Some People

Yesterday evening I saw a polished little gem of a movie, 'Quartet.'  I had not heard of this film until my friends suggested we go see it after dinner at India Palace.  Indian cuisine and a movie?  Sign me up and let's go!

The film was a gentle coda of the lives of musicians who currently live at Beecham House, a retirement home for such folk.  In one memorable scene, Maggie Smith, a diva who has just arrived and  is given the grand tour, comments on the portrait of Sir Thomas Beecham, namesake of the retirement home.  The doctor/tour guide not only points out the portrait but tells her that Beecham was a famous conductor.  Of course Maggie knows this and retorts, "Yes, and his grandfather was a chemist who made laxatives.  Entirely appropriate for this place."  

Turns out the acerbic Maggie (or the character of Jean in the film), has a former husband living at the home and he has never forgiven her for a past transgression that changed the course of their lives.  In case you want to see the movie, I'll say no more about that. 

The film is replete with scenes of people not going gently into that good night.  They laugh, they argue, they fight, they piss into the shrubbery (mostly Wilf, a delightful reprobate who boasts of his 'seasoned wood'), and above all, they continue to make music.  The retirement home is an English estate and requires money to continue in business, so the director/doctor involves the residents in putting on a gala event to both celebrate the birthday of Verdi and save the home.  As the planning and practices take place, old angers and jealousies come bubbling to the surface which threaten the success of the gala.

The biggest threat is that Jean, her former husband (Reginald), Wilf (played by a deliciously randy Billy Connolly), and Cissy will not be able to perform Verdi's magnificent quartet from 'Rigoletto' due to past transgressions and current issues.  Cissy is a sweet character, whose episodes of dementia must be overcome somehow, and Jean must deal with her fear of failure (how can she possibly perform when she knows her voice might not hit those high notes?  she, of the twelve-curtain-call past?).  And then there's long-suffering Reginald, who struggles to find fulfillment through forgiveness.

In a quietly stunning visual metaphor, Jean and Reginald take a walk under a torturously-twisted ancient oak.   They, like the tree, have withstood the test of time, even though their bodies bear the inevitable marks of that rough passage.  From that point, you just know the quartet will sing and sing triumphantly.

All in all, this film is a comforting reminder of the constantly rejuvenating power of music and the magic of love that allows us to forgive and be forgiven.  If some people can love for life, why not us?  And while we're at it, let's sing, too.

Best Valentine's Day Ever

As we were monitoring students in the hall on Wednesday, Valentine's eve, a fellow teacher sighed, "I hope my wife keeps her promise of no Valentine's gifts.  We purchased some pricey barstools and agreed that was our present to each other.  I'm worried that she's going to buy something and I won't have anything."

I just smiled and said, "Then why don't you make her a card.  Find a nice love poem and copy it by hand for her.  I'm sure she'll be very touched by that."  He nodded in agreement and said, "Good idea!  I'll do that."

On Valentine's Day, I saw many students who had received gifts ranging from stuffed animals to candy to flowers.  One girl had a dozen roses, and when I picked up the bouquet I automatically checked for freshness by squeezing the blooms.  I was startled to find that one of the roses was artificial; the girl smiled and said, "My boyfriend wrote me a note that he would love me until that one died."  Oh, the romantic gesture!

I always have to know the end of the story, so I asked my colleague today if he (and she) had kept to their promise of no gifts.  He said, "Well, I got the card.  But I'm going away on a fishing trip this weekend and my wife is kind of freaked out about safety."  I thought it was for HIS safety, but he went on to say, "She is from S. Africa, and the crime rate is just terrible.  So even though we live in a really nice neighborhood in Broken Arrow, and Broken Arrow is one of the safest cities in the US, she's afraid to stay by herself.  It's been years since she's lived alone.  So I bought her some door jambs and pepper spray."

I laughed and said, "Oh, you are so romantic!"  But in all honesty, he was.  He demonstrated his love by thinking of her needs and her security.  And she demonstrated her love by putting aside her fear of being alone so that he could do something he enjoys.

Then after school, I went out to decompress with fellow teachers.  When I told the group about Mr. X's romantic gesture, Mr. Y said, "I WROTE a poem for my wife.  She's all logical and everything, so I thought this would make her cry.  She opened the card and took a long, long time to read the poem.  It was a short poem, and she's a fast reader, so I know it got to her.  She closed the card and said, 'And that's why I married you!'"  He chuckled with delight at the memory.  I'm glad I have the chance to work with such thoughtful people who are also willing to open up and share their stories.

And my story?  I got lots of chocolate from many students, a few sweet notes and a letter I'll cherish for as long as I can read.  Like I said, best Valentine's Day ever.

Greater Love Hath No Man (or Woman)

I teach chemistry (among other subjects, but this is a chemistry story, because after all, when you're attracted to someone, it's because the chemistry is good, eh?) and today we were working a stoichiometry problem involving a reaction that produced a gas.  Sounds intriguing, no?

