Faith Schools

It's often a little unwise for me to blog when I've had something to drink, but bugger it. It's 5 o'clock somewhere, and I've had a margarita. Today, faith schools have pissed me off on two fronts. I find them an utterly illiberal concept, and I long for the secularisation of the state school system, and both Paul and I actually attended faith state schools for our primary and secondary education (Catholic and Church of England respectively). I still remember being told by the priest attached to our school that I shouldn't support the Green Party because David Icke thought he was the son of God (now I don't support the Green Party because they're anti-science).

Anyway, I digress.

HPV Vaccination
Hot on the heels of the news that the Schools Minister doesn't think it's necessary for children to know the correct names for parts of their anatomy is the revelation that some faith schools are opting out of the HPV vaccine, and that the schools or PCTs are not informing local GPs or letting the parents/guardians know where they can access the vaccination instead. The original article in GP Magazine is available if you register, otherwise the Grauniad fairly accurately reflects the original article. The reasons given for this decision are that "pupils follow strict Christian principles, marry within their own community and do not practise sex outside marriage".

I'm reminded of the attitude of Cambridge college porters towards TV licence enforcing officers. The porters turned away the officers at the porters' lodge, because college regulations stipulated that students were not allowed televisions. Therefore no students had televisions and no TV licences were required. Yeah, right. Making up rules prohibiting something is no guarantee that the rules will be obeyed, whether it is not having a television or not having sex before marriage.

In any case, this assertion does not allow for the fact that a) abstaining from sexual intercourse does not appear to guarantee a young woman will not acquire HPV (non-penetrative sexual contact is a plausible infection route, as are fomites, vertical transmission and skin-to-skin contact), b) young women are usually held up to standards of virginity that are not expected of their prospective husbands (so a female virgin could still acquire HPV from her husband on her wedding night), and c) women who "follow strict Christian principles" can still be raped or coerced into sex.

An article published earlier this year investigated possible effects of offering the HPV vaccination on girls' sexual activity. They concluded:

• Being offered the HPV vaccine was not linked with higher rates of sexual activity.
  
• Receiving the HPV vaccination was not associated with increased sexual risk-taking.
  
• HPV vaccination is unlikely to affect girls' sexual behaviour.

Well then. A move like this has no benefit to the school or to its female students. And by not informing the GPs in the area, the girls' doctors are prevented from offering a safety-net of vaccination. I tell my male students to check their testicles, and I tell my students to check their breasts and to have regular cervical smears when they're called for them. And yes, I tell them to have their HPV vaccines. It might save their lives.

Teaching Creationism
And so creationism raises its ugly head. We could have predicted this particular outcome of the disastrous free school programme. Yesterday I had a notification from the British Humanist Association regarding three creationist free schools that had been given approval to open, including Grindon Hall Christian School. According to the BHA, Grindon Hall have the policy that:

We will teach creation as a scientific theory and we will always affirm very clearly our position as Christians, i.e. that Christians believe that God's creation of the world is not just a theory but a fact with eternal consequences for our planet and for every person who has ever lived on it.

Eek. Classic "teach the controversy" stuff, part of the "wedge strategy", and just plain wrong. According to the Grauniad article linked above, the head of Grindon Hall has said this policy is out of date, and that they won't be doing that, but there is no real indication of what will be taught. The DfE hit Twitter to reiterate their position that no free school is allowed to teach creationism as scientific fact, but the statement on their website is not exactly clear:

We would expect to see evolution and its foundation topics fully included in any science curriculum. We do not expect creationism, intelligent design and similar ideas to be taught as valid scientific theories in any state funded school.

Doesn't exactly lay down the law, does it? I'm tempted to respond that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Not an explicit ban on the teaching of creationism as science. And that is where, I fear, the schools will start to chip away at the teaching of evolution. This is the thin end of the wedge in UK schools; this is where it begins.

So there you have it, two ways in which faith schools are damaging their students physically and intellectually. I need another drink.

Making Science "A Girl Thing"

This all broke yesterday, when I was rather busy trying not to cry as I said goodbye to my A2 class. An A2 class that, by and large, are off to study sciences at university, and who do not in any way identify with the teenagers portrayed in the video below. When I did get a chance to catch up with the catastrofuck on Twitter, this is what hit me:


This is one of the worst ways of getting girls interested in STEM careers that I've seen in some time. Certainly since the pink geek glasses and microscopes. The video quite rightly attracted the scorn of a number of scientists and teachers. A number of criticisms were made, summarised below.

1. That sort of clothing would be a health & safety disaster in the majority of laboratories, despite what CSI suggests.
   
2. There is a hell of a lot more to science than knowing what goes in makeup.
   
3. They still can't resist a man in a white coat looking down a microscope.
   
4. It's promoting short skirts and makeup to pre-teen girls.
   
5. The "i" in "science" is a lipstick, FFS. I'd almost have been tempted to download some of the free posters for the lab, but for the lipstick.
   
6. The website is full of stereotypes and "avatars" of science - inaccurate Rutherford models of atoms, flasks and beakers of random coloured liquids, and some mathematical equations that I don't think make any sense.
   
7. It detracts from the actual message of the campaign.
   
8. It's fucking patronising.

The unfortunate thing is that the profiles the EU project is promoting are really interesting. Paul and I were saying that all that was really needed as a teaser, was each scientist introducing herself with a few caption slides in between. And ditch the lipstick.

The people behind the campaign did remove the teaser video, realising that it was detrimental to the message they were trying to convey, but I fear the damage is done. For one thing, even if the aim of the teaser (cynically) was to get people talking on the basis there's no such thing as bad publicity, the teenagers just weren't present for the conversation. We were all adults on Twitter, bitching, swearing or contributing to the hilarious #scienceboything hashtag. Some adults reported back what their children thought of the video, but that was it.

Sophia Collins, who developed the I'm A Scientist concept, had some more constructive things to say. I'm A Scientist has been without a doubt one of the most effective means at my disposal of getting all my students, male and female, interested in science as a career. Seeing a range of different faces doing interesting things in science is powerful. And they don't all have to have perfect manicures, glamorous wardrobes and crippling high heels. A day or two earlier, @teachingofsci linked to an abstract for a paper entitled "My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math and Science Role Models Demotivate Young Girls". I'd love to see a copy of the whole paper, but I'm most struck by this line in the abstract:

"Study 2 suggested that feminine STEM role models' combination of femininity and success seemed particularly unattainable to STEM-disidentified girls."

