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I spent the last week catching up with my boyfriend and then attending a conference on mentoring and diversity in physics in another state. Both of these were welcome distractions but did push this letter towards being slightly out of date. I will definitely be writing more about the conference soon but in the mean time I can assure you that there is nothing overly exciting in my life you might be missing out on. Thanks for reading!
EXCITED STATE*
Stand at the front of the room and imagine the seats filled with your students. Make eye contact with the sectors of your imaginary class, walk out toward them, move about the room, and practice smiling.
Nilson, Linda B., Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors
Physics is a hard science. It is rooted in mathematical formalism, it has been built up around the scientific method for centuries and it claims roots in natural philosophy, a lineage that leaves no room for squishiness or fudginess. There are subgenres of mathematics that have been invented to accommodate new physical theories and areas of mathematics so far forgotten by non-mathematicians have been shown to correspond to novel, exciting physical systems. Physicists are serious people, people that work hard, that devote themselves to their problems even in their presumably free time. There’s the stereotype of the lone genius and the stereotype of the physicist who is so hardworking and so bent on chasing their idea that they don’t realize that their coffee stained shirt is buttoned incorrectly. Yet, there is another trait that physicists seem to always be talking about when reflecting, however briefly, on their professions – their enthusiasm and their willingness to talk about their work. The claim is that every physicist loves to talk about their research, that you just have to prompt them, and they will get so excited they won’t be able to stop. Further, even if you bring a question only tangential to their research, their natural sense of curiosity and science-related-wonder will kick in and they will entertain you and your questions for hours. Physicists – serious, hardworking, rigorous, and bound to be overwhelmingly enthusiastic.
A few nights ago, my boyfriend was in a popular college restaurant in his town and overheard a group of physicists at a nearby table. We joked about it over text messages; when he told me they’d been talking about AdS/CFT I basically felt like I knew them. Later, he quipped: “I feel like my interactions with your relatives where I don’t speak the language are at least as good as the ones with your physics colleagues.” When it comes to Croatian, my boyfriend knows how to talk to dogs, how to order drinks, how to say, ‘thank you’ and, on a good day, how to ask my grandparents how they have been doing. In English, he is one of the most easily approachable, gregarious and easy-going people I have ever met. He is extremely easy to talk too, at least if you are not re-hashing string theory and quantum gravity over dinner.
You want to project a successful instructor persona to your class— one of relaxed confidence, goodwill, and an in-command, no-nonsense presence.... You also want to convey enthusiasm, passion, dynamism, and charisma.
Physicists are typically not good teachers. They are disorganized, they don’t think about learning outcomes or employ backwards lesson design, they mumble, they scribble on the board illegibly, they try to cover too much material. They get chalk stains on their clothes and walk around looking like they have been handling bread instead of equations for the rest of the day. They assign ‘fun’ problems that they don’t actually know how to solve. Sometimes they just forget a minus sign and it derails a brief question into a forty-five-minute long mathematical scavenger hunt. It can be frustrating to pour time and effort into a course with an instructor who clearly knows so very much yet is only able to communicate a very small percentage of that knowledge. However, whenever I have been terrified of a physics professor, they always pleasantly surprised me and almost never made feel stupid for asking what I knew were stupid questions. Physicists will often obliviously bathe you in jargon until you start to drown in acronyms (GPE, BdG, BKT, BCS, CMBR, BEC, DMRG, DFT …) but at least they will do so with a lot of heart.
… be kind, thoughtful, respectful, and amiable. Use your students' names whenever possible. If you pass them on the sidewalk or in the hall, greet them with a cheery hello, as you would a colleague.
After almost a decade of being taught primarily by physicists, and teaching as a (novice) physicist myself, when I got the chance to learn about teaching itself this semester I was surprised to see how often it was stressed that teachers should be welcoming and enthusiastic. It is not so much that I have ever thought that teachers should not be that way, but rather that I had been under the impression that they would simply not be anything else. In what must be an unplanned twist, the course on college teaching I was enrolled for the past few months convinced me otherwise. In the recommended textbook, a whole chapter was devoted to establishing a friendly atmosphere by smiling, addressing students by name and saying ‘hello’ or asking about their weekend when you run into them in non-class setting. I was disappointed to note that the advice aimed at teaching students from underrepresented groups, who do often report feeling unwelcome, was reduced to mild stereotyping, going as far as suggesting that even the instructor themselves, if feminine, should dress more formally and deepen their voice (presumably to mimic the white male archetype of the college professor). Sweeping any nuance deep into the filth under the proverbial rug, most suggestions boiled down to simply treating your students as real people, as individuals with some sense of humanity rather than some alien creatures that resists your efforts to fill their heads with knowledge. For the course, I had to write a short reflection on how I might make my imaginary classroom more welcoming. Like a good student, the first things I wrote was that I would definitely address my students by name. I stared at the screen after I typed up this ‘strategy’ – it seemed mildly comical to be passing of a common courtesy as a method or an approach.
