Lesson for a New Momma

Symbiosis,” I told the class of semi-attentive 6^th grade students,” “is to creatures living together in a close relationship. At least one member of the relationship benefits.”

Three girls in the front row nodded. The boy in the back twisted in his chair to grimace at a friend across the room. I paused, and stared at him until he sheepishly turned around.

“There are three types of symbiosis,” I continued after ensuring that I had his gaze if not his attention. “Mutualism, commensalisms,and parasitism. In a mutualism both members of the relationship benefit. Sea anemone and clown fish have this sort of relationship.”

“A clownfish like Nemo?”

“Like Nemo.”

The class then began citing quotes from the Pixar film, but I eventually found my way back to the lesson.

“When creatures are in commensalisms, one creature benefits, but the other is neither harmed nor benefited from the relationship. He’s indifferent. In the last type of symbiosis, parasitism, one creature is harmed while the other is benefited. Then we launched into contemplations of ticks, fleas, tapeworms and other such organisms.

I wanted to ensure that students remembered the concept, so I decided to give them a couple of examples from my own life. “My husband is reconstructing one of our bathrooms and repairing our aging house. In return, I prepare dinner and maintain the housework. We both enjoy a tasty meal and a newly renovated home. This is a mutualism.”

A boy raises his hand. “My dad says that once you get married, you don’t have time for fun anymore. Your wife is always asking you to repair this or that.”

I smiled and thought, “It’s not marriage that absorbs your leisure, it’s homeownership.”

Then I rubbed my blossoming, kicking belly and continued with my examples. “Sometimes, I jestingly tell my husband that being pregnant is like having a parasite. I am providing nourishment and a comfortable incubation site for a creature that is sapping my energy, changing my appearance and consuming approximately half of my meals. The baby benefits, but in some ways I am harmed – or at least not entirely benefited by the relationship.

“Now I want you each to write down an example of a mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism. Some of your examples can be human ones, like mine, but at least one must be based on nature.”

When I read the students’ assignments a few days later, I was amazed at how revealing they were. Here are some memorable responses:

Parasitism: My sister borrows my CDs and scratches them. She never lets me borrow any of hers.

I share my shoes with my cousin and she borrows my clothes. That’s a mutualism.

Every Friday night, my family eats pasta. Everyone in my family likes pasta but me. They are benefited and I am harmed. This is a parasitism.

Then two responses made me pause.

Mutualism: My mother makes dinner, cleans the house and washes the dishes. In return, she gets us.

An example of a mutualism is a pregnant mother. She provides the baby food and a comfortable place to sleep. Then she gets to have a baby!

I wondered if these students missed the concept of a mutualism. The relationships they described seemed nearly parasitic. What were the students giving their mothers in return for their labors? Where was the mutual benefit?

As I ponder their responses, I realize they my students had perceived a truth that I had not. Children are a blessing and a benefit.

Even when considered from a strictly economic viewpoint, children are a worthwhile investment. My in-laws have saved little money for retirement, but they have reared eight children who love and respect them. None of my sisters or brothers-in-law would consider allowing their parents to suffer deprivation, and thus, they have a more secure future than many with 401K’s and saving bonds. My husband’s parents will not be need to worry about their future, even if the economy collapses, inflations rises to just a point that a loaf of bread costs $500 and Mexican crime lords overrun the White House. Their children will care for them.

Yet, children are a blessing in many less quantifiable ways. For example, children teach you to give, explains Anne Lamott in her delightfully human book about writing, Bird by Bird. Lamott says that both writing and raising a three-year-old “teach you to get out of yourself and become a better person for someone else. This is probably the secret to happiness. … Your child and your work hold you hostage, treat you like dirt, and then you discover that they have given you that gold nugget you were looking for all along.”

Christians call it edification. The painful stretching of oneself into become a more humble, loving, beautiful soul. That gift of stretching and the opportunity to serve more and more selflessly is the benefit of being a mother.

I drew a smile beside my students’ answers. Yes, the mother-child relationship is a mutualism, not a parasitism.

Player Piano

Book Reflection

At my husband's recommendation, I read Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano. Perhaps one of the most striking things about this 1952 tale of dystopia is how it seems to embody some of the ideals of the agrarian author Wendell Berry.

In his crisp, succinct language, Vonnegut describes the hollowness experienced by those living entirely dependent on machinery. The common man has only two career options available: to join the army or to join the reconstruction corps. Both offer only mundane tasks that cannot provide satisfaction to the worker. Their work serves little more purpose than to prevent loitering and looting. They have no true need for work as much of their needs are computed by machines and then manufactured by other machines. They have readily available any thing they desire - as long as what they desire can be massed produced. They have achieved what Wendell Berry calls in his essay Feminism, the Body and the Machine, "the higher aims of technological progress," which he defines as money and ease. Although surrounded by money and ease the people of Vonnegut's tale find little satisfaction. They cannot find a place or purpose for themselves.

Vonnegut suggests that the common man has accepted innovation without consideration -- a thing Berry cautions again. In Feminism, the Body and the Machine, Berry says "The question of the desirability of adopting any technological innovation is a question with two possible answers - not one, as has been commonly assumed. If one's motives are money, ease, and haste to arrive in a technologically determined future, then the answer is foregone, and there is, in fact, no question, and no thought. If one's motives is the love of family, community, country and God, then one will have to think, and one may have to decide that a proposed innovation is undesirable."