So for all that, the EU campaign could end up having the opposite effect, as teenage girls feel even more pressure to conform to a certain formula even within the STEM field. We're also facing a deeper look at the "macho culture" in the sciences, since it is turning women off to science.

Could we not just stand to improve the range of scientists that children learn about at school? Maybe not cutting the Researchers in Residence scheme would have been a good idea. And maybe employers could put in decent equality policies to silence sexist jokes, harassment, assault and discrimination against wormen.

Until then, I will stand at the front of my lab, refusing to be manicured, made up and tottering around on high heels, and I will be the role model my female (and indeed male) students need - unapologetically enthusiastic about science, full of high expectations for them, and their biggest cheerleader.

Gove And Mullen

Politicians in the UK (and perhaps elsewhere in the world) have an annoying habit of pretending to leak stories to the press, when in actual fact it has been carefully planned and directed to certain media outlets. Late last night the Daily Fail (please don't feel obliged to click on the link - it will only give them advertising revenue) "broke" the exclusive that our favourite Pob look-a-like, Michael Gove, plans to scrap GCSEs by 2016 and replace them with a two-tier system of O-levels and CSEs, like we had before 1988.

I think this is a monumentally bad idea. He is simply pandering to an elitist bunch of old farts who look back on the 1950s and 1960s as a Golden Age of Education. The GCSE system is not perfect by any means - we could always stand to improve on it, and given proper consultation I would be in favour of this move, but going back to a set of qualifications that were deemed unfit for purpose in the 1980s seems a little antediluvian, to say the least. He's also planning to get rid of the National Curriculum (opening the door for all sorts of pseudoscience and creationist bollocks to be taught in the name of science), and to replace the three big exam boards in England with a single one (the least bad idea of the lot, but Gove will not find it easy to destroy three big companies like Edexcel, AQA and OCR).


How many teachers are feeling today...
There have been some quite excellent posts expressing the overwhelming teacher opinion on this all, including the Grauniad, and the FT. The latter has the advantage of data, showing clearly who the most adversely affected will be.

And then there's this article from the Torygraph. According to Peter Mullen (do check out his Wikipedia page - he's one of the worst ambassadors for Christianity I can think of), we are useless, illiterate, ignorant, airport novel-reading, rock gig-attending, anti-elitist, "overpaid, unionised thugs".

How demotivating. For me and for my students. The students are in the middle of exams at the moment - many in the College are part-way through their GCSEs. They've just been told that their exams are meaningless. Paul and I saw a number of tweets this morning from students wondering if they should even bother to go in and sit the rest of their GCSEs. It was very sad to see.

I also saw tweets from other teachers, saying this had reinforced their decisions to leave teaching, or was likely to result in them leaving in the next few years. It will probably reduce the number of people applying to become teachers. Why would they, when a distinctly un-Christian priest who can't keep from breaking the odd Commandment is telling them they're shit?

I am not a shit, useless teacher (though on bad days full of BTEC I sometimes feel that way). I look after my kids, even the kids who are older than me. I teach them to be enthusiastic about biology, to develop their inquisitive skills, to be able to apply their deep subject knowledge to new and interesting situations. I give them a well-tuned bullshit detector and the ability to do Harvard referencing in their sleep. I cuss, I speak sarcastically, I tell dirty jokes. Hell, I've baked them all flapjacks for every single A-level exam, because I know that for some of them it's the only meal they're going to get all day.


Flapjacks, cooked to the recipe I posted yesterday.
So, as pissed off as I am, and as hurt by the words, I know that I, and the vast majority of teachers, do not fit in with Mullen's attack. I do not recognise the people he is criticising. I just wish that this sort of attack didn't demotivate and sadden.

But if Mullen wants to put his money where his mouth is, I'd be more than happy to go head-to-head with him sitting a load of GCSE exams. I'll take on Gove too. I'd like to see these arseholes demonstrate their supposed superiority. And if they decline, well, fuck them.

Things I Learned From My Students #11: Procrastination

What better time for a blog post than when I should be writing a statement of application for an internal vacancy? My A2 students have their Unit 4 exam this coming Friday, so I should think there are 15 alpabetised sock drawers in west London, as an indicator of the amount of procrastination taking place. Anyway, here are some pearls of wisdom to pass on to you.

1. Apparently it's entirely normal to e-mail your biology lecturer Led Zeppelin lyrics at 3am on a Saturday morning.
   
2. Yet apparently it's not an achievable task to e-mail your biology lecturer the outstanding coursework at 3am on a Saturday morning.
   
3. There's no point committing a long name like Cedrus libani to memory when you can just call it Big Crazy Tree Mudafuuuu.
   
4. It's impossible to memorise three Latin names for plants, but perfectly reasonable to memorise the first and last names of the entire Polish football team.
   
5. No matter how awful a student's home life is, they are always thankful that their name is not Melvin Calvin.
   
6. Barnacles deserve maximum respect.
   
7. Hangovers really aren't conducive to starting the first part of the A2 biology syllabus, and may result in the bunking off of the afternoon's physics lesson.
   
8. If you're a teenage boy, every round object resembles breasts, and every long object resembles a penis.
   
9. When doing an experiment to measure the volume (and therefore density) of an irregular object, some joker always asks if they can measure the volume of their penis.
   
10. These jokers don't like it if you hand them a 10ml measuring cylinder.
    
11. There is no such thing as bad weather; only inappropriate clothing. And boy, is there inappropriate clothing for fieldwork...
    
12. Kitten heels are not great footwear for a trip round a plant nursery.
    
13. Until such time as I can train my lab pelargoniums to do a dance routine to "Somebody That I Used To Know", my students will never be truly interested in plants.
    
14. The level of disgust expressed at being defaecated on by a giant millipede should never be underestimated.
    
15. Millipedes have "too many legs".
    
16. The word "bodman" apparently means "condom".
    
17. It's perfectly acceptable to refer to your female teacher as "Bro" or "Bruv".
    
18. I may need to wear lower-cut tops if my students are confused about my gender.
    
19. Flapjacks really are very well received pre-exam sustenance.
    
20. The Marmoset Song exists. Thank you. I mean it. Really.

Pseudoscience And The Natural History Museum

I've blogged before about eyebrow-raising items on sale in the NHM shop. I know and appreciate that the retail department is entirely separate from the science departments. However, this is no excuse for what I saw on sale on Friday night:


There, in between decent scientific guides to gemstones, minerals and fossils (note the British Mesozoic Fossils and British Cenozoic Fossils books on the right hand side), is The Crystal Bible. Now, it could just be a term to indicate that it is a detailed reference guide, right?


