Give Your Brain a Break

I had something planned to write about this week.  I know I did.  I spent time thinking about it and pre-writing in my head when I was out walking last week.  I cannot, however, remember what it was.  I normally post on Sundays, but I didn't post yesterday because when I sat down to write, I couldn't remember what I was going to write about.  I thought perhaps I would remember by this morning, but it hasn't happened.  Yesterday, my mom and I spent some time with my 94-year-old granny.  She has said a number of things lately that we believe is remembering things from months ago but believing they happened this week.  You may have found difficulty in recent weeks, searching for the next word you want to say or remembering what you had planned to do next.  We are all a mental step behind where we are accustomed to being.

Part of the reason for our mental slowness is the imbalance of neurotransmitters that come from social distancing.  Some of it is due to the diet many adopted during the pandemic as it did not include the nutrients that were good for the brain and did include ingredients that are bad for cognitive function.  If you aren't making a concerted effort to get some sunlight, your brain will be affected as well.  If you have noticed a more profound drop in the past few weeks than the rest of the pandemic, it is likely your brain is also suffering from the impact of world events on your mental function.  Even if they are not impacting your life directly, if they are in the back of your mind, they are taking up space in your working memory.  That lowers your ability to hold as many other things in your mind at once as you usually do.

So, what can we do?  I addressed some strategies back in April in my post about isolation as a single person.  Here are a few ideas.

Eat right - It's time to stop using the pandemic as an excuse to eat trash.  You know what you are supposed to do, and you are an adult who can make decisions, so make better ones.  In particular, for your brain, you need vitamins E and D and Omega 3 fatty acids.  You can supplement if you have to, but it is always better absorbed in the context of food and natural digestion.

Get some exercise - You don't have to reorganize your life to put in an hour-long, extra-strenuous workout.  I'm talking about going for a walk.  Take a lap around the outside of your house.  The mental break, fresh air, and vitamin D inducing sunlight will help your brain function.

Put your phone down - I know everyone has grown to think of their phone as a part of their left hand, but it doesn't have to be.  The non-stop scroll of news and social media posts about the news are keeping it in your working memory.  Set a time boundary (half an hour in the morning or one hour in the evening, scrolling during lunchtime - whatever works for you) on your exposure to news.  Reading the same story over and over again makes your brain respond as if the event were happening over and over again.  You aren't more informed.  You are more anxious, and it is bad for your brain.

Challenge your brain - Do something to keep your brain exercised.  I do a daily crossword puzzle.  You might want to read a chapter of a book and do Sudoku.  It doesn't really matter what it is as long as it provides a good amount of challenge for your brain, keeping it stimulated and working.  When you are trying to remember something, don't just Google it right away.  Give your brain some time to try to remember it.

Cut yourself (and others) some slack - I'm an organizer and a planner, and I try to teach my kids to organize as well.  It's an important part of equipping them for life, so I am have always held them to due dates and deadlines.  I take their late work, but there is a penalty, because I don't believe I am preparing them for adult life (where bills have late fees and there are consequences to submitting applications late) if I don't hold them accountable for when something is due.  I am, however, cutting them way more slack during this time.  Because I know we are ALL having trouble with our working memory, I am not penalizing them for something being late by a day, and I am reminding them more if things are missing.  I am giving less penalty for late submissions than I used to.  The EduTwitter mob would find it horrible that I am assigning anything with a deadline.  I believe they are wrong.  Preparing them for adult life is still important, even in a pandemic, and sending them the message that it isn't is likely to lead them to the conclusion that they won't have an adult life.  While I plan to return to more strict policies in the future, it is only fair to show everyone around us an extra measure of grace.

Now that you have finished this post, put your phone down and go for an outdoor walk.  Your brain will be glad that you did.

Intellectual Honesty

In my teaching career, I've seen these two scenarios play out more than a dozen times.  

A new teacher is hired.  The students decide she is cool.  They are enraptured, and she can do no wrong.  Mistakes are forgiven.  Best intentions are assumed.  Inappropriate actions are overlooked.  

A new teacher is hired.  Students decide she is horrible.  They put a target on her, and she can do nothing right.  Mistakes are amplified.  Worst intentions are assumed.  Fully appropriate actions are complained about for days. 

