Below is a selection of titles for an online form that Dr Glass was filling out. Have a look.
Excuse me, but where is the option for REVEREND Doctor?
Oh, just had to scroll down.
BRITAIN! Possibly the only place in the world where Right Reverend Monsignors can be correctly addressed by their proper titles in their student loan correspondence.
- Now, if you’re interested in Facebook at all, there’s a Facebook page for ElodieUnderGlass, which will be primarily be used for screaming at the news and pictures of animals in sweaters. Your input is warmly encouraged.
- There is a new Contact Form for complaints and suggestions.
- You look super hot today.
Coming up next, the Guardian is once again encroaching on my turf:
Pictured here are two young females struggling to load an agarose gel using a simple pipette in preparation for electrophoresis. According to recent findings in the Guardian, young females find science easier to cope with if it contains lots of bright colors and shiny moving objects.
Thank you for the depressing Guardian article. So the cause of girls doing badly in maths or science is societal gender inequality, but the solution is to recognise that their poor widdle girly bwains work differently to boys, and so we have to use special girly methods to teach them with. Hmmm. Or perhaps we should try to convince them that they can actually get a job as a mathematician or scientist, and nobody will laugh at them, humiliate them or make their lives twice as difficult? Too tricky? OK, back to colour coding everything in the house then…
Now that’s certainly something I have never seen before. How unique and lovely, Britain.
(Unfortunately – but not really, just for the purpose of this comment and your existence there – I’m not into Facebook at all. Never had one, never will have one. And if anyone ever asks again “But WHYYYYY~?” as if it 1. was any of their business, 2. really mattered to them because even if I were on FB I would not want anything to do with them, 3. was totally incomprehensible and a sign that I’ve totally lost it, 4. was any of their business and 5. was any of their business, I’m gonna HULK SMASH them. Mentally.)
I also sometimes get tired of the whole “Girls are bad at this, boys are bad at this oh noes it’s the other way around wait what aaaargh gurgle gurgle” – wouldn’t it be better to just view people as people?
I’ve always, from the very beginning on, been bad at maths. I got better in my last two to three years, but I was never really outstanding and my final exam in maths sucked balls and lowered my grade point average like nothing else.
Same with science. The only thing I did well – mainly because there wasn’t any calculating involved – was biology. I hated physics with a passion and chemistry just frustrated me.
Everything was even more frustrating because I actually like science – I find it interesting and fun and easy to learn if it’s presented in a way that for example this blog here uses; not enough to work in that field or to really develop any talent for its theoretical side, but I like it.
And I’m a woman.
The thing is: Every. Single. Person. In. My. Family (yes, that includes all the males, too). Has also been or still is like that. Everyone. Except maybe my little sister who’s got a knack for physics and chemistry but on the other hand performs abysmally in maths.
I’m not really sure what I want to say with all that but I’m somehow also annoyed at this whole “Ohmigod, it’s all just culture, so if brought up right, you could be good at science too.” Except that no, I don’t think so. I would say that I just don’t have it in me. I was certainly not in any way raised to be good at languages and literature (in fact, my mum, who brought me up almost singlehandedly, doesn’t really connect with either of those and actually also didn’t encourage me to take an interest in them [she did not dis courage me, either, just to be clear.]) but here I am, languages and literature pro.
Is that a thing or am I just deluded to believe that I am in fact not a science-y person?
So blah. Should it not actually not be She’s bad at it because she’s a woman but much rather She’s bad at it and a woman? Makes so much more sense for me.
Well, I think you’re absolutely right, Myrin, but I’ll tell you a secret:
I am really, really, really bad at arithmetic.
Calculus was my worst grade at university.
I pretty much taught myself arithmetic when I was 13, so I could take a test, and then I
forgot it all.
I only succeeded in Calc because it wasn’t really arithmetic-based.
Neither of my parents were able to help me with math – my mom has a degree in Art History and she failed every single math course she ever tried; my father has a degree in Anthropology and one of those calculators that goes “ding ding ding – SCHTICK” and prints things out on a tape.
I don’t think in numbers, basically. I think in words: the inside of my head is a library. Some people think in images. If I draw numbers out, writing out the equation each time in my lab book and punching them into my calculator, I am perfectly capable of performing math for my job, just like retail workers process lots of mathematical data with their tills. I can dilute solutions, calculate the molecular weight of a chemical compound, figure out how much DNA is in a sample by the wavelengths of light that pass through, and everything else that a hands-on scientific worker is expected to do. But numbers just don’t stick in my head!