Wrong. "500 crystals to heal your body, mind and spirit."


Among the amazing things this book claims is that crystals will help "find love" and "reduce workplace bullying". The author also claims to be a "psychic researcher" and "paranormal expert".

To add insult to injury, the book isn't just tucked away in a dark area of the museum shop - it's also displayed prominently on the counter next to the minerals:


By offering this book for sale, particularly alongside genuine science books, the Museum is giving credence to this pseudoscientific bullshit. The public trust the NHM to give them accurate, interesting scientific information, and I don't believe this should stop the moment we enter the bright lights of the retail environment.

Retail and science may not mix at the NHM, but they bloody well ought to, for this very reason. Museums join teachers in having a duty to educate and inform. Crystal "healing" suggests that silicates can cure physical illnesses through some supposed mystical energy. This isn't just harmless rubbish - where pseudoscience claims to cure disease (apparently it will "help to relieve a headache"), there is a real risk that people will use these bogus therapies over genuine medical attention. While in mild cases this may simply be a case of a tax on human stupidity, the potential for harm is evident.

The stocking of this book in the shop of the most prominent museum in the country is up there with my biology lecturer colleagues who think evolution is fictional, the head of physics who says the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and the chemistry lecturer who follows homeopathy. It is incongruous, an abuse of trust, and just a whole big barrel full of wrong.

Practical Instructions

One of the Edexcel Unit 2 core practicals is the extraction of fibres from plants and the testing of their tensile strength. Students who have already done one of the AS physics practicals on Hooke's law should have had no trouble designing their own practicals, and I made sure there were physics students on each table to assist.

However, it occurred to me that the problem was not with biologists who didn't know physics, but with physicists who didn't know biology...


Why yes, that would be an entire stick of celery wedged between the bulldog clips. Extracting celery fibres. UR DOIN IT RONG.

What Teachers Say

Periodically the media, fed up with criticising police, medics, teenagers and single mothers, rounds on teachers as their favoured target for that week. Today comes the revelation, posted by @mattleys, of a teacher hounded by her local newspaper for daring to tweet in a personal capacity: "How to ruin someone's life for no good reason". It's such a blinding summary, I wouldn't dare try myself here. I'll offer my comments in a bit.

The other thing that I've been thinking about is the brilliant "Educating Essex", a fixed-rig documentary about Passmores School and its staff. It's been hilariously blogged about by Tom Bennett The Behaviour Guru. In the opening credits, the English teacher Mr King tells his students: "Clear off, scumbags!". The Daily Fail and Torygraph took great offence, with "What sort of example is this to set our children? Teachers call pupils 'scumbags' and the head flicks V-signs at his deputy in school praised as 'outstanding'" and "Educating Essex: teachers call students 'scumbags' at outstanding school".

Now, to any teacher, it was clear that Mr King absolutely adored that class. The worse the noun, the more highly regarded the class usually is. The class of little sods - they're the favourites. The lovely little darlings - they're the ones who'll be chucking desks on a windy afternoon. Many is the time I've come into the lab and informed the class that we're starting the lesson with a cry of "Right, shut up you horrible lot". Add that to the long list of other reasons why I'm hated by the Daily Mail.


We teach children not to swear, because it is not polite, because it is considered unacceptable in the workplace (though you should have heard the sheer number of "fuck"s coming from Humanities corner this week!), and because a large number of people take offence at hearing bad language. I am not one of those people. I am not in the remotest bit offended by swearing, unless it is being used aggressively at me (and then it's more the aggression). I have a swear box in class instead of doing the discipline thing - the money goes to Shooting Star CHASE (the students wanted a local charity, a cancer charity and a children's charity, so the head technician suggested these guys). Last year we made over £25.

Occasionally I swear in front of students, but it's quite a rare occurrence, and never with anyone but the A2s. They get a bit more of a relaxed attitude, because I think they need to (and deserve to) be treated like adults, and that means being able to have an adult conversation with them, one scientist to the other (maybe this is easier because they're at college rather than school). Fieldwork is perhaps the most sweary point of the year - the occasional mock-exasperation "Oh for fuck's sake" is allowed to slip out (usually as another endearingly inept student nearly decapitates themselves with a quadrat). And the last student to allege that women could not park cars was strongly interrogated as to whether he wished to walk home from Park Royal.

Honestly, I've rather run out of steam on this post now (it's been going all evening in and around dinner etc). But I'm angry that the media presume to be able to interpret the relationship a teacher has with his students on the basis of two seconds of footage. And I'm angry that teachers are vilified by the media when they dare to interact with others in their personal capacity. I swear like a trooper when I'm off-duty. I expect to be able to sit in a pub, have a conversation at a normal noise level and occasionally say "shit" "blow-job" or "fuck" without the Chronicle splashing me over the front page. But then teachers are expected to not drink, smoke or have sex, and they're certainly not allowed to talk about it.

Oh fuck it. I'm tired. It's half-term and I can't be arsed. I'm going to bed, and then I might get round to dealing with the Email Inbox Of Hell. Or I might sleep all weekend.

The Consequences Of No SRE Lessons

One of the unofficial roles I end up fulfilling as a biology lecturer is as a general go-to gal for discussion about sexual health. We don't have formal sex and relationship education (SRE) at the college, as all the students are post-16. We do, however, have two nurse-counsellors and an advisor from Brook who visits several times a week. Free condoms are available from the tutors, and periodically free chlamydia tests are offered.

My fellow teachers on Twitter, many of whom do have some SRE responsibility, are getting justifiably angry about a section on the Daily-Mail-in-liquid-form rant-fest BBC Sunday Morning Live (the link will only have a video associated with it up to 25 October though, so be quick), where the question was asked: "Is school sex education bad for our kids?".

One of the talking heads was Lynette Burrows, a woman who, dare I say, occasionally seems to make Melanie Phillips look like a moderate. She has form for saying awful stuff, and has been warned for homophobic comments, for example. She is the sister of Victoria Gillick, who campaigned for parents to be required to consent before children under the age of 16 could be given contraceptives (thankfully defeated - see Gillick competence). And she thinks parents should be able to smack their children.

