bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Johnson Synthesis of Paspaline
Authors: Taber Douglass F.
Published: November 2020

Paspaline 3, isolated from the ergot fungus Claviceps paspali, is a Maxi-K channel antagonist, and so a potential lead for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The selec­tive C–H functionalization that converted 1 to 2 was a key step in the synthesis of 3 reported (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 4968; J. Org. Chem. 2015, 80, 9740) by Jeffrey S. Johnson of the University of North Carolina. The prochiral diketone 4 was the starting point for the assembly of 1. Selective reduction with a commercial strain of yeast set both the relative and the absolute con­figuration of 5. The ketone interfered with the subsequent acid-catalyzed cyclization of the epoxy alcohol, so it was protected as the tosylhydrazone 6. This set the stage for the direct Bamford– Stevens conversion to the fully-substituted alkene 7. Ireland–Claisen rearrangement of the isobutyrate derived from 7 proceeded with substantial preference for the equatorial diastereomer 8. This was carried on to the methyl ketone 9. Hydroboration of 9 showed substantial axial preference, to deliver, after oxidation, the equatorial aldehyde 10. Intramolecular aldol condensation to 11 followed by hydrogenation and benzyl oxime formation then completed the preparation of 1. Intramolecular Pd-catalyzed acetoxylation has been extensively studied by Sanford (Org. Lett. 2010, 12, 532). The Sanford conditions, carried out on a gram scale, conver­ted 1 into the equatorial diastereomer 2 with remarkable diastereoselectivity. The final carbocyclic ring was then added by vinyl Grignard addition to the derived keto alde­hyde 12. Grubbs cyclization gave 13, that on exposure to acid rearranged to the enone 14. Reduction of the ketone occurred from the open face to give an alcohol that then directed hydrogenation from the opposite face, leading to the desired trans-fused ketone. Sulfenylation then completed the synthesis of the ketone 15. At this point, the authors followed Smith (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1985, 107, 1769) in using the Gassman protocol (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1974, 96, 5495) to construct the indole. Amination of the sulfur of 15 with N-chloroaniline gave the sulfonium salt, that on exposure to Et3N rearranged to 16. Reductive desulfurization followed by cyclization completed the synthesis of paspaline 3.
The Early Earth: An Ocean with Volcanoes
Authors: Deamer David W.
Published: November 2020

Malcolm Walter was talking about the Pilbara region of Western Australia where some of the oldest known biosignatures of ancient life, in the form of extensive fossilized stromatolites, are preserved. The first potential stromatolite was discovered by graduate student John Dunlop, who was studying barite deposits at the North Pole Dome. Roger Buick went on to investigate the biogenicity of the stromatolites for his PhD (Buick, 1985) and Dunlop, Buick, and Walter published their results (Walter et al., 1980). In a prescient paper, Walter and Des Marais (1993) proposed that the ancient stromatolite fossils could guide the search for life on Mars. I have walked with Malcolm Walter through the Dresser formation where the fossils were found. It is humbling to realize that if time passed at a thousand years per second, it would take 41 days to go back in time to the first signs of life on our planet. In any description of events that occurred some 4 billion years ago, certain assumptions must be made. I will try to make assumptions explicit throughout this book, beginning here with the geochemical and geophysical conditions prevailing on the early Earth and Mars. I am including Mars not as an afterthought but because both planets had liquid water 4 billion years ago. Most of our understanding of planetary evolution comes from observations of our own planet, but it is now clear that the Earth and Mars were undergoing similar geophysical processes during the first billion years of the solar system’s existence, with an equal probability that life could begin on either planet. In a sense, the surface of Mars is a geological fossil that has preserved evidence of what was happening there at the same time that life began on the Earth. For instance, Martian volcanoes offer direct, observable evidence that volcanism was occurring nearly 4 billion years ago; making it plausible that similar volcanism was common on Earth even though the evidence has been completely erased by geological and tectonic processes.
Self-Assembly Processes Were Essential for Life’s Origin
Authors: Deamer David W.
Published: November 2020

