Is your teacher scared of nature?

In my classroom I spoke to a teaching assistant who screamed when she saw a spider. I asked her not to do that, as it would encourage children to react in the same way. Another teacher asked his class to write a poem entitled, 'What I hate about spiders'. Yet another teacher swats wasps. In my class children know that if they keep still they will not be harmed if a wasp investigates them. They know how to carry stray bugs outside, and gently blow on them so as not to harm them when releasing them. I have always found that children love insects, bugs and arthropods and gastropods of all kinds, as well as larger animals. They want to learn more about them, to study them without hurting them.They sometimes change as they get older. They sometimes forget how to respect nature, and how to live in harmony with it. Are the adults in their lives to blame? Or do some people just change their reactions and their values as they grow up and age?
Dr Mark Spencer (who appeared on the BBC Museum of Life series) thinks the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of teachers, who are alienated from the natural world. Like me, he sees children as young naturalists, who can help to halt biodiversity loss in future, and who can lead the world in showing how all living things are inter-connected.
Is this a case of educating the educators, of teaching the teachers? Is it too late to teach grown-ups a genuine love and respect for nature if they haven't already got it? Or is it never too late to change your values? Could children teach their teachers how to love the natural world?
What do you think?
Daily Telegraph: 'Teachers scared of nature' 7.8.2010.

Message from a Gribble

You may not have heard of me but I am a Gribble. You could call me a small white crustacean that lives in the sea. I'm 4 millimetres long which is quite big from our point of view. I eat wood and seaweed. Wooden ships taste good, as do wooden jetties and piers. What we're really good at though, is clearing up driftwood and that's our natural role in life. It's good to think you have a purpose isn't it? We generally enjoy our lives, but we get scared too sometimes, like other creatures, and then we jam ourselves into our wood burrows and refuse to come out.
Now a rumour is going round Gribble society that you over-large humans are on our scent. Not because we nosh your piers and boats, but because we seem to have something you want. You think that the things our bodies break down the wood with (you call them enzymes apparently) could be used to produce sugar from wood or straw, and then this could be turned into something you really want badly, called biofuel.
What we Gribbles want to know is - why can't you big bullies leave us little creatures alone? We've been happy in the seas for millions of years. We don't want you taking our enzymes. What if you hurt us? Would you even care? As a Gribble I would like to complain about this treatment. I ask all Gribbles and Gribble supporters to support my new online petition, 'No graves for Gribbles.' And when I've signed it myself I'm going to barricade myself into my burrow.
Signed, G Gribble.

Scientists hope to make liquid biofuels based on digestive enzymes found in the gribble following research at the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre.
First News 12th March 2010

A computer with a human brain?

Have you heard of the Blue Brain Project? Neither had I. Now I have. Its leader, Professor Markram, plans to build an electronic human brain within ten years.
In some ways computers work like our brains - processing data, storing information etc. But that's light years away from actually becoming a brain, with thoughts, feelings, sadnesses and happinesses of being human. The human brain is in a body and reacts to the world that it senses through a nervous system. Will Professor Markram's artificial brain be able to get information from an artificial eye, ear and skin? If not (and I think not) then how can it be like a human brain at all?
Just imagine, though, that the Professor is one day successful and creates a purely electronic brain which is conscious that it exists and can have its own thoughts. It will have no sense of being male or female. It will have no family or friends and will be dependent upon its makers. It will not feel the wind, or cry tears, or laugh. It might be extremely clever.
So Professor Markram, I think your future electronic brain, replicating the actions of the 100 billion neurons in our own grey matter, but not interacting with the world, won't actually be much like a human brain. Even so, you are thinking of creating an entity without knowing what the results will be. Is this science for the pleasure of it? And what about the little mice whose brains you are copying at this moment? Are they being treated as a means to an end rather than as sensitive little mammals with their own lives to lead? Here are lots of philosophical and ethical questions for discussion. What makes us human? How should we treate other living things? Would an electronic brain be alive, and have rights? Should there be more philosophy in science?
To put it another way would you, Professor Markram, like to be an electronic brain? Perhaps so. If not, should you inflict it on 'someone' else in the name of science?

Daily Mail 11.08.09 article entitled, 'Are we on the brink of creating a computer with a human brain?' by Michael Hanlon, science editor.

Bees and all that!

Last week I agreed with Rebecca about us all being unique individuals.
This is true.
Now we can think of how all these individuals are connected.
What one individual does affects countless other individuals. Think of some examples.
Should we put the uniqueness of an individual first, and that individual's needs, or should we put the general good first?
In other words, should the captain of the Starship Enterprise risk the lives of all his crew to rescue one person stranded on an alien planet?
Myself, I think towards saying yes. It seems more noble, more uplifting, more empathic, more humane. What do you think? Should the one come before the many - or not?