What I’m saying here is that generally, shit works out and you don’t have to be mathematically inclined to be bright, good a science, or an authority on your topic. And you are right that the sentence should read She’s bad at it and a woman.
As for Facebook, don’t worry sweetie, I completely understand your feelings.
Oh my dear, can I just say that I love your description of your parents, especially your father, and the image of one’s brain/head as a library? Let me assure you that not only do you think in words but you also form them quite beautifully when they want to come out.
On a related note, I know/have worked with a lot of science-type folks. Geochemists, geologists, engineers, computer programmers, and microbiologists. One of them– my mom– is very old-school and does all her math in her head/on paper, because that’s how they taught her in the training hospital back in the day. All the others, when I ask them about math at work? They make the same confused/horrified/amused face and go, “Oh, no, I never use it, I have these totally sweet computers/programs that do it all for me!” If you really want to science, then the probability that all you will have to get through is a couple math courses in school is actually pretty decent. I recognize the value in knowing how and not relying on computers, but I also recognize that you can science perfectly well while being a little dodgy at math.
God, I so wish you had told magically come out of the future to tell me that when I was 16.
@Myrin – as a (female) person who is working on a education degree (I am sitting in math class AS WE SPEAK, which mostly consists of “how to teach math when you are afraid that you are bad at it”) I present the following thought: generally, among education people (or at least my education people), it is accepted that ANYONE can learn ANYTHING, and be good at it, if it is presented in the right way at the right time.
So for you, who are afraid that you are Bad At Science, the assumption would be that you were never taught in the right way. The trouble is that the Right Way is not some kind of magical formula that everyone can learn from – the Right Way means different things for different people.
For you, maybe that means that had someone caught you when you were young and had yet to be convinced that you were Bad At Science, and presented science the way Elodie does, then you would have been able to learn in a way that suited you and subsequently been able to “perform” science well. (not totally separate issue: the way in which we ask students to “perform” their knowledge in schools is tailored to a VERY SMALL portion of people whose learning styles intersect with “read a thing and then regurgitate it on a standardized test”. The system itself sets up large swathes of students to “fail”, regardless of the material.) There is nothing neurological about your brain that prevents you categorically from learning the information of certain subjects, though there may be something that makes it difficult to learn that information in the way that it is usually presented. Further, once you have become convinced “I am bad at X thing”, that belief gets in the way of further learning about the thing, regardless of the way it is presented. So now you read one of Elodie’s posts, and you go “That’s interesting, but I could never learn anything further because I am Bad At Science.” You set limits on yourself without realizing it – so the next time you come up against something you don’t quite understand, the thought you have is “I don’t understand this because I am Bad at Science, this is a fault with me, therefore there is no use trying” instead of “I don’t understand this because it has not been explained correctly, therefore I should find a better explanation.”
Our jobs as teachers SHOULD be to find those better explanations for our students, in all subjects (or at the very least, teach them that the fault lies in the explanation, instead of in their brains.) Sometimes we are bad at this. We are working on it.
Ah, thanks for the reply!
I had no idea that everyone can actually be good at everything – I still thought some people (not “one gender – another gender”, but “one person more like this” and “another person more like this”) were naturally better suited for certain kinds of topics. Interesting to know from someone who knows.^^
However, I just quickly wanted to elaborate on something that maybe didn’t really get through in my first message: I am not “afraid” I’m Bad At Science (if “afraid” means something like “frightened” in this context, I’m not a native speaker, so forgive me if I got it wrong) – science-y subjects have never been a source of fear for me. I’ve also never given up on trying to learn or at least be better (which often worked quite well), so I don’t think my subconscious really tried to stop me from learning because it thought I was bad at it anyway (though, who knows that with 100% certainty?).
You are probably right that another method of teaching would have been better suited for me, but in the end and in complete honesty, I’m not interested enough in it. As I said, if I read something about any sort of science presented in a way as Elodie does here, I do indeed find it interesting and think about it and am happy to broaden my knowledge. But I don’t go and think, as you put it, “That’s interesting, but I could never learn anything further because I am Bad At Science.”, I go “That’s interesting, but what is presented here is enough for me and I don’t specifically want to delve much deeper into it.”