In the absence of self-assembly processes, life as we know it would be impossible. This chapter begins by introducing self-assembly then focuses on the primary functions of membranes in living cells, most of which depend on highly evolved proteins embedded in lipid bilayers. These serve to capture light energy in photosynthesis and produce ion concentration gradients from which osmotic energy can be transduced into chemical energy. Although lipid bilayer membranes provide a permeability barrier, they cannot be absolutely impermeable because intracellular metabolic functions depend on external sources of nutrients. Therefore, another set of embedded proteins evolved to form transmembrane channels that allow selective permeation of certain solutes. The earliest life did not have proteins available, so in their absence what was the primary function of membranous compartments in prebiotic conditions? There are three possibilities. First, the compartments would allow encapsulated polymers to remain together as random mixtures called protocells. Second, populations of protocells that vary in composition would be subject to selective processes and the first steps of evolution. Even though any given protocell would be only transiently stable, certain mixtures of polymers would tend to stabilize the surrounding membrane. Such an encapsulated mixture would persist longer than the majority that would be dispersed and recycled, and these more robust protocells would tend to emerge as a kind of species. Last and perhaps most important, there had to be a point in early evolution at which light energy began to be captured by membranous structures, just as it is today. Bilayer membranes are not necessarily composed solely of amphiphilic molecules. They can also contain other nonpolar compounds that happen to be pigments capable of capturing light energy. This possibility is almost entirely unexplored, but the experiments are obvious and would be a fruitful focus for future research. Questions to be addressed: What is meant by self-assembly? Why is self-assembly important for the origin of life? What compounds can undergo self-assembly processes? How can mixtures of monomers and lipids assemble into protocells? We tend to think of living cells in terms of directed assembly.
“Of Course I’m Depressed, but Do I Have Depression?”
Authors: Rosenstein Donald L. , Yopp Justin M.
Published: November 2020

What’s the difference between being very shy and having social phobia? Or between a “neat freak” and a person who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder? Or a particularly fidgety schoolboy and a child with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder? Distinctions between the outer bounds of “normal” and “pathological” are ubiquitous in modern life and not easy to make. People who experience loss respond in different ways, with varying degrees of intensity, and for different lengths of time. Mental health professionals find these responses difficult to predict. For example, leaders in the bereavement field have disagreed sharply and for a long time about how to define normal and abnormal grief. This professional disagreement about grief and bereavement made headlines when the American Psychiatric Association (APA) considered changing its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Every fifteen to twenty years, the APA revises the DSM—which establishes the criteria clinicians use to diagnose psychiatric disorders—to incorporate the latest scientific research and contemporary expert opinion. Before the most recent edition (DSM-5) came out, the APA considered two grief-related proposals that sparked very heated debate. The most controversial proposal suggested modifying how professionals diagnose major depression. The previous edition of the DSM specified that clinicians could not consider someone to have major depression if that person had lost a loved one less than two months earlier. The APA intended this “bereavement exclusion” to keep mental health professionals from mistaking grief for clinical depression. Clinical researchers Sidney Zisook, MD, at the University of California at San Diego and Katherine Shear, MD, at the Columbia University School of Social Work led one side of the debate. They argued that professionals should diagnose clinical depression even in the context of bereavement as they would following any other stressful life event such as divorce or the loss of a job. Zisook and Shear thought that people could experience both grief and depression simultaneously. Perhaps most importantly, they said, people who had clinical depression during early bereavement were no less deserving of treatment for their depression.
The Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions: A New Periodic Table Founded on Non-Traditional Concepts
Authors: Railsback L. Bruce
Published: November 2020

The Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions is a fundamentally new table that was first published in 2003 in the Geological Society of America’s (GSA) prominent journal Geology (Railsback 2003). The new table was reported in Nature, it was featured in a cover article by Science News, it was included among Discover magazine’s 100 Top Science Stories of 2003, and its publication was noted in many other magazines and online outlets. GSA sold a large number of reprints of the 2003 paper and then, in 2004, published a revised version of the table in GSA’s Map and Chart Series (Railsback 2004). When GSA’s printed stock ran low, the Society published a further revised version of the table in its Map and Chart Series in 2011 (Railsback 2011). The table has been translated into Chinese (Jin 2006), Spanish (Bernal and Railsback 2008), Portuguese (Franco de Souza Lima and Railsback 2012), and German. The original 2003 paper has been cited in journals ranging from Journal of Mathematical Chemistry to Carbohydrate Research to Geomicrobiology Journal to Journal of Arid Environments to Resource Geology to Reviews in Geophysics, and it has proven useful in understanding the topology of the periodic table (Restrepo et al. 2006). The success of the new Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions across the past decade suggests that the periodic table, as a general concept, is not a static document but instead is still subject to evolution, especially as scientific fields beyond traditional chemistry increasingly use chemical perspectives. It further suggests that volumes like this one are not simply retrospective ruminations on a nineteenth-century invention, but instead they can be part of an ongoing process to find new meaning in the periodic concept and to make it more applicable in broader contexts in the twenty-first century. Despite the diversity of periodic tables produced over the last 140 years (e.g., Mazurs 1974), the Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions differs both in conceptual origin and in form from almost all previous versions.
Introduction
Authors: Kovac Jeffrey
Published: November 2020