So she is in favour of physical assault (the link above has her boast that she threatened to beat a boy "black and blue"), but she thinks that SRE is "talking dirty" and showing "dirty pictures", that it smacks of paedophilia, and that it will cause mental scarring. Plenty of teachers have been deeply offended by the accusation of paedophilia - read the further comments from Alice Hoyle, a SRE teacher who appeared via webcam to defend the teaching of sex and relationships, and consider complaining to the BBC - I will be as soon as this is published.

My mother-in-law is a primary school teacher. Most of what she and her colleagues teach as part of SRE involves the children being able to name parts of their body, understand that no one has a right to touch them in places not normally covered by their clothes, and form healthy friendships with their classmates. When I was at school, the "periods talk" came in Year 5, aged 9-10. With many girls beginning to menstruate at that age or younger, one could argue that needs to happen earlier - a friend of mine once said she had her menarche at the age of eight, before the school lessons and before her own mother had talked to her about periods. I believe it is imperative that children are told what will happen to them before it does - why would anyone want their daughter to be terrified out of their wits at finding themselves bleeding, perhaps quite heavily, from an area they don't even know how to describe?

I only teach the over-16s. The GCSE specification, when I taught it, was all about the menstrual cycle, contraception and IVF. There is naff all on the A-level specification, but there is a BTEC physiology unit on reproduction, among other phenomena. And that means there's an opportunity to review external and internal anatomy for both sexes, discuss the full spectrum of contraception, and actually talk more about what healthy relationships mean as a near-adult - that bit isn't on the specification, but it becomes almost impossible to separate out sex and relationships, so why try to maintain a split?


This is the age at which the "dirty pictures" are whipped out - no SRE teacher would dream of showing something like that to a child, though I am sure they are in the encyclopaedia if a particularly studious primary school child was interested (I know I read a lot of human anatomy books when I was younger). And here, when doing what I hoped would be a recap on previous knowledge, is where I get to see first-hand the consequences of having little or no SRE when at school.

Many of my female students do not realise they have a urethra, a vagina and an anus.

Some of them are from conservative, often religious families, and may have been withdrawn from SRE lessons at school, or attended a school that did not teach SRE (many have only recently arrived in the UK). These students are grown women - by the time they do Unit 12 they are in their second year at the college and they have mostly turned 18. I say it again - there are grown women who do not know their own bodies. Suggestions from me that they get a small mirror and, when alone and relaxed have a jolly good look, are met with horrified gasps. If I didn't teach them this, who would? Do their own mothers know that they have three orifices?

(As an aside, I am aware that some of my students may have been subjected to FGM, and I am sensitive to this, but that is a whole other discussion for another blog post.)

So if we don't teach SRE to children, much as we teach them literacy, numeracy and other skills they need in order to be a functioning member of society, and if there are parents who cannot or will not educate their children, we may be doomed to have a society full of women who think they urinate out of their vaginas. And that's before we even get on to talking about the men.

Apparently It's All My Fault

Good grief. You might have been forgiven for thinking that the riots were caused by angry young people with a serious chip on their shoulders. But apparently not - according to Melanie Phillips, it's all the fault of the "ultra-feminists", the "liberal intelligentsia", and of course, the teachers. Her blitherings in the Daily Fail yesterday (link - don't worry, it's an Istyosty cache of the page and won't count to their hits) have amused and appalled in equal measure. The Daily Mash have reminded us that Phillips is not well. However, @panderson1979, aka Paul my husband, is in danger of breaking Twitter with his epic rants.

Phillips shrieks:

"Instead of transmitting knowledge to children, teaching was deemed to be an attack upon a child’s autonomy and self-esteem.

Thus it was that teachers adopted the 'child-centred' approach, which expected children not only to learn for themselves but also to decide for themselves about behaviour such as sexual morality or drug-taking.

The outcome was that children were left illiterate and innumerate and unable to think. Abandoned to wander through the world without any guidance, they predictably ended up without any moral compass."

Wow. Mea culpa, I guess. I apologise for giving my students the independence to think for themselves. I apologise for showing them how to obtain information without expecting an adult in authority to tell them what they need to know. I apologise for crediting my sixth-formers with enough intelligence to formulate their own opinions about what to do with their own bodies. I evidently should have stuck with the talking-at-them-until-it-sinks-in style of teaching, breeding a class full of students who remember what they've learnt long enough to sit the exam. Because that would have stopped selected individuals (less than 0.5% of teenagers, if you go on the basis of the UK census' figures on >850,000 10-19-year-olds in London) from smashing up shops, businesses and homes.

Who could have predicted that I, as a biology lecturer, could wield so much power? Maybe I should turn myself in at Hounslow Police Station. I'm evidently to be as reviled as the Man Of Steel himself in "Superman: Grounded", too busy doing other things, and punished for not rescuing everyone.

A Tax On Gullibility

In the last week of freedom before I return to college, I have been watching a lot of daytime television, while sat on my sofa in my dressing gown, eating cereal. The target audience for the adverts should feel insulted: payday loans, bingo sites, body lotions that make you want to get nekkid, and house cleaning products. Welcome to bored housewife hell.

One advert that's grated on me since first seeing it earlier this year is for the Dettol No-Touch Hand Wash System, which "helps stop the spread of bacteria, even as its [sic] dispensed".


The premise is that we touch the pumps of liquid soap dispensers before washing our hands, obviously, so these pumps harbour "hundreds of bacteria" (only hundreds? Shurely shome mishtake...). So if we make the dispensers hands-free, then they won't have all these nasty germs (I hate that word, and fine my A2 students £1 for saying it in an immunological context) on them. Great - we can even charge £5 for it (incidentally, my regular antibacterial handwash costs about £1.50).

Except, as was pointed out in The Hard Sell, you're about to wash your hands! Dettol proudly claim to "kill 99.9% of bacteria", so wouldn't their fabulous soap take care of 99.9% of those "hundreds"?

And of course, no one has considered that the taps are also covered with "hundreds of bacteria". You go to the sink to wash your hands. You turn the tap on, you wet your hands, you pump soap onto them, you lather, you rinse your hands, you touch the tap again to turn it off. So you're touching "germy" taps, after you have cleaned your hands. So it's bugger all use even if you use Dettol No-Touch, because you're about to get more bacteria all over your hands.

Anyway, I sit firmly in the A-Little-Bit-Of-Microbes-Is-Fine camp. I'm reasonably sure there are papers out confirming that dirt- and microbe-free existences are in all likelihood responsible for increasing allergies in children. And though I will never have children whose immune system I need to monitor, I'm still not changing my "germy hand pump" for one that costs three times as much for exactly 0% more protection against bacteria.

