Japan First Couple of Weeks

Just an update. School observations, lot of discussions. Bonus: teachers from the EU traveling Japan. Good conversations. Everybody is interested in the Finns. Me too.

The quick and short: Social promotion seems to be a global phenomenon. Rationale varies. In Japan the short answer is that the tests sort it all out. In Ireland, there's an initiative to decrease the importance of the single (fatal) exam... Sounds like the typical local school reform that seems reasonable but like 'typical school reforms' over the years, probably not tested, not based on repeatable results.

This is rushed but I'll wing it. When the police interview victims of a crime seeking the details that will help them catch the perpetrator should the police be nice or nasty?
Of course, you can see this coming. You're supposed to say, they should be nice and comforting to people who've just been traumatized. Of course they shouldn't be nasty (that word is just a set-up). I has however been proven that when police are not warm, but a bit cold and skeptical they get better and more useful information. It's the nurse saying, this is going to really hurt, but this is the best way to--rip! off comes the bandage, "I wasn't even ready!" you feel like passing out, and then you're looking at the nurse and wondering why he or she is so cruel. But it's over with. Done.
Well, rip off that bandages is in the end less painful and traumatic. With cops, "OK, you're upset, I get it, but what shade of red sneakers was the perp wearing?"
And social promotion instead of leaving a15 year old in 6th grade until he or she learns the times tables, may in the end not be at all successful. I think it causes more harm and interferes with learning. And I haven't seen anything to support social promotion for children outside of birthday parties and playing poker with grandma. I could argue 'are students there to learn or to be comforted? Ignorance does not lead to security and comfort. But this too is the same reasonable argument instead of scientifically testing the method.

The schools in Japan are very neat and tidy. Students clean them up. The classrooms belong to the class, the teacher is there to present the lesson. I'm quite adept at removing my shoes now. I rigged up some 1/8" or smaller shock cord (bungee) that I quick wrap about my hiking boot hooks. It seems an obvious idea but Japanese tell me they've never seen it. I also carry a shoe horn. I've only got the hiking boots and a pair of Crocs--for when I spend all day at a school indoors.

Students are very polite, seem positive and stay after school to study. After school studying in a classroom doesn't require an adult to be present. I met some of the more difficult students. I'll see them again.  This was a very interesting experience. The skeptical, critical, suspicious looks so often seen with adolescents in the states? This group had them. Most of the other students seemed very young for their grade levels and age and were very open and trusting.
One little guy yesterday at Niigata station, couldn't have been more than 8 years old, big boxy backpack, school uniform. I kept looking around for his mom or older sibling. Baz says, 'Nope he was taking the train on his own.' He was looking at the image of a whale on the tiled floor of the platform. So I found the video on my phone of the two blue whales and tapped him on the shoulder and then held it so he could see. Two minutes. When it was done, he nodded, looked up at me and then went back to waiting.

Being a traveler is not like being a tourist. Tourists are shown places, people, things and events. Travelers, being on their own are nosy, intrusive, we will look, walk in, stare or start taking pictures before being invited; poking our nose in places many of which we probably shouldn't be poking them. Sure there's a cachet and snobbery about being a traveler instead of a tourist--at least half of it is bunk. I'm not more adventurous and cool so much as exhausted, stinky and lost (and lost a lot).  Yesterday when I went down to the Zenkoji Temple in Nagano to witness the Buddhist morning chant there was a group of Americans, I caught a few, 'hey, who is that guy?' looks. Clearly I was on my own and knew where I was headed--not because I'm part of something, but only because I was there yesterday and couldn't think of anything better to do at 5 am today.  The day before it was stooges at the Temple. I knelt down in the wrong spot when the monks were walking out of the temple. The guard put his hands on my shoulders, I moved with his direction and started my most common chant 'gomenasai' (I'm sorry). A monk stepped forward, waved the guard off and set me down so the parade could pass. I got my bonk on the head, a blessing but also I think a reminder to 'pay attention to this moment.'
Buddhists seem pretty cool and forgiving.
Teacher in Japan are allowed to rap students on the head. I'm not sure but I think it's probably from this Buddhist practice.
The other thing we travelers fall into is pretending we're the only ones here. Everyone one of us at some point is guilty of pretending that only we are Marco Polo. Even Marco Polo wasn't alone, he just happened to spend some jail time with a writer.

