Sunday, November 16, 2008

Teaching?

Recently, I keep thinking of teaching science in high school or junior college. The idea of getting young teenagers excited about nature is of course an exciting and perhaps a very fulfilling experience on it own. Yet thinking back of my journey... college... grad school... I become very hestitated in propagating the egalitarian myth about science. I wondered why none of my teachers/ professors have never told me there's so much b.s., hypocrisy, politics in science.... Every now and then when I pick up a paper from reputable journals, I wondered why they even got accepted in the first place. Gross grammatical errors were often sighted and in some serious cases, some fundamental technical details were not strictly adhered. Certainly, the authors have done something that people have not attempted before.... But the idea was not novel most of the time. There's no paradigm shift in their thinking. Some people might argue that it is part of the process and as scientists, each small step is important to the foundation of the holy temple of science. I disagreed. Small steps does not always merit publication and in many case I think it is just a complete waste of taxpayers money to publish...

So back to the idea if I should take up a career path in education... I still think so. I remember how happy I was when I discussed science with my fellow nerdy friends back in high school thanks to my teacher who always encouraged us to question and seek answers on our own... I love to hang out with the young people and push them to think.... I guess I will do something a little different though if I were a teacher. I would tell my students that science sucks and it sucks 95% of the time.

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