This week (4-10th May) is 'National Honey Week'.
First News newspaper has a feature on bees on its front page. Bees all work together for the common good of their swarm or hive. But bees are dying in their millions. Why? Weather? Pesticide sprays? Mobile phones? What happens if plants don't get pollinated and seeds don't form because bees aren't around? Albert Einstein may have said that without bees, life on this planet would be dead within five years. So things could get a little grim. Maybe the planet as we know it could rather easily do without humans, but getting rid of bees is a different matter altogether.
Lots of ideas for philosophy groups:
'No man is an island.' John Donne
Can 'individualism' become 'thinking of what I want' instead of 'what is good for us all'? What happens to societies when individuals only think of what they want? (Banks collapse? Yes I'd thought of that!)

First News newspaper issue 154

Being other than our parents?

This is a reply to Rebecca's blog.

Well Rebecca it is interesting that you should mention Buddhism. The Buddha left his wealthy, powerful family behind in order to reflect on the suffering he saw in the world and how to overcome it. Not many people walk away from wealth do they? Think of beautiful fountains, dancing girls, luscious fruits, servants, great music. Goodbye to all that. I can imagine his dad, the Raja, was not too happy as he waved good bye to his son and heir.
The American president Barack Obama modelled himself as a boy on how he thought his father would want him to be. Later on he learned new things about his 'Old Man' (his words) that made him change his attitudes.
We can't choose where we are born, nor our parents, nor whether they will stick around for us. But perhaps these examples show that people make their own lives. As you say, we are all individuals and unique, with our own ways of doing things. Relationships with parents are never simple are they?

Information about Barack Obama is from his book, 'Dreams from my Father,' currently a bestseller.

Choose the right parents?

An American professor called Bill Ayers says that children today need to choose the right parents!
What he really means is that if your parents are well off and know important people, then you have more choices and better chances than if your parents are not well off and don't know important people! And he thinks this is wrong, as we are supposed to live in a 'democratic' society where everyone has equal chances and choices in life.
He wants all children and students to ask more questions about who they are, where they are going, and what choices they have. He wants you to make judgements based on evidence and argument, and to think for yourselves.
Do you think that school encourages you to do these things, or holds you back? Does your school teach you to obey and conform, or to be imaginative and creative? Perhaps there's a mix - if so, is it a good one and does it work for you?
Bill wants an end to sorting people into winners and losers through standardised tests in schools.
He says we all need to think about, speak up and speak out about the life situations we find ourselves in.
What do you think about school testing, and about winner and loser labels for schools and individuals?
I'm going to ask my philosophy group if they would like to take on this debate next week!

This is fom the area of philosophy called political philosophy.
Source: The Times Educational Supplement (a newspaper about education) 20.03.09 'Comment' section. Written by Professor Bill Ayers, University of Illinois, Chicago USA

Kepler the Space Telescope

Kepler was a great German astronomer from the 17th century. Now a powerful space telescope has been named after him. It is called the Planet-Hunter. It was launched into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida USA on Saturday March 7th 2009.
Its mission? To keep its giant eye fixed on a patch of space 'equivalent to the size of a human hand held at arm's length'.
Now that is amazing. An ancient philosopher called Heraclitus measured the sun by putting his foot in the air and saying 'The Sun is as big as a foot'. Now here a patch of space is being described as the size of a human hand!
In fact that patch of space contains about 100,000 stars in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.

The idea? To start looking for new Earths! To begin to answer the question, 'Are there other worlds like ours out there?'
Planets will be found by little 'winks' as they move around stars many light years away from us.
Then scientists will work out if any of them have the same sort of conditions as Earth- being 'just right' for life to evolve.

What do you think? Do you think there could be new Earths out there?
Scientists want to make Mars in our own solar system into a new Earth. But they will have to make huge changes to its atmosphere and landscape. This is known as terraforming.
Should humans colonise other planets? There are lots of arguments for and against. Different people have different points of view. For instance - we could mine other planets for minerals and rocks. Good or bad? We could have a new tourist industry - space tourism. Good or bad? What about little bacteria and microbes that may already be living on other planets? Do we put ourselves before their right to grow and evolve in their own ways?
Think of other reasons for and against. Reflect on your own opinions.

Sources: Express and Star and Shropshire Star newspapers 7.3.09.
Remember that newspaper sources are not always totally reliable. For more facts, or for images of Kepler, go to www.nasa.gov.uk