let me tell you a story it's my first
year as a new high school science
teacher and I'm so eager I'm so excited
I'm pouring myself into my lesson plans
but I'm slowly coming to this horrifying
realization that my students just might
not be learning anything this happens
one day I just assigned my class to read
this textbook chapter about my favorite
subject in all of biology viruses and
how they attack and so I'm so excited to
discuss this with him and I common and I
say can somebody please explain the main
ideas and why this is so cool there's
silence finally my favorite student she
looks me straight in the eye and she
says the reading sucked
and then she clarifies she says you know
what I don't mean that it sucks I mean
that I didn't understand a word of it
it's boring um who cares and it sucks
these sympathetic smiles spread all
throughout the room though and I
realized that all of my other students
are in the same boat that maybe they
took notes or they memorize definitions
from the textbook but not one of them
really understood the main ideas not one
of them can tell me why this stuff is so
cool why it's so important
I'm totally clueless I have no idea what
to do next so the only thing I can think
of is say listen let me tell you a story
the main characters in the story are
bacteria and viruses these guys are
blown up a couple million times
the real bacteria and viruses are so
small we can't see them
not a microscope and you guys might know
bacterium viruses because they both make
us sick but what a lot of people don't
know is that viruses can also make
bacteria sick now the story that I start
telling my kids it starts out like a
horror story once upon a time there's
this happy little bacterium don't get
too attached to him
maybe he's floating around in your
stomach or in some spoiled food
somewhere and all of a sudden he starts
to not feel so good maybe he ate
something bad for lunch and then things
get really horrible as his skin rips
apart and he sees a virus coming out
from his insides and then it gets
horrible when he bursts open and the
army of viruses floods out from his
insides if H is right if you see this
and you're a bacterium this is like your
worst nightmare but if you're a virus
and you see this you cross those little
legs of yours and you think we rock
because it took a lot of crafty work to
infect this bacterium here's what had to
happen a virus grabbed onto a bacterium
and it slipped its DNA into it the next
thing is that virus DNA made stuff that
chopped up the bacterial DNA and now
that we've gotten rid of the bacterial
DNA the virus DNA takes control of the
cell and it tells it to start making
more viruses because you see DNA is like
a blueprint that tells living things
what to make so this is kind of like
going into a car factory and replacing
the blueprints with blueprints for
killer robots the workers still come the
next day they do their job but they're
following different instructions so
replacing the bacterial DNA with virus
DNA turns the bacteria into a factory
for making viruses that is until it's so
filled with bio viruses that it bursts
but that's not the only way that viruses
infect bacteria some are much more
grafting
when a secret-agent virus infects a
bacterium they do a little espionage
here this cloaked secret-agent virus is
slipping his DNA into the bacterial cell
but here's the kicker it doesn't do
anything harmful not at first
instead it silently slips into the
bacterias own DNA and it just stays
there like a terrorist sleeper cell
waiting for instructions and what's
interesting about this is now whenever
this bacteria has babies the babies also
have the virus DNA in them so now we
have a whole extended bacterial family
filled with virus sleeper cells they're
just happily living together until a
signal happens and bam all of the DNA
pops out it takes control of these cells
turns them into virus making factories
and they all burst a huge extended
bacterial family all dying with viruses
spilling out of their guts the viruses
taking over the bacterium so now you
understand how viruses can attack cells
there are two ways on the left is what
we call the lytic way where the viruses
go right in take over the cells on the
left is the lysogenic way that uses
secret agent viruses so this stuff is
not that hard right and now all of you
understand it but if you've graduated
from high school I can almost guarantee
you've seen this information before but
I wet I bet it was presented in a way
that it didn't exactly stick in your
mind so when my students were first
learning this why did they hate it
so much well there were a couple reasons
first of all I can guarantee you that
their textbooks didn't have secret agent
viruses and they didn't have horror
stories you know in the communication of
science there is this obsession with
seriousness it kills me I'm not kidding
I used to work for an educational
publisher and as a writer I was always
told never to use stories or fun
engaging language because then my work
might not be viewed as serious and