A few years ago, during lunch duty, a small group of students walked up to me and said, "Do you think it's okay for a teacher to . . . "  I've been teaching long enough to recognize this ploy.  The students give you only the information you would need to agree with them, and then they can say you are on their side.  (By the way, most of the time, students don't even know this is what they are doing.)  Rather than agree or disagree with the action, I said, "How would you feel about this if Miss Smith (not her name) did it?"  They said, "It's not Miss Smith.  It's Mrs. Jones (also not her name)."  I told them that I knew who they were talking about from the beginning, but that wasn't my question.  My challenge to them was to imagine how they would feel about the very same action if was taken by a teacher they like.  The girls in this group were willing to engage with me, and they said, "I guess we would think Miss Smith was trying to help by giving us practice before a test."  That's exactly what they would have assumed, and they would have been right.  "Is it possible," I said, "that Mrs. Jones is also trying to help you?"  While they never grew to like Mrs. Jones, I hope that this conversation helped them assess their teachers' actions in a more intellectually honest way.

Reading social media for the past five years has felt like the opposite of this conversation.  I am, of course, talking about politics, but it applies more broadly.  If a celebrity you like makes an off-color joke, we claim he was taken out of context or he meant well or was too young to understand the mistakes he was making.  If a celebrity we don't like makes the same joke, we jump on the cancel them hashtag so fast we make it trend.  Teachers on Twitter will excuse horrifying tweets from an Educelebrity they follow, but when someone they don't like says the most innocuous thing about education, they press the caps lock button, find their hand-clap emojis, and light them up.  

The only infallible person is Jesus, and your favorite political leader is not Jesus.  He may do some things right, but he is a fallen human being who does a lot of things wrong.  It's okay to admit that.  It doesn't mean you have abandoned him or that you are disloyal or that you aren't a good member of your political party (which is not something we were ever intended to be loyal to in the first place).  The guy you don't like isn't Satan, and he doesn't do absolutely everything wrong.  Acknowledging one or two positives about him will not weaken your stance on political issues.  If anything, it may strengthen them because you won't come off as a mindless follower.

When the President met with Kim Jong Un in the first year of his term, he came back with a very weak agreement, trading in military exercises on the border for very little in return.  There were people in my timeline that acted like he had created world peace when they would have lost their minds if President Obama had come back with the same deal.  When the President moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, there were people acting as though he had just set off WWIII when they would have cheered Clinton if he had done it.  No one stops to ask themselves how they would feel if someone else had done it or what they even think about the issue itself.  The motto, "If my guy does it, it's great.  If the other guy does it, it's horrible." is not the way adults should operate.  

People are going to have strong opinions on every issue, and I am no exception to that.  I am not asking anyone to abandon their beliefs.  I am asking that we approach each event and issue with a degree of intellectual honesty that we have not been exercising.  Do you agree with what was done, regardless of who did it?  Does the opinion of a person sway you more than your moral compass.  If so, you may be engaging in idolatry.  As adults, we set an example for kids, and right now, we are setting a pretty bad one.  

What I Hope They'll Remember

Most of us have, for better or worse, vivid memories of our middle and high school years.  And, we went to school in precedented times, comparably rather dull compared to what my students are experiencing.  Tomorrow, I return from Christmas break.  Contrary to popular opinion, dropping the ball on the 31st didn't change anything (I promise this is my last slam at New Year's until next year).  I will return tomorrow with my mask in place, walk through the temperature scanner, meet in social distanced department meetings, and plan for more hybrid teaching.  Last school year, it was the final quarter that was upended by COVID, but this year, it influences the entire academic year.  Our students will remember this year, telling their kids and grandkids what it was like to live through the COVID pandemic.  I hope what they remember will be formative of their character.  Here's what I'm hoping for.

I hope students will remember teachers who did not panic.  There's a professional line between being authentic with students and sharing things that are not good for them.  My personal rule is, "A student should not go home worried about me."  When the pandemic hit, teachers felt a variety of things.  Some feared contracting the virus themselves or bringing it home to their families.  Some worried about their students whose home situations were not ideal.  Some were worried about the impact of virtual learning on the education of their students.  We were all sad that we wouldn't be able to connect with our students in the normal ways.  I don't know what every student saw from their teachers, but one of the things I am most proud of at GRACE is that we shared emotion, not panic.  Our students saw us cry, but they saw us wipe those tears, pick up our markers, and keep going.  They saw us put on our masks and do our best  I hope when they are adults who encounter difficult challenges that they will do the same.

