The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis has one display about the conspiracy theories surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Some of them were pretty far-fetched, but I did not have a good answer to one student’s question about why do people come up with all these conspiracy theories. David Aaronovitch has a new book out about why people believe conspiracy theories, and in an interview with Thomas Rogers he has a pretty believable answer to the question, “What makes us susceptible to conspiracy theories?”:
We want to believe theories that contradict the idea that young, iconic people died senselessly. If a story takes away the accidental from their death, it gives them agency. After the JFK assassination, it was unbearable to many people that they could live in a country where a lone gunman could kill a president. In those circumstances, it’s not surprising that an overarching conspiracy theory emerges. It suggests that somebody is in control, rather than that we’re at the mercy of our neighbors and to some extent of ourselves (as was the case with Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana). It’s the urge to make sense of a particularly traumatic moment.
I came across this beautiful animation of the auroras on Saturn. The auroras are caused by charged particles (ions) from the sun, the solar wind of protons and electrons, are focused down onto areas near the poles of a planet by the magnetic lines of a planet’s magnetic field. The ions hit the atmosphere colliding with atmospheric gas molecules like nitrogen and oxygen causing them to become excited and spit out electrons (becoming ions themselves). Molecules are not “happy” when they’re missing electrons so they’ll capture one to become “fulfilled” (fill their outer electron shells). It’s when they recapture electrons that they give off the light that we see as the auroras.
On Earth the auroras are green or brownish-red (from the Oxygen) and blue or red (from the Nitrogen). Saturn’s atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium so we’re not quite sure what color its auroras are. The auroras in the animation were colored in by NASA since the camera on the Cassini spacecraft is black and white.
The video clip below gives a nice explanation of auroras.
On the last morning of our immersion trip we had a choice between going to Hot Springs, Arkansas, with its geothermal springs and another museum, or hiking at Lake Catherine where we had spent the night. Since we’d been to two museums on the previous day, we pretty unanimously chose the hike. And it was great.
Conchoidal fracture in quartz (image by Eurico Zimbres FGEL/UERJ via Wikimedia commons)
We took the Falls Branch Trail, which follows a couple of young, boulder-choked creeks that have are carving steep-sided valleys through nice clean limestone bedrock. The students were constantly bringing me rocks to identify, and they were almost invariable limestone, with a few pieces of quartz thrown in. The limestone was so clean that it was near translucent (fairly close to marble) and the cobbles in the stream bed were easy to mistake for smoky quartz, particularly if they were rounded enough that you could not look for quartz’s characteristic, curved, conchoidal fracture. Quartz also tends to be a lot harder than limestone, but the ultimate test, which the students really wanted to see, is to put acid on the rock. Limestone fizzes. I did not have any limestone on this trip (note to self: get some HCl for next time), but this little experiment is a nice follow up for our discussions of ionic bonding in chemistry. We have some limestone samples back at school so I plan on doing this as a follow-up.
Quartz vein (white) cutting through a limestone boulder.
Because Lake Catherine is very close to Hot Springs, it would not be surprising to find some quartz. The hot water that’s coming out of the springs flows up through cracks (faults) that extend deep beneath the surface. The deeper basement rocks are silicates, the granitic rocks that make up the continental crust, so the hot water dissolves some of that silicate material, and when the water cools down, ever so slightly, as it approaches the surface, some of those silicates will precipitate out to coat the walls of the faults with quartz. Sometimes they even fill up the faults entirely, leaving quartz veins.
The stream bed, being of young geological age, was a series of small waterfalls culminating in the five meter high drop that gives the trail its name. The water was clear and cold but with that beautiful aquamarine tint of dissolved limestone. There’s a whole lot more I could say about plunge pools and migrating nickpoints, but I’d probably go on too long. Besides we did not take the time to talk about those since there was so much else to see.
Interference pattern in ripples.
When we reached estuary of Falls Creek and Lake Catherine, the lake’s water was so calm that the kids started trying to skip stones. This of course provided a beautiful opportunity to look at water waves and interference patterns. As the ripples from each skip of the stone expanded, they melded. The constructive interference was easier to see in the field because it made for bigger ripples. But the photos show the destructive interference very nicely.
This was an excellent hike. We were a little pressed for time since we needed to get back to school before the end of the school day, but next time, I think, I’ll have us pack our food in and have lunch on the trail overlooking the waterfall and the lake. The ability to use these types of outdoor experience to integrate the academic work is one of the main reasons I enjoy the Montessori approach to middle school. All through the trip back though I kept thinking about how I could organize things so that we would never need to see the inside of the classroom again.
In talking about video game addiction it was suggested that I also look at the parallels with other types of addictive behavior. Mrs. P. sent me a list of links that I’ve been carefully going through. What’s important here is that, no matter what the subject, be it video games, psychoactive substances or even food, many of the symptoms of addiction are the same. Ruth Eng (2003) from the Applied Health Science department at Indiana University has a nice website about addictive behavior. She points out some common characteristics:
The person becomes obsessed (constantly thinks of) the object, activity, or substance.
They will seek it out, or engage in the behaivor even though it is causing harm (physical problems, poor work or study performance, problems with friends, family, fellow workers).
The person will compulsively engage in the activity, that is, do the activity over and over even if he/she does not want to and find it difficult to stop.
Upon cessation of the activity, withdrawal symptoms often occur. These can include irritability, craving, restlessness or depression.