London Riots

Unless you've been in a hole for the past few days you have probably read about the riots kicking off in areas of London. For the first two days it was largely limited to the north London borough of Haringey, but last night it spread south and west, and to cities elsewhere in the country. Late last night, we heard Ealing got it. There were rumours that Hounslow was about to erupt, but apart from some knob burning a moped in the Asda car park, our borough stayed quiet and peaceful (yes, that was me calling for Hounslow to show how "chilled and friendly" we were).

But it was clear that Ealing needed some help. The pictures on the BBC show similar situations around the capital. The Metro had an unusually thorough coverage of the events.


Via Twitter, and the hashtags #cleanupealing and #ealingcleanup, a plan was formed at around 2am this morning. We met at 10am at the horse statue (that may have been my suggestion), and there were representatives from Ealing Council, including Cllr Keith Townsend:


It was heartening to see how many people showed up to help - we estimate nearly 100 people assembled first thing:


It turned out most of Ealing Broadway and Haven Green was still a crime scene, so we were asked if we could walk along to West Ealing and see if any of the small business owners needed any help. Unfortunately, the seriously hit shops were having to wait for SOCO to get there, and the less affected shops had already cleaned up by the time we arrived. I hope our presence was at least a boost to those poor people whose livelihoods are in tatters today.

Paul and I stopped in and chatted to the guys at Ouch, who'd had their window smashed. They were lucky, some of the lads were in yesterday and drove the van up in front of the shop front to prevent looting. A tattoo parlour is an unusual choice - most of the businesses hit were small electrical goods, jewellers and pawnbrokers. Pure greed, nothing more.


By 11:15am we had nothing further to do. Maybe others found as crime scenes were opened up that they were able to help. Paul and I left once some of the volunteers started demanding a physical presence to go up against the rioters. Having spoken to some of the business owners today, I do not believe any of them would wish us to form a human shield around their shops. And I'm not happy with vigilantism in any form. If further shops get hit I will help to clean up, but I am no good to them with my head caved in.

There are knee-jerk reactions all around, and the most distressing for me are that, a) all teenagers are evil incarnate, and b) this is all the fault of teachers. I have seen too many tweets, comments and updates saying that this is a symptom of an education system that puts kids down and tells them they're worthless. I wholly reject that assertion. The overwhelming majority of young people in London were not rioting and looting last night. And teachers are not bloody miracle-workers. I see my students for four hours per week - that is not long enough to rescue them, nor is it long enough to cause the seriously huge chips the rioters have on their shoulders. There is audio on BBC News 24 from two girls who are hoping there'll be more riots, and that it's fine because they're going after the rich people.

Yes, all these rich people, who have built up their family business, and whose livelihood depends on their stock turnover. These rich people who work as shop assistants in shops that were looted - don't you just hate the massive salaries of shop staff? And what about these loaded people who live in luxury one-bed flats above shops, who have now lost absolutely everything they own as it's been burnt out to a hollow shell? When this counts as "rich people" who "deserve it", then it is clear that there is a particularly fucked up attitude that no teacher can overcome.

I am hopeful that none of my kids were involved. I genuinely believe that I teach lovely young men and women, who have the support of family, friends and their community. If this turns out not to be the case, then I will be so utterly disappointed; and of course, any student of mine who has been involved will find the wrath of the criminal justice system the least of their worries once I get hold of them.

My Summer Holidays

It's as much a sign of the summer holidays as the back-to-school sales push, the ice cream van's relentless jingle and the onset of torrential rain. I refer, of course, to the annual bitch and whine about the length of the summer holidays. Do a Google News search for "school holidays", and there are calls for companies to not respond to increased demand by upping the price of limited commodities (i.e. flights and hotel rooms) and a ritual demonisation of all schoolchildren and their pathological inability (one would think) to avoid hoax calls, vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

Thanks to The Edudicator, I have now seen what the Right Wing think, courtesy of the Torygraph and the Daily Fail. If you suffer from low blood pressure, I highly recommend clicking on the "worst rated" comments list, for a load of barely literate blustering that will result in you putting your fist through the computer screen.

The Torygraph is an interesting one. The general consensus among teachers is that the students are absolutely bloody knackered by the end of the academic year. This is confirmed by a comment piece in the Grauniad by school-leaver Sara Abbasi, entitled "Please, Mr Gove, leave our summer break alone!". We can sit and discuss the historical reasons for the long summer holiday, that is, needing children to help with the harvest, and how we don't need children in the fields with a sickle for the best part of August anymore (though that would be fun to watch), but she highlights the very modern need for a long holiday.

After mid-June, the kids start to get antsy. They are over-tired. The classrooms are often very hot. Tempers flare up. And good luck trying to get them to do homework. For most of the college year, my AS biology class notched up over 92% attendance and 98% punctuality. When they came back for the "Intro to A2" sessions, attendance dropped to 77%. In the midst of the observations from teachers, the Torygraph suggests that shorter holidays are better for the students, and quotes a study in American Sociological Review.


There you go, a graph that purports to show that children from high-income families do more learning over the summer holidays than their low-income counterparts, and therefore do better in school and get into university. It's approximately what the paper says too, but I've had a pint of Pimms and lemonade, rendering my paper-summarisation magic power greatly reduced. And oh, what a noble cause, for teachers to gallantly sacrifice themselves for the good of the low social classes.

But it seems that this is a classic case of confusing correlation and causation. When I cover this with my AS students (hopefully at a time when I have more than 90% attendance!), we analyse data to see if there is a direct relationship between two variables, or if there is some other factor that has not been considered. And the glaringly obvious omission is parental interest in their children's education. Higher-income families tend to involve parents with a more advanced level of education. People who have a more advanced level of education tend to be keener on education for their children. Are there exceptions to this? Undoubtedly. When I was younger, even on my father's teacher salary, we were very poor, living in the much more expensive Home Counties on one income. But I progressed, and I probably did more summer study than my classmates. Because there wasn't much money we were more resourceful. I used books my father had used and kept. He was able to borrow a computer from the school during the holidays, and I learned to programme in BASIC (and more, I'll have you know, than the 10 PRINT "HELLO", 20 GOTO 10). We went to the local library and borrowed books, and unless I am very much mistaken, the library is still free for children at least.

