, but students who pass my classes must never become sources of public danger: I won't have it.
What's bothering me here specifically is getting students like this one who simply couldn't get her mind around the Doppler effect. This was because it requires that one keep two ideas in one's mind at the same time, and she simply could not.
(The Doppler effect is that: [1] the motion of a source of light [2] changes the color of its light. One can explain this without having to mention waves or the sound of a train whistle, but it's really not possible to simplify it any more. The Doppler effect is how Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is expanding and therefore apparently had a definite beginning in time. It's also how astronomers more recently have discovered black holes and planets around other stars, all of which are important enough that I have no business leaving the Doppler effect out of the course.)
She repeatedly and loudly complained about it, as if there was anything I could do, but I really couldn't: it simply was too much for her mind. Didn't Euclid once say to a king who complained to him that math is hard, "There is no royal road to geometry?"
She managed to get a C in Intro-Astronomy-for-Non-Majors anyway, and therefore fulfilled her general-ed requirement. Still, I felt queasy. She was majoring in Human Resources Management. I could far too easily see her as the H.R. manager from hell, I hope not at some hospital, lab, or engineering firm, where she could be deadly with her inability to understand what they do.
So, what do I do? Please don't tell me not to sweat it because general ed isn't a big deal, because I think it is. I've never lowered a student's grade for conduct, general ineptitude, or any reason other than deliverables, the way teachers could do when I was a boy, but that was a wee while ago.
It's funny that you think "scopes for dopes" is such an accurate filter for the full range of future human behavior. Do you let students know in your syllabus that if they fail to perform in your course they will probably become future serial murders?
ReplyDeleteIt's true! Studies have shown that 4 out of 5 killers do not understand the Doppler effect. And I've yet to meet a scary HR person who does, even though it's essential to performing that job.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, it's comments from people like the one described in the original post: people incapable of holding two thoughts in their head, and thus not realizing that it's not *the Doppler effect* that the original poster is worried about, but rather the inability of said student to think about anything beyond the simplest of propositions.
ReplyDeleteFrod, when I get to feeling like you do, I usually realize that I'm expecting students to care as much about chemistry as I do. (How could you NOT find bonding interesting?) HR directors don't move fast enough that the sounds of their annoying voices will change pitch.
ReplyDeleteWe had build a pretty decent world before discovering the Doppler effect Any shortcomings were not the fault of misunderstanding wave properties. We'll continue to get by.
Now, the inability to connect facts in order to understand an observation is important in everybody's life. Eventually, society will figure out where to put her. If she can't do higher order thinking, there's always politics.
She's not really going to be a danger to society if she goes into HR. She'll just be a general annoyance to society. There's a difference.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the system will filter her out at some point; perhaps not entirely, but at least steer her away from a trajectory toward any profession where competence is too critical. You see, she openly admitted to you (and the rest of the class, it seems) that she couldn't understand it; the ones you really need to worry about would never, ever do that.
ReplyDeleteMore amusingly, I'm picturing your student sitting at home with a blank, confused look on her face while watching that episode of The Big Bang Theory where the guy dresses up as the Doppler effect for Hallowe'en: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn35SB1_NYI
Mountains. Molehills.
ReplyDeleteLet's say your assessment is accurate. Do you really think she'll have any chance of climbing the HR ladder high enough to seriously impact the jobs of people doing crucial work?
If she does make it that far, it's almost certain that your judgement was flawed.
"I've never lowered a student's grade for conduct, general ineptitude, or any reason other than deliverables"
Glad to hear it. Give yourself a hard slap for even contemplating it now.
You've done what you can, Frod... it's the universe's problem now. You aren't responsible for catching ALL of them.
ReplyDeleteIf I may, I'd like to encourage you to relax.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to college fresh out of high school, I was a nightmare. I was upset when people presented philosophical or scientific theories that made me confront my religious and existential crises; I enjoyed staying up passed my bedtime and sinking in the warm mushy obsession of "love." I was an idiot. I passed some classes and failed others; I bet I was a horrid student. Ultimately, I dropped out.
I matured, came back, got straight-As, and ended up at a top 5 graduate school where I got my PhD with honors. Some students just need to mature.
And, in other news, even shite people need jobs. They may not pass muster in a hospital HR position, but your student will need a job somewhere. Flunking her now does not erase the point that eventually she will need to be gainfully employed.
So let's hope she matures.
I would also like to argue that intro astronomy courses represent all the worst and best to college education. In any other area (history, literature, etc.) you can expect that a majority of the students have some familiarity with the material. However, astronomy courses contain a large number of topics that most students have never seen before. In addition, they are very popular for non-science majors needing science credit for the very same reason, most have no idea what the course is about.
