A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I, too, was a highschool (or however you folks call it) brat. I hated it, plain and simple - it was long, drawn-out and downright boring. But then, I found out about
this. And gods, was that a revelation! Just imagine - a place crawling with enthusiastic young nerds, a crossbreed between Mythbusters and ferrets on caffeine, hellbent on doing science and having a damn good time of it. Of course I was hooked from the word Go. But that was back then...
...And now, after more than ten years, I got a chance to see my beloved Petnica again. And what an occasion that was! But lets start from the beginning.
In case you forgot, it's still Darwin's Year and that means plenty of projects going on, mainly focusing on, yes, trying to pound evolution into people's stubborn, confused heads. Of course, its not just us, the professors and students of biology, who are having a hard-ish time of it - people who take the brunt of it the most are, of course, elementary and highschool teachers, especially since that silly thing called "religion class" crashed into schools head-first.
It never should have happened, it really shouldn't have. School is where you're supposed to teach science, not myths and legends. But it did happen, for this reason or that, and now, our school system is burdened by a completely uncalled for preaching, starting from grade one. So what's a biology teacher to do? Wriggle any old way they can, that's what and if it happens to be Darwin's Year, maybe attend a three-days seminary on evolution in Petnica. ...Which is where I come in. ;)
It all started a while ago, when I was having my presentation on evolution of canine behaviour for my evolution class. It just so happened that a) a buddy I went to third year with was there, b) he liked it and c) said buddy just happens to be the head of the biology course in Ptnica these days. One thing to another, he thought it a good idea to have that particular presentation presented on the "educating the educators" seminary, asked if I wanted to come, got a *very* enthusiastic GLOMPZ from me and... you can guess the rest.
As for just *how* enthusiastic I was, well... lets just say its not every day that I get called to say a word or two on evolution alongside our most prominent evolutionary biologist(s) who are also my uni teachers, in one of the places on this green Earth that I adore the most, and in front of teachers for hells' sake! Can you imagine the joy? Oh yes, I freely admit it - there *was* a very strong "Finally, the shoe's on the other foot mwahahahahaaaa" feeling humming in the back of my mind. Can you blame me?
But on to the really good stuff:
( Postcard from Petnica )( Petnica Postcard )But the *really* good part of it all were, of course, the lectures. They idea of the whole thing was to give teacher some lectures on evolution - refreshing their memories as well as introducing them to some new info and eventually, discussing how to best present those concepts to the kids in school. So what went on for three days straight was this: get up, have breakfast, have a lecture for two or so hours, take a break, have lunch, have another several hours of lectures (with a break), have dinner, then either have anotehr lecture or a discussion or something. The pace was murderous - it always is in Petnica, and especially if you try to go through it with only two hours of sleep per night. The teachers mostly went to bed relatively early, not later then eleven-ish or so, but the four of us - my buddy Vlada and us, three girls, were riding the endorphine high all night long. But I'll get to that part later...
Now, some of the lectures, I was really tired sitting through them. Oh, they werre great, have no doubt about it, but I've been listening about Darwin's travels, the Beagle, the whole deal so many times during this year I just can't take it any more. Still, it was important to lay that groundwork down again, I believe, because the way Darwin reached his conclusions is a prime showcase of hypothetical-deductive scientific thinking. And imo, if you can get the kids to understand how that thought process went, hells, if you can get them to actually start *thinking* properly, you should have far less problems teaching them, not just evolution, but everything else as well. In theory, at least. In practice... In practice is where things get a wee bit more complicated then that, as I learned during those three days.</div>
( And while you're at it, why not teach them voodoo as well, too? )So there ya have it - Religion classes in schools make biology teachers' lives various shades of hell on occasion. Which is not to say that all biology teachers are all nice and peachy, far from it. Two examples that stuck in my head the most:
After an evening lecture on the... second day, I think, another lecture was about to start, dealing with the impact Darwin's theory had on people back in his days, the impact that the modern synthesis has on the world today and most of all, dealing with all the various misuses and abuses of science, evolutionary science, in the name of various ideologies and the rest of the crap. Well, that was the idea, at least. What it turned into was a free-form discussion during which I was constantly torn between a desrire to poke some people's eyes out while simulataneously kissing some other people's heads off. So what happened?