So in a move that smacks more of recent Labour educational policies, Govey would like to use teachers as substitute parents, making up for the deficiencies of people who don't give a rat's arse about their children's education. Because bollocks to things costing money, there is plenty of free access to learning - it all comes down to parental attitude. And this is in addition to parents whining on all the articles I've quoted, who seem to think it's grossly unfair that they should have to deal with their children for such a long period of time. Clearly this is a horrid surprise that the educational establishment has thrown at parents, and not the status quo for many decades, if not centuries.

Of course, there are those who will claim that teachers do naff all, race the kids out of the door at 3:30pm and swan around on these long 20-week holidays. For 40 weeks of the year, I work from 8am to 6pm, and often until 8pm or 9pm. That doesn't include the work I take home to mark. Someone with a regular office job, working 9am to 5pm with half an hour's lunch break works out at 1,800 hours per year. I can clock up at least 2,000. Maybe there are lawyers and doctors who work longer hours. However, consider that as a lecturer in FE, I am never going to earn more than £35,000, tops. So I've earned that holiday. I spent the first week packing away notes and folders. My holiday ends on 15th August as I go back to prepare for the new college year. My Easter holiday is eaten into each year with revision classes. I don't begrudge these. But expecting me to babysit the children of parents who didn't consider that kids need looking after, and the children of parents who don't give a shit about them, when I've spent 10 hours a day for the entire academic year giving these poor little sods the best education I can, is taking the piss.

I think I need another Pimms.

Wordless Wednesday: Actually Quite A Lot Of Words

In Which I Discuss The Edexcel Biology Cockup

It was laughable really. It was the very first exam of the exam season. 31 of my finest piled into the hall. I didn't really get a good read through of the paper other than to smile inwardly at the knowledge that all my students should have been able to do all the questions, that I had predicted the "usual suspects" correctly for my private tutee, and that there should be a nice sprinkling of A grades come 18th August.

As an invigilator, I had to stay to the end of the other exams that morning, and was unable to catch up with any of my students until 3:15pm. The sole A2 student sitting the exam had spotted it, as had one of my colleagues' class. We both sat down and flicked through the paper, attempted the question, realised within about 20 seconds that there was a definite error. I e-mailed the exams officer.

At 3:30pm I sent the following tweet:


Nothing from anyone else. Not a peep. It was odd. January 2010 had taught us that students get quickly and amusingly angry if they think their exam is a pile of poo.

The next day I followed up via Twitter:


Fortunately the exams officer phoned me early, asked me if I was sure, and then said she would phone and ask them why they had not checked it (anyone who knows our exams officer would know that has been heavily censored). Edexcel confirmed to her that they had noticed it, there was an emergency moderation meeting happening later on the 17th, and that we were advised to apply for special consideration in case our kiddlywinks needed it (which we did).

It was really odd though - no one picked up on this. No journalists, no students complaining. It wasn't until Wednesday 8th June when I noticed the BBC had the story. I guess eventually it became big enough news. I felt rotten, because the question was such a gift. Here, crappily scanned and annotated (and I would argue, in line with Edexcel's copyright notice that says "the material on this site may only be reproduced for personal, non-commercial use" - I have fewer blog readers than students and no adverts on here), is the question:


Those of you who still remember your GCSE and A-level biology will be able to work out exactly what went wrong here. This is what the complementary strand should be:


And this is what the options were:


These sorts of questions are gifts for teachers and students alike. If you remember that C pairs with G, and A pairs with T except in RNA when it pairs with U, then you can do one of those questions in about 5 seconds. Because it's DNA you're asked for, you can immediately exclude options B and C as they contain U. Look at the remaining options, and because your RNA sequence starts with C, you know it must be option A. Except it isn't. My lot were pretty well drilled in this sort of question. They knew it was almost bound to come up, and they knew it was a good thing if it did. So it was a real kicker that it was one of the nice questions that was stuffed up.

However, my kids also have the sense to know when they've done it right, and when they know the answers given are wrong. I reckon they spent maybe two minutes struggling before carrying on. I have absolutely no sympathy for the student on the BBC article on the exam who said:

"For the first 15 minutes I looked at that question when I should have spent one minute on it"

I'd have no sympathy if he was one of mine - there's no excuse for spending 15 minutes on a MCQ one-mark question at the expense of the rest of the paper. Had this been a bigger issue, like the Maths and Business papers (and as I type more and more exams are materialising with huge errors), then students would have reasonably spent much more time on it.

Edexcel, conspicuously silent, appeared to have issued a statement to the media saying something along the lines of:

"Weeeeell, it's only one mark out of 425 so it's no big deal." (may not be actual words)

The BBC reported it as:

"The exam board said the question was worth one mark out of a possible 425"

The Grauniad said:

"Edexcel, which set the paper, said the question was worth one mark out of a possible 425"

Well, when you put it like that it's rather miniscule isn't it? Except that 425 is the total number of raw marks available for an entire A-level in biology. For the Unit 1 paper concerned, the marks are out of 80. Small fry compared to the Maths and Business papers, but enough to trouble a student. One mark could make the difference between an A and a B. It could also, at the other end of the scale, make the difference between being able to squeeze through to A2 and being forced to stop at AS.

I am invigilating my A2 biologists resitting (yes, all of them, and they've promised me they're really working this time) Unit 4 on Monday. I have only nine of them, so hopefully I will have an opportunity to work through the questions myself. As has been mentioned, for this set of A2 students, there are no second chances - these guys have got to get to university this year or face the hike in tuition fees that their successors are stuck with.

What should the exam boards be doing? Clearly checking more papers. It seems there is an unprecedented number of duff papers this year. This is the sort of thing that university undergrads could be paid to do, or even, you know, the teachers. The Independent suggested that MCQs should have an option for "none of the above", although that doesn't work if it's a worked question like the others. Just get some people in with decent subject knowledge to actually do the questions, not just flick through for proofreading.

And don't try to spin it by saying it's one mark out of 425. Because it's not and you know it.

Microteaches #2: Easter Blitherings

Term ended on Friday. I could (should?) have gone down the pub and faceplanted into a pint or eight, but even that was too much hard work, so I sat in the garden, had two margaritas then decamped to Nando's.

It's been revision for the A-level students this week, so I didn't get much relaxation over the weekend, but yesterday was officially the first day of my holidays. My intellectual capacity deteriorated so much since I left college on Tuesday, that I wrote 7 + 5 = 15 when tutoring yesterday afternoon. Fortunately my GCSE student was equally exhausted, so he didn't mock me too much.


More depressing is the students' lack of numeracy skills - there have been some issues over how to calculate means and percentage increases... I have made a note to go over some of this basic maths for biologists before their exams, or they will be, to use the technical term, fucked.