I hope students will remember that teachers did everything they could to help them.  A thousand decisions have to be made every day in a normal school year, but I am usually confident in those decisions.  During pandemic teaching, I made a lot of decisions that I had no way of applying my experience to.  I tried to let my students know that whatever the result, I would find a way to make it fair.  Overall, I think we came to a good place, in the best interest of the student, while holding to the integrity of our classes.  Where we stumbled, we admitted it, apologized, and worked together to make it right.  I hope when they are adults who make mistakes that they will do the same.

I hope my students recognize that they can handle more than they think they can.  Stress is not fun, and there have been very stressful days, both in the spring during lockdown and in the fall during hybrid teaching.  I have sometimes sounded heartless to others when I have said things like, "Crying doesn't make you (or me) right."  I'm not.  I don't like to see my kids in tears, but I know that you don't teach grit, resilience, growth mindset, or any other kind of character development if you make decisions based on emotions, yours or theirs.  Chronic stress is unhealthy, but bouts of stress are actually good for you.  You go into a situation believing you cannot do it, then do it, and come out on the otherside realize you are stronger than you had imagined.  I hope when my students are adults, and they encounter times of stress, they will remember that they are strong persevere.

I hope my students will remember to be kind to people in need.  In normal times, we sometimes have the tendency to either look down on people who use government and charitable resources or pity them in a way that depersonalizes them.  We rarely imagine that it could be us at any time.  There were many people who lived perfectly normal lives pre-pandmic, paying their bills each month, carrying a little debt, but never worrying about whether they would be able to afford groceries.  When everything shut down in March, those same people didn't know how they would make it until May.  I was blessed to keep my job, but it was eye-opening to realize that you never know when you may be the one in need.  I hope my students will grow up to be people who give to charity and help their unemployed neighbor and do whatever they can to help.

Most of all, I hope my students will remember the people who stepped up.  The first that come to mind are nurses and doctors who cared for COVID patients.  Despite grave physical risk to themselves, they walked into hospital rooms and cared for patients.  We don't yet know what mental and emotional toll this will have on the medical profession in the long term, but dealing with patients who cannot have their loved ones with them and seeing a relentless amount of death while hearing member of the public refuse to do their part is going to have long term effects.  Grocery store checkers don't get paid much.  It's an entry level job, often done by high school students.  None of them took the job, thinking that it would one day be dangerous, but my grocery store has been open every day of the pandemic.  Add to that list delivery drivers and postal workers, whose service we literally could not have lived without.  The scientific community stepped up.  The development of MRNA vaccines at this pace is just short of miraculous.  These people worked round the clock, under pressure, and did an amazing thing.  Hiccups are happening with distribution, as they are bound to, but even with those stumbles, we are witness scientific history from regular people who stepped up when needed.  I have seen people from every walk of life step up, from textile who sewed masks during the PPE shortages to engineers who figured out how to make ventilators more efficient to people who put stuffed bears in their windows to provide joy for children to the news media who did their jobs while being called vile names to the Chic-Fil-A employee who still tells me it is her pleasure to serve me waffle fries.  I hope my students will remember that they can step up from wherever they are, no matter what kind of job they have.  I hope they will remember that people find creative ways to help and will do the same.

I know they are going to remember some things I wish they didn't.  They'll be able to name the people who didn't step up.  They'll remember the santizer hoarders and the toilet paper shortage.  They'll remember things that weren't fair and how frightened they were.  But, I hope, they'll chose to focus on the memories from which they can learn so this time won't be wasted.

Reflections on the Year

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows that I think most people's reaction to New Year's is stupid.  I do not believe January 1 is different from any other day just because we change the number on the year.  I do not believe that New Year's Eve has magical powers to change things.  The dropping of a ball made of crystal in Time Square doesn't make tomorrow different from today, and nothing changes if we don't make it change.  I do, however, believe very strongly in self-reflection, and while I do that frequently, this seems like as good a time as any to reflect on what I have learned from the past twelve months.

Never Say "Can't" - A year ago, we did not know school buildings would be closed in March.  If someone had suggested it, I would have said, "That's crazy.  Schools can't be shut down.  They're schools."  Well, it turns out they can be.  For nine weeks, I stood behind a table, talking to my laptop from a little-used room in my house.  When summer was drawing to a close and school districts were deciding how to reopen, I saw a lot of hand-clap-emoji-filled tweets with the word "can't" in them.  They asserted that it wasn't possible to teach kids in a classroom and at home simultaneously.  It turns out that, while it is not ideal in any way, we can.  I would imagine this didn't just apply to teaching.  I bet most news organizations, late-night talk show hosts, and athletic organizations would have said they couldn't do things the way we are regularly doing them right now.  I'll be enormously grateful when we don't have to do things in these strange ways, but it is interesting to know that we can.