The person does not appear to have control as to when, how long, or how much he or she will continue the behavior (loss of control). (They drink 6 beers when they only wanted one, buy 8 pairs of shoes when they only needed a belt, ate the whole box of cookies, etc).
He/she often denies problems resulting from his/her engagement in the behavior, even though others can see the negative effects.
Person hides the behavior after family or close friends have mentioned their concern. (hides food under beds, alcohol bottles in closets, doesn’t show spouse credit card bills, etc).
Many individuals with addictive behaviors report a blackout for the time they were engaging in the behavior (don’t remember how much or what they bought, how much the lost gambling, how many miles they ran on a sore foot, what they did at the party when drinking)
Depression is common in individuals with addictive behaviors. That is why it is important to make an appointment with a physician to find out what is going on.
Individuals with addictive behaviors often have low self esteem, feel anxious if the do not have control over their environment, and come from psychologically or physically abusive families.
“In a world where there is a common lament that there are no more heroes, too often cynicism and despair are perceived as evidence of the death of moral courage. That perception is wrong. People of great valor and heart, committed to noble purpose, with long records of personal sacrifice, walk among us in every country of the world.”
– Kerry Kennedy
Kerry Kennedy and photographer Eddie Adams are powerful advocates for human rights with their coffee table book “Speak Truth to Power” and Kennedy’s website, PBS documentary and center that emerged out of it. The book and website has a series of stories and interviews from human rights activists from around the world. Some of the subjects and issues are searing, as you can imagine, so use with care.
This was recommended by Sarah __ B.
A colleague gave me a copy of the play “Speak Truth to Power”, a dvd based on a book by Kerry Kennedy about the work and struggle of human rights activists. She got it for her students’ MMUN project. The movie and book are part of a curriculum used in Romania, as they are representing that country.
The movie would make a powerful addition to Cycle 3 (no pun intended) or 5, Year B for MS, or discussion point for HS.
For myself, this book ties in powerfully with our ongoing discussions of the Little Rock Nine and how brave individuals can change the world.
Refugee camp in Dafur, Sudan (See below for image source)
One of the assignments in our discussion of the characteristics of war is to locate wars occurring around the world today. Foreign Policy magazine has a series of photos documenting 33 conflicts raging around the world today (I found the site via the Daily Dish). The focus is on the civilians who typically suffer the most in wars. From pictures of refugee camps in Pakistan to militants in Nigeria to Russian tanks in South Ossetia, the pictures are moving but not too graphic. What’s equally important though, is the brief description of the conflict beneath each picture.
Note: The image above is not from the Foreign Policy but from mknobil
It’s one thing to walk through a place where history was actually made, but having a tour guide who personally experienced part of it is pretty special. The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site is the only national park with an active, fully functioning high school on site. So when you do the tour, you follow a ranger (wearing the same uniform and hat that they wear on the forest trails) through the halls of a school as scores of students stream past. It’s a little odd to say the least. The Central High students seem to take it in stride, because they’re probably used to it, but our students seemed a bit unsure about how to deal with it.
Jody Morris, born and raised in Little Rock, was our tour guide. She was a child (1st grade I think) when the schools were integrated, and she experienced the ostracism of having parents supportive of integration. Ms. Morris was able to speak with the emotion and authority of someone who lived through troubling times. I’m not sure that we could have had a better tour without having one of the Little Rock Nine there with us.
Much of what we saw is in the history books and the documentaries. On the tour you climb the same front steps in the iconic pictures of the students being escorted up the steps of the school (see above); you sit in the same cafeteria where Minnijean Brown was hazed; you can walk the same long blocks that Elizabeth Eckford did in front of the jeering crowd. The current students walking the halls, immunized to the weight of history by long experience, make it easier to identify with what it might have been.
I’ve been thinking recently about the similarities I’ve observed between Montessori Middle and High Schools and liberal arts education at the university level. Especially when compared to a traditional secondary education the two are remarkably similar. Two that stand out are the variety of choice for the students to tailor their own learning, and lots of responsibility given to the student to use their time and resources effectively. The Montessori experience should be really beneficial in college, but that just leaves the little matter of High School.
Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, has written quite a bit about the failure of the traditional high school in the “rich world”.
[I]n secondary schools there is a demand for uniformity and regulation of behavior that results in less autonomy and the dumbing down of academic expectations – Botstein (2008).
Botstein argues for universities taking over high schools because they have credibility as educational institutions and because the structure of secondary education in the U.S., with rapid turnover of school boards and superintendents, is a failed model. One fundamental problem that Botstein and others such as Angeline Lillard identify is that the traditional educational is based on a factory style model. Students are fed through the assembly line and those who do not, or can not, conform to the necessary automation get rejected by the system. This model co-evolved with the industrial revolution when the power of the factories and efficiency were novel marvels to behold.
To a degree the education factory worked well in the past, providing the workers for the industries at the time, and certainly, for a while, helped rapidly raise educational levels and productivity. Yet as more and more rote jobs are now being automated, the educational premium is now on creativity. Where technology takes the place of the assembly line worker it also makes it easier and cheaper for the individual inventor or creator.
Personally, when assessing high schools my students go on to, the main thing I look for is the degree of independence they offer their students. Hemmed in by the needs of standardized testing and curriculum standards, it is too rare that students get the opportunities to follow their passions. My own teaching philosophy has also evolved. I’ve come to the conclusion that by the time my students graduate my Middle School they should be the type of independent learners who would succeed in the college environment (and hopefully in the world). That type of independence also means that they also have to tools to deal with anything that comes up in high school, even if they have to work around the system.