ReplyDeleteThus, these classes contain the broadest spectrum of students from experienced upper classmen to newbie freshmen, from those with some experience with math to those who hear the word "math" and suffer cerebral meltdown. It's impossible to design these courses to be either so dumb that half the class skips lecture and reads the textbook the night before the exams, or challenging and drives the bottom half of the class into complete frustration and unchecked cheating. These courses are a nightmare for instructors.
I'm sure others will argue that their intro courses are the worst, but astronomy blends math and bizarre physical concepts all into one course. No amount of wonder and curiosity can overcome the ultimate grade driven undergrad, i.e. all this stuff is cool, but I just want an A.
I think the problem Froderick cites is not HR Major's inability to understand the Dopper effect, but her blaming that inability everything but the shortcomings of her own mind and/or work ethic. What if she simply said to Froderick, "I'm really not getting this. I don't think I can succeed in your class; I feel it's beyond my ability. Do you have any advice?" Or even is she were less forthright and asked, "do you know of any rememdial astronomy tutorials that would help me understand the Doppler Effect?" Or "I spent six hours revieing my notes on the Dopper Effect and I still don't get it - help!" Or any variation on that conversation that acknowledged that she, not the Doppler Effect, was to blame for not understanding it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Froderick is concerned about releasing a student who happens to be stupid into the wilds of the HR industry - he's probably don't that before. It's her attitude, her lack of accountability, her annoyance at a mere idea because she is unable to understand it. I also detect some laziness - did she really try to understand the Doppler Effect so hard that her brain hurt and she developed a migraine? Or did she just get frustrated and annoyed like a child who cannot get those Lincoln Logs to match up into something approximating Abe's cabin?
To me this reads less like a complaint about innate stupidity than about accountability and taking responsibility for one's own shortcomings and/or lack or motivation. And if she does actually become employed in the field of HR, she'll have the ability to affect other people's careers as well. But there's nothing you can do about that, Froderick. You can't be the gatekeeper for every vocational field, and being stupid and stubborn and irresponsibile isn't quantifiable like the inability to do math, so for you to try to prevent launching an incompetent into an HR career is just not as straightfoward as halting an incompetent would-be engineer from endangering public safety.
If you dwell too much on all the harm your students might do in this world once they graduate, you'll spend far too much time worrying. They'll mostly make other people miserable. Focus on the ones who might cause loss of life or other serious harm; those are the only ones about whom you can make a difference.
But again, the lazy and uninquisitive 20-year-old could prove to be a productive member of society by age 28. A poor performance here does not necessarily mean she will be a failure her entire life.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"I could far too easily see her as the H.R. manager from hell, I hope not at some hospital, lab, or engineering firm, where she could be deadly with her inability to understand what they do."
ReplyDeleteThe problem with your assessment is that you assume that understanding what the employees do is actually a central component of a Human Resources employee's task. Ideally, it would be, but the fact is that the role of HR employees at most places of business is to act as a buffer between employers and employees, and to let the former know if any of the latter are becoming disruptive or disgruntled.
Of course, HR folks will tell you that they're there to address employee concerns, and that their job is to make the workplace a safe and happy and productive environment for everyone. The fact is, however, that they are hired as frontline troubleshooters whose main job is to quell dissent and protect the company from lawsuits. Neither the employees' interests nor the actual quality of work are really of any concern to them.
As StellafromSparksburg said, they're more an annoyance than anything else.
@Frod: You've got a crush on this girl. Just admit it. If you were in 3rd grade, you'd be pulling on her pigtails and saying she has cooties. Instead, you're all grown up and claiming she's a "menace to society." You admit she gives you that "queasy feeling." Just ask her out. We're all cheering for you.
ReplyDelete@Bubba: Not a chance. Part of the reason for this is that she's long gone.
ReplyDelete@Everyone else: Ben got it, but too few others do. The Doppler effect itself isn't important. Laziness isn't the issue, either: indeed, if it had been, I may not even have become aware of this problem, as SocioConvert noted. (I'd tell Sheldon that his costume should be blue in front and red on the back, by the way.)
This real issue here is that my student couldn't get her mind around a two-step problem, no matter what. Like many of her peers, she could commit factoids to short-term memory and play them back, but reasoning of any complexity was quite beyond her. Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing in college?
@Defunct Adjunct: Some people say the same thing about teachers, and look where it gets us.
@Ben: If she went into politics, she'd be a menace to society, wouldn't she?
@Bubba: That was the funniest thing I read all day.
ReplyDelete@Frod: She would be but we know what to expect from them so it's better that she be under constant observation.