I get that that might sound incomprehensible for someone who’s in the field, probably with great passion, but, well, that’s how it is.
Hey, hi! <3
Not being interested/interested enough is a totally legit reason not to learn more about something, so i hope you don't feel that I was saying "you CAN TOO learn science, GO DO SOME OF THAT". But hey, you could if you wanted to!
You interpreted me correctly – and I'm glad to hear you're not afraid of science
This is kind of a semantics issue, but to me it's an important one for students to know – there is a big difference between "bad at X thing because I lack the ability" and "bad at X thing because I'm not interested enough". In technical speak we refer to a "growth mindset" and a "fixed" or "talent mindset" – students who have a growth mindset believe that learning is a function of effort: "If I try hard enough/find the right way, I can do X – if I can't do X, I haven't tried hard enough yet." Students with a fixed mindset tend to think that learning is a function of talent (which we tend to think of a static): "If I can't learn this, it's because I'm not talented enough. I can't acquire more talent, so there's no use trying." There have been a lot of studies on how to foster a growth mindset in kids – there are indications that it can be as simple as changing the type of praise we give for good work: "You did really well, you must have worked hard", vs. "you did really well, you must be talented."
If you're interested, you could look up the work of Carol Dweck – she basically pioneered the idea of mindsets and did lots of important studies. She is a neat lady!
Anyway, thanks for letting me spew learning strategies at you. It's kind of my pet topic and I don't get a lot of chances to talk about it outside the classroom.
Jedi hugs if you want them.
Jedi hugs right back at you, my friend.
I was indeed a bit unsure if you were trying to say “Go be interested in ALL the things!” so I’m very glad that was cleared up and we’re actually of one mind here.
I feel like I’ve come across the name Carol Dweck somewhere before but I can’t for the life of me remember where that might have been since I’m neither in the educational nor in the psychological field – whatever, thanks so much for explaining a bit about the different mindsets! I love the idea of phrasing things like praise differently/more consciously, it’s so simple yet probably really effective!
Welcome, allegrofox!
I just wanted to thank you for the work that you do as a teacher. Your reframing strategy also an interesting mindset that would probably be quite good for independent cognitive therapy!
Ah yeah, I totally forgot:
Welcome, allegrofox, and thanks for being what sounds like an awesome teacher!
D’awwwww, thanks you guys. <3
Except in cases like dyscalculia, where the problem DOES lie in their brains, but we should be teaching them ways to deal with that, rather than letting it be covered up by the assumption that “of COURSE girls are bad at math!” *My roommate has trouble with simple arithmetic, worse if she’s stressed. I could set the people who told her she was just dumb on fire.*
Augh! Missing HTML tag! Apologies.
Not a problem, m’dear – I think I’ve fixed it for you.
Yay, thanks!
Replying mainly to AllegroFox about the mindsets thing. It makes a lot of sense at first sight.
I dunno exactly where I fall on the scale of growth vs talent mindset, but I’d hazard a guess that I lean strongly towards ‘talent’.
I remember thinking I was bad at physics at GCSE but then when I got to A-level Maths I found that mechanics was a piece of cake. “Yay, teach me the formulae and I can apply them to any wordy problem! I could’ve done physics after all, if only I’d had a better teacher.” It was such a revelation. I had various incidents in maths and physics that drove me up the wall because dammit, I *know* I’m smart. I understand everything else, why is this causing me such problems? I only later realised that it’s because of how things were being explained (badly) that I didn’t get it at the time. And the irony of thinking through most of secondary school that I found maths difficult only to end up with a much better maths grade at A-level than I got in my professed discipline of biology continues to astound me.
On the flip side of the talent mindset, I always felt like I didn’t deserve my outstanding grades because, eh, it was my gift and it’s not like I asked for it. All I ever had to do was the put the time and concentration in; there was no ‘effort’ or struggle involved in doing it. If everything I did came so easily to me, then my grade wasn’t worth as much as someone’s lower grade when they had to work so much harder for it. Which is all kinds of fucked up.
Oh, and seconding your point about not being interested enough as a reason for being bad at something. It was always clear in school who the smart kids were who were just not interesting in learning what we were being taught, whether because it wasn’t interesting of itself, or because of the way it was being taught. Both of which made me sad but the latter is worse because they’re being failed by the system. :-s