Dragon educating sugar

I have to admit, I'm kind of a snob. As a socio-economic snob, with education, family, ambition and success as primary values, I've always truly been puzzled by people who don't share those values and ambitions. I'm also ethno-centric, thinking how great the country of my ancestors is/was.

(On a side note, a story to share: I've always been pretty conceited about being Chinese, and growing up, we used to watch a lot of the historical soap operas that had emporers, princesses, warriors, kung fu and all of that. I used to think, how cool is it that I'm descended from the dragon emperors? It wasn't until about, oh, five years ago, I think, that I thought really hard about the numbers and probabilities, that is, number of emporers vs numbers of peasants... and realized that it was far more likely I was descended from fishermen. It took the glow off a little bit :) But it explains why I don't like to wear shoes. )


Anyway, some of this thinking may be prevalent in my essays, especially since that aforementioned country is going to be part of my field of study. However, it's occurred to me lately as I write these essays, that my culture may not be the only thing I have to thank for my brains and love of learning. I've realized how fortunate I am to have two former teachers as parents. I don't know if I've mentioned before that my parents went to a college which is probably the best teachers' college in Taiwan. (Interestingly, I was chatting with my dad who said, in his day, the college examinations determined where and what you studied. There wasn't really any choice in the matter, if your exam told them you tested best or had the most potential to succeed in say, physics, that was your major in college. And I think the colleges were ranked, so all the best students went to A until it was filled, then B, and so on. Anyway I digress. oh wait, more digression. The parents actually met at this school, in the traditional Chinese orchestra, specifically.) So parents went to uni. And this university produced the teachers for Taiwan. In their day, the university was actually tuition free, after graduation you were required to teach for at least a certain number of years. So that's what they did.

What was my point? Oh, right. So I have two teachers for parents, which could account for not only how highly we regarding our education in this family, but also our ability to learn (and get useful assistance from them).

And what made me think of writing this down in the first place has to do with my biology class. We just finished the chapter on cellular respiration, where they talk about burning sugar and glucose and the energy given off and etc. It made me think of an experiment we did in class in the 5th grade. The teacher got a bunsen burner and all us students gathered around to watch as she burned, in succession, sugar, salt, baking soda, and... okay I can't remember the last one. I still distinctly remember the brown charcoal that the sugar became, and that the baking soda hardly changed, teaching us what kind of substances would be useful in a kitchen fire (and which ones would NOT). But it's interesting to think about what and how teachers do things that can stick with you so many years later, and the things you learn that you really do use and remember for the rest of your life.

What about you? What do you remember learning from school that's lasted more than a decade?

-dc