Dear Frod.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, I've just spent the last 45 minutes researching the Doppler Effect (and yes, going to peer-reviewed sources and not just the dread Wikipedia) - and I have to tell you, I don't understand it either.
I'm *definitely* not stupid, I'm not generally considered to be a menace to society (unless you ask an undergrad who, after 6 months, has yet to read the @#$%^&* syllabus), and I can absolutely hold multiple ideas at the same time (and teach others to do the same). Those particular two ideas? Not so much.
Your student could have learning difficulties - diagnosed or undiagnosed, mild or severe. She could have been coming to your course with no prior grounding in the subject matter. You may just have never hit upon the right combination of words or practical examples to turn the light on in her particular brain. She may well have decided that the concept wasn't all that relevant to her future and chosen to focus her energies elsewhere.
Just because someone doesn't readily grasp something that comes easily to you doesn't make them stupid...or a future liability to their employer (especially in what, to be honest, is an unrelated field). It makes them human, imperfect, and (hopefully) a work in progress...and we, as educators, would all be wise to look at our students and remember that.
@drunk: Then you're too drunk, because I explained all you need to know about it above. The Doppler effect is that the motion of a source of light changes the color of its light.
ReplyDelete(It happens because light is a wave. The waves in front get squashed, so they become bluer; the waves in back get stretched, so they become redder.)
Long term effects?
ReplyDeleteShe'll just look like an idiot when she wants to know if they put a special noisemaker in NASCAR cars that go beeeeeeeeeyooooooooo as they go by the track cameras.
Other than that she'll get a job where holding more than one idea in your head at once will be accomplished by post-its on the monitor.
drunk comments support my thesis that some topics, while appearing basic to astronomers, are outside the normal experience of others and represents a type of learning that requires a leap. Some people
ReplyDeletecan do it and some can not, regardless of IQ.
OK, so I'm curious now. Why do "squashed" waves make light bluer and "stretched" make them redder? Why these two colors? Are others ever involved?
ReplyDeleteI understand the Doppler effect when it comes to sound, because the change is quantitative: sound goes higher or lower but doesn't change aspect (i.e., doesn't become grainier or assume the overtones of a different musical instrument or whatever). But I don't understand the Doppler effect when it comes to light, in that I don't understand the relationship between a particular color (a qualitative aspect) and the configuration of a wave. Why doesn't the light simply get brighter or dimmer, or some such thing?
Guess I am off to contemplate my next serial killing. I never thought of myself as hopelessly stupid, but perhaps I am. Or perhaps, as may be the case with your student, it has something to do with the fact that every male science teacher I ever had rolled his eyes and made a face when I had a question, so I learned to shut up and dropped out of the sciences after 9th grade. I'll never know.
@Frog and Toad, I think the mind assigns certain colors to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. Higher frequencies are bluer, lower frequencies are redder.
ReplyDeleteFrog and Toad,
ReplyDeletethe boy's-club aspect of all this had not occurred to me until I read your comment, and it should have. I was good at sciences because I grasped the boys'-club aspect of it and I wanted to be a member (and thus prove that I was just as smart as any of the boys). It wasn't until undergraduate that I realised that I was good enough at them but really didn't care, and loved basketweaving more.
But it's just as easy to intuit the "science as a boy's club" in middle school and go the other way - that is, decide the hell with it, you don't want any part of it then, and get on with the basketweaving already. So Frod's student could have done.
So the most interesting thing for me is not her inability to grasp the Doppler effect but Frod's queasy feeling about her. That actually really matters (unless you feel like that about a lot of students, Frod). Because that means that something about her stood out for you; something felt wrong. You're probably right about that.
But it won't have been her inability to grasp the Doppler effect that was giving you that feeling. It will have been whatever the underlying issue is, and that, you can't do anything about. And passing your class won't help or mar her there.
But you say she's long gone? Good heavens. You taught SARAH PALIN?
"I think the mind assigns certain colors to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation."
ReplyDeleteOK, there. There is an explanation that makes no sense to me. How does the mind "assign" colors? Is that category-making device neurologically innate? Why are the colors they same across the board? I thought "red" was "red" by conventional linguistic agreement, not by some innate quality of redness -- think about arguments people have as to whether a given color is "wine" or "burgundy." Does the eye really SEE the Doppler effect with light waves, and what's an example equivalent to the siren for sound?
See how I could have been squelched, early? One way that science-as-boys'-club seems to work is that there are right questions and wrong questions, smart questions and stupid questions. Somehow, it was the girls' questions that more often provoked the eye-rolls and faces in my science classes.