The chemist is “both a craftsman and a philosopher” (Knight 1992, 13). Chemistry traces its origins to such ancient crafts as metalworking, dyeing, tanning, and ceramics, and also to the ancient philosophers’ speculations about the nature of matter. As a unique combination of the theoretical and the practical, the practice of chemistry raises interesting ethical questions. Chemistry has transformed the modern world with amazing new materials, powerful drugs, agricultural products that have increased farm productivity, new and better explosives that can be used for both construction and destruction, synthetic textile fibers, brilliantly colored dyes, and countless others. With these advances have come unfortunate effects like environmental pollution. As a result, moral questions concerning the relationship between chemistry and society have become increasingly urgent (Hoffmann 1997). The remarkable scientific successes during World War II, such as the Manhattan Project and the development of radar, changed the practice of science. Science, including chemistry, was no longer a leisurely activity conducted primarily by university faculty with the assistance of a few graduate students and minimal financial support. Government funding, epitomized by the founding of the National Science Foundation, along with increased private foundation and industry support stimulated the growth of research programs in universities, national laboratories, and private research institutions. Scientific research has become high profile and high pressure; the rewards for success can be significant in both prestige and money. Although scientists have always been competitive, the culture of the community has changed in recent years, straining the bonds of collegiality and bringing questions of professional ethics to the forefront. Over the past few decades, the number of working scientists has increased significantly. Research groups have become larger and research has become more collaborative, more interdisciplinary, and more international. The Internet makes communication and collaborations between research groups at different universities or in different countries easy. As a result, researchers are able to address increasingly complex problems in large interdisciplinary teams. The single-author article is disappearing; instead, author lists of five to ten are quite common. Although these changes have led to important scientific advances, they have also made it harder to ensure research integrity.
Reverence and Ethics in Science
Authors: Kovac Jeffrey
Published: November 2020

The previous chapter developed the professional code of ethics for science based on a three-part moral ideal. An important question that was left unanswered is: Why should professionals obey this code? Although moral rules set standards, there is nothing about rules that makes you feel like following them. To the contrary, the existence of a rule makes many people feel like bending or breaking it (Woodruff 2014, 3). This raises the questions: Are there advantages either for the individual or for the profession to adhere to a code that restricts behavior? Is there some compelling reason to behave responsibly even in circumstances when disobeying a rule might lead to an immediate gain? A good answer lies in virtue ethics—particularly, the virtue of reverence (Hursthouse 2012). From the perspective of virtue ethics, people do the right thing because they feel like doing (have a disposition to do) the right thing and emotions are stronger motivators of action than beliefs. The other major approaches to ethics, deontology (Alexander and Moore 2007) and consequentialism (Sinnott- Armstrong 2011), provide ways to decide whether an action is right or wrong, but are not concerned directly with motivation, assuming tacitly that people will do the right thing when they recognize what it is. Prior to developing the advantages of a virtue ethics perspective, however, it is important to discuss other kinds of reasons for obeying a professional code and its limitations. For some professions, such as law, medicine, and engineering, following the code is one of the requirements of licensing, so breaking the rules can result in losing the right to practice the profession. Still, legal requirements are a kind of rule that some people will do their best to get around if they can. Furthermore, a legal requirement is not a moral requirement, and one would expect that a moral code should have a moral basis for following it. Finally, even if the legal requirement was an adequate reason, it does not apply to scientists who are not licensed by the government.
Cases and Commentaries
Authors: Kovac Jeffrey
Published: November 2020

Just as in chemistry, the best way to learn ethical problem solving is to confront context-rich, real-life problems (Jonsen and Toulmin 1988; Davis 1999, 143–175). The broad variety of ethical problems, or cases, presented here are hypothetical situations, but represent the kinds of problems working chemists and students face. Cases raising similar ethical questions are grouped together. To reach a diverse audience, I sometimes write several variations of the same situation. For example, a question might be posed from the perspective of the graduate student in one version and from the perspective of the research di­rector in another. For important issues I provide cases that are accessible to undergraduates who have very little research experience, usually in the context of laboratory courses. For advanced undergraduates, some cases involve undergraduate research projects. Most of the cases involve situations encountered in graduate research in universities, but some also concern industrial chemistry. Finally, a few cases present ethical problems that arise in cooperative learning, a pedagogical technique that is becoming increasingly important in undergraduate education. Each case, or related set of cases, is followed by a commentary that outlines the important issues and discusses possible solutions. Some of the commentaries are quite extensive and actually present and defend my preferred course of action; others are brief and merely raise questions that should be considered in designing a solution. The commentaries model the ethical problem-solving method presented in Chapter 6. As I have emphasized repeatedly, most ethical problems do not have clean solutions. While some courses of action are clearly wrong, there may be several morally acceptable and defensible ways to proceed. Consequently, readers might disagree with my proposed solutions for good reasons. For example, if I use a consequentialist approach, my assessment of the relative positive and negative weights of the consequences might be challenged, or I simply might have forgotten to consider some factor. Where I have made a definite recommendation, I give the reasons for my choice and contrast it with other alternatives.
Supply and Demand
Authors: Colby Jason M.
Published: November 2020