Teachers in the UK have been frothing at the mouth (or switching off the television) at Jamie's Dream School, where the Rubber-Lipped Twat^TM decides he wants to run a school for "kids wot the system's let down innit", or words to that effect.

On the one hand, it has been really good for non-teaching viewers to see what the little darlings can be like (I have some approaching that level of disruption, but they can all be counted on the fingers of one hand, and the moment they decide to channel Harlem, they'll be OUT!). On the other hand, I can't help looking over my shoulder in case Pob Michael Gove decides to replace us all with dodgy celebs. Would my "Physiology of Human Regulation and Reproduction" classes be more informative if Kinga from Big Brother taught them perhaps?!

For some really superb analysis, check out posts from The Behaviour Guru - Tom Bennett's descriptions of each episode have been some of the few things I have read aloud to Paul recently (Doctor Grumpy being another).


In other news, Jabba is in excellent health, and absolutely adores his palm tree. I think perhaps he's been listening to too much Jimmy Buffett.

There But For The Grace Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster

It was only a matter of time. Another teacher, in the US this time, Natalie Munroe has been suspended, having posted some rather unsavoury comments about her students on her blog. This follows hot on the heels of the sacking in the UK of Katharine Birbalsingh. Those of us in educational roles are likely to find ourselves under increased scrutiny, as we are coming under attack more frequently with the educational reforms hitting the UK. The only thing the tabloid newspapers seem to love more than a disgraced politician is a disgraced teacher.


My lab yesterday morning, after a ritual massacrebloodstain analysis practical
The comments she makes are pretty damning - there is a cache available. However, I had been more sympathetic to Ms Munroe before reading what she'd actually said. I feel more for the students who have commented on the cached blog post - I cannot say I would have been thrilled at being called a "complete and utter jerk" by my teacher! Who would?

There are some students in the world who are undoubtedly little shits, who do not want to be in school, who do not respect what their teachers are trying to do and who have no interest in learning. I wouldn't tell you if I had any of these students. Bitching about students is what the staffroom is for, and there's a reason it has a lock on the door.

I know that a couple of my A2 students have found this blog - it does not take a lot of googling. They were pleased at my glowing report of the Great Nando's Birthday Party (and I'm still waiting for the YouTube video, incidentally). Have I been back and made sure I haven't said anything unkind about my kids today? You betcha. Is there the possibility that one of you might read through and pick up on something I missed? Probably - and I'd hope you'd tell me. Do the students know that they are referred to collectively as "little buggers", "little sods" and if I'm annoyed with them "little darlings"? Of course.

There are real problems in schools and colleges with behaviour - hell, you only have to nip on to the TES Behaviour Forum to see some appalling situations. Surely the vibrancy of the TES forum and the increase in numbers of blogs means teachers are in need of support, of a sounding block, and sometimes a need to rant outwith the staffroom door. Maybe the teachers being disciplined for voicing their frustrations should count as a warning shot for the senior managers blamed for the poor behaviour management in schools.

I should add that I have few behavioural problems and that our college's policy on behaviour is pretty effective. The college also has a reasonably liberal policy on online activities as long as we do not bring it into disrepute or identify students.

Until then, if you're going to call your student a "sneaky, complaining, jerkoff", do it in an anonymous, untraceable manner...

GCSE Postscript

Earlier this year I did a series of posts on "making your research suitable for outreach", where I featured the specifications for GCSE, AS, A2 and Scottish biology qualifications. It seemed to go down well, although not perhaps among the people it was actually intended to help (stunned silence from the VP community), but it highlighted some of the inadequacies of the syllabus and the way certain exam boards accommodate non-scientific views. CCEA is one of the worst, probably down to a worrying trend in creationism within Northern Ireland. I identified, within the GCSE post, an issue that meant AQA students would be expected to discuss Lamarckism.

Turns out, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Check this out, featured on Why Evolution Is True: British GCSE Biology: Exam Evolution Fail. Thanks to @sc_k via @edyong209.


Unfortunately, this is a real exam paper, issued in June 2009. I have two private tutees who study the AQA specification, and I'm afraid I must have missed a trick here, because it never occurred to me that I was supposed to be teaching them about creationism and intelligent design. Presumably I must go back and immediately fill this massive gap in their learning.

Except that this is not science. Now from a historical point of view, it is interesting to consider Lamarckism as a flawed theory - it is especially useful when one of my basketball-playing students asks me if he trains hard and increases the proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibres in his body, will his children be better basketball players. My A2 students can make jokes about Lamarckism - they have a good understanding of its place in science and in the history of science.

A GCSE student does not have the same maturity of thought (sorry kids) to recognise the differences.

Firstly, the problem with this is that "theory" when discussed in science should mean the following, as stated by Merriam-Webster:

a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena

Creationism and intelligent design are neither plausible nor scientifically acceptable, and this question simply does not test whether the students know this or not. What possible reason could there be for teaching these two ridiculous fairytales in a GCSE science course (which, for most students, will be the highest level of science training they ever receive) other than to demonstrate that they are not scientific?

Yet this is very definitely not the case. The relevant sections of the AQA specification state:

• to identify the differences between Darwin's theory of evolution and conflicting theories
• to suggest reasons for the different theories

Nowhere does the specification say that teachers should discuss a scientific and unscientific principle - just that they should identify differences between the conflicting theories. Well, the question certainly tests that at least. There is a depressingly large margin for creationist science teachers to play with, and you only have to log on to the TES forum to see how many creationists are teaching science, and especially biology and physics. There are organisations playing to this very comfortable margin, and there are creationist materials making their way into schools.

What to do? Well, I try to sidestep the idea that I need to give any time to creationism and intelligent design in my lessons, and just teach the damn theory of evolution. But I have an advantage - I have an MA from Cambridge in Natural Sciences, an MRes from Imperial in Biosystematics, and a wealth of information, contacts and resources from my short-lived career in palaeontology. I have the tools that I need (admittedly in many cases I need to learn how to use them effectively, but isn't that the case with all new pieces of kit?). So what happens to the students whose teachers are not biology specialists and who see some dire creationist book appear as a "free gift" to the school and think it's a wonderful resource?

Or worse, what about all those kids being taught GCSE and A-level biology by creationists?