On the other hand, Sarah Palin really is an idiot.
Okay, let's see: I think I once learned, and could probably still explain, how light has both particle and wave properties (does that count as dealing with two ideas at the same time?). And I'm pretty sure that the doppler effect deals with the wave properties, and that different wavelengths are, indeed, associated with different colors (there's some connection to the K -- Kelvin? -- numbers on compact fluorescent bulbs, here, I think; I've got a little card in my wallet reminding me what range of K numbers emits light that makes things in my house look "normal" -- i.e. similar to how they appear under incandescent light, which I believe tends to be generally yellower/redder than old-fashioned fluorescent light. And it seems that there's a reasonable degree of agreement among Americans as to which colors of light they find pleasing -- at least enough to satisfy the market with a couple of difference K ranges for different purposes. I don't know whether we're all seeing the same thing, but apparently we like the impressions created by numbers in a certain range). I can also reel off ROY G BIV (the acronym for the colors of the spectrum, in order), but don't ask me which end has the shorter wavelengths.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not sure I'd want to have to explain any of this well enough to convince Frod that I understand it on a test, or in class. I'd prefer to deconstruct a text, which is probably the literary equivalent. Or make Frod deconstruct a text (though I wouldn't bet that he'd do it worse than I would explain the doppler effect in relation to light).
I may have an advantage because I went to a girls' high school, so there were no eye-rolling peers around (and if the teachers, male or female, rolled their eyes, they did it in private). On the other hand, the science and math classes weren't as challenging as they could/should have been (I've never taken a really serious physics class, just a physics-for-poets sort of one). That left me ill-prepared for my eye-rolling college calculus TA and the gang of mostly-male premeds who were retaking a class they'd already taken in high school to boost their GPAs. I was vastly relieved to get a C- in that class, and never took a college-level math course again, though I still think now and then that I'd like to go back and figure out sequences and series, which I'm pretty sure I could do given the right conditions. Mathematical concepts don't come as easily to me as words, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't reached the limits of my ability to comprehend yet.
Still, I'm willing to take Frod's word that this student is troubling in some way. I suspect its not so much the two-ideas-at-one-time issue as the if-I-don't-understand-it-it's-your-problem attitude. Most of us know there are things we understand and things we don't (yet, perhaps ever), and are willing to take responsibility for the difference, and cede dealing with things we don't understand (or don't want to take time to understand -- e.g. the tax code) to someone who does. A human being of either gender who complains rather than deals in some sensible way with things she doesn't understand could, indeed, be a problem in the workplace. On the other hand, we don't know how this young lady would behave if she had the option of ceding the problem to someone else -- an approach which students in a gen ed class can't choose, but professionals in the real world often can.
@Frog and Toad, I'm not really sure about all this, since I'm just a student and not even close to being a science major. I was just musing. But as far as I know,
ReplyDelete"How does the mind "assign" colors? Is that category-making device neurologically innate?"
I think so.
"Why are the colors they same across the board?"
Probably because the category-making device is caused by gene(s) that we all share. It's sort of like how we (almost all) grow up to have ten arms.
"I thought "red" was "red" by conventional linguistic agreement, not by some innate quality of redness -- think about arguments people have as to whether a given color is "wine" or "burgundy.""
I don't think it's ALL convention. I've never heard an argument about whether a color fell into more major categories such as "red" or "blue," for example.
I think disputes about minor color categories arise because the differences are too slight to form a clear impression in people's minds. Therefore, people with differing color-discrimination, and different histories of color exposure, will not agree on "wine" or "burgundy."
There's color blindness, but I believe that has to do with a lack of frequency sensors in the eyes, not frequency interpreters in the brain.
"Does the eye really SEE the Doppler effect with light waves, and what's an example equivalent to the siren for sound?"
Distant galaxies appear redder than closer galaxies, suggesting that the distant ones are moving away from us. This provides evidence for the expansion of space.
DO I GET EXTRA CREDIT FRODERICK!1???
*ten FINGERS, above, obviously. ARRRRRGGGGH
ReplyDeleteYou guys are still missing the point that Ben and Frod are trying to make. The problem here is accepting some facts about the universe that are not obvious or common-sense, and then being able to make predictions based on these facts.
ReplyDeleteI find similar things in my intro-science for non-majors course. I'm astounded at how few of them are even familiar with a course that demands not regurgitation or understanding, but application.
Sometimes, I think some students simply have a hard time learning anything that is in-obvious. LIke Frod, I find this scary.
---N
(OK, seriously? People don't understand how color works? Never seen a rainbow? Never seen how one side is blue and the other is red? That's what 'blue-er' and 'red-er' mean: closer to one side or the other.)