English language learning in Japan seems to be very successful. Many people do not speak it of course, many people refrain from letting on that they speak it (or they might wind up with someone like me bugging them with a lot of questions), but those who speak it even at very basic levels are highly functional. Many people are in international business, an urban planner, international relations, so they learn it for their profession. English and Japanese are very different, so the level of communication is surprisingly good.
Also, like many places some people will just repeat it in their language several times. So long as people are friendly about it, whatever information is then exchanged is positive and probably answers at least part of the query.  (They don't get loud about it like many Americans and Brits).
A woman on a bicycle yesterday started speaking to me when I was almost to my son's apartment. I'd been gone for two weeks in Kyoto and climbing Mt Kita (Kita Dake) [but not the 4-5 peaks south of it I'd over optimistically planned to transit]. It's a small city, not too many foreigners, so she was curious. I'm not sure what she was asking or saying, but she was quite verbal. So I told her  I was an American teacher, Los Angeles...what else might she be asking? Maybe she wondered if I was lost. I showed her Google Maps on my iPhone with the dots leading to my destination. Then she pointed at my backpack, "force, you force.' Someone earlier when referring to the mountain we'd just climbed said, "We fight. Fight." They weren't throwing down, they were saying 'we struggled.' So I showed her the photo of me standing next to the Kita Dake 3193 meters sign.
One of the great things about Japan which can make it a bit more difficult is literacy must be well over 99%. Many signs and indicators are all text. I was trying to buy bleach in a store and I had to unscrew the lids and sniff them (never stick your nose into the bottle unless you know what's in there, because you've read the label.)
OK. Too much. My head hurts.
More school stuff this week. More castles. Not enough geology--everything is so green here there's not a lot of bare rock. In the Southern Alps Minami, my first impression is that they may (MAY) be like the Santa Monica Mountains. Shale with a silt or sandstone top layer. I've spotted a nice example of a hanging glacial valley, but everything else I've seen appears to be stream cut. There were snow patches from about 2000 meters up to the 3000 meter ridge, July 1-so well into summer. These steep mountain valleys had to have been glacial in the most recent ice age. They're trying to keep their snow all summer even now.
Later

Six Properties of Metals

This is a mnemonic of the properties of metals from the California Dept of Ed Standards for 8th grade science.
Malleable and Ductile are synonymous--but the standards include them anyway.
I came up with this mnemonic after experienced teachers were unable to rattle them off. They completely understood them, but they couldn't rattle off the list.

Scale: Atoms to you

There's probably a lot of problems with this. Open to suggestions. I always want to understand based on what I know, can see, can touch.
Hold an apple in your hand....

Blue Whales

Here is a diagram I made to show students to clarify what's in the video of the two blue whales who decided to check me out one day in 2010 near Palos Verdes in Santa Monica Bay (California).
First you'll see a dolphin pop up. I think it was afraid because a pair of the largest animals that have ever lived on the planet are below, mouths open large enough to swallow a Prius, but scarfing down krill. A day or two before a sea lion popped up even closer, and it seemed to be looking at my face.
At the bottom is a link to the video.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6iYyyNafbk

 Keep in mind, it is illegal to approach sea mammals this close. However if they want to come visit you, that's OK. As soon as I saw one heading towards me I started paddling out of the way. When it came up to look I stopped. This is when I was surprised by the lead whale.
They knew what they were doing. I'd paddled out there several times to visit. When I saw where they were I would paddle to the general area, then just wait. They'd come up, and usually they were curious enough to take a look, then it seemed like they would use me as a marker buoy for 3-4 dives, coming near, but eventually working away.
Gray whales seem more skittish, possibly because there's a local orca pod (who will pop up for a look from a couple of hundred meters away and uninterested will change direction.)

