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)…

“seems to me the guy got this discussion going by not following a proper procedure.”

The teacher followed procedure, he broke no laws, he followed school district procedures and he had each demonstration signed off. He followed every proper procedure.

The ONLY reason this discussion got going was that ONE SINGLE PARENT raised hell about it. The credulous author of that original piece bought into it and the rest is history. Hilarity ensues. We’re having this discussion because of a fantastic overreaction to the tool, a gun.

I don’t have any problems with a teacher using a gun for a demonstration in general any more than I have a problem with a teacher using a mains transformers to produce a 13 000V ‘rising spark’. If they’re done safely and legally, it’s up to the teacher and the school to decide.

On the subject of ‘consultation with parents’, the fact is that they’re the customers (not the kids). How much you should consult with them depends on a number of factors, not least ‘how often they want you to consult with them’. A few activist parents shouldn’t be enough to change things much if the parent body as a whole are involved in the school and so on; if they can, then that’s how it is (perhaps move to another school where a handful of angry parents punch far above their weight). Either they trust you or they don’t (or perhaps they trust you to a particular extent) and those are the conditions that you work under. Yes, they can be irritating and annoying and ill-informed, and some of them aren’t even acting from good intentions, but they’re the customers. The happy medium between teacher independence, headteacher’s control and parental involvement is a negotiated one, not an absolute one, and the biggest factor in what it turns out to be is what the parents want.

If all the sentiments of proper handling and safety were exemplfied, and as Moshe said, a note to the parents then of course. As well as, clearing it with the school for liability as explained.

Couldn’t help think of the events around children bringing guns to school that have been highlighted in the news lately.

Although we have a Gun registry, it caused great concerns for many who like their freedoms in regards to the country pumpkins, wide open spaces, as well as hunting, there are certain rights that are thought about at the grass roots level.

As a past soldier myself, the thought of something like that without all the “precautions” in the classroom, it is very unsettling, because of what you would want to transmit to the students “in learning” besides, the purpose of that demonstration?

And about the “trust me” approach, my only source of information is the article itself, which cited his military background (irrelevant information) a few times, mentioned a few more times that he knows what he is doing. This may well be true in this particular case, but I can understand why some parents see this reassurance as insufficient.

As for drawing the line, as a parent I get to sign lots of permission forms for much milder types of entertainment, basically on a weekly basis. As one possible form of notification, I would have liked to see parental permission forms for this experiment, I would have signed mine.

I’d also point out that he is (or at least was back in 1998) easily the most popular teacher in the whole school. So I guess that I would support the “anything to get students enthusiastic about physics” sentiments (I’m a physics graduate student at university of chicago now).

And, besides the Army background (which I don’t remember him mentioning), there is his hard-core Libertanianism. So maybe people should be up in arms because he is bringing his politics into the classroom (kidding).

It was not illegal. If you read the article you see that you have a journalist who is questioning its legality. You will also see that the teacher himself investigated very early on (1992), and that it is perfectly legal if done with the proper permissions from school administration. If you also then read any follow-up articles by journalists not biased like the one in the original article, you will see that the D.A. says nothing illegal was done and that she has no intention of investigating further.

Moshe,

Do you mean to imply that getting written permission from the school principle is a “heavy dose of ‘trust me, I was a soldier’ approach”?

This was a classic physics demonstration that this teacher decided was a great teaching tool, and he was right.

I am not surprised by the impression you have, however, because your first comment makes it extremely clear that you don’t analyse the issues from too many angles before setting your opinion.

As far as “some sort of consultation with parents”, I’m curious, where would you draw the line? Should they be consulted on each caustic chemical on a full list of those to be used in experiments at school? What about the pins, clamps and scalpels for the frog dissection class? And the formaldehyde? Is the discretion of the science department at the school not good enough for all these issues? Or the principal? Maybe a town meeting about the fact that the students will actually be lighting bunsen burners and will have open flames in class? They will have bare electrodes and will cause (small) explosions combining hydrogen and oxygen into water vapor. Which of these are OK to do without a consultation with the parents?

It appears to me that this teacher went the extra distance by seeking the approval and written consent of the principal each year he did the demonstration. Are you not satisfied that the principal actually discussed this with the teacher, did some research on the safety and legality of it, and signed off on it?

As far as legality is concerned, understand that the original article only quoted two non-physics-related professionals, both stringently against the demonstration. That should give you an idea of the writer’s position and it might explain the inflamatory rhetoric in that article about felonies and reckless discharge.

But from an article the next day in another newspaper:

“Each year since the experiments’ inception in 1992, Lapp said he has sought the written permission of Tam principal Chris Holleran, who he said was considered Ferguson’s “designee” under the law.”

Ferguson said Lapp and Holleran followed proper procedures and would not be disciplined.

An inquiry is unwarranted in Lapp’s case, Berberian said. [my note: Berberian is the local D.A.]

“We have no information that it was a reckless discharge,” Berberian said. “We are not conducting an investigation, and I have no intent to.”