Re: NANFA-- Re: nanfa V1 #1471

Bob Bock (bockhouse_at_earthlink.net)
Thu, 5 Dec 2002 19:27:51 -0500

Well spoken, Dave.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McNeely" <dlmcneely_at_lunet.edu>
To: <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 3:46 PM
Subject: NANFA-- Re: nanfa V1 #1471

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "nanfa" <owner-nanfa-digest_at_aquaria.net>
> To: <nanfa-digest_at_aquaria.net>
> Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 12:50 PM
> Subject: nanfa V1 #1471
>
>
> >
> > nanfa Thursday, December 5 2002 Volume 01 : Number
> 1471
> >
> >
> >
> > By "as much as they need to know" I am only facing
> > reality. Most of the students that I will be teaching
> > will not leave the farm. And those that do will
> > likely stray only as far as the factories and kaolin
> > mines nearby.
>
> This is not much about fishes, and anyone who is not interested should
just
> skip it.
>
> I have no idea what ambitions, lack of ambitions, background, lack of
> background, acceptance of science, rejection of science, abilities, lack
of
> abilities, or anything else my students come to the classroom with. I do
> know that most of them are poor, and I guess that some of them see a
college
> education as a way out of their poverty. For those for whom that is the
> case, their only hope of it working is for me and the other faculty to do
as
> much as possible to offer them the chance to learn as much as they can.
If
> a young woman shows up in class, and her father works as a farmhand, her
> brother is a clerk at a 7-11, her sister is on the streets, and the last
she
> knew of her other brother is that he was arrested in Kansas City for
selling
> dope, I suppose one could predict that she won't get far in life. On the
> other hand, as her teacher, I might assume that if she can learn a little
> biology (and a little of whatever else she studies), maybe she will get a
> little further along than the others did. Since I don't know how much or
> how little she needs to know, I try to offer a course that compares
> favorably with the same course at other universities, and hope that I
don't,
> through my lack of vision for her, stifle her chances.
>
> E.O. Wilson, Harvard professor and one of the best known biologists today
> grew up in small-town Alabama, the son of a store clerk. Stephen J.
Gould's
> father was an immigrant who raised his family on what he earned as a
garment
> worker in Brooklyn. When I was at the University of Texas at Brownsville
I
> taught many students whose parents, siblings, and sometimes themselves
were
> migrant farm workers. Some of those students today hold Ph.D.'s, M.D.'s,
> and other advanced degrees, and two are university professors. A couple
of
> them even have careers working with fish. I've known more successful
> biologists who came off the farm than from any other setting.
>
> Oh, did I mention that I have six siblings, my parents didn't finish
junior
> high school, and I lived the first years I remember in one of the roughest
> "oil patch" towns in West Texas? But I had a teacher with aquaria in the
> classroom, and who let us read anything that was in the school library,
even
> though the "head teacher" said that certain books were for certain grades
> only.
>
> Whoa ......... ! This horse is too high, let me climb down.

--
> /"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
> / reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
> / Association"
> / This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes
Association
> / nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
> / subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
> / nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
> / nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
> / For more information about NANFA, visit our web page,
http://www.nanfa.org
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org