Thought experiments- do them now, before the Brain Police come to take us away.

Dear Superintendent Ferguson,

I was extremely disappointed in your decision to ban Mr. David Lapp from doing his ballistic pendulum demonstration as reported in the Marin IJ.

I am a third generation graduate of Tamalpais High School. Mr. Lapp was my physics teacher. Currently I am pursing my Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale. From my graduating class, there is one person at Stanford earning her Ph.D. in genetics, one at UCSD earning his MD/Ph.D. in bioinformatics, one earning her Ph.D. in geology and numerous others who have gone into careers in the medical field. When I talk to professors and fellow graduate students here at Yale about my classmates they are surprised at the numbers especially when I tell them Tam is a public high school and the class size was 181. One of the main reasons my class has this wonderful level of continued participation in the sciences is due to the the excellent teaching we received in high school from the likes of Mr. Lapp and Ms. Brumbaugh that taught us science is not the facts found in a textbook but rather a method of studying the world around us to understand how the universe actually works.

That lesson is just as valuable for those that pursue interests outside of the sciences. They need to be able to evaluate risks and rewards. They need to fully understand just how ludicrous it is for those action heroes found in movies and video games to evade bullets like they do, to understand what a gun can actually do. To have any fears they have regarding guns based on reality and not media hype. They need to be able to apply textbook knowledge into the real world to evaluate whether fears are real or imagined. To do this, science teachers have to be able to engage students by doing demonstrations and having the students do experiments. I have seen and done the ballastic pendulum experiment at other schools, the demonstrations were not as effective in teaching the principles nor in engaging the students.

The greatness of the science teachers at Tam is that they are able to engage not just those interested and planning careers in the sciences but also those who are not while not sacrificing the knowledge, skills and lessons to be learned. That is rare.

My question to you, is why ban the demonstration? What is the relative risk as compared to other experiments/demonstrations done in science classrooms/labs? Are you banning it because of irrational fears or because the risk is far greater? Your quote in the IJ, “‘He does a lot of things to grab students’ attention. However, this garnered more attention from the public’” argues you gave into the former which is a shame. You are giving into the very irrational fear that science combats by denying a science teacher the means by which to combat irrational fears. The motto of the district is “preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s world”. Your students will be making decisions in the future with regards to global warming, stem cell research, genetic manipulations, flu pandemics to name a few. They need to be able to separate the fact and rational thought from false claims and fears. When a school administrator takes the easy route and gives into the irrational what lesson is taught to students? When those in leadership positions fail to lead? Fail to make a stand?

Where does it end? Do you ban the chemicals used in chemistry courses because they could be used to poison or to make explosives? Do you ban phenol/chloroform from being used in nucleic acid extractions? Where are you drawing the line? What is your rubric?

One of the major bedrocks of democracy is scientific thought. The critical reasoning allows for a society based on rational thought and not the irrational. If we continue to erode science and give into such fears, we will continue to move this society further from its democratic ideal.

“Kid comes to high school with telescope, as part of more Science-friendly initiative in Education. IDIOTIC administrators

[ "those who can't Teach, ADMINISTRATE"..direct quote by a retired California Science teacher ]

have the telescope confiscated, student SUSPENDED!”

[ this got a lot of airtime in the sci.astro.amateur Newsgroup, since amateur-astronomers are involved with Science Outreach. They often partner with Astronomy profs at universities, bringing telescopes for Public star parties ]

Is that OUTRAGEOUS or what!! Yeah, the Telescope looks like a gun, therefore in the 9-11 Era..it’s possible Terrorism. *sarcasm*

Sounds like both incidents are manifestations of High School Administrative stupidity..COME ON!!

A former 6th grade History teacher of mine (Master’s Degree UIUC, Woodrow Wilson scholar) finally gave up Teaching & said to me recently:

“It got TOO COMPLICATED”

Meaning, the Education system is a flat-out MESS. Chaos Theory in practice.

It was a perfect shot, worked the 1st time. The students in the auditorium cheered.

The instructor was a full blown theoretical researcher..teaching an undergrad physics class, & he NAILED the “experiment”! Who say Theoreticians can’t do Experiment?

Fill in this blank:

“The difference between a Theoretician & an Experimentalist, is that _______”

because of what you would want to transmit to the students “in learning” besides, the purpose of that demonstration?

Red Herring or not, it sets up for some “further thoughts.”

Very consistant in the “approach and handling” of the subject by some.

Good lesson in itself:)

Surely we can agree this is a terrible article, right? none of the information one needs is there (e.g. what are the relevant qualifications of the teacher), it all fits neatly into a familiar mold, and in the center of the story there is a red herring (the criminal case)…