I have been in graduate school long enough that some of my students are more than five years younger than me, some being younger than my little brother, some still teenagers. I have a hard time remembering what being, for instance, a college sophomore was really like. Mostly I struggle with reconciling just how many things I had to do then and just how much more tired I am now, despite my tasks and obligations being so much more focused. When I stand in front of a classroom full of students and try to package a phenomenon or a chunk of formalism into an easily digestible yet useful ten-minute spiel, there is definitely a disconnect between us. And when I run into them at the gym and we awkwardly make eye contact I am still not quite sure when it is me that should say something first. There is a clear power structure in place, one that puts me above them, and I have been aware of it when the tables have been turned just enough to not forget about it once it is me that is in the front. At the same time, I’ve never had to remind myself to project enthusiasm; just like for my teachers (and other scientists in general) it has always been a part of the natural flow. And addressing students by name is, in my mind, just a standard nicety, even in a field of study that tends to be so intimidating that both fancy hair stylists and chunky middle-aged barbers feel like they have to say that it was so hard they hated it in high school as they run clippers around my ears.
Emotions to project: Relaxed confidence and conviction; enthusiasm, excitement, passion, a sense of drama, curiosity; sincerity, concern, honesty, openness, warmth, goodwill, caring, a sense of humor.
Beyond just recognizing that there is a power structure separating them from their students, many incredible researchers are just logistically not equipped to teach. They’ve never been evaluated on their lesson plans, so they haven’t really made them past handwritten bullet points. They haven’t been taught to identify learning outcomes, so they just cover material that they think is interesting. Often they’re just oblivious as to how ineffective the kind of lectures they received years ago can actually be despite their having made it in academia. Luckily, they typically have TAs who can pick up the slack on grading and filling-in gaps that there just wasn’t enough time for addressing. A number of teaching skills really do have to be learned and by giving researchers less of a chance to be qualified rather than just accidental teachers, there is disservice being done to everyone involved. However, it is hard to believe that having a positive attitude, being amiable and smiling as a regular practice, are impulses so counterintuitive that they require whole chapters of instructional material. Ultimately, if a researcher cannot be enthusiastic and friendly while discussing a topic in their field, it becomes hard to have full confidence in their work itself. What is the point of working to further the body of overall human knowledge if you cannot talk about it with at least a hint of joy? Is the work really worth the devotion and the long hours if it is not shared, brought closer to those that may not be in love with it yet? The joy of discovery, and of simply knowing, should at least somewhat lie in recognizing that there are other, real, fully human, people whose curiosity might be sparked by it. Of course, there is a very large space separating a generic particle-in-a-box problem taught in 200-level university modern physics and research that keeps one up at night, but our students cannot make it to that last step, the quasicrystal, the superconductor or the black hole, if they don’t sense some excitement for the basics and the building blocks. (Realizing that putting an electron in a box invites the same mathematical ideas as plucking a string tied at both ends was likely a thought that floored many of us at that age anyway.)
There is a quote that is commonly misattributed to Einstein, conjecturing that ‘you do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother’. I take issue with this almost by default – some ideas simply lose too much meaning and nuance if simplifications and analogies needed to make them dinner table appropriate are overused – but if this seems like a good guideline for doing science, maybe it could be complemented by a guideline for explaining and teaching science: you do not really care about something unless you can explain it with the sort of enthusiasm and kindness you’d associate with a grandmother.
Best,
Karmela
*In quantum mechanics, where a system is only allowed to take on a certain set of particular, discrete energy values, the lowest energy state is referred to as the ground state while all higher energy states are referred to as excited. Typically, systems tend towards being in their ground state and various physical processes will take place in order for a particular, for instance, atom to transition 'down' from any excited state. However, interactions with the system's environment can allow it to absorb energy and reach an excited state instead.
***
ABOUT ME RECENTLY
LEARNING: Classes and exams officially ended this past week, so the campus has become much quieter and the town is overrun by parents ready to lend a helping hand to their new graduates. It is always a bit strange to see not-students-anymore lining up to take pictures with their funny square hats and some campus landmark and try and remember what the excitement of crossing that particular finish line felt like. However, there is also relief in noting all of this since the robes and the hats and the parents are really the best sign that we are all collectively about to slow down and that there is at least some chance for re-focusing on neglected projects and finding chunks of time to do nothing in our, now less stringent, schedules. There are two projects I really want to pour time and effort into this summer and hopefully the relative lack of panic and chaos, unfortunately so characteristic of this particular spring semester, in this past week is setting up a good precedent for a few months of productively working on both.
Early last week, I spoke to an experimental researcher in mechanical engineering about a potential collaboration. We were debating how big a meta-materials (and take my word for it, meta-materials are sort of incredible) system would have to be for an effect my group had identified in previous work to be detectable. I haphazardly threw out some numbers and he*, in turn, spread his arms to signal to me that this is what he meant when he previously said it would be too big. Now, people describe the size of things by wild gesticulation all the time, except when you’re a theoretical physicist discussing science. Usually when experimentalists call something ‘too big’ we are still talking about microns so this exchange sort of blew my mind. And the fact that essentially quantum behavior can be reproduced with classical resonators arranged on a table the size of a 20-something-year-olds arm span is, to begin with, almost outrageous. Hold your fingers crossed for this experiment.