( But I'm a creationist!!1elebenty! ...Sure you are, noey, sure you are. )</div>
But the highlight of the evening and all the accolades definitely go to my dear, dear proff Nikola Tucic. I cannot describe to you how sad I am that I wasn't his student this year, but he tok to teaching molecular biologist lately so I had anotehr teacher this year. I did have the pleasure of having some lectures from another teacher (and a former student of his; but then, there is hardly a prof in my uni who wasn't his student at sime point), Bilja, who is also bloody brilliant. Anyways, my dear prof was merely sitting and listening to the ongoing discussion, only ever piping in to clarify a thing or two, to make a point or, as you will soon see, give such a polite slap-down that I wanted to kiss him right then and there. See, I'm a violent jaw-snapper, Bilja is also quite energetic (but with definitely mroe experiance and thus, more calm then yours truly), but Nikola - Nikola is just sooo peaceful and relaxed I sometimes envy him that damn much. So here's what happened:
( They are not *laws* dammit! )( My idiotism, let me show you it. )How, exactly, did we get from there to the issue of morality and where, then does that come from, I can't really say. It was all a cacophony and various topics discussed all at once suddenly. But get there we did, with our dubious, ingorant "hero" getting mroe and more stupid with each next sentence. And it was then when my dear prof finally cut into the discussion. Up until then, I think it was mainly "yes, religion can, and in the past did have a saying in morality issues, but no, even the believers agreed that nowdays, it has little to no impact on it and that's the way it damn well should be" Let me clarify what I mean:
Back in the day, religion did have a monopoly on morality. Some of the things made sense (don't kill, don't rob, that sort of thing), but many others simply make no sense at all (sex is bad, pain is good, free-thinking is sinful etc). Nowdays, we mostly ditched the silly parts, but what remained of the sensible "don'ts" turned out to be perfectly explainable by evolution and has its roots firmly in our evolutionary past regardless of who was editing which hole book at which time. Take a look at our society and at any social mammal society and you'll see what I mean. So is, then, what we consider our highest virtues, our so glorified altruism really selfishness in disguise? up to a point yes, it is, no matter how disturbing the idea may sound to some. Disturbing and uncomfy as it may be, it's still the way it is, sorry. However, it's not all selfishness, as Bilja very, very nicely pointed out. In a nutshell, yes, we might be doing things, like being nice to one anotehr, because in the past (evolutionary past, that is), acting in such a way was beneficial to ourselves in the long run. However, using that evolutionary groundwork as the bases, the conscious creatures that we are, we are now capable of building up on it and being what you'd call "truly altruistic". In short, making others feel good makes us feel good, and we don't even need to start with a premeditated intent of making ourselves feel good. We make others feel good for the sake of it; if it feels good to us in the process, then that's a welcome bonus. Bilja didn't put it in these exact words (and hells, I so can't remember how, exactly, did she put it!), but that would be roughly it.
( And do *you* know your commandments? )As for the rest of the lectures, what they were about and how they went, I believe I could write a small book right here and now. But worry not, I won't. I'll just run through them shortly and say that on the third day, there was a very amusing lab for the teachers on hos to teach the kids the taxonomy in an interesting way. We had fun, both the teachers and the three of us.
As for my own lecture, I must say it didn't go as good as I hoped it would. Oh, it was good all right, and I got good feedback on it, too. (And it was only later on when most of the teachers realized I am only still a student; wonder if they'd listen to what I ahd to ay so patiently ahd they known it beforehand. Actually, methinks they would - aside from the creep and his hopeful "girlfriend", they were really a very nice crowd, them.) So, the lecture itself went down fine, there were some questions later on, too (and I'm proud to report, I answered them all just nicely) - it is me who is not completely satisfied. Look, I only gave that lecture once before, and it was in front of the crowd I knew, and therefore knew their level of knwoledge beforehand. Here, however, I was never sure which parts to gloss over (since people already knew the) and which parts to focus on more. Ah well, it was still good, and it'll be better next time. next tiem, you ask? I'll get to that yet. ;)
But *the* lecture that we'll all remember the most was the last lecture of the day two, given by my buddy Vlada who called me there in the first place. The lecture title was "Why is sex fun?" Oh yes, it was as crazy as the title implies. (laugh) And boy, was that a rollercoster of epic proportions! In short:
( Why yes, it *is* fun, even without the guys )( Breastfeeding... not for girls only )( Birds and bees and digging a deeper ditch - shovels already included in the package )And that just about did it for all of us. No one laughed out loud, but boy, did holding the giggles in hurt! And of course, as soon as the lecture was finally over, there wasn't a single straight face to be seen in Petnica that night.
Wich, predictably, went on and on into the night. Now, this is the part that I really, really *can't* describe, to anyone. You know those times when you're with a great crowd of people (in this case, the three of us, Vlada, another girl I know from the uni and one of the teachers), you slept for maybe three hours in the past 72, you're already laughing your head off and then, somehow, *anythign* that gets said just produces more and more laughter, be it really funny (and most of the time it *was*) or not. Like... being drunk or high or both but without so much as touching either pot or alcohol. All right, and now imagine *that* going on from 11 in the evening to 5-6 in the morning. What else can I say? Endorphine *is* the best drugs in existance! Even now, a week later, I am still bursting with giggles by merely remembering the whole thing.
( Yes, I *am* crazy, why do you ask? )And... Vlada mentioned I just might want to give that same (or similar, or some otehr) lecture to the kids in Petnica later this summer, too. That's ywet to be determined, of course, but the mere thought of going back there agin makes me tingly all over. Yeah, I love that place, the atmosphere, the enthusiasm, the everything - Can you tell?
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sleepy
dorky
awake
pissed off
bouncy
