Reflections of hope at the halfway point...
Today is the only day off in the programme and after a crazy week I am ready to take some time to recharge for the second half of the programme next week. Though it's been busy and sometimes it feels like there hasn't been a moment to sit down, this has truly been the best professional experience of my life!
Being here, surrounded by other physics teachers and physicists from around the world has been an incredible experience. Hearing about the challenges we all face in our classrooms, which are far more similar than I ever realized, and how we combat them has given me a lot of perspective. I've learned so much from those around me, from the movement towards Modeling Instruction in the United States, to constant curriculum updates to keep content modern in countries like Spain and many others, to the strong collaborative efforts of schools and universities to bring physics education to students and the public in my neighbouring province of Ontario, and all of the struggles and triumphs in physics programs around the world (where they often have a physical science course, a general physics course, and then either IB or AP Physics).
There has been a lot of talk here about the challenges being faced as governments, that clearly don't have the best interests of humanity, are coming into power around the world by people that don't understand or believe in science or technology. It saddens me that people would rather not believe that climate change is real or that vaccines are safe and effective or that CERN is not trying to destroy the planet with a black hole because they would rather fabricate some falsehood to make life more interesting or perhaps they had something happen to them that now makes them feel justified in putting the lives of future generations in jeopardy. The people that say this stuff have little to no background in these topics yet they still believe that their off-handed remark should have as much weight as someone that has dedicated their life to research in that field. How terrifying is it that when you do a search on YouTube for "CERN" you come up with these absurd conspiracy theories from people who clearly don't understand basic junior high science? Yet with even a little bit of basic science understanding and a little critical thinking all of these conspiracy theories can be quickly and easily dismissed.
Meanwhile, the truth is that the work at CERN has saved countless lives around the world. It was formed after the Second World War to bring peace to the planet through open scientific research. This has brought scientists together here from all over the world (even from countries at war with each other) in a collaborative effort to make the world a better place. Every discovery and every new piece of technology developed is freely and openly documented and reported on for anyone in the world to access from CERN's document server. The developments here have led to refinements in X-ray technology, the development of the CT scan, PET scan, radiation therapy, touch screens, and so much more. Ever have a loved one diagnosed with cancer and their life was saved through radiation therapy? The doctors would never have found it or treated it without the research being done here over the decades since WW2. Yet a lack of scientific understanding around the world doesn't lead people to say "I'd love to learn more about that!" or "I don't get it, but I am sure thankful those people do what they do so that the time with the people I love wasn't cut short." Instead they say "all these people working together from all over the world must be up to something sinister because I don't understand what's going on there!" For some reason their upbringing has lead them to believe that it's not alright to not understand something and so they lash out with uneducated theories at the very programs and people that work to save their lives (most often through the use of anonymous profiles on the internet, another world-changing technology developed here at CERN and freely released to be developed for use around planet).
But I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression, this post is about hope. Things may look bleak at times and it's easy to spiral down that rabbit hole, but this program has given me hope and it's become clear to me over the last week that that's what CERN is built around. CERN has created a series of teacher programs for teachers to learn about the work done here so that we can pass that along to our students. To see how people, whose countries are perpetually at war with each other, work together as neighbours and friends because they have a common goal in creating a better world for everyone is truly awe-inspiring. To share with my students up and coming developments in science and technology that will continue to save the lives of countless people worldwide in ways that can't even be foreseen yet.
Working in a school of 1400 students and 100 staff, I see lots on a daily basis, but what amazes me the most is how the future generations give me hope. I see students that work together to help each other out, to make everyone feel included, and so no one has to feel alone. I see them build up each other's ideas and keep coming up with better and better ones and I see them try to reach out to younger students to help encourage them to be even better and learn from their mistakes. I work in a field that is all about hope. I am a teacher because I want to pass along whatever I can so that my students have the knowledge and understanding to dismiss the nonsense out there and work together to make the world better. Maybe an idea that I give to one of my students will simmer in their mind over their university lives and maybe a good experience in my class means that they pursue a degree in physics where they one day develop a device to efficiently remove greenhouse gases from our atmosphere and reverse the effects of everything the human race has put up there so that climate change is no longer an issue. Maybe another student goes on and develops a new idea to make solar energy more efficient than ever, solving the world's energy crisis and putting an end to so many of the issues that plague this beautiful planet. I teach in hopes of a better tomorrow for everyone.
To many people CERN may seem like an extravagance or a waste of tax-payer money, but was that CT scanner that the doctor used during your mother's surgery to remove a tumor that would have otherwise taken her life a waste of tax-payer money? The work being done here is reason to have hope that people from all over the world can work together to achieve a common goal, that together we can fight climate change so that future generations have a planet to live on, that we can create better ways of diagnosing and treating people in hospitals, that we can develop new technologies to power the planet and stop the fight for oil and the greed and war it brings with it. People need to change their attitudes and realize that it's alright to not understand something and that doesn't make you stupid. It also means that people need to look at their neighbours, not with greed or jealousy or envy or prejudice, but to follow CERN's example that we can work together to make this world a better place for all of our children and grandchildren and the generations yet to be born.
I'll finish this post with one of my favourite quotes and I encourage you to visit http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/earth/pale-blue-dot.html to learn more.