This is the problem: 

In 1897 the Swedish explorer Andreé tried to reach the North Pole in a balloon.  The balloon was filled with hydrogen gas.  The hydrogen gas was prepared from iron splints and diluted sulfuric acid.  The reaction is  

                Fe(s)  +  H₂SO₄ --> FeSO₄(aq)  + H₂(g) 

The volume of the balloon was 4800 m³ and the loss of hydrogen gas during filling was estimated at 20%.  What mass of iron splints and 98% (by mass) H₂SO₄ were needed to ensure the complete filling of the balloon?  Assume a temperature of 0 °C, a pressure of 1 atm during filling, and 100% yield.

We solved the problem, but the polar exploration triggered the memory of one of my favorite stories in the book, Scientific Anecdotes.  Because this was my first hour pre-AP chemistry class, and I would not have a 5th hour today due to a pep assembly, I felt I could be a bit more relaxed in our curricular pursuits.  So I asked the students if they would like to hear a story about a brave group of explorers of the South Pole.  Of course they would (if it meant we would just lay off the stoichiometry for a few precious moments).  So I proceded to read the tale of Robert Scott and his tragic expedition that had attempted to beat Roald Amundsen to the pole.

Amundsen practically taunted Scott to a race to the pole after he (Amundsen) had more than adequately prepared his expedition.  Scott, who was in New Zealand when he received the challenge, hurriedly got his group and supplies together.  Unfortunately, Amundsen not only beat Scott's group to the South Pole, he left a letter for Scott to deliver to the Norwegian king.  Insult to injury, and all that.

Faced with evidence of their defeat, Scott and his group began the long trudge back to base at McMurdo Sound.  Long, as in 350 miles.  The men were on short rations and struggled to make it from cache to cache of food stored on the journey south.  One of the men fell and his injury slowed their progress even more.  This slower pace meant they were still far from the home base when the Antarctic winter set in with a fury.  All during this journey, Scott was writing in a journal and also penning letters to his wife, so when the first blizzard of winter set in, Scott wrote of the valor of the injured man (Titus Oates) who struggled to his feet in their little tent and said, "I am just going outside now.  I may be some time."  He never returned; he had sacrificed himself that the others might have a chance at survival.

But the sacrifice was in vain; the men were starving and did not have the energy to complete the journey.  Their bodies were recovered eight months later.  Some of Scott's last written words were: "Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman!" I managed to read all of that tale with no emotion.  But I had forgotten about the last few lines. 

When the expedition was found, they had been carrying along with them over 35 pounds of rocks and fossil specimens that helped geologists and naturalists understand the age and history of that remote, unforgiving place.  They were starving, dying, and yet they did not leave behind the precious cargo that would increase the store of scientific knowledge in the world.  I choked up and my eyes moistened (and it was obvious what was happening).  How can you not get a little misty-eyed in the face of such sacrifice, even if it were 100 years ago?

I have two students in that class who are from Vietnam and Taiwan.  They also cried a little, but then they stayed after class to confess they had only understood a bit of the story and wondered why I was crying.  I explained to them that the story was really about the unselfish acts of people who sacrificed themselves for the greater good.  When they truly understood what I was talking about, the tears were real.  Love, sacrifice and empathy are part of the universal language just as much as music or mathematics.

Even in this photo with all members of the party alive, you can see the toll the extreme conditions were taking.

A Secret Admirer

Memory is a tricky thing.  Sometimes we remember events in great detail but every detail can be wrong.  For example, I have a very distinct memory of how I learned of President Kennedy's assassination: I was five years old and visiting the house of my best friend's maternal grandmother.  Mrs. Laughlin, standing in her warm, cozy kitchen and smelling of freshly baked bread, bent down towards my friend Beth and me and exclaimed, "Oh, children!  The president has been shot!  He is dead!"  The only problem with this story is that when I was discussing it years later with my mother, she said, "You couldn't have heard that from Mrs. Laughlin.  We were still living in the parsonage and hadn't even moved out to the Garzelli's property.  You didn't even know Beth."

That stunned me.  I accepted the logic of my mother's memory and the timeline of our stay in Waynesville, but that acceptance in no way affected the memory.  That's still the memory I have of JFK's death, although it must have been my friend Beth's memory, not mine.  But I have definitely appropriated it.  So with the perfidy of memory in mind, another beautiful little memory sprang to my mind Saturday afternoon as I was preparing a little Valentine's treat for my friends.  I'm fairly certain this is true.

I always use green ink to correct student's work.  I have always hated red marks; they look so angry and accusatory.  So I adopted green, which represents gentle correction and encouragement of growth.  But even before I articulated the reasons why I was drawn to green ink, I liked it.  Just liked it and didn't really know why.  But as I was writing some cards Saturday, I suddenly remembered a story I had read in elementary school.  

