The Gates of Amenta

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

you might be aware of the gene OR6A2 which, when expressed, makes “the aldehyde part of cilantro” taste like soap. there’s another one associated with broccoli. here’s a 2008 NPR article on the subject. we were very aware of it in high school Introduction to Biotechnology bc our teacher got us little test strips with one of those specific chemicals on them, and yep,

some students said soap, some students said nope.

no penalty for either side, obviously, bc the point was to be precise about your answer because we were about to test our own DNA (AWESOME) for the presence of one of the markers that controls soaptaste.

this was going to be awesome.

we had all learned muchly about DNA structure and gel electrophoresis and things and this was the big application step: hypothesize about your family members, yourself, and learn something about your internal code!!! cool!!!!!

so, to do gel electrophoresis, you need to put the whole setup in a warm bath with this protein which snips apart the DNA in specific places. DNA is magnetic, and the strands of different lengths are dragged with magnetic fields through the gel, with longer pieces being dragged more-strongly (which translates to distance traveled in the gel).

the company who gave our school the proteins fucked them up.

everyone’s results were ruined.

the whole class, indiscriminately.

so wha happened ?

teacher was honest with us, fast: turns out the only way you can know the protein supply broke for sure on tight school time is to test it on all the students :( sorry guys. so, this was an incredible opportunity to teach us the following science concept:

you can finish your report if part of the process broke.

she had us describe exactly what we saw (sad busted gels) and carefully write in our lab notebooks what we expected and what must have gone wrong and why. there were control bands that no one saw because the snipping didn’t occur, which means … this.

and then it was over. students got points just like normal, for writing out the process thoroughly.

you gotta understand how pissed i was that i couldn’t know my results—this was the coolest shit in our schedule, using our own DNA—but now i’m realizing the sense of safety i was gifted in that class. that was a good teacher, being honest about the circumstances, thinking on her feet, and teaching us how to own a failure. that’s some life knowledge. that’s some SCIENCE.

⠀

i really liked shaking the micropipettes. they have this perfect weight distribution for shakey shakey shakey by the wrist.

Me: I am literally just doing my job. Everyone else is slacking off.

invisible

never explained

always a different size

you have to guess the size

Media: We put some petty drama in front of a camera and exaggerated the mistakes of strangers so you can be amazed at their behaviour