Yesterday I experienced first hand a thing I had till now only read about. A student was working on a bar chart for her math homework, and the bar chart included various after-school activities like football, basketball and cricket. The student was asked "How many people participate in sports?" She got the wrong answer not because she misunderstood the concept, but because she didn't know what cricket was! Test design must be culturally aware, or we risk running into stuff like this
#education

As the political winds seem to privilege the spread of more and more misinformation, the teaching of chemistry must emphasize critical chemical thinking to prevent people from falling for snake oil pitches. I remember during my first year as a chem undergrad almost signing a petition seeking to ban "dihydrogen monoxide." As time passes this seems less like a quaint anecdote and more like a glimpse into the state of current lay discourse about science

I have been reluctantly convinced of the importance of a social media presence. I will not be getting a Twitter (X? Xitter?) though, because it is a cesspool. This leads to the inevitable question: Do we compromise and support a platform that we find objectionable just for better outreach? Or do we limit ourselves to better platforms where we might be speaking into the void?

Reading stamina is totally a real thing. I'm having a hard time reading actual long books now :(
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Does the byzantine nature of PhD applications count toward the #hiddencurriculum? I swear every place I look (program site, department site, university site) has subtly different instructions. I'm so confused...