A short story, it told of a young red-headed girl who was very attractive but didn't believe it.  She thought her red hair made her look different and she was embarrassed by it.  But to her father, she was a princess and he always told her how lovely she looked.  Of course, she didn't believe him because he was her father and he had to say things like that.  When Valentine's Day came around and there was the obligatory exchange of valentine cards in the classroom, the girl discovered a valentine written in green ink from 'a secret admirer.'  That one little card was enough to make her reassess her looks, and she began to glow with confidence.  She had a secret admirer!  She was beautiful!  Just like her father said.  I believe the story ended with the father and mother exchanging knowing looks as the girl happily took off for a party she would never have gone to before the secret card incident.  And after she left, the father re-capped his green pen and tucked it well away in his desk drawer.

The chemistry of attraction is definitely a mystery, and one to be celebrated in a variety of ways this week; but at least the little mystery of my secret admiration of green ink has been solved.  And that's satisfying enough.

Death Comes to Us All

And to some by court edict.  We've just begun a project in my forensic classes that involves researching cases of people who have been exonerated of various crimes through DNA evidence. As a prelude to the project this year, I asked students to write a brief paragraph explaining their opinion of the death penalty.  Some groaned about writing anything; others claimed they didn't have an opinion and wanted to know if they still had to write something.  And some just dived right in and let their thoughts coalesce into loops of ink and graphite.

As I was wandering around the room, one student looked up and asked, "Is it OK if I say they should spend about a year in jail and then be executed?  Is that too wishy-washy?"  I assured him it wasn't and asked why he thought that.  I already thought I knew the answer; from the title of the project, I guessed he wanted the year as a guard against injustice being done.  New evidence might emerge, after all.  But he replied, "I think they should be punished by spending a year in jail in case the atheists are right."  Who would think you could laugh about the death penalty?

As I read the essays, it became obvious that most students had really wrestled with the question and weren't just spouting received wisdom.  There were very few who were absolutists on the subject, and most were quite vehement about the level of evidence required and the nature of the crimes committed to impose the ultimate penalty.  Many mentioned the recent Newtown shootings and child sexual abuse as the kind of crimes that warranted such a sentence.  Others wanted absolutely incontrovertible evidence: DNA; video footage; at least five eyewitnesses.  In fact, for some students, the level of proof was so high, I doubt the death penalty would ever be imposed if they were jurors or judges.

Of the students who were in favor, many cited reasons such as expenses in maintaining prisoners in 'fancy facilities'.  They seemed to think that prison was similar to an extended stay in a Hyatt Regency hotel.  I think I may have to provide some passages from Grisham's 'The Innocent Man' or Damien Echols' 'Life After Death' to provide a realistic view of life in prison.  It may sound like I'm trying to sway opinions with that last comment, but I just want students to have all evidence in front of them before they make a judgement.  And sometimes that evidence is eye-opening, as in the case of the true expenses involved in trial/conviction and incarceration of those sentenced to die.

Considering that so many students (even those who really had no qualms about the imposition of the death penalty) were very specific about crimes that deserved the ultimate sentence, I wonder what they would think of this? 

Many countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, but you can see from this database which countries have executed people in the last year data was available (2010).  China led the way with 6,000 executions, but the United States was number 4 on the list.

What do I think?  Stay tuned after students complete the project.  Teachers can be cagey like that.

R.E.M., anyone?

In spite of all the jokes I've made or heard or cartoons I've seen regarding the end of the world, I had no idea what serious business it was to some people.  I should have guessed, though, after such events as the members of Heaven's Gate cult committing suicide back in 1997 in order to meet the 'mother ship' that was trailing comet Hale-Bopp.  But then I heard a news story about how so many people were contacting the astrobiologists at the NASA site about December 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar that NASA felt compelled to post videos and facts debunking that myth.  The really sad part is that the 'Ask an Astrobiologist' writer has received emails of people contemplating suicide and stories of children who have nightmares and can't sleep because they're so worried.  Adults have the ability to reason through this; small children don't.  In fact, sometimes the teens I teach don't seem to have that ability, either.

I, as most teachers I know, are usually as busy on the weekends (grading, lesson planning) as during the week.  And if they're procrastinators, as I sometimes am, then Sunday evenings can be a very stressful time of playing catch-up.  The particular weekend I'm thinking about occurred three years ago.  I had everything done by mid-afternoon Sunday (tests graded, lessons planned, supplies bought for an upcoming lab AND all my housework done!), so I called some friends and we went out for a movie and dinner.  It was so unusual for me to go out on a Sunday evening (and put me in such a buoyantly good mood for Monday), that I joked around with one of my classes that I now knew for sure the world was coming to an end.  I didn't explicitly state that it was because of my actions on Sunday evening, but I had just been talking about the movie I had seen (before we got down to the hard work of stoichiometry), so I assumed my students would take it as a joke in the fashion of, "Little Susie Q ate her Brussel sprouts; the world must surely be coming to an end!"  You know, that kind of hyperbole that makes you smile.

