Month: May 2008

Middle School Visit

Seth Roberts2 Comments

On Monday I visited a cooking/gardening class at Willard Middle School in Berkeley. One student told me it was his favorite class. “Why?” I asked. “Because you can talk,” he said. He and two friends were standing by a stove. They were making grits and waiting for the water to boil. Out in the vegetable garden — the students are divided into three groups, and one groups spends the class period in the garden — another student told me it was his favorite class, too. “Why?” I asked. “Because you can move around,” he said. I was very impressed. Two different students say the class is their favorite — for two different simple non-obvious reasons. The cooking and gardening program at Willard is run by Matt Tsang, who has been at Willard ten years.

Later that day I saw a slide show of architecture theses. One slide showed a page of a thesis that said: “Work with nature, not against it.”

Maybe middle school students have strong desires to talk and move around. Maybe “work with nature” means, in that context, teaching in such a way that students can talk and move around. Maybe classes can be set up so that the existence of those desires makes learning easier rather than more difficult. Like swimming with the current rather than against it. In the typical Willard class students can’t talk and move around. And teaching at Willard is hard; the average teacher lasts only five years.

The existence of the slide in the slide show showed that work with nature, not against it needs to be learned; it wasn’t obvious. Nothing like that is taught in schools of education, I’m pretty sure.

The Twilight of Expertise (fugu liver removal)

Seth Roberts1 Comment

Fugu is a puffer fish prized by Japanese fish connoisseurs. Its liver is poisonous, thus only specially-trained chefs can serve it. A episode of The Simpsons featured Homer poisoned by fugu.

Recently, however, researchers determined that fugu liver is poisonous because fugu eat poisonous food. When fugu is farmed, and given non-poisonous food, its liver is harmless, and the fish tastes almost as good. No more need for special processing. Unsurprisingly, the National Fugu Association wants to preserve the status quo. But you can now buy fugu liver in the town of Useki.

Masataka Kinashi, the head of the tourism association in Usuki and a fugu dealer himself, suddenly stared down at his desk when asked about the widespread sale of fugu liver.

“Officially, you can never eat it here,” Mr. Kinashi said. “Well, it’s not that you can’t eat it, but, no, you can’t eat it. That’s the only answer I can give you.”

The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

Seth Roberts35 Comments

Recently I visited some friends whom I hadn’t seen for a while. You’re more talkative, they said. I attribute this to flaxseed oil.

I became interested in the effects of flaxseed oil partly because of the aquatic ape hypothesis, the idea that living near water had a big effect on human evolution. During a long period of human prehistory, the theory says, we swam a lot, presumably to catch fish. If we ate lots of fish (high in omega-3) at the same time our brains grew large, it was quite possible that our brains need large amounts of omega-3 to function properly. Flaxseed oil is high in omega-3.

Elaine Morgan, the theory’s main proponent, has written several books about it, “each more po-faced [= academically correct] than the last,” she has said. I have finally read two of them and was pleased to find more scrutiny made the theory more plausible.

Background to the idea that humans were once aquatic is that several mammals have obviously become aquatic — starting on land they shifted to water. Sea lions, whales, and so on. Birds have become aquatic — for example, ducks. Insects have become aquatic. Elephants appear to have become aquatic and then terrestrial again — note how well they can swim. There is ample precedent, in other words.

Humans differ in all sorts of anatomical and physiological ways from other primates and the aquatic ape theory has straightforward explanations for many of them:

1. Humans have subcutaneous fat, other primates don’t. Other aquatic mammals do. Explanation: The fat serves as insulation.

2. Humans have almost no fur, other primates do. Other aquatic mammals don’t. Explanation: Fur creates drag in the water. In the air, fur insulates.

3. Humans are bipedal. Explanation: Walking upright keeps the head out of the water, allowing breathing.