How To Medicate A Gecko

Jabba has pinworms. It's a hazard of feeding him crickets, as not all livefood suppliers ensure their crickets are parasite-free. He had a visit to the vet last week, and didn't disgrace himself as Dooya was wont to do, and is in rude health other than the worms and a little bit of junk in the trunk to shift.


The favoured treatment for pinworms is 0.2ml of Panacur once a day for three days. So this is how to go about giving meds to a 120g bruiser such as Jabba.

1. Assemble syringe and medicine.
   
2. Open vivarium and place hand in for gecko to crawl onto.
   
3. Remove escaping locust from arm.
   
4. Try to grab gecko as he sprints past hand to the warm hide.
   
5. Lift up warm hide to extract gecko.
   
6. Retrieve gecko from behind the cold hide.
   
7. Sit down on sofa with gecko on lap.
   
8. Take up medicine in syringe.
   
9. Retrieve gecko from between your shoulder blades.
   
10. Hold gecko gently but firmly in right hand.
    
11. Mop up urine from t-shirt.
    
12. Gently stroke gecko's mouth to encourage him to open it.
    
13. Gently stroke gecko's mouth to encourage him to let go of your finger.
    
14. Gently stroke gecko's mouth again.
    
15. Slide syringe with catheter into mouth.
    
16. Retrieve syringe from the other side of the living room and gecko from down the side of the sofa.
    
17. Hold gecko gently but firmly in right hand.
    
18. Mop up further urine all over jeans.
    
19. Gently stroke gecko's mouth to encourage him to open it.
    
20. Persuade spouse to slide syringe in.
    
21. Inject medication.
    
22. Gently stroke gecko's mouth to encourage him to let go of the catheter.
    
23. Retrieve gecko from underneath cushion.
    
24. Return gecko to vivarium.
    
25. Chase escapee locusts around living room.
    
26. Nurse wounds.

He's ace though. And currently sulking spectacularly, with the look of annoyance that only a medicated pet can give.

Lecturerballs

Teachers and lecturers are by no means immune to the odd gaffe here and there, so here's a gem for you (the title of this post being reference to Colemanballs). I teach a BTEC Level 2 Applied Science class on "Biology and Our Environment", and was covering some basic heredity and genetics. I did the good old blue eyes-brown eyes Punnett square, writing in the genotypes before asking the students what the phenotypes would be. To make things extra visual for them, I drew the eyes...


See what the problem is? No? My students, being 50% teenage boys and 50% teenage girls, noticed immediately...


Yeah...

A Great Cock-Up On Great Cockup

It's time for the Accretionary Wedge, and for this month Lockwood has asked for our important geological experiences:

It may (or may not) be something that led you to the discipline [...], or a class, or a work experience, or a field experience. It might have been a puzzle or problem solved, or job landed, a degree completed. Perhaps it was something else entirely. It could have been an awful, disastrous experience from which you learned an important lesson.

I'm going to go with the latter, and this is perhaps a big one for me to admit to - it's quite embarrassing, and I just hope my fellow geoscientists can still look me in the eye afterwards.


In July 2000, I carried out my geological mapping project. I mapped an area of the Uldale Fells, the very north of the Lake District. Standing on Brae Fell, I could see the Solway Firth and over into Dumfries and Galloway. I could see wind farms. When atop Great Calva looking south, I could see right down an old fault line stretching beyond Thirlmere. It was beautiful in a wild way that we don't often see in the UK. I shared the entire Uldale Fells with three classmates: I mapped the westernmost section, with Theo, Heather and Dave mapping successively further east.


We spent four days making reconnaissance trips around the area in groups, and then began our individual mapping. I was dropped off just to the west of Great Cockup (yes, it does exist, and yes, I still think this is hilarious), and was due to meet the others at the end of the day southeast of Knott, at a parking area next to a swimming spot in the River Caldew.

About an hour before our rendezvous point, I was on the saddle between Knott and Great Calva, with Hause Gill and Wiley Gill either side of me. I had intended to go down Wiley Gill, meet up with the track along the Caldew, and stroll back to the car. To this day, I have no idea why I did this, as I was perfectly capable of reading a compass.

I went the wrong way.

I went towards Great Calva, looking for the path on the left hand side of the gill, but never found it. I was about halfway down what was Little Calva before I realised my mistake. I fished around for my mobile to ring the others. But it wasn't there. Somewhere in the scrub I had lost my phone, having kept it in my pocket for easy access down the fells. I went back to look for it, and probably wasted more time than was necessary. I realised I was going to be late.


In retrospect, the sensible thing to do would have been to find the Caldew track again and hoof it back to the car Scouts pace. But I was absolutely desperate to get a message to someone. Then I spotted the youth hostel. The warden was in, but his mobile phone had very little reception. After wandering around outside for a while, we eventually managed to get my grandmother on the phone and ask her to phone my mother (I forget why I couldn't get hold of her immediately) and for Mum to phone one of the others. Note to all field geologists - even if you have mobile reception and are in a relatively safe area, write down your contacts' mobile phone numbers just in case.

Then I had to start the route back anyway. I was mentally exhausted, gutted at the loss of my mobile phone (it had a really cool Xpress-On cover and a light-up aerial - this was, after all, the year 2000), and feeling like an absolute pillock. About halfway along the track, I spied Theo walking towards me. When he caught up with me and we started walking back, he waved his fluorescent yellow CAS strap in the air as a signal, and that was when I realised just how worried my classmates had been.


It is not my finest hour. I cannot believe what a stupid mistake I made. I have always prided myself on my map-reading and compass-using skills, so I don't understand what was with my loss of judgment and idiocy. I have never made this mistake again, and I managed to map a huge area with a combination of speed over ground and detail of observations. In fact, I got the highest mark of the year group for my mapping project.

I learned to mapread twice, walk once. I learned to write contact details in my field notebook. I learned to secure my mobile phone. I have a pink zipped case with a belt loop for my phone, so I can spot it if it falls off (not that it should, fitted onto my belt). I suspect students are no longer allowed to map alone, but I don't know what the rules are at universities now (hell, my A2 biologists will not be allowed to work in anything less than a pair in a fenced in, locked nature reserve of extremely limited area!).

Now I am a lecturer responsible for my students' safety and education in the field. I set an example to them, ensuring that I am appropriately attired and shod, with a well-stocked backpack. I spend time with each of them, making sure they know how to find their bearings, and we have a good backup of mobile phone numbers and emergency contact details. Most importantly, I am very forgiving of mistakes they make, because I remember that once upon a time I wasn't quite as shit hot at this fieldwork lark as I thought I was.