Mnemonics: Drawing to learn

Basic methodology used in Medical School applied to middle and high school.
Draw the picture, label and describe the parts as you draw. Tell the story.
Do this the first time, carefully think about each part, then cover your drawing and notes and on blank paper, draw and label everything you can remember.
Two things will result. First your drawing won't be complete. Second, you will be surprised to see that you remembered things you didn't expect you would, and that you've forgotten things you thought were the easy parts. No worries. Correct this drawing, then test yourself again. Keep practicing until you get 100%. Great.
The next day, test yourself again before looking at your notes. You'll miss some things or a lot. Don't worry. Make corrections then....test yourself again-blank paper.
Then wait a day or two.... after that wait a week... make a note on your calendar to test yourself again in three weeks a month.... After that you will never forget.
Sounds like a lot of work? It's not, maybe an hour, hour and a half, not more than two hours total for all the practice.
These are just a few. Part of the Common Core liturgy is 'no more drill and kill' none of the 'Four C's' is content. Unless you know something (content) you can't think creatively, critically or whatever the rest of that is...
Know what foveated vision is? Know where your blind spot is?

  

The is the perfect first drawing. I like to start the first week of school. Today we will learn all of this drawing. On Friday we'll have a quiz, most of you will do great!
WHAAA?!!?!
Draw a circle. Now let's follow light as it enters your eye. Light enters the cornea, it's the first lens that begins focusing light.... all the way back to the optic nerve that carries the information to the brain. Part of the requirement is that students say what each part does.

The next lessons are to make Blind Spot Detectors and to learn about foveated vision. 

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Icons of Depth & Complexity

When I was earning my GATE Certification at CalState Fullerton, we learned how to use Sandra Kaplan's Icons of Depth & Complexity. The icon images that were available were pixelated low resolution. So part of my working with them and thinking about them I decided to re-make a set with Adobe Illustrator. One of my educational ideas is that we should present our students with the best quality information, graphics, printouts, etc...

Here is a screen shot of some of what I did:  This is a personal use so I don't think I'm

violating any copyrights. (And Dr Kaplan drop me a note. I've looked for an e-mail address for you. I'd be more than happy to share the high quality vector art images I've made and make any changes.)

My favorite Depth & Complexity Lesson? Harriet Tubman.  Her timeline and multiple perspectives are more exciting than any action movie plot. Born into slavery, escapes to freedom by crossing the Pennsylvania state line, repeatedly returns to Maryland to help many others escape, then the Fugitive Slave Act takes away her safety in Pennsylvania, and the Dred Scott Decision makes her a wanted felon. She recruits for Tom Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, ( he was hanged by the Federal Government) so that makes her a terrorist?)....volunteer nurse for the Union Army, led a raid in South Carolina that freed 750 people... By 1865 she was a national hero. $10 bill? She should probably be on all the money. Harriet Tubman could be the first Depth & Complexity Lesson Action movie. 

As in all things pedagogical a good idea or method is then applied to everything.
I would argue that the icons can be used for science, but it's not the best fit.
So this is what I've been working on.
It's easy to sketch out the basics for science: Mass, Forces (Gravity, Electromagnetic, Strong & Weak Nuclear), Space, Movement, Energy (which can form a different perspective than Force. (How are a battery and an asteroid similar and different?)
I have basically two approaches. First following the Scientific Method. Second is my translation of Kaplan's idea to science concepts. Still very much a work in progress.
Where I think we are heading, actually where I think we have begun understanding where we are heading, is to systematize and organize our thinking, but to not restrict it. Daniel Kahneman and Pinker and others have pointed out that overall we are becoming more intelligent over time.  Maybe the Romans couldn't have had steam trains, but Archimedes was clearly heading in directions we are only beginning to learn are not  exclusively modern. I would like to see these icons used to compare Nikola Tesla to his historical period, and then project the two paths our future could take. (Tesla had a radio controlled boat years before Marconi 'invented' radio-using Tesla's patents.)

 

The icons for classifying a phenomenon or principle. As I've stated, a work in progress. 

 

And this image was just so much fun: I could credit Roy Lichtenstein as a source or inspiration, but he got his visual ideas from comic books... so Boom!

I'm just getting started. 