In the summer of 1968, Richard O’Feldman must have wondered how he came to be playing the flute on the back of a killer whale. The curly-haired twenty-eight-year-old was no stranger to marine mammals. Growing up on Miami Beach in the 1940s, he had often seen bottlenose dolphins. “Back in those days, Biscayne Bay was teeming with them,” he recalled, and his mother told him tales of dolphins rescuing downed pilots. Thirsting for adventure, fifteen-year-old O’Feldman lied about his age to join the National Guard and later enlisted in the navy. Over the next five years, he rode a US destroyer around the world, hearing his first dolphin calls in the ship’s sonar room and training to become a navy diver. Not yet twenty-one when he left the service, he dabbled in treasure hunting off the Florida coast before finding work at the Miami Seaquarium. His first day on the job, O’Feldman joined the marine park’s collection crew on an expedition to capture dolphins in Biscayne Bay. “In those days, you didn’t need a permit,” he explained. “You could do whatever you wanted.” As a diver, his task was to search for entangled dolphins while keeping the net clear of coral snags. The collection method made casualties inevitable. “I would find dolphins wrapped up dead,” he admitted. “We killed a lot.” By 1962, O’Feldman had helped capture more than a hundred bottlenose dolphins. The Miami Seaquarium kept some for display, but it sold most to other marine parks. Among them were US buyers such as Marineland of the Pacific and Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, as well as a growing number of European dolphinariums. “Places were just opening,” he noted, “and we were supplying them.” Among the eager customers was his former employer, the US Navy, which had just launched its Marine Mammal Program. O’Feldman saw nothing wrong with captivity—“never questioned it at all,” he told me. Never, that is, until he began working with the animals himself.
The gift of teaching
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

To bring up, to rear, to grow. To educate means that we take responsibility. We accept a fiduciary duty to do our best in raising all those in our care. The labels “educator” and “teacher” signify positions of honor and responsibility. We lead others to learn and grow and flourish. We are constant seekers. We always search for better ways to help students, teachers, and schools thrive. We work with the tall and the small who bring out the best in us, the “me” we like. We also work with those who bring out the worst in us, the “me” we wish were different. And we can handle it all. Some enter the field of education with trepidation, worried about all the things that can go wrong. And things will go wrong. When we see ourselves behave in ways that disappoint us, it teaches us. We learn who we do not want to be, and clarify who we do want to be. Maintaining some fear of failure is not necessarily a disadvan­tage. We can be afraid, yet just like a new mother with a newborn, we figure it out. We consult, reflect, experiment, and determine to be better . . . for the sake of our learners and ourselves. Teaching is such a personal profession. We expose our skills every day. We see our limitations as well as our strengths. We demonstrate a patience that we may not have. We nurture, even when we feel detached. We know that our quest to learn more and do more is never- ending. Our vitality, the life in our teaching, comes from our dedica­tion to “growing” people, including ourselves. And the growing never stops. The challenges never stop. The changes never stop. It is those ever- changing “seasons” of teaching that provide a pathway for us to become seasoned teachers. • Teaching teaches us. • Teaching elevates and inspires us. • Teaching is a worthy and wonderful challenge. • In teaching, as we rear, we are being reared. Teaching is a gift.
Attaching to the outcome
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

