Does anyone realize the importance of teaching?

A couple of things I have truly learned during my limited experience in the school world: first of all, teachers have an image problem. They badly need some good PR, and soon. Second, apparently nobody seems to acknowledge, governments in primis but also the general public all over the civilized world, the immense, crucial, vital importance of teaching. I am a scientist by background and I am trained in finding explanations, but I still fail to grasp how the vital and irreplaceable role of the teachers and the school can be so badly misunderstood. Teaching is clearly the most important job in any civilized country, because they directly forge and shape civilized citizens, who are ultimately the components of the society. Without them there would be no civilized society whatsoever. Therefore, teachers should be actually seen for what they are: society-makers and everyone should give at least at thought to it, because they are in charge to physically populate the society where you all will be living as an old (or ageing) being.   


Moreover, the past decades have seen a constant shift of responsibility from the individual, and particularly from pupils, to the collectivity. Whether this is the right way forward or not, the shift has left the teachers dealing with all the lack of education left by the parents willingly or not, to deal with it. Therefore, all the worst from previous generations, in term of social skills and civic education, is accumulated in the hands of a handful of teachers, who generally do not have the tools or even the rights to manage the problem. 
Governments and the public should be always kept informed and aware of what teachers really do and how teaching is much more of a mission than a normal paid activity: particularly in challenging public schools. 


This brings us directly to the necessity of some good PR. Is it now the right time for teachers to get a common and resounding voice in the establishment? A voice which can put forward some of the aforementioned concepts? Teaching is way too important to be silently relegated to a second-class occupation, both in terms of salary and popularity. Teachers need a better presence in the media and a strong and constant pressure on the system, able to uplift the whole category to deserved heights. Good teachers are our only way to the future, and we owe them what we are, but even more importantly, we owe them what we will be. 
Let’s all acknowledge that.

The universe does not care

And again, I found myself debating religious issues with a religious person. Why should I? The whole universe (and it is a fairly big place) does not care. Many governments do not care as well, therefore why should I? Religions are (slowly) fading away in any case, relegated to more and more defensive positions by the usual couple of elements: freedom and culture. Humankind does not need to believe in additional lives to love and respect the only one we get and it is very clearly demonstrated by the million of happy humanists living very much concrete, first owner, lives. Interestingly enough, it does appear that atheists on average are happier and more empathic towards other beings and even more sensitive to social issues. Obviously such a statistic tends to be slightly biased because a substantial percentage of humanists is better educated and probably better off overall. Nevertheless, we (humanists) do not need a vengeful god watching us in this life, neither to get a better and rewarded round after, nor to behave "morally". 


However, what really put me off is the infinite, enormous, gigantic amount of hubris that any person of faith must have, in order to believe in anything at all, and therefore to elevate to forbidden heights, the miserable, useless and ignorant sense of self-importance, up to a point where it becomes comedy.
How ignorant about the universe must you be, to be able to fill yourself with such a deceiving immensity about yourself and your species? Who do you think you are? Really, please. The masterpiece of an elusive god who rolled the ball for 14 billion years just to see you, YOU, going around wondering about what to do in this life and how to get the afterlife? Really? How delusional can you be? How infantile, puerile, presumptuous and disrespectful of the real immensity of space and time. You microscopic entity, who needs to find a delusional self-hypnotic conviction of a second life because you cannot love your first: how dull are you? But you ask for intellectual respect. Do you? Does it go with a self-induced numbness based upon an unlimited presumption? Does it?  


There is no point in putting the space-time continuum, the eternity and the infinity, the majesty of the physical laws stretched inside a nova or in a black hole, the amazing crude fact that our atoms were forged in stars that have been born and dead before our own sun was emitting its first ray of light. 
If you are religious you must ignore the whole lot, simply because every single thing in the universe, from a law to an atom, from a star to a galaxy, everything reminds you about your smallness, your almost non-existence. Everything tells you that you are not special, at any level, whatsoever. Where the only real greatness is around us, everywhere, and we should just marvel in awe about it. Because it took 14 billion years for us to see what we see, to understand what we understand, and to become what we are.
Peace.

The hubris of humankind

Sometimes human beings think to be very special creations in this universe. The collective form of such excess of hubris is called religion.
MP

The bad model story

As a researcher, I have been living in a bad-model situation for many years now, and the only real problem I see, is that it took all those many years to understand it. There was no counselling available when I was young (relatively) and full of hopes. Therefore, I have been passionately thinking about a way to let my personal experience be of some help to others and I realized that it is not that easy. Indeed, getting things right in science is so much based on a certain “luck factor” (the right lab, with the right project, in the right moment etc...) that no generalisation is allowed.

However, it might be useful to lay down few indications about how a “bad model”, also known as a bad project, looks like. First of all, a bad model is one which needs to be adjusted on a weekly basis for years before (if ever) producing results. This might be one of the first things to check when you are going to accept your first post-doctoral position, with eyes full of dreams. A very subtle hint may come from the fact that your project has been running for 12 years (before you), and by half a dozen people but it somehow remained “promising”. If this is the case, pack your bag, forget the whole thing, go to the next interview and do not look back.

A bad model might also consist in an experimental framework that, whatever the quantity of data produced, is never sufficient to get any collateral or small publication done, not even a microscopic one. A little publication every now and then, helps the mood, sustains the student, reinforces a thesis: incredibly, it does almost only good. But obviously, a small publication is useless, or at least you will be told that it is. You do not need that, forget about little papers, you are primed for big stuff: keep working on whatever is promising, big, giant enormous or hot, even if it looks like you entering the porn-industry. Reality is that is your boss who does not need small publications, not you. Reality is also that a good project, coming from a good intuition and backed up by knowledge, generates several both small and big publications: only bad project do not.

Another indication of ongoing “bad modelling”, is having the group leader worrying too much about consumables. If your boss is confident in his model, he will not care at all about any consumable, because he is so secure about the incoming big publication, with big impact, that so much more money is going to come from grants and so on. If you trust your model, what you want is having the data on your bench quickly, not cheaply. Particularly, considering that in the current world, slow science does not exist. The boss worries because he knows, maybe deeply or unconsciously, that you are spending his money shooting in the dark to a moving target. There is no other possible reason to worry. Therefore, when you start being questioned about how many blots you are doing without stripping/re-probing, think very well about it. When home, think again, and possibly start looking for another position somewhere else.

A bad model is also the one that regularly gives results which are slightly or widely different from what it predicts. A bad model does not follow the natural sequence of any scientific hypothesis: preliminary investigation>model re-shuffling>data consolidation. No. The bad model maintains a characteristic status of perennial preliminary investigation, whatever the age or the people involved. High-risk, preliminary investigations are by nature short events. Any project looking as an extended preliminary investigation is inevitably destined to fail: with only statistically-based exceptions.

I hope these few indications will help all the fellow young and hopeful minds when choosing a place for their Ph.D. or for a post-doc. When it was my turn I did not have any advice of the sort and my only feeling was of extreme flattering, because I was being offered a position, a job, and particularly, trust. Well, do not ever forget that when accepting a position in science, trust is not given to you but simply exchanged. So, take your time to think just a tiny bit more before giving your trust and time away, because unfortunately, if things do not go well, there is no way to get them back. 

Marco