@honest_prof: Your course may be “scopes for dopes,” but I assure you that mine is not. Pythagoras and Plato thought that mathematics was beyond the range of what all but a select group of initiates could learn. Bertrand Russell had lots of fun disputing that, and so do I. I take what every one of my students are capable are learning from my course seriously. This is important, because, as Carl Sagan put it, “We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements—transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting—profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”
ReplyDeleteIf anyone thinks the solution to this is to ban or severely science and technology, I’ll be collecting cell phones at the door. That said, we do have laws that govern science and technology: we don’t let just anyone do surgery or take X-rays, for example, nor do we allow them to do it in any way they want.
@Frog & Toad: I’m sorry you had at least one science teacher who perhaps wasn’t as knowledgeable or as willing to say, “I don’t know” as he perhaps should have been. I think you’re over-generalizing, though. Substitute “Jewish” or “black” for “male” into what you’ve written, and read it back. It’s no longer so nice, is it? As Chomsky has observed, "Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white or is male...I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and understanding differ from 'white male science' because of their 'culture or gender and race.' I suspect that 'surprise' would not be quite the proper word for their reaction."
ReplyDeleteLikewise, I think it’s a stretch for to infer that a student might be dangerous as part of a job she might get in the future as implying that she will become a serial killer. Some posters have tried to assure me that my student will never get into a position to do harm: I hope they are right.
Schmitty and DrNathaniel have both provided good, short explanations of the physics of light and the Doppler effect. Briefly, light is a wave. Color is the wavelength of light waves. The colors that the unaided eye can see, in order from long wavelength to short wavelength, are red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. The Doppler effect is that, as a source of light moves toward you, the light from it will look bluer than it would if it were stationary, because the motion of the source adds to the motion of the light waves. This compresses them, making them bluer. The opposite effect happens for light waves from a light source moving away: those waves will be redder than the light waves from a stationary source, because they will be getting stretched out.
I wish I had time to answer every one of your questions in detail, since many are quite interesting. Briefly, how exactly the eye and brain see and perceive color is still not well understood. How the mind does is barely understood at all: I can recommend Richard Gregory’s book, “Eye and Brain,” if you’re interested. Nevertheless, light and color are objective phenomena that exist outside of human perception (a concept I wish more deconstructionists understood better: see “Higher Superstition,” by Gross and Leavitt). Everything I’ve told you above about light can be reproduced objectively with photography, both film and digital.
Sound is also a wave, in air. The Doppler effect therefore works similarly for it. As a moving source of sound approaches, its pitch rises since the sound waves get compressed; as it moves away, the pitch falls. A train whistle is an example of this: if the train were stationary, one would hear it make a steady tone, but if the train is moving, it makes that rising-and-falling sound that can sound so lonely, late at night. Yes, the eye really does see the Doppler effect: my example shows that the ear certainly does.
The point, though, has little to do with physics. It is: what do I do about students who seem unable to make inferences from observations, particularly when they involve multiple steps?
The answer is: I devise more exercises in my course that develop this facility of mind, and make them count a significant percentage of the final grade. This may not be easy, but I think it will be worth it.
P.S. It is possible to go to a costume party dressed as an abstract concept, but it's important to realize that you'll need to explain it, unlike how Sheldon does. I once went as "Dark Matter": most people initially thought I was a Ninja. It sure was hard to see out of that thing.
ReplyDeleteP.P.S. Different people certainly do perceive color differently. If you could "see with someone else's eyes," as in the childhood fantasy, you would see the world very differently. Every time I come back to this question, it amazes me more.
ReplyDeleteP.P.P.S. Intensity are color are different. Intensity is how bright light is; color is the wavelength of the light. The properties are independent of each other: one can have a bright red light, or a faint red light, or a bright blue light, or a faint blue light.
ReplyDeleteWhat doesn't help here is how practitioners of computer graphics have come to refer to the differences in intensity that a computer monitor can show as "colors." They should say, "shades of gray." (But then, astronomers are not blameless, with the way they use the word, "metallicity.")
Normally I dislike Wikipedia, and I don't allow my students to cite it as a reference in coursework. Nevertheless, I've just read their page on the Doppler effect, and I think it's pretty good. It need not be nearly as long as it is, however: all that happens is that light that comes from a moving source changes color, because of the motion, something that's shown in the first couple of diagrams.
ReplyDeleteSchmittyRKD, thank's for using "mind" not "brain". So refreshing to see someone get it right!
ReplyDeleteP.S. No one can explain the subjective experience of hue...yet. I tell my students, "Figure it out and be famous."