After class, two of my students came to me with worried and serious looks.  "Mrs. A, how are you so sure the world is coming to an end?  Is it because of the Mayan calendar thing?" I must have made a kind of strangled sound from choking back laughter (I didn't want to offend them), and explained I knew no such thing with certitude; I had just done something unusual for me on a Sunday evening, so I joked about the world ending because of it.  The girls looked relieved, and one told the other, "See?  I told you she was joking!"  Umm, sure.

Piaget was correct in his observations about concrete vs. abstract thinkers and the range of ages it takes to reach the abstract stage.  And sometimes we forget that to the potential detriment of our young listeners.  So, here's to the end of nightmares and not the world!

We Didn't Start the Fire

Such a lovely garden entrance before!

Just a few weeks ago, some of my parents' good friends woke up in the middle of the night to the sound you only want to hear when you're making blackened tilapia: the smoke detector shrieking its warning. Very sorry to report it was not a false alarm but something had gone amiss in the attic and the pictures you see to the side and below are the aftermath of that blaze.  Mom and Dad had gone over in the middle of the night to help out, and I went by later on an errand.

The firefighters had returned because another 'hot spot' had been discovered, so the fire engine was at the curb.  The entire middle section of the roof was gone, and the fire chief wasn't very enthusiastic about allowing anyone inside (it was quite unstable), but he did allow their son to go inside and cart out important things like photos.  Several of us who helped carry salvageable items to kind neighbors across the street were allowed to go to the front door.  I had never been this close to a house fire so quickly after it had been extinguished, and as I walked up to the door I was all too aware of beams that appeared to be hanging by the thinnest of slivers of wood.  I guess I'm one of those people who have to experience something to really understand all of the ramifications.  I respect and admire firefighters, but in that moment I felt just a little fear for myself, and the point was driven home about what these men really face on every call: the possibility of death.  I don't think I'm a stupid person, but I think I just took them for granted, never fully appreciating the risks they take.

Close-up of the entrance

From a distance, the extent of the roof damage is even more stunning

Trying to salvage precious memories.

 That was a few weeks ago.  Just this past weekend, my parents and I traveled to Austin to see my son.  I also have a cousin who lives in Austin, and her husband happens to be a firefighter.  Jerry invited us to see the fire station where he worked, and we all very eagerly took him up on his offer.  We arrived around 3 PM only to find that the four-man crew had been called to an emergency.  Some calls last longer than others, and that one was relatively short.  When Jerry and his crew mates arrived, they tucked in to some of the delicious churros my cousin had brought for them.  In the meantime, Jerry showed us around the engine and explained its operation and some of the intriguing equipment stored in it.

Rajiv was allowed to use one of the smaller hoses

The tank holds upwards of 500 gallons of water, and with the larger diameter hose, can be emptied in about 5 minutes.  With the proper hose on the intake valve (and sufficient water pressure), it can also be filled in almost the same amount of time.  The pressures and flow rates for this to happen just boggle my mind.  In fact, all I could think of as Jerry was talking was how many exciting physics and chemistry lessons (real-life problems) could come from a fire engine (and an enthusiastic host!).

If you glance through the pictures below, you might get an inkling of the danger involved in this work and the mental and physical stamina required to be good at it.  Quite often, societal success nowadays is judged by how large a bank account one has.  I've no idea how much Jerry and his fellow firefighters make, but I'm quite sure it's too little for what they're really worth.  And I'm also quite sure that if they are willing to risk their lives to save another human's life, we will never be able to pay them what they're worth.  So the least we can do is admire, appreciate and THANK them for what they do.  And this is my very small way of doing that.

At the valve controls

Close up of the controls and gauges

Jerry demonstrating the size of the wrench needed to open a fire hydrant

All folded neatly away, one would never guess at the weight of this when filled with water.

Water cannon

More hoses

Absolutely vicious looking tool, but it can free people from wrecks as surely as the 'jaws of life'

Even pets can be rescued!

The truck and equipment looked clean, but Jerry's hands told another  story after the demonstration.

Mom and Rajiv in the truck.  Mom put on Jerry's hat backwards so you could see his name.

My favorite: the TIC (thermal imaging camera).  This can 'see' heat from a fire behind a wall or detect a human even through thick smoke.

Jerry suiting up: fully outfitted, his equipment weighs about 65 pounds.  And that doesn't even include the weight of the hose he must carry.

Everything except the gloves.  With everything on, his 'clothes' are worth about $3,000.  But Jerry?  He's priceless!!

We Didn't Start the Fire