Being here, surrounded by other physics teachers and physicists from around the world has been an incredible experience. Hearing about the challenges we all face in our classrooms, which are far more similar than I ever realized, and how we combat them has given me a lot of perspective. I've learned so much from those around me, from the movement towards Modeling Instruction in the United States, to constant curriculum updates to keep content modern in countries like Spain and many others, to the strong collaborative efforts of schools and universities to bring physics education to students and the public in my neighbouring province of Ontario, and all of the struggles and triumphs in physics programs around the world (where they often have a physical science course, a general physics course, and then either IB or AP Physics).
There has been a lot of talk here about the challenges being faced as governments, that clearly don't have the best interests of humanity, are coming into power around the world by people that don't understand or believe in science or technology. It saddens me that people would rather not believe that climate change is real or that vaccines are safe and effective or that CERN is not trying to destroy the planet with a black hole because they would rather fabricate some falsehood to make life more interesting or perhaps they had something happen to them that now makes them feel justified in putting the lives of future generations in jeopardy. The people that say this stuff have little to no background in these topics yet they still believe that their off-handed remark should have as much weight as someone that has dedicated their life to research in that field. How terrifying is it that when you do a search on YouTube for "CERN" you come up with these absurd conspiracy theories from people who clearly don't understand basic junior high science? Yet with even a little bit of basic science understanding and a little critical thinking all of these conspiracy theories can be quickly and easily dismissed.
Meanwhile, the truth is that the work at CERN has saved countless lives around the world. It was formed after the Second World War to bring peace to the planet through open scientific research. This has brought scientists together here from all over the world (even from countries at war with each other) in a collaborative effort to make the world a better place. Every discovery and every new piece of technology developed is freely and openly documented and reported on for anyone in the world to access from CERN's document server. The developments here have led to refinements in X-ray technology, the development of the CT scan, PET scan, radiation therapy, touch screens, and so much more. Ever have a loved one diagnosed with cancer and their life was saved through radiation therapy? The doctors would never have found it or treated it without the research being done here over the decades since WW2. Yet a lack of scientific understanding around the world doesn't lead people to say "I'd love to learn more about that!" or "I don't get it, but I am sure thankful those people do what they do so that the time with the people I love wasn't cut short." Instead they say "all these people working together from all over the world must be up to something sinister because I don't understand what's going on there!" For some reason their upbringing has lead them to believe that it's not alright to not understand something and so they lash out with uneducated theories at the very programs and people that work to save their lives (most often through the use of anonymous profiles on the internet, another world-changing technology developed here at CERN and freely released to be developed for use around planet).
But I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression, this post is about hope. Things may look bleak at times and it's easy to spiral down that rabbit hole, but this program has given me hope and it's become clear to me over the last week that that's what CERN is built around. CERN has created a series of teacher programs for teachers to learn about the work done here so that we can pass that along to our students. To see how people, whose countries are perpetually at war with each other, work together as neighbours and friends because they have a common goal in creating a better world for everyone is truly awe-inspiring. To share with my students up and coming developments in science and technology that will continue to save the lives of countless people worldwide in ways that can't even be foreseen yet.
Working in a school of 1400 students and 100 staff, I see lots on a daily basis, but what amazes me the most is how the future generations give me hope. I see students that work together to help each other out, to make everyone feel included, and so no one has to feel alone. I see them build up each other's ideas and keep coming up with better and better ones and I see them try to reach out to younger students to help encourage them to be even better and learn from their mistakes. I work in a field that is all about hope. I am a teacher because I want to pass along whatever I can so that my students have the knowledge and understanding to dismiss the nonsense out there and work together to make the world better. Maybe an idea that I give to one of my students will simmer in their mind over their university lives and maybe a good experience in my class means that they pursue a degree in physics where they one day develop a device to efficiently remove greenhouse gases from our atmosphere and reverse the effects of everything the human race has put up there so that climate change is no longer an issue. Maybe another student goes on and develops a new idea to make solar energy more efficient than ever, solving the world's energy crisis and putting an end to so many of the issues that plague this beautiful planet. I teach in hopes of a better tomorrow for everyone.
To many people CERN may seem like an extravagance or a waste of tax-payer money, but was that CT scanner that the doctor used during your mother's surgery to remove a tumor that would have otherwise taken her life a waste of tax-payer money? The work being done here is reason to have hope that people from all over the world can work together to achieve a common goal, that together we can fight climate change so that future generations have a planet to live on, that we can create better ways of diagnosing and treating people in hospitals, that we can develop new technologies to power the planet and stop the fight for oil and the greed and war it brings with it. People need to change their attitudes and realize that it's alright to not understand something and that doesn't make you stupid. It also means that people need to look at their neighbours, not with greed or jealousy or envy or prejudice, but to follow CERN's example that we can work together to make this world a better place for all of our children and grandchildren and the generations yet to be born.
I'll finish this post with one of my favourite quotes and I encourage you to visit http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/earth/pale-blue-dot.html to learn more.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Copyright © 1994 by Carl Sagan, Copyright © 2006 by Democritus Properties, LLC.
All rights reserved including the rights of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
All rights reserved including the rights of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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