Brain Health is Delicate - I have been interested in the brain's role in learning for my entire career, but I can't say I've ever thought about how important it is to keep it healthy.  That's because before now, my normal life was, in fact, without my even knowing it, perfect for its health.  I had had a daily schedule, lots of interaction with people, decent nutrition, and mentally challenging tasks.  When my interactions with people became virtual and I went without physical touch for almost three months, the neurotransmitter balance in my brain was thrown completely out of whack.  While I did everything I could to maintain its health in other ways (see this post), I could definitely feel the effects of that imbalance.  The return to school has helped, but I still notice that my brain is not at its optimum level of function.  

Schedules Equal Productivity - I have long been a planner.  I lived my life by "to do" lists and deadlines and goals.  What I didn't realize was that, without those things, I would do nothing.  Because the spring was so difficult, I thought I would give myself some time in the summer to sleep in and do whatever came my way that day.  It led to my doing absolutely nothing.  I mean it, knot-on-a-log levels of nothing.  After two days of that, I realized that if I kept it up, I was going to get to the end of the summer fat and shameful, so I made a summer schedule.  Making the bed, eating at set times of day, and knowing what you want to accomplish is the only way to getting anything meaningful done.

Unconscious Bias is Real - As a science teacher, I teach my students about the influence of bias on science.  I do not teach them that scientists have no bias;  I teach them that we all have bias and that is the job of a scientist to design experiments that mitigate their impact.  The most dangerous scientists are those who believe themselves to be unbiased because being blind to them means they won't take steps to reduce their effects.  By definition, unconscious bias is something you are unaware is part of you.  It's likely deeply ingrained from childhood experiences and, therefore, difficult for you to see in yourself.  If you want to become aware of it, you have to do something really scary.  You have to ask others.  Don't just ask around to everyone, but find someone you trust to tell you the truth rather than just agree with you.  Ask them specific questions about what they see in you.  You can't address it if you don't know about it, so dig deep as the Psalmist did when he asked God "Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!" (Psalm 139-23-24 ESV)

Know How to Disagree Well - When I was in middle and high school, there was nothing I enjoyed more than a good theological debate with my friend, Rebecca.  We had opposite views on most theological issues, but we knew each other's hearts and minds so well that we could debate for an hour without either of us thinking the other was stupid or immoral for holding to those opinions.  We respected that the other friend loved Jesus as much as we did and was at least as smart as we were (although Rebecca was objectively smarter than I was).  I love a lot of people that I disagree with, but I've never lost respect for more people than I have this year.  What's different from those debates I had with Rebecca?  Because of our mutual respect for each other, we truly listened to each other.  That's not what has happened this year.  People that I love have shown that they do not want to hear what anyone else thinks.  From willing ignorance of science to outright worship of political figures to unwillingness to address injustice, I have been disillusioned by those whose hearts I did not know before.  To disagree well, you must have trust and you must listen.  That's not what is happening right now.

I Have Excessive Love for My Co-Workers - This one I knew already.  However, it fits here because of how incredible they have been this year.  In the previous paragraph, I talked about how people showed their hearts in a negative way.  My GRACE friends are the opposite.  I have seen their hearts to be bigger than I already knew they were.  Our leaders have worked themselves to exhaustion.  People took on projects that weren't part of their job.  Without the ability to touch others, they have found ways to reach out.  I cannot imagine enduring the past few years (our 2019 was no picnic) with anyone else.  

Thanking People is Good For You - One of the ways I kept connection in the spring was by writing to people.  I spent my office hours writing notes to students until I had sent a card to all of them.  I enjoyed it, and I like supporting the postal service, so when I had gotten through my roster, I wrote to former students and alumni and many of my co-workers.  In July, I wrote to all of the students I would teach this year.  When the school year started, I was out of people to write to; but I enjoyed it too much to stop.  I decided to write to people whose work brings me joy.  From Stephen Colbert to my favorite podcast hosts to actors in my favorite movies, I have written to dozens of people for no other reason than to say thank you.  I have heard back from only a few of them, but that's not why I did it.  I want to thank people for putting their gifts into the world in a way that brings me joy, and what has been good for me is that it makes me think of everyday things for which to be grateful.  Gratitude is good for your soul in a way positivity just is not.