We do our best to prepare all students to pass a test. We are diligent about demonstrating everything necessary to receive a good evaluation. We are consistently cheerful and friendly to a difficult colleague. We accommodate the wishes of a doting parent to calm worries about her child’s behaviors. We spend many extra hours rehearsing, practicing, and readying our students for a performance. We behave kindly and compassion­ately toward a staff member with the hope of smoothing a recent conflict. Good intentions do not guarantee good results. We need to have good intentions anyway. So many problems in our lives and relationships can be solved, or at least alleviated, if we intend to do good, no matter what the outcome. One reason that good intentions are so important is that we are setting a path for ourselves: we are purposefully and thought­fully aiming to make something better by our words and actions. But, of course, we have no (or little) control over the outcome. No guarantees. We may be disappointed that the outcome is not what we wanted, but that is always a risk. And let’s not allow the outcome to diminish the constructive nature of our intent. When we attach to the outcome, we rely too heavily on expecting a desired result. • If I am kind to her, she’ll be kind to me. • If I work hard to achieve this, I will be rewarded. • If I try hard enough, I’ll see the results I want. • If I remove myself from the group, others will coax me back. • If I sulk, others will know they have hurt me. • If I share some gossip with a co- worker, we’ll become closer friends. • If I bring treats and gifts, others will see how clever and generous I am. Imagine how our disposition would change if we crafted good intent with no attachment to the outcome. • We would lessen our desire for acknowledgment of our efforts. • We would lessen our disappointment when someone did not meet our expectations. • We would lessen our dependency on others’ confirmation of our good work.
Real moments
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Can you remember a time when you were totally absorbed in the moment? When “the rest of the world” ceased to exist? When returning to your surroundings felt a bit jolting? If so, you may have experienced a “real moment.” Our “real moments” as teachers often happen when a stu­dent has an “aha!” experience. Or when we finally figure out how to present a confusing concept, and it works just the way we hoped. Or when there is such a meeting of the minds with fellow teachers that it feels like a wave of perfection has just rolled over us. And when they do occur, real moments can revitalize and invigorate us. The trick to relishing these real moments is to notice them. Then we can acknowledge and savor them as bits of bliss. According to Barbara De Angelis, “Real moments occur only when you are consciously and completely experiencing where you are, what you are doing, and how you are feeling . . . you are paying attention”. Paying attention is not neces­sarily as easy as it may seem. Having racing minds and darting attentions, we get in the habit of not paying attention. So may our students. What can we do to stop, drop, and be? Simply stop think­ing. Notice your surroundings. Listen and watch as others speak. Drop your hurry and worry long enough to breathe, feel, and notice what surrounds you. Be present to soak up all that your senses allow. You allow real moments to happen when you totally surren­der into whatever you are experiencing, and let go of trying to be in control.
Assertiveness level 2
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

In the level 2 state of assertiveness, we are tranquil, assertive, and powerful. Our voice is calm. Our face is neutral to soft. We are fair- minded and strong. Conflict is easily and efficiently resolved. Neither apologetic nor needlessly assertive, our frame of mind in this stage is to take care of the problem quickly and efficiently, so that there is no longer a problem. We neither shrink from nor plow our way through the situation. In level 2, we become adept at stating and displaying an ade­quate degree of assertiveness. Our actions in this level can be so adept that we hardly know there could have been a problem. The confidence that builds in level 2 becomes our norm, and potential conflicts dissolve with balanced and confident respon­siveness. Harsh retorts and meek acquiescence are mostly things of the past as we hone our internal and external responses to potential conflict. In the balanced state of level 2, our voice is matter- of- fact, moderate volume, non- threatening, and non- threatened. After much practice, this level becomes more of an automatic refram­ing and re- visioning of what is happening and what to do about it. Decisions that undergird responses in level 2 may be totally internal, when there is no need for a verbal or external response. Inwardly and outwardly, we feel in near perfect balance. The other’s behavior did not pull us out of our best self. It did not lure us into making a response that was unnecessary. • In response to a waiter bringing the wrong order: “You may have thought I said pasta, but I ordered salmon. What is the possibility that you could bring the salmon in the next ten minutes?” • In response to a noisy student interrupting another: “Allison, it is not your turn. Watch and listen to Meghan.” • In response to a very angry colleague, you choose not to get involved, and you watch the venting with detached observa­tion. Or you calmly leave the scene. Notice that responses in level 2 can carry with them a recommen­dation or suggestion for what to do next. These exchanges are handled with neutral, soft eyes.
Valuing your voice
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