Right Hand Rule of Earth's Motion in Space

This is something that I worked on for years after reading in the Sky Almanac that the "Waning Half Moon seen at dawn is where the Earth will be in about three hours." 

It's surprising to me now how complicated this problem seemed to be at the time. 

I wouldn't even call myself an amateur astronomer but I began wondering how to figure out the direction the Earth is heading at any moment in the day (or night). 

There are complicating factors. First the Earth rotates every 24 hours, so the orbital direction is constantly changing. Second, the Earth has a tilted axis so the orbital direction changes north and south through out the day. Third, because this tilt is constant, the Earth's vertical axis relative to it's orbital plane changes through out the year. 

Fourth, the latitude of the observer changes the relative direction. 

I thought about this on and off and then I began teaching science. We were encouraged to make our teaching 'relevant' to our students' lives. One professional development leader (probably on a career path from the English Department through Administration to Assistant Superintendent of something that sounds important) said, 'Astronomy, well do what you can.' 

So I started to solve my puzzle. It was fun. To a real astronomer it would be like watching a cat figure out how to get the treat in one of those puzzle toys. I've yet to meet an astronomer who can point in the direction the Earth is traveling in its orbit 'right now'. None of the sky or star Apps has it. 

I came up with a method where I wave my arms around, depending on the time of day it can look like 'dancing Hitlers on Broadway.' When I tried to teach it to my college student son, he wasn't about to rise from his slouch on my couch and do anything so ridiculous, but he did say, "You know, you could probably make a right hand rule with that." 

Arrggghh! Almost immediately it was obvious. 25 years for me, ten seconds for him. 

I will argue that since Copernicus it has been possible to come up with this, but no else has. 

If you learn this you might say, 'yeah, neat. Great for the kids,' but for me looking at the planets in the sky they are no longer abstractions. It's clear which direction they are heading in, which ones we will pass and which ones will pass us. At dawn when I see Venus and Jupiter, I know that in a few months we will be much closer to Venus than Jupiter, but it will be already on the other side of the sun. We'll pass Jupiter and begin seeing it in the evening instead of the morning. 

So take a look: 

 

and you might find this interesting. Earth, and us on it, aren't spinning so much as we are rolling around on our orbital path around the sun. We move one Earth diameter every  7 minutes and 8.25 seconds. If we multiple this times Pi, (3.14159)  =  22 minutes 25 seconds. So every 22.43 minutes we move along our orbit as much as we move in rotation every 24 hours. At midnight our net velocity is orbital speed + rotational speed. At noon our net velocity is orbital speed – rotational speed.

 

One of those 'teacher moments,' you know the one's they make movies about, no not the one with Samuel Jackson...the weepy ones...Sidney Poitier, Edward James Olmos. When I teach this stuff at some point, always-every time,  a student will ask, "Then why don't we feel it?" Hypatia of Alexandria and Galileo asked this question, a thousand years apart. Adults don't seem to ever ask, students? at least one, and not the one you would expect.

(34 degrees north latitude is Los Angeles)

Enjoy the ride. 

All diagrams ©2009, 2016 W.Nettles

Soda Bottle Rocket Launcher

All Soda Bottle Rocket Launcher are either weak, dangerous or far more advanced--they use carbon fiber and epoxy sleeves, nozzles, thousands of psi from scuba tanks...
The rocket launcher I designed and built is for students.  It's designed so that no one ever need be near the launcher when it's pressurized, it can be safely depressurized if needed (hang fire) and it takes almost no force to launch. The first launcher I made was a stake in the ground that the force required to launch often pulled it off vertical until it was pointing in my direction.

This one works, is safe, not only launches students' rockets, it also uses multiple forms of leverage. Highest velocities so far >90m/s (200 mph)

Take a look: 

 

all diagrams and photos ©2011WNettles. If you need more information to build your own just ask.

Welcome & Purpose

The goal of NettlesScience @blogger.com is to provide a place to showcase some of my Instructional Design, Teaching Tools, Apparatus, Information Sources, etc.....
Over the next few days I intend to add a lot of different things I've created, after that it will slow down.
My short term objective is always Do something amazing every week.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez3mDWLrudk

Image©2012BNettlesWNettles