While I don't believe there is any power in the idea of a new year, I do believe you should take time to reflect.  Perhaps for you, this is a good week to do that.  What have you learned this year?

A Weary World Rejoices

This blog is usually about education.  As far as I can tell going into this writing, this one won't be.  I'm just meandering in my thoughts.  You are reading a blog called "On the Rabbit Trail," so you have to expect it will sometimes stray.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday, in which a musician was being interviewed about Christmas music.  He referenced "Christmas Time is Here," the song from A Charlie Brown Christmas as one of his favorites.  The interviewer said, "That's a little melancholy, isn't it?"  The musician talked about why he loved melancholy Christmas songs, and it resonated with me.  I have always loved songs like, "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel" and "Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming" and "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus."  These hymn writers seemed to understand something that modern Western culture has forgotten.  What made Christmas matter was that the world was dark and broken.  When Jesus was born, it wasn't into a holly, jolly time with a triumphant trumpet blast.  He came into a poor town, was announced to shepherd, was born to a poor couple, and spent his first nights in a stable.  He came to redeem us, and we killed him for it.  I'm not a church calendar gal, but my understanding is that the purpose of the advent season is to recognize and mark the time of waiting and longsuffering before celebrating the birth of Christ.

Some of the great songs written in war times were "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas."  They recognized in a different way that the world is not as it should be.  People pined for their loved ones and the things they missed.  They understood that they couldn't manufacture cheer while there were empty chairs at their dinner table.  

Today, I went to the grocery store.  As I entered, the music system was playing, "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas.  As I left, it played "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." I'm not saying these songs shouldn't have been played in the store or that they shouldn't be played in your home.  It felt strange today because, on the way to the store, I had been thinking about what a large number 300000 is when it comes to deaths from a single source and how it was like having 100 September 11th events in one year and how we really need to have some kind of national expression of grief like we did after the Oklahoma City Bombing and how I felt as a child when Ronald Reagan spoke after the explosion of the Challenger and what might be an appropriate time and method of doing that for this time (perhaps on the anniversary of the first documented American death, which I believe is in early February).  All of this was running around in my mind when I was told by the music system that this was the best time of the year and that I should have a cup of cheer, greet people on the street, and kiss someone under the mistletoe.  It just felt strange.

My favorite Christmas song of all time is "Oh, Holy Night."  There are a lot of reasons for this.  I have vivid childhood memories of it being sung in my church by a man whose voice could raise you so high you had to look down to see the Star of Bethlehem.  The origin story of the song is also kind of interesting, if a little controversial and its adoption by the abolitionist movement due to the line "Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother" just make it even more compelling.  Also, it is just a beautiful song with so much meaning and well orchestrated to bring your emotions to an apex just before "fall on your knees."  There's so much to love about this song.  

This year, what has struck me more than ever is the line, "A thrill of hope.  A weary world rejoices."  Perhaps that is because the world is so markedly weary this year, I love that this line notes that the world rejoiced and yet was still weary.  Hope is needed as much now as it was over 2000 years ago.  People without faith are counting on their hope coming from a political candidate or the vaccine or a stimulus check.  As Christians, we should recognize that our hope is from the same place it always has been, that child born in Bethlehem whose life and work and death and resurrection redeems us from our sins.  

I know my thoughts are not terribly well organized here, but I think the point I am making is this.  Take some time to listen to a slow, sad Christmas song this week and remember that Christmas is important because we had a need.  We didn't need to feel good.  We needed hope.  We didn't need lights.  We needed a redeemer.  We didn't need sugar cookies.  We needed a savior.  I like all of those things and am glad we will have them, but let's take a break from them for a few minutes to recognize the brokenness of the world and the answer to that brokenness.  Then, weary as we are, we can rejoice "for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

What I Don't Know How to Do

On Monday, my physics students participated in the culmination of our study of rotary motion.  They were assigned the task of designing and building a spinning top with the goal of spinning for the longest period of time.  They were required to defend their choices of mass, radius, and shape using physics.  Then, we have a tournament to see whose design results in the longest spin.  

This is even a project that can work in hybrid situations. You may notice that in the bottom two pictures, there is a student who is spinning his top on a table at home because he was quarantined between the time it was printed and the competition; and you will see our media specialist is holding an iPad so those at home could witness their top spinning (they had a designated spinner).  I even had one top design sent from a student in China.

