{"id":4843,"date":"2021-12-04T18:55:52","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T00:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/?p=4843"},"modified":"2021-12-04T18:59:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-05T00:59:24","slug":"thoughts-on-reading-and-science-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/2021\/12\/04\/thoughts-on-reading-and-science-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Reading and Science Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Reading, like nature, inspires us to dream and to imagine, but most importantly, it teaches us to think for ourselves. A person who doesn’t read is rarely an interesting, inquisitive and curious person, at least for me. (Whistler’s Black Tusk mountain).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few days ago I was asked to lead a discussion with a group of local parents on how they can support their children during the school – university transition. As I have had an opportunity to teach undergraduate science courses for more than 10 years, I have seen many of these issues and their implication in my own practice, so I felt I could do that. On the other hand, I didn’t want to focus solely on science education, but to look at the big picture.<\/p>\n

Very soon I realized that one of the biggest issues I saw was students’ inability to understand and analyze written text. They read, but didn’t understand it, they were overwhelmed by it and expected to have a brief summary instead of the text. They stumbled over anything that was longer than a few paragraphs. Many of these students have earned high marks in their secondary school to be accepted to a university, but few of them learned to read and critically process what they read. And this is critical for any field, and not only science education.<\/p>\n

If I could change one thing for our K-12, I would place a larger emphasis on reading. Not instilling the love for reading is a very big problem for university students. And passively watching a video IS NOT the same thing as reading a book.\u00a0 I encounter students’ lack of reading habits,\u00a0 when I meet students more and more often. It also affects their ability to communicate, to express their ideas and to form independent opinions. Reading is a key to a post-secondary success, but most importantly, it is a key of interesting and fulfilling life. This is something my own teachers and parents were able to give me – the love of reading. I am very grateful for that and I hope we, as teachers, will be able to instill this appreciation and thirst for reading in our own students and children…<\/p>\n

So what are my favourite books that I have read recently? I will only list a few of the most recent ones and they are all from different genres:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Arthur Miller: “Death of a Salesman”<\/li>\n
  2. Arthur Miller: “A View from the Bridge”<\/li>\n
  3. Gad Saad: “The Parasitic Mind”<\/li>\n
  4. Dava Sobel: “The Glass Universe”<\/li>\n
  5. Dava Sobel: “The Longitude”<\/li>\n
  6. Philip Roth: “The Plot against America”<\/li>\n
  7. Albert Camus: “The Plague”<\/li>\n
  8. Vladimir Bulgakov: “The Master and Margarita”<\/li>\n
  9. Leo Tolstoy: “Anna Karenina”<\/li>\n
  10. W. Somerset Maugham: “The Moon and Sixpence”<\/li>\n
  11. Jordan Peterson: “12 Rules of Life”<\/li>\n
  12. Walter Isaacson: “Leonardo da Vinci”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are only a few of many I have enjoyed reading recently. So if you are thinking of what present to give to your children, why not to bring them a book or to give them a membership for an online audiobook store.<\/p>\n

    UniversityTransition_Parents \uff08with trans\uff09<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A few days ago I was asked to lead a discussion with a group of local parents on how they can support their children during the school – university transition. As I have had an opportunity to teach undergraduate science… Read moreThoughts on Reading and Science Education<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1032,795,6989],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conferences","category-general","category-general-teaching","content-layout-excerpt-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4846,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions\/4846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mmilner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}