Dear Reader,
This week's post is now live at: https://teachingtenets.wordpress.com/2025/01/29/bad-morning-didi-part-5/
It is a 5-minute read.
Thank you for your interest in the journey of Agni and Prithvi!
Best,
Aishwarya
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
What should we do about science funding and the other very bad government stuff?
If you’re paying attention to the news in the United States about the situation with funding for NSF, NIH, and other orgs, then I would imagine that like me, you’re furious, worried, feeling in the dark, and confused about where things are going and what to do. I’ve been paying attention on the socials, news, and in communication with some folks involved in federally-funded agencies about what’s going on, so if you’re not tuned in, let me give you an update and some context. It’s not clear where this is going. NSF has a little guidance, which they’re providing here, but obviously there is a lot that they cannot say. In short, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), run out of the White House, claimed that they put a freeze on all federal loans and grants, including NIH, NSF, and plenty of stuff. Since this these funds are congressionally allocated, they actually don’t have the legal authority to do this, and a variety of well-informed people have characterized this as an actual coup attempt. Meanwhile, very promptly a federal judge has put up a temporary block on this temporary hold, as of the last couple hours. I imagine that whatever I say to summarize the current state of affairs will go out of date within hours, or maybe a couple days. What most universities seem to be saying is that we should be careful to avoid spending stuff specifically targeting DEIA work but ongoing work should not be stopped. But they haven’t said what DEIA work is, and haven’t given any specific guidance about what work we are supposed to halt. Don’t comply in advance. I seem to know lots of folks who have spent the past month writing grants to submit to programs that were ‘archived’ at the last minute, such as RCN-UBE. My heart goes out to all of you. It’s not clear how things will shake out for these programs. I have full confidence that the scientists who run the National Science Foundation are working their absolute hardest to protect their work, our communities, and the gains that they have made in supporting science for everyone. I know a lot of these people in the NSF, and have a lot of faith in them, and they will serve us well. I am not confident that the outcome will be positive, but they’re doing their best. At this particular critical moment, getting our own legislators to do something is critical. Nearly all democrats seem to be useless, and we need to exhort them to stand up and fight like the opposition party that they are. Also, the White House is stealing power from Congress, and regardless of the color of your state, now is the time to implore your reps to protect federal funds coming into your state. Call your senators and house member (it really does matter) and tell them that this isn’t okay. Say that federal funding of science is critical for your state and district, and that it’s long had bipartisan support, and that that Trump’s actions are illegal and you expect them to be vocal in publicly opposing it. If we get more Marches For Science rolling again, I’d like to make sure that we have a nice big and broad tent. Coalition building means working with people we might disagree with on other matters. There was too much silliness and ego interfering with the organization of first March for Science. The point is that it’s big and that many people of all identities, geographies, beliefs, and practices are involved. In the bigger picture, what are we supposed to be doing as scientists in the midst of this authoritarian and segregationist regime that’s taken over our federal government? I think what I said the first go-round eight years ago about how to be an academic in an autocracy still holds true. It seems overwhelming at the moment because they are seeking to overwhelm us, to do all of this horrible stuff in one fell swoop so that we can’t possibly oppose it all. How can we navigate this? Let’s lean into community, talk with one another and spend time together in person. We are not going to succeed simply by communicating over the social networks and media tools that have bent the knee to this administration. We need to sustain one another. Let’s keep sciencing, let’s keep teaching, and let’s have fun. Don’t let them steal our joy. This is their initial set of volleys in what will be a long struggle. But really, it’s always been a perpetual struggle. There always is the work and there always has been. We have to keep doing the work. You’re currently a free subscriber to Science For Everyone. Thanks for your support! If you wish to support this work more, then you could pay for a subscription.
