Selection of a good strategy

“The best science teaching reveals
not just the science of nature
but also the nature of science.”
~Rob Pennock

Rob Pennock is a philosophy of science professor at MSU, and I went to a talk given by him today over lunch. I greatly respect the dialogue he encourages between people who disagree, and I also greatly respect his ability to summarize great bodies of thought into a few succinct sentences, pictures, or assertions. He is able to channel highly abstract musings into specific, meaningful, and applicable statements. It’s pretty cool.

Random paragraph here: I first met Rob last year at a lunch discussion for a seminar speaker, but I ran into him again this past summer at a carillon concert (of all things!). We began chatting and eventually learned that we went to the same high school! Even though he graduated four years before I was born, we had the same band director. Crazy.

Anyway, I left the seminar today feeling that I have a lot to chew on. As a scientist, a once and (hopefully) future teacher, and a person in society, I felt both encouraged and challenged by the topics that he discussed.

I like it when I leave classes or seminars or conversations feeling like I’m just at the beginning of a learning process. Maybe I can figure out some good strategies for how to do that for my students when I teach again someday.