scientific right I mean because god
forbid somebody have fun when they're
learning science so we have this field
of science that's all about slime and
color changes check this out and then we
have of course as any good scientist has
to have explosions but if a textbook
seems too much fun it's somehow
unscientific now another problem was
that the language in their textbook was
truly incomprehensible if we want to
summarize that story that I told you
earlier we could start by saying
something like these viruses make copies
of themselves by slipping their DNA into
a bacterium the way this showed up in
the textbook it looked like this
bacteria phage replication is initiated
through the introduction of viral
nucleic acid into a bacterium that's
great
perfect for thirteen year olds but
here's the thing there are plenty of
people in science education who would
look at this and say there's no way that
we could ever give that to students
because it contains some language that
isn't completely accurate for example I
told you that viruses have DNA well a
very tiny fraction of them don't they
have something called RNA instead so a
professional science writer would circle
that and say that has to go
we have to change it to something much
more technical and after a team of
professional science editors went over
this really simple explanation they'd
find fault with almost every word I've
used and they'd have to change anything
that wasn't serious enough and they'd
have to change everything that wasn't
100% perfect then it would be accurate
but it would be completely impossible to
understand this is horrifying you know I
keep talking about this idea of of
telling a story and it's like science
communication has taken on this idea of
what I call the tyranny of precision
well you can't just tell a story it's
like science has become that horrible
storyteller that we all know who gives
us all the details nobody cares about we
are like oh I met my friend for lunch
the other day and she was wearing these
ugly jeans I mean they weren't really
jeans they were more kind of like
leggings but like I guess they're
actually kind of more like jeggings like
but I think and you're just like oh my
god what is the point
or even worse science education is
becoming like that guy who always says
actually right you want to be like oh
dude we had to get up in the middle of
the night and drive a hundred miles in
total darkness and that guy's like
actually it was 87 point three miles and
you're like actually shut up I'm just
trying to tell a story because good
storytelling is all about emotional
connection we have to convince our
audience that what we're talking about
matters what just as important is
knowing which details we should leave
out so that the main point still comes
across I'm reminded of what the
architect Mies van der Rohe said and I
paraphrase when he said that sometimes
you have to lie in order to tell the
truth I think the sentiment is
particularly relevant to science
education
now finally I am I'm often so
disappointed when people think that I'm
advocating a dumbing down of science
that's not true at all I'm currently a
PhD student at MIT and I absolutely
understand the importance of detailed
specific scientific communication
between experts but not when we're
trying to teach thirteen year olds if a
young learner thinks that all viruses
have DNA that's not gonna ruin their
chances of success in science but if a
young learner can't understand anything
in science and learns to hate it because
it all sounds like this that will ruin
their chances of success this needs to
stop and I wish that the change could
come from the institutions at the top
that are perpetuating these problems and
I beg them I beseech them to just stop
it
but I think that's unlikely so we are so
lucky that we have resources like the
Internet where we can circumvent these
institutions as from the bottom up
there's a growing number of online
resources that are dedicated to just
explaining science in simple
understandable ways
I dream of a Wikipedia like website that
would explain any scientific concept you
can think of in simple language any
middle schooler can understand and I
myself spend most of my free time making
these science videos that I put on
YouTube I explain chemical equilibrium
using analogies to awkward middle school
dances and I talk about fuel cells with
stories about boys and girls at a summer
camp the feedback that I get is
sometimes misspelled and it's often
written in Lal cats but nonetheless it's
so appreciative so thankful that
no this is the right way we should be
communicating science there's still so
much work left to be done though and if
you're involved with science in any way
I urge you to join me pick up a camera
start to write a blog whatever but leave
out the seriousness leave out the jargon
make me laugh make me care leave out
those annoying details that nobody cares
about and just get to the point how
should you start why don't you say
listen let me tell you a story thank you