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The Neurodiversity Movement Is At Risk
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Monday, 27 January 2025
Trauma-informed pedagogy
At some point several years ago, a bit before the pandemic, I participated in a workshop about trauma-informed pedagogy. It was supremely useful and distilled a lot of lessons about teaching that I came upon the hard way. The upshot is that a variety of common practices in the classroom might be associated with prior trauma experienced by students. While we don’t need to navigate every moment in fear of triggering a PTSD response in our students, it helps people learn if we take the time to consider the reality that everybody has experienced prior trauma. We should go to reasonable lengths to avoid practices that might have caused trauma in the past, and work to find ways to academically challenge our students without relying on approaches that are less effective because of a potential legacy of trauma. For example, it’s has not been uncommon for some K-12 teachers to expect students to stand at the board in the front of class to solve math problems, or to put up their homework solutions. For a student who hadn’t completed their homework, or in some other way is not prepared to answer the question at hand, this can cause shaming and anxiety. If you’re doing this with your own students, even if you’re working to be gentle and supportive, this still might bring back that trauma, which would be harmful to learning. Likewise, this can happen when students are called on to answer a question and are treated negatively when they provide a wrong answer. Or imagine students who have not completed exams in the past because time ran out, and you have just given students a big thick exam that will take a full period for the average student to complete. Also keep in mind that almost every class will have multiple students who have experienced domestic violence or sexual assault, and when class material might intersect with these issues (in some areas of biology, this is likely), navigating these discussions with that potential history in mind is important for the safety of your students. The point this trauma-informed pedagogy, like all of this classroom stuff, is to help people learn better. It’s our job to help students learn, and when we do things that interfere with learning, then that means we aren’t doing our jobs as well. The more that students feel safe in your course, the more they can express their curiosity and engage with course content to learn. I think we need to challenge our students and not coddle them, and we can’t intellectually challenge them if they have emotional responses to classroom content that prevent them from focusing on the science. I think trauma-informed pedagogy is neato, so I’m glad that more people got the general message during the pandemic that it’s better to go about doing science using a trauma-informed everything approach. I think most folks who’ve gone through therapy have realized how much of what we do, how we see the world, how we make decisions and establish our priorities, are trauma responses. This is true for everybody. When working with colleagues and collaborators, and training junior scientists, there are all kinds of routine traumas that we need to be aware of if we’re going to have a successful working relationship. The most common one is rejection, and being told that you’re not good enough. Considering that having proposals and manuscripts being rejected is an extremely common in our field, then it’s important to work with trainees to prepare them, help them process it when it happens, and affirm that this is the norm in our community, and isn’t a reflection of the worth of a person. If we are working with students who have experienced professors unfairly wield their authority (which is also far too common), then we need to be communicate clearly, develop expectations, and deliver on what is expected of us. If a student reacts badly to something in a way you didn’t expect, I’m willing to bet that this is rooted in prior trauma. We shouldn’t be grilling our students to reveal their souls to us so that we can be good mentors, but we also should be sensitive to the reality that everybody has different challenges. What are some of the traumas that I carry with me? Well, if you’re a long-time reader, you would know about some of these. Being denied tenure and all of the hell associated with that was pretty bad. In high school, it wasn’t so nice being the poorest kid in a prep school full of rich kids. I suppose I have some baggage from my relationships with my parents, or the lack thereof. I still feel burned from the time when a friend used me and my students to help land their grant and then rudely dropped us in the first year of the project. Also I’ve done so many embarrassing, stupid, clueless, and uninformed things in the past, it’s hard to navigate a day without cringing at my prior self. And here’s the kicker: I think I’m doing pretty well and I think I’m not really weighed down by my traumas, and realize that a lot of people have experienced much more harm, loss, and hurt than myself. And nonetheless, I can see how they have affected how I do things in my work. A lot of academics have been burned by collaborators or advisors who mess around with authorship, switch levels of promised support, underdeliver on mentorship, and so on. We all could tell so many stories we’ve heard from others, as well as experienced ourselves. Who we choose to trust, and how we choose to trust, is an ever-evolving target as we grow in experience and wisdom, and heal from prior harm. While I have the luxury of implementing a “no assholes” rule to my research teams, a lot of people who are junior to me don’t have that luxury if they are going to make avail of opportunities, and that involves risk. Getting good collaborative work done involves vulnerability, and that vulnerability might result in trauma. So we’ve got to train one another to know how to manage vulnerability. And we need to be cognizant of the reality that some folks we might want to work with or train might not be ready to be vulnerable with us because of prior experiences, and adjust our expectations and plans accordingly. We don’t talk much about vulnerability management but I think this is a key piece of success in academic science. So in light of trauma in our line of business, instead of the golden rule to treat other people how you would want to be treated, I think we’re better off with the platinum rule, to treat other people how they would like to be treated. You’re currently a free subscriber to Science For Everyone. Thanks for your support! If you wish to support this work more, then you could pay for a subscription.
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Dear Reader, To read this week's post, click here: https://teachingtenets.wordpress.com/2025/07/02/aphorism-24-take-care-of-your-teach...
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A slightly unconventional guide to your first time ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