While students may build this top in any way they wish; and a few used recycled Beyblade or CD/marble combinations, most of them have taken advantage of our school's 3D printer.  Our media specialist comes to my classroom and walks them through the basics of the software and one example.  Some of my students had sent a design for her to print within the day and then modified their design based on the results (truly engaging in design thinking).  

Now, to the point of this post.  My physics students have been participating in this project for four years now.  I have, as of this date, still not 3D printed anything.  I haven't yet learned how.  I'm sure I will some day, but this project takes place at a time of year when I am writing exams and meeting a yearbook deadline, so I just never have.  My kids are developing a skill that I do not currently possess.

There was a time when a high school student was limited to the knowledge and skills of their teacher and the knowledge in library books.  This is no longer the case.  My students have the ability to explore any interest they want any time of the day or night.  They can learn skills that I do not possess.  In this case, I brought in a person with knowledge of 3D printing to help them learn, but with more time, they could have learned it on youtube.  They don't have to be limited by me.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am by no means advocating for the teacher as facilitator model of education.  I have fought too long and too hard to develop my professional judgment to abdicate it to the "guide on the side" fad of education.  I want students to know that there is an expert in the room because it makes them feel safe and protected in their education (and when you teach chemistry, letting them learn whatever they want through inquiry is physically dangerous).  I also have no fear of letting them see me looking things up when I don't have an answer to their question.  I have more ability to quickly interpret the answers I find than they do and to judge the credibility of the source, but I want them to see me model that process.  

As with most things in life, this is an issue of balance.  Teachers should carefully plan their lessons based on standards in the curriculum and their own professional judgment about what matters most when time is limited.  We should constantly read in our content area to stay current and study brain research and best practices in education.  We also shouldn't be afraid to assign something to our students that we don't know how to do.  We can provide resources for them to learn from without it coming from our own brains without it undermining our expertise in other areas.  Sometimes, it will be messy and time-consuming, but don't fear the mess because students also learn from watching us clean up the mess.  

You Don't Know Yet

When I was in college, all I wanted out of life was to teach physics.  My degree plan involved a lot of biology, chemistry, and even earth science.  I didn't want to take these classes because I just wanted to teach physics.  Many professors and advisors told me that there were no jobs in which I would spend my entire day teaching physics and that I would need other qualifications to be marketable.  I was, of course, compliant, but I didn't truly believe them.  I really thought I did not need these other courses.  People who knew what they were talking about were sharing wisdom, but my 19-year-old self thought I knew better.  I was, of course, incorrect.  I didn't know what I needed to know yet.

A few years ago, a student came to me to complain about a teacher.  In the midst of the conversation, he said, "He asks questions on his tests that aren't important."  My response was, "I'm sorry, but you aren't qualified to know that."  He looked at me like I had stepped out of a UFO.  He couldn't imagine that he didn't have the perspective he needed to make that kind of judgment.  The man he was talking about had been teaching for over a decade and knew exactly what he needed to teach freshmen to prepare them for the next level of learning.  The freshman was incorrect, not because he wasn't smart, but because he didn't know what he needed to know yet.

Every day, people on social media express very strong and uninformed opinions on everything from virology to politics to nutrition.  People with actual knowledge make vain attempts to educate, but social media makes 7th-graders of us all; so those posts are met with the idea that one person's ignorance is equal to another person's knowledge.  They do not know what they need to know; and, apparently, they don't want to know.

We have all had experiences like the ones described above.  I now look back on my anatomy class as one of the most valuable classes I've ever taken.  The first job I had after college was teaching the very earth science class I had looked down on just two years earlier.  Yet, we walk around all day believing that we have a full view of things when we do not yet know what we need to know.  

Allow the experiences in which you have had clearer hindsight to give you humility - to recognize that you may need to reach out to an expert to find out the information you need - to be open to changing your mind when new information becomes available - to recognize that what seems useless now may turn out to valuable later.  

Teachers, share experiences with your students so they can see that limited perspective leads to poor judgment.  Teach them to seek expert advice, and show them how to judge the difference between credible information and the first result on Google.  Teach them to listen to those whose experience is different from their own.  Help them recognize that they don't know what they don't know and that doesn't mean they are stupid.  Rather it means they are uninformed and can become informed with a little humility.