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Clifford Stoll ‘on … everything’ at TED

Firstly, this man is remarkable:

Secondly, something struck me pretty hard while I was watching this talk. The first was that this guy is teaching college level physics to a class of 8th graders. I don’t know how the science curriculum was laid out in your school district, but in mine I was not able to take a physics class until my Senior year of high school – and even then, the teacher I had for physics had about as much teaching ability as a pet rock. If I was in the honors track in high school, I would have been able to take the class during my junior year. I think something is clearly wrong with that picture! I ended up counting the minutes to the end of my physics class, and the worst part was that the subject was initially interesting to me, but the way that the material was taught to us totally turned me off to it entirely. Never once did we perform an experiment as astonishingly cool as the simple demo he did in his talk.

I watched this TED talk and I was immediately heart broken. I found myself thinking how radically different my life, and my career as a student would have been if I had a junior high, or high school teacher like this guy. Upon further reflection, I actually got pretty upset about it as I was pretty unhappy with the science curriculum all throughout my high school career. I had to beg and plead with my counselor to get put into an AP computer science class because I didn’t perform very well in my other classes. I finished that class with very high marks. Which demonstrates, that a little interest in a subject, starting at an earlier age, can go a long way for a young student.

I grew up watching Bill Nye on television. It was a science program that had kids targeted as it’s primary demographic. I can say with some degree of certainty that the reason why I’m studying Computer Science and Math at DePaul university is because of the influence that Bill Nye’s program had on my life. I’m not sure I would have even given that a thought a week or so ago, but watching Clifford Stoll get up in front of the people at the TED conference and delivering this speech, it got me thinking about what influenced me into getting to where I am right now. I think it’s a safe assumption to say that as a young, impressionable kid, Bill Nye’s program really got me interested learning and science in general, but of course, school turned out to be absolutely nothing like his TV program. It just wasn’t as much fun as watching a neat documentary on TV.

Perhaps it was that the material was presented in a way that was different than it was on television, or maybe I was just lazy student more interested than playing around outside than taking tests. However, I’m absolutely sure that the specific teachers that I had played a pivotal role in my interest in school’s basic subjects. I’m fairly confident that my junior high science classes effectively confined my scientific interests to a wheelchair for a while. That might warrant it’s own blog post.

Anyway, this all comes back full circle. my point is that Clifford Stoll seems like the kind of educator that school systems all over America are desperately missing. Enthusiasm is an infinitely important thing for kids to see – which is obviously something Clifford Stoll has plenty of! I think that if I had this kind of exposure to science when I was in 8th grade, that my life, and my course of study, could very well be radically different than it is right now.

I should try to write Dr. Stoll a letter of thanks or something. He pretty much single handedly inspired me to look into getting a minor in physics to supplement my CS degree.

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