Students and motivation

The argument which often surfaces during my discussions with colleagues about teaching practices is as follows: 

If students are motivated they will do well, and if they are not, they won't. Everything else doesn't matter. 

Some thoughts on this:

1. Most students are not self-motivated. There are many reasons for this including, 
• In college because that is what they thought they were supposed to do and didn't know what else to do. 
• Just want a degree so that they can get a job. 
• Course is not important to them and they are taking it just because it is required. 
• Distracted because of personal problems. 
• Working too much because of financial problems. 
• ... This list can get pretty long, so I will stop here. 
2. Incentives matter. Motivation doesn't automatically imply discipline and time management skills. The degree of focus and effort dedicated to coursework depends a lot on the incentive structure. One needs only to ask this hypothetical question: "What if homework assignments are not required?". Would we really think that would not impact their learning? 
3. Motivation does not automatically imply critical thinking skills and deep learning approaches. Most well motivated students who are working hard are quite content with memorization and procedure-replication if that is what they are used to and if those practices get them a good grade. 

Conversation with a student

 This email exchange was after a verbal discussion. The context was that the student made fundamental mistakes in a quiz, realized that is what happened but was upset about losing points. 

Student: 

I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to me after class today. I have a problem with relating my self worth to my grades, so I tend to get overly emotional and anxious when I feel like I am doing poorly. Usually I understand topics like this fairly easily, so feeling lost sometimes has been making me anxious and stressed. I appreciate your reassurance that my grade will be fine in the end as long as I keep applying myself. I also really appreciate you still talking to me and not writing me off when I was getting emotional. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding. I will continue to do my best in class.

My response: 

I am glad you came to me and expressed your thoughts. You care about your learning, so I think it is healthy to get emotional. I don't show it much, but I get very emotional (sometimes angry and frustrated) about teaching too.  In the end we must remember that is because we care, which is a good thing. 

I understand what you are saying about feeling anxious when you are lost. Here are my thoughts: from my observations, you are not usually lost. In fact, you are following the material better than most students in the class. What does happen sometimes is that you make mistakes or make incorrect assumptions or fail to recognize that you are looking at a slightly different context than what you saw before. This is perfectly normal when you are learning new material. 

The fact that you are not used to this implies to me that your previous courses did not set the expectations high enough, and that is obviously not your fault. The exam questions usually don't test your ability to apply your knowledge in a new context, and as such, I think most of my students have a low expectation of what it means to earn an A in a course. My opinion about an A grade is that "you mastered the material", which implies your ability to solve new problems or problems in a new context using your existing knowledge. 

In my experience, students who listen to my advice (like you are doing) and work through this initial "making mistakes" phase, eventually earn an A in my courses.

Systemic approach to improve quality of food consumption

 A collaboration between physicians, grocery stores, insurance companies and data analytics companies to combat diseases caused by food, diseases which can be controlled or reversed by dietary interventions. 

For knowledgeable and well-meaning physicians, the motivation and benefits are obvious. 

Grocery stores can have a "weekly grocery" program where the items are curated by physicians with some limited flexibility. This may also increase their predictability on demand, and it is likely they will have steady customers even after the program ends. 

Insurance companies can either subsidize the cost or even pay for it for a certain duration. What is a better motivator than "free food"? Considering that they don't have to pay for expensive medication when the medical conditions reverse, they may end up saving a lot of money. 

Data analytics companies can play a role in tracking nutrients, using nudge tactics, and prediction to provide estimates of "correct" times for interventions or doing more tests. (they could possibly do a lot more). 

Will this work? 

Are we really more moral than slave owners?

 I recall saying to this to my friends a few times, "What would be a current day analogy to the practice of human slavery in the past? It would be how we treat animals." 

Certainly, people back then did not think it was moral to do so, but used various excuses to rationalize it and/or suppress those thoughts and go on about their lives. Otherwise decent people who enslaved other people would probably have said "everyone else is doing it", and people who benefited from low cost of goods at the expense of those enslaved would probably have said, "I have to live, and I am not the one enslaving". 

I am guilty of such rationalizing all these years knowing full well how animals I am eating were treated all their life before they were slaughtered, often in-humanely. They are tortured horribly all their life before being converted into nuggets and packages which we buy at the counter, or order from our tables. Pigs and Cows are so emotionally mature that they are social, show love to their off-springs, and even to humans if the effort is made. Yet, I am guilty of suppressing those thoughts. When I am trying to understand people living in bubbles, this rather shameful chapter of my life should serve as a helping tool. 

I am writing this now while attempting to transition to plant based food only, but my guilt is not the main reason I am attempting this transition. Rather, it is for my health. I hope I learn my lesson from this and try to do the right things in the Future (for the right reasons). 

America is has been moving towards the left

1. Gay marriage: Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defined marriage as between a man and a women, and allowed states to discriminate against same sex couples. It was deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court in 2015. Gay people were banned from being in the military. Bill Clinton managed to throw a think veil on the law by enacting the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. That policy was repealed in 2010, and a federal court ruled ban of gay people from a military unconstitutional in 2011. 
2. Climate change: The percentage of Americans who say dealing with global climate change should be a priority for the president and the congress increased from 30% in 2008 to 52% in 2020. 
3. Abortion: in 2019, about 61% of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The percentage of people with this view grew from 63% in 2007 to 82% in 2019 among democrats, while it remained about the same among republicans. 
4. Evolution: A growing percentage of high school teachers teach Evolution as a broad consensus among scientists. The proportion grew from 51% in 2007 to 67% in 2019.  
5. Immigration: The percentage of Americans who say legal immigration should be increased went up from 10% in 2001 to 32% in 2018 and the percentage who say it should be decreased went down from 53% in 2001 to 24% in 2018.   74% of Americans support giving a legal status to undocumented people brought to the United States as children. About 10% of eligible voters in 2020 were naturalized citizens. 
6. Health care: About 60% of Americans consistently held the viewpoint that it is the government's responsibility to ensure health care for all and support for a single payer system has grown from 59% in 2019 to 63% in 2020. 

In all of the above cases, republicans are in the minority.