If you have ever contracted laryngitis, you know the value of your voice. You feel fine. You are not contagious. You have much to do. You cannot make a good argument for staying home. Yet teaching without a healthy voice can be hard, hard work. Our voice is our most precious instrument. Do we care for it as if that is true? These five suggestions can help you maintain a healthy voice. 1. Balance of breath and muscle. When vocal sound production is balanced with muscle and breath, we are generally using our voice properly. When more muscle than breath is used, a forced sound causes undue stress on our vocal folds, often resulting in a raspy sound. Support your voice with breath energy to help maintain healthy vocal production. 2. Hydration. Talking for lengthy amounts of time causes us to lose moisture through our breath. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink water. Stay hydrated throughout the day. 3. Avoid touching your face. Our hands are often the germiest parts of our bodies. To maintain a healthy voice, avoid touch­ing your face, especially during cold and flu season. 4. Vary your vocal expression. Variety in pitch, pace, and vol­ume is good for our voices and good for our listeners. Vary the pitch of your voice by shifting between higher and lower tones. Speed up and slow down the pace of your speaking. Speak at louder and quieter volumes to help students listen. 5. Lift your voice. Speaking at the lower part of your vocal range, especially if you are projecting loudly to a group, can cause vocal difficulties similar to a callus on your vocal folds. For the health of your voice, lift it to a medium high range (say “mm- hm” as an agreement and stay at the “hm” level) and speak using plenty of breath energy. The louder we talk, the less students need or want to listen! Try speaking normally rather than “talking over” noisy students; they will learn to respond. In physical education, music ensembles, and other large classes, a habit of shout- speaking can develop and derail your vocal health.
The Teacher’s Creed
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Like a weather vane, we are sometimes buffeted by winds of change in our schools. Some of us hardly react to the shifting ambiance on any given day; we carry our own weather with us. Others of us become saturated by the mood and environment that cloaks us. Those buffeted by stormy challenges or adrift in strong currents need a buoy, a life preserver. One way to identify our own buoy in schools is to choose sayings, poems, favorite quotes, and self- affirmations that can remind us of our priorities. Another is to have a set of principles that ground us. Adapted from the physician’s Hippocratic oath, the Teacher’s Creed may help us in times of rough seas. Imagine how these intentions could be touchstones for being our best in schools. 1. Non- maleficence: Do no harm. 2. Beneficence: Do good. 3. Justice: Treat fairly. 4. Autonomy: Honor self- determination and the right to choose. Do no harm. We commit ourselves to the intent to do no harm (emotionally, physically, spiritually, academically) for all con­stituents in our schools. Do good. We act on the commitment to nurture and inspire learning for the benefit of all in our schools. Treat fairly. “Fair” and “just” have many layers. Fair is not necessarily equal, and justice is likely debatable. Most impor­tant is our commitment to stay open to the evolving meanings and treatments that constitute fair and just for our students and co- workers. Honor self- determination and the right to choose. We acknowledge that we may never know what is best for another, and the other may have the right to be wrong. Allowing another to determine what she/ he wants and needs can be wrenching. Yet acknowledging the sovereign will of others propels growth, no matter our age.
Embracing mistakes in learning
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Mistakes reveal a lack of learning. Or do they? Possibly they are indicators of how to learn. How do we react when a student makes a mistake? Do we feel frustration? Anger? Disappointment? Do we draw conclu­sions about the student? “He isn’t trying hard enough.” “She isn’t listening.” “He never does his homework.” “She doesn’t care about being accurate or doing well.” “He gives goofy answers on purpose to get attention.” How teachers treat mistakes can make huge differences in students’ attitudes toward learning and willingness to learn. Are students eager or hesitant? Do they display perseverance or futility? A wide- eyed “Oops, I made a mistake!” can reveal a very different learning orientation from “I just can’t do this!” What is a mistake? A “mis- take” can be the result of so many things: an attention lapse; a motor coordination challenge; men­tal fatigue; auditory, visual, or motor processing issues; inability to access vocabulary; anxiety over being the center of attention; preoccupation with hunger or worry; fear of judgment. So many possibilities. If we define learning as a series of “mis- takes” that lead us to accurate, enduring understanding, then we would likely retool our responses to mistakes in the classroom. Why are we teachers so bothered by mistakes? Do we think student mistakes signal our incompetence? Does our frustration assume that students are not trying hard enough? What would change in our classrooms if we embraced “mis- takes” as valuable, necessary steps toward learning? When we become interested in the mistake rather than the judgment of accuracy, learning changes. Teaching changes. With this orienta­tion, mistakes get reframed as mini- discoveries that lead us to what to do next, what to do differently, what to pursue instead. Teachers who become consumed with detecting mistakes miss some golden opportunities to learn. Imagine teaching a student to shoot free throws on a basketball court, but each time the student shoots, we watch only the basket. It is in watching the shooter, not the basket, that we learn how to teach.
Administrator appreciation
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Why does it seem so universally fashionable to criticize and distrust administrators? Does their elevated position make them easy targets? Are we ill- informed about the issues and responsibilities of their positions? Do we assume they pursued the position for status, money, and power? Are they ill- informed about our teaching specialty? When asked “Why do you want to be a principal?” adminis­trators are likely to reply with lofty goals: “I want positive change for our kids, teachers, schools, and communities.” Sometimes we forget that most school administrators began as classroom educators. And although educators may be frequent critics of administrators, few of us would willingly take their places. Those leading our schools make decisions constantly, and not all (perhaps very few) decisions can be consultative ones. When conflict arises, leaders can rarely divulge all the information that caused the problem or led to a decision. Sometimes our leaders cannot reveal that their administrator gave them no choice in the decision. So there are times when we are not privy to the whole story or a full account of what happened. Imagine the challenge of being an advocate for all on staff while also taking the responsibility for bringing out and expect­ing the best from each. Small gestures of support for your administrator can add to the good feelings within your school. Just as administrators want to bring out the best in us, we can aim to bring out the best in them. Delivering a handwritten note lends a valued personal touch to supportive feedback. • “Thank you for making promptness a priority for beginning and concluding our meetings. That is so important to me.” • “I appreciate your compassionate treatment of this family.” • “Thank you for your efforts to make that happen, even though it did not work as well as we thought it would.” • “I appreciate your sensitivity in responding to our colleague. You were a model of diplomacy.” • “The way you explained that thorny issue was a good lesson for all of us.”
Musicality in every subject
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Expressiveness, flow, and emotion, make music charming, appealing, and moving. Those manifestations are what make music an art. They are what make music musical. When music is stripped of its musicality in order to study it, we can lose the very aesthetic that makes it worthy of listening, performing, and studying (Bennett, 2016). The same is true for nearly any other school subject. Passion for a subject and desire to share that passion are likely what motivated us to become teachers. It should be no surprise, then, that the quality of the subject matter in our class­rooms can influence our vitality for teaching and students’ vitality for learning. Sometimes it is our quest to teach information about our sub­ject that diminishes the very qualities that inspire our passion for it. What a paradox: the way we teach a subject can cause students to lose interest in learning it! How does this happen? Prioritizing expressiveness and curiosity can revitalize us. When we strip enjoyment and fascination from learning and focus only on mechanics or information, we may be strangling interest and aesthetic appeal for our students and for ourselves. What can we do? • Create lessons that capture students’ interest in learning. Find “hooks” that catch their curiosity. • Immerse students in a subject’s applicability to and connec­tions with their daily lives. • Infuse lessons with quirky or humorous samples of ways the subject can be understood or used. Passion for any subject, the musicality of it, can be ignited or extinguished in schools. Teaching subjects in lifeless ways can wear on our spirits. Let’s give ourselves permission to highlight aspects of our subjects we enjoy and commit ourselves to teach­ing those subjects with integrity. When we teach what we love and love what we teach, we are vibrant . . . and so is learning.
The toll of disruptions
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

