Sensemaking through comparison

There was an OpEd article in the New York Times a while ago. It portrays the contrasts in decision making, attitudes, and actions between the treatment of military and schools in the U.S. Here is the link to the article.

I found the comparison to be a powerful reminder for all of us especially why we blame teachers on school failures.

Here is an interesting quote from the story:

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.

And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.

Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

Three powerful stories of science, ethics, moral, and humanity

I am reading a book with a title "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot. I want to share three human stories from this book. Let's start with the first story of John Moore.

At the age of thirty-one, John Moore had hairy-cell leukemia, which is a rare and deadly cancer that filled his spleen with malignant blood cells. He was treated by a prominent cancer researcher, Dr. David Golde, at UCLA. The doctor removed his spleen and asked him to visit UCLA for follow-up exams. By that time, he already moved to Seattle and he had to fly to L.A. for these appointments. So, he thought about visiting a doctor in Seattle instead of making frequent trips to L.A. This is when the story unfolds.

"When Moore told Golde he wanted to start doing his follow-ups closer to home, Golde offered to pay for the plane tickets and put him up in style at the Beverly Wilshire."

Of course, Moore thinks that is strange. Until one day, a nurse gave him a new consent form to sign. He circled "do" to voluntarily grant the university all rights in his cell line and any other potential product might be developed from his blood or bone marrow. On his next visit, he changed his mind and now he circled "do not". Golde called him twice asking him to come back to change his consent form. They also mailed the form to his home with a sticky note "circle I do".

Moore then sent the form to a lawyer who discovered that Golde has been developing and marketing a cell line called Mo.

Moore said "It was very dehumanizing to be thought of as Mo, to be referred to as Mo in the medical records: Saw Mo today. All of a sudden I was not the person Golde was putting his arm around, I was Mo, I was the cell line, like a piece of meat."

To make a long story short, Moore's cells are valuable because they produce rare proteins that could be used to treat infections and cancer. They also carried a rare virus that can potentially be used to develop vaccine for HIV.

Moore's case went up to the Supreme Court of California. At the end, he lost his case. The Supreme Court argued that "when tissues are removed from your body, with or without your consent, any claim you might have had to owning them vanishes. When you leave tissues in a doctor's office or a lab, you abandon them as a waste, any anyone can take your garbage and sell it."

Do we need to take advantage of people for the advancement of science?

Unfair by Shel Silverstein

They don't allow pets in this apartment.
That's not decent, that's not fair.
They don't allow pets in this apartment.
They don't listen, they don't care.
I told them he's quiet and never does bark,
I told them he'd do all his stuff in the park,
I told them he's cuddly and friendly, and yet --
They won' allow pets.