Friday, April 16, 2004
I don't have a title field for each of my blog entries, but if I did this one would read: "May My Student's Ignorance Shine On!" What precipitated this outburst, you may want to know. Well, here it is. I was grading again. First, let me present a bit of background information. (If you are an animal rights activist, I suggest that you stop reading right now.) Ok. Now that I got rid of those people, I will let you know what happened. In lab, we look at the neuromuscular system and do this using the hind leg of a frog. We can electrically stimulate a nerve in the leg and cause the calf muscle to contract.
So, I gave them a quiz, asking them about the different properties of muscle contraction. One question was, "Why is there a latent period between when you stimulate the nerve and when the muscle actually contracts?" (FYI: the latent period is the time that it takes from when you stimulate the nerve and when the muscle contracts.) The answer, provided by about half of the class, was that the signal from the nerve has to travel to the brain and then the brain has to tell the muscle to contract. I don't know about frogs, but I don't have a brain in my leg. If my leg was severed from my body, I would think that there would no longer be a connection between my brain and my leg muscle. Why this fact was so hard to recognize, I am not sure. And what gets me is that about half of the class answered it this way. Maybe one day, they will learn to think. I guess I have failed as a teacher.
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So, I gave them a quiz, asking them about the different properties of muscle contraction. One question was, "Why is there a latent period between when you stimulate the nerve and when the muscle actually contracts?" (FYI: the latent period is the time that it takes from when you stimulate the nerve and when the muscle contracts.) The answer, provided by about half of the class, was that the signal from the nerve has to travel to the brain and then the brain has to tell the muscle to contract. I don't know about frogs, but I don't have a brain in my leg. If my leg was severed from my body, I would think that there would no longer be a connection between my brain and my leg muscle. Why this fact was so hard to recognize, I am not sure. And what gets me is that about half of the class answered it this way. Maybe one day, they will learn to think. I guess I have failed as a teacher.
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