“This job is driving me crazy . . . literally!” Spoken by a frenzied educator, these words testify to the many disruptions that hap­pen in schools. The fast pace of our myriad daily experiences can cause our thoughts to disconnect, our minds to overload, our brains to feel like they are on the verge of explosion. We remember the time a fight broke out in class and we had to stop it. We remember the time the principal punished our stu­dent (without our knowledge) for a minor infraction. We remem­ber the time a child vomited on our new shoes and we had to wear them the remainder of the day. These are the standout episodes. The disruptions are certainly memorable, and they can make for good- natured storytelling. According to Jones, however, the toll of these big moments of disruption pales in comparison to the smaller ones. Both com­mon and constant, small disruptions erode our patience and rob our peace of mind. Like the constant drip of a faucet or hum of a motor, it is the underlying persistence of sound and motion that can zap our energy and compromise our endurance. Are we aware of or immune to the low levels of noise and disarray in our classes? Are our students? While perhaps not warranting punishment or disciplinary action, small disruptions may be subliminal, but they are powerful. For the vitality of our students and ourselves, noting the impact of small interruptions may be worth a look, a listen, and a resolution. The most persistent misconception about discipline is that the most important problems in discipline management are the biggest problems, the crises. Certainly they are the most memorable. When teachers look back over the year, they will certainly remember the time the fight broke out or the time a student told them to do an unnatural act . . . . The most important and costly type of discipline problem in any classroom is the small disruption . . . . Ironically, therefore, the most important discipline problem in the classroom is the small disruption, not the crisis. It is the small disruption by its very frequency that destroys the teacher’s patience by degrees and destroys learning by the minute.
Hurting in schools
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Acknowledging the role we play in hurting can be uncomfort­able. Whether the hurt is being done by us or being done to us, we play a role in allowing it. Our words and deeds can cause hurt (and often residual anger) whether or not we intend it. Words commonly used in our homes and social groups may sound harsh and insulting to co- workers, administrators, students, and parents. To our ears, those words may sound harmless, but to others, they may feel harmful. Are we accountable for others’ reactions to our behaviors? To an extent, yes, we are. Are we responsive to acknowledg­ing our role in hurting? Likely the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. Schools flow with actions and reactions. We all have responsi­bilities for making the layers of communication work. When we get hurt, our reactions to the offense often make matters worse. As in a football game, we take positions of offense or defense and then choose our next play. • We evade, pretending we’re not hurt. But we carry around the unresolved resentment. And sometimes the resentment festers rather than fades. • We punish, shunning the offenders with the silent treatment. But sometimes they don’t notice. And sometimes the venge­ful thoughts hurt us more than them. • We tattle, exaggerating just enough so listeners will be as indignant as we are. • We confront the offender, yet angry accusations solve little or nothing. When we do the hurting, we may tell ourselves, “She had it com­ing” or “I’m giving him some of his own medicine.” But lower­ing ourselves to poor behavior does little to right the wrongs of being hurt. For every human encounter, even those ridden with conflict, we have choices. Shut down or open up. Connect or disconnect. Hold on or let go. Make peace or make hostility. Mend or rend. Which do we choose? Negative states of mind . . . destroy our mental happiness. Once you harbor feelings of hatred or ill feeling toward someone, once you yourself are filled by hatred or negative emotions, then other people appear to you as also hostile.
Self-talk
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