About a day later as I was waiting to meet my advisor (who has a strong tendency to run late) another faculty member randomly chatted me up about my work. First he asked the very open-ended ‘what are you interested in these days’ then proceeded to tell me that he has been thinking about a system I might know something about. It probably says something about me that I am surprised to hear people ask for my opinion, even if that opinion is rooted in peer reviewed work I have not only put time into but also presented on to strangers and experts alike without anyone pointing out anything terribly wrong. At the same time, the setup where a casual interaction evolves into a blackboard’s worth of notes on a sleepy afternoon in the part of the theory institute that was definitely built to be a pretend living room is just too close to some sort of a movie version of a theorists’ life to not register as slightly surreal. Chances are I don’t actually have all that much to say about the edges of topological quadrupole systems, but I still really appreciated the confidence boost.
LISTENING: As I mentioned in the essay above, in learning about practices of successful teachers I was quite struck by how much of the classroom managements advice simply boiled down to ‘be respectful, don’t be rude’. It is somewhat demoralizing to know that this has to be taught and it reminded me of this episode of Part Time Genius on how rudeness can be infectious and really detrimental. Related to teaching, just as a reminder to myself that teaching college students at a fairly well-to-do institution really puts many of us in a position of relative privilege, I thought about not only the episode of This American Life I recommended last week but also this older episode of NPR’s Embedded dealing with how devastating school closings can be. Philosophizing about teaching and science communication is hopefully not completely useless but it is important to be aware that even the most basic education is a luxury many more places than it should be. On an unrelated note, I tried to catch up with the part of my podcast queue that does land in the area of science communication and came across these two really fascinating episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind discussing aging. I never really considered how strange the idea that we age is before I had listened to this discussion of it, and this was definitely one of the better moments in this show lately.
EATING: In addition to making another loaf of sourdough bread (this times with green olives and some whole wheat flour) this past week has really been an exercise in enjoying foods that have become my favorites over the last year or so but that I probably would have not even recognized as words a few years ago: sweet potato falafels, bacon-flavored tempeh, curried lentil soup, chia parfait… The outdoor farmer’s market has also returned to my town, so I have had a chance to snag some oyster mushrooms and Japanese turnips, both last summer’s discoveries, and throw together a rice noodle stir fry that definitely surpassed expectations. In anticipation of my boyfriend visiting (I am attending a short weekend conference in Colorado and we tend to use being a conference ‘plus one’ as a reliable excuse to spend time together) I also prepared two easy ways to eat protein without turning on the oven or the stove, conveniently also suitable for throwing on top of salads, grain bowls or even just avocado toast. One was a surprisingly convincing marinated tofu ‘feta’ from the Sweet Simple Vegan blog while the other was the marinated beans recipe I am sharing below. The marinade packs enough of a bite to be interesting and enough herbs and vinegar to be bright and refreshing and it works with any sort of bean, be it canned or leftover from some other bean endeavor (and now that I have an Instant Pot cooking beans from scratch has become even more of a regular activity). I got the idea from this recipe on How Sweet Eats but it is really forgiving and most ingredients can be varied to taste. We ate the last of these mixed with some quinoa, extra parsley and some of the tofu feta while we were waiting to board our flight at the airport and this still made for a great summer meal and has clearly proven so convenient that it even cleared security.
(Marinated pinto and kidney beans piled on top of massaged kale and quinoa with a side of roasted corn on the cob and a mix of roasted sweet potato, butternut squash, green beans and mushrooms served with a peppery, herby green sauce)
Four about four servings, you will need:
2 cups of cooked white, pinto, kidney or a mix of beans (roughly one can, rinsed if not cooking from scratch)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (or white wine vinegar or balsamic)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon maple syrup or brown sugar
1 clove of garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons chopped green olives (optional)
Mix all the ingredients in a container with a lid. Mix and shake well. Refrigerate for two or three hours before eating or, preferably overnight. The beans will keep for up to a week. (If the oil freezes in your fridge, submerge the bottom of the container briefly into warm water or microwave for 30 seconds, then stir well).
Tips: This preparation works well with almost any type of beans so pick your favorites or use a mix of whatever you already have in the pantry. In addition to kidney or pinto beans, chickpeas are a great choice as a are butter beans. Along the lines of this being an easy pantry-based meal component, all sorts of mix-ins are an option as well, as long as they are not overly watery (i.e. avoid cucumbers or fresh tomatoes) such as sundried tomatoes, marinated tofu, feta and other crumbly cheeses if you eat dairy, roasted red peppers etc.
To eat, spoon these beans over toasted crusty bread, pile them on top of salads, serve with chips and hummus or even toss into a pasta salad (tip: any chunky pasta tossed with some de-frosted frozen broccoli or similarly sturdy frozen veggie, a bean of some sort and whatever dressing you have lying around cab constitute a great and quick pasta salad). If all else fails, slightly mash them and stick them into a sandwich.
*I generally try and fairly strictly use the singular ‘they’ for people I mention in these letters but when it comes to my workplace, especially because I write about the issues of diversity in physics so often, it seems worthwhile to use gendered pronouns and underline just how homogenous that landscape typically is.