An observation about the teens I’m teaching: they are alarmingly unaware of certain cultural staples that they should know by simple immersion by now, and show very little knowledge of arts, literature, film, classical music overall, which is weird since they are in a liberal arts programme.
But they absolutely know what’s on Netflix.
My new strategy is ‘have you seen this netflix show? Here’s the work they’re referencing, and here are the tropes they are using as seen in these classical works you should be at the very least vaguely familiar with.’
(this is not some generational complaint and don’t you dare take it as such. I don’t know what’s going on with these specific kids I’m teaching but my job is to help them learn about things and I’m adjusting my approach as necessary.)
I was having a discussion about pretty much this in connection with a conversation about The Chair (speaking of Netflix). It occurs to me that the aging teachers in the show who can’t understand Kids These Days are in fact missing the need for them to adjust their approach to match orbits with the minds they’re charged with improving. That is, the kids are in a different place (having formed in a different context), and if the teacher isn’t willing to adjust their approach, but insists instead on a curriculum designed for the 1980s-era (or whatever) students they used to encounter, that’s on the teacher.
Potentially dumb question founded in my northern hemisphere ignorance: Is “winter in Queensland” the southern hemisphere winter (so, sort of June/July/August)? Or what I’d think of as the northern hemisphere winter (December/January/February)? I’d think the former, but I don’t know what the actual practice is.
@lies Australian seasons are the opposite of their Northern Hemisphere equivalents. So right now, Australia is in springtime.
While climates are slightly different depending in what city / state / region you’re in, it’s based on the tilt of the Earth’s axis. When the North is tilted away from the sun, the South is tilted towards it.
Haha. Thanks! As it turns out I understood that part. I guess I was just making sure that there wasn’t some sort of convention to just make things easier for weird northerners by not confusing them talking about here comes summer! when they’re on their way to winter.
But that would be deeply silly, and I apologize for taking up your time even raising the question. :-)
Potentially dumb question founded in my northern hemisphere ignorance: Is “winter in Queensland” the southern hemisphere winter (so, sort of June/July/August)? Or what I’d think of as the northern hemisphere winter (December/January/February)? I’d think the former, but I don’t know what the actual practice is.
Why do I love this lichen so much? Is it because in every picture it is growing in between the areoles (tile-like lobes) of Caloplaca trachyphylla all like “hey guys, can I just uh, yep, yep, there we go, get in here real quick? is this cool? thanks.” Or is it because the color contrast it forms is exquisite AF? Or is it because every picture I find of it is located in a place I absolutely adore? Like the mountains along the Idaho/Montana boarder or Canyonlands NP in Utah or Bison Basin, Wyoming? The answer is yes to all. A stapfiana is a lichenicolous (parasite of lichens), crustose lichen that grows within the areoles of other lichens, eventually growing largely and forming its own rounded, independent areoles. The upper surface is yellow-green, and often becomes covered in white pruina with age. Apotheica grow in the middle of the areoles, often taking over the entire surface with their black or reddish-brown disc immersed in the center, leaving just a small margin of the thallus left. In North America, it can be found growing on C. trachyphylla, or on calcareous rock. It has also been found in Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. I know it seems cruel, but that’s nature for you. It’s a lichen-eat-lichen world.
I might be a little biased but I’m honestly starting to believe that there’s no purer form of love than the defensive spite you see from biologists that have devoted their life to the study of a maligned or misunderstood species. For example:
The hyena biologist that arranged for Disney animators to come sketch captive hyenas for The Lion King film (Laurence Frank) was so incensed when the animals were depicted as villains in the movie that he later included boycotting the film on a list of ways the average person could help hyena conservation.
Though it’s commonly known that Charles Darwin’s distaste for parasitic wasps played a role in his development of evolution theory (since he felt no loving God would create animals with such a disturbing life cycle), the biologists who study these wasps find it an unfair characterization. When they were tasked with coming up with a common name for the family of parasitic wasps (Ichneumonidae) that old Charles so disliked, they proposed the name “Darwin Wasps” to spite the famous naturalist who had insulted their beloved family of insects.
Parasitologist Tommy Leung was so frustrated with the way people write about parasites to evoke horror and gore that he started writing a Parasite of the Day blog, that specifically avoids inflammatory or unsettling language to describe them. He also illustrates different species in colorful anime art on Twitter in a series called Parasite Monster Girls—which he calls his “love letter to parasites.”
I guess I’m just saying that if you’re a biologist studying an unpopular species and you have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder about it you can always count on me to be in your corner if you want to get a little petty with the public!
If you are like me and immediately thought “I must see the daily parasites” I can inform you they’re over here: http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/
