Neil deGrasse Tyson, badass.
mdt:
Back off man, I’m a scientist.
via Star Power
A young Neil deGrasse Tyson. From the article:
Frank Bash, professor emeritus of astronomy and former director of UT’s McDonald Observatory, supervised Tyson as a teaching assistant for Intro to Astronomy. “Neil had a natural gift for teaching,” Bash says. “After he taught, the students would beg for him back. He did crazy stuff—moonwalking in class.”
Doing the moonwalk for his students wasn’t a gag, Tyson says—it was a strategy. “If you’re only using words to communicate as a teacher, why show up?” he says. “Why not just type your notes? Teaching is a full-body performance. The moonwalk was all the rage in 1983, and the students loved it. It made the material work for them.”
According to Tyson, one of the biggest reasons scientists so often struggle to communicate research to the public is not jargon or lack of interest. It’s a culture gap.
“The average person watches 30 hours of television per week,” he says. “But the average professor doesn’t own a TV, let alone watch the Kardashians or cute kitten videos on YouTube or whatever. And people live for that stuff. We have to speak their language.”
HEY! What you call watching cute kitten videos on YouTube I call empirical research. Don’t judge! It puts food on the table…
One man should not possess that much awesome. Even his hair has always been flawless. But seriously, those of you who teach and can make connections like this with your students, THANK YOU! ~ Kim
(via icantbelieveitsalawblog)
