Let me see if I have this correct R 11; students don’t think, so we have to do their thinking for them. The problem is that unless we require them to think, they never learn how to th ink. But then, students, can’t be taught to think, even though universitie s often have ‘thinking skills’ as a foundation of their academic assessment plans. I guess we should stop teaching ‘Critical Thinking& #8217; classes or expecting students to produce anything other than information th at has been learned by rote memorization.
I’ve sarcastically argued for 20 years that it should be mandated that everyone must have a crash helmet and an unused condom with them at all times when they are outside of their homes, as you never know when you can be run over crossing the road or contact AIDS f rom a momentary loss of judgment.
I expect that this will be a federal l aw in about 5 years.
From:
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 201
0
10:05 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] GLOVE
S IN
STUDENT LABS
Whew. THANK YOU, Rob. I was really getting
depressed reading this thread. This was a wonderful entry. Face
it,
you can't teach young people to think. You have to wait until they've
had
at least two car accidents to even broach the subject with any hope.
And
the majority will NEVER learn to think.
We have to think for them until they've developed the right habits and
discipline in the lab. Those habits hopefully will carry them through
relatively unscathed until they are old enough to actually connect actions
and
consequences, assess risk, and take proper precautions.
Monona Rossol
In a message dated 3/8/2010 6:11:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, info**At_Symbol_Here**ILPI.COM
writes:
Don't forget the classic tiny puddle of water on the desktop that is not re
ally
water but the deliquesced remains of an NaOH pellet from yesterday's
experiment. "My, this feels warm and soapy, ow, ow , ow,
gaaaaaahhhhh!"
There are plenty of reasons to wear PPE when you "aren't doing
anything" in the laboratory. While in my experience it is less o
f an
issue with gloves, it is an absolute must for eye protection - if you are i
n
the lab, you wear eye protection (correctly), period even when you aren't d
oing
anything.
I point to the student mentioned in paragraph 3 of this incident,: http://www.ilpi.com/safe
ty/explosion.html
He was my student in the previous semester and he made sure to thank me for
training him properly. I have plenty of other serious examples
I
won't elaborate on here. Suffice it to say that safety culture is wha
t
PPE enforcement is all about. That means a hazard assessment of the
entire laboratory, not just the particular experiment that day.
That said, as long as gloves, like eye protection or any form of PPE, are
*required* under a clear and defined set of circumstances, how they are pai
d
for is No Big Deal. Just be sure that no student forgoes PPE because
of
cost concerns by the student, the department, or the administration.
The final comment/scenario I'll add here is the 'ole run it by the lawyers
one. If Something Happened in the lab (even something that didn't inv
olve
gloves, but called into question the overall safety program/attitude) and t
he
plaintiff's attorney were to ask "Why weren't gloves
available? What? But, a pair of gloves costs 10 cents, and you
wouldn't even pay 10 cents to protect the students?", how do you think
that kind of grandstanding would fly with a jury regardless of whether they
were "really" necessary?
Rob Toreki
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