The voice we hear most often throughout our lives is our own. Whether in whispers or roars, silence or resound, our self- talk is nearly constant, even when we try not to listen. Compliments, encouragement, reassurance. Insults, accusa­tions, disapproval. We sometimes do not notice the ongoing chatter inside our heads, but it is there. So beware. Self- talk may be the most perennial tool for self- inflicting toxic and diminishing thoughts. And, unfortunately, the hurtful and demeaning judg­ments seem to live on in us . . . because we continue to repeat them to ourselves. We keep our hurt alive. One word, phrase, or sentence is spoken to us, and we con­tinue repeating it to ourselves, long after the initial speaker is gone. The echoes of hurtful words have long life spans, if we allow them. Self- talk can also speak to us of kind, reassuring and strength­ening thoughts. Our self- talk can bolster us. Listen. Consider. Reconstruct. Enlist your voice to acknowledge, support, and affirm the best of you. • Beware what we tell ourselves about any given situation. We can choose our narrative. • Pay attention to the persevering voices inside us. Dismantle the destructive ones. Cultivate the strengthening ones. • Choose our inner dialogue. We have the power of choice.
The ambiance of singing
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

Singing is a robust act. Songs that energize can invigorate stu­dents for a brain break. An entire student body’s singing of the national anthem changes the atmosphere and transforms the singers. “If singing can foster positive human interaction, maybe that is reason enough for us to engage in it” Both teachers who are confident with their voices and those who are not can learn the ambiance- changing power of song in their classrooms. Many of us pull back from the idea of singing with our students. We think we don’t have a good voice, that we can’t sing, that students may laugh at us. Music educators, however, will tell you that the best way to get better at singing is to sing. Notice how your breath and throat adjust with each pitch as you sing melodies. That is sing­ing. Those of us who are saddled with the notion that we can­not sing were most likely told that by someone, perhaps even decades ago. It’s time to debunk those life- limiting messages! We can’t learn to jog without jogging. We can’t learn to sing without singing. Recordings can help support singers and encourage them to sing along. Ask your music teacher for pointers on how to increase your singing range and confidence. He/ she can also recommend some tried- and- true songs that have school- appropriate lyrics. What kind of music should you sing with your students? Calming and energizing music. Popular music and oldies. Seasonal music and favorite standards. Accompanied and unac­companied songs. Movie and television themes. Music that prompts dance moves and music that elicits simple gestures. Sing it all. The ambiance of singing is real. We feel the breath. We feel the connections. We feel absorbed as we join, full- voiced, in singing with our students. Singing can become a powerful, contributing influence in schools. See if you agree. Be bold. Sing. Singing is infinitely better than yelling. It gives young and old a feeling of security— if not of amusement. Anyone can do it. Everyone should experience what a difference singing makes.
Jumping to conclusions
Authors: Bennett Peggy D.
Published: November 2020

He walks down the hall toward you. You are the only two in the hallway. You look at him, ready to smile and offer a cheery “Good morning!” With eyes downcast, he walks by you as if you are not there. What is your reaction? • Indignation. “Who does he think he is, not bothering to even look at me?” • Irritation. “Why can’t he make the effort to say a simple hello?” • Superiority. “With such poor social skills, he shouldn’t even be a teacher.” • Meanness. Silently you smirk at his indifference, eager to tell co- workers about this perceived slight. • Affirmation. “I knew he didn’t like me, and since no one is around, he doesn’t even pretend!” • Anger. “How dare he act so superior!” It may be a challenge to interpret this scene as anything but snob­bery or poor manners. Yet the same curiosity and compassion that help us determine what our students need in order to learn can serve us well with other adults. The illusion in this scenario is our belief that we know the reason for another’s behaviors. The pitfall of this conclusion is the missed opportunity to wonder with good intentions. The risk to professional relationships is the narrow labeling of another’s behaviors and personalizing their intent. Asking ourselves “What else could it be?” implies that we have the power and presence of mind to press the pause button to offer a broader palette of possibilities. • Is he preoccupied with an upcoming meeting? • Is he concerned about a loved one? • Is he mentally preparing for his first class? • Is he an introvert who is much more comfortable keeping to himself than offering easy banter or automatic greetings? Why not be your best by offering a warm greeting to him with no expectation for receiving one in return? When faced with puzzling behaviors, we can avoid jumping to conclusions. We can take a moment, have a second thought. This opening of possibility offers a moment of grace to ourselves and our co- workers. We choose to suspend judgment for the good of the moment and for nourishing goodwill in schools.