In Player Piano, man's blind acceptance of technology resulted in his slavery. Machines became more efficient and precise than men and eventually supplanted men. Not only could the machine perform the task more rapidly and with fewer errors, it did not require lunch breaks, bathrooms, or coffee. The machine was the ideal slave. But by being so, it enslaved man. "Any one who competes with slaves becomes a slave," writes Vonnegut. Man could not achieve the iron perfection of the machinery and thus were subjected to fruitless, menial tasks.

The idea of being enslaved by machines - and by the mass-produced efficiency they provided - is repeated throughout the novel. It's particularly evident when the Shah of Bratpuhr tours America's grand mechanized society. Much to the exasperation of his host, the Shah insists on referring to all common Americans as slaves. Rather than refuting his opinion, the Shah's visit reinforces his view of man provided for by machines and engineers as slaves. Their status being determined solely based on their IQ and a college degree. Those with intelligence and appropriate lineage were admitted into colleges and eventually became part of the higher class - those of managers and engineers. Those who were not able to earn degrees were condemned to a position of slavery.

Vonnegut's book cries for modern man - whether it's the man of the 1950s or of 2010 - to carefully consider technology before accepting it. Not all innovations, his story warns, leads to joy. There is a danger in pursuing only ease, money and efficiency.

Book Review in Brief:

In his first novel, Kurt Vonnegut creates a society where the majority of work is completed by machines. The elite rulers are either engineers or managers responsible for the machines and the common man is left without a role. Readers follow engineer Dr. Paul Proteus as he learns of the unintended consequences caused by this society.

While Vonnegut's tale occasionally displays its age, it also provides plenty of fodder for our current generation to consider. His commentary on technology, the role of man, and life in general remain fresh.

In conclusion, I would recommend reading this book, but I would not place it amongst my top 10 favorites.

Summer sunshine

Ahh... Summer vacation. Students have crammed for exams, waited with eagerness to hear the results of their study and have now left the school for three months of bliss and boredom.

Those same three months promise much bliss and little boredom for me. I plan to devote the cool morning hours to my herb and vegetable garden. The sweltering sunshine that bathes our yard gives great cheer to my most crop of tomatoes. The broccoli raab, however, has bloomed, overgrown its allotted foot of garden space and now shall be uprooted and supplanted by seeds for a fall crop. My arugula will suffer a similar fate, after its blooms have seeded and fallen.

My afternoons will be spent preparing the baby's room, organizing the house, and, of course, reading. I hope to have all things in order before my life changes. After the baby's arrival, I doubt there will be time to scrub or sew.

So, my summer is divided into two: The first month and a half will be devoted to cleaning and preparation. Then - at some unknowable time - it will transition to diapers and midnight feedings. A veil seems drawn over this second half. Hints and illusions to what changes I will undergo can be gleaned from those who have already passed into motherhood, but I, a mother-in-waiting, can only imagine what awaits me. Just as I know the general shape of my child - one head, two arms, two legs, 10 toes - I know the general shape of my life as a mother. The particulars of both are hidden to me. My baby's gender remains a mystery, as does his eye color and personality. My own personality as a mother has not yet been revealed, but shall be soon.

Plant Murderer

I'm a future plant killer. The plants are still alive, but their lives are jeopardized. The bunny instigated my crime. I had two rows of peas, approaching 4 inches in height, beautifully beginning their upwards climb, when an herbivore of an unknown identity snipped the pea shoots short. I wept. Then I built a fence and staked it into the ground, hoping to rabbit (or deer) proof my precious vegetable patch.

As consolation, I also planted my tomato, pepper, and melon seedlings. After all, it's almost May and in May we have a no frost date. However, today has been cool and tomorrow looks chilly. My poor little summer-loving seedlings may not survive, because I desperately wanted plants in my garden.

For the past four weeks, I have owned a hive of bees. They are a fascinating family of workers. I love watching them hover and land on the opening of the hive, but I fear for them too. Saturday, I inspected the hive and found more tall, oval cells than I care. These cells, I discovered nurture a larval drone, the male bee. In the bee world, men provide moral and mating for the queen bee, but little else. The sterile female workers run the hive, make the honey, tend the young and guard the home. The solitary queen bee's responsibility is to lay eggs, lots of eggs, preferably worker eggs. After seeing the large number of drone cells, I began reading about bee eggs and larva. I believe my queen is laying drones because she is working with material from a hive that collapsed. As a last desperate attempt to save the hive, the sterile workers will lay eggs, but all of their eggs are drones. Thus, the comb my queen is working on is filled iwth cells perfect for laying drones - not workers. (Drones eggs are laid in cells of a slightly different shape than worker.) Hopefully, Queen Meli will lay enough female eggs to have a work force sufficient for this summer's nectar flow!

"Total Truth"

I attended a small Evangelical high school that emhasized the differences between the secular and the sacred. Things belonging to the secular realm could not be considered holy - no matter what the thing was - music, books, and movies. If we were caught with certain albums, we would be given a lunchtime detention. The school seemed bent on building a hedge around its students to prevent possible contamination by the secular.

The same hedge applied to colleges and careers. Students were occasionally discouraged from pursuing any scientific career beyond that of medicine. Medicine could be useful in missions, but science, especially basic science, was a doorway to atheism.

According to Nancy Pearcey, my high school was the offspring a long philosophical and historical tradition of sequestering Christians to arenas strictly designated as religious and silencing them in all other forums. The process of separating religion and the material world began with Aristotle, but was eventually embraced by Evangelicals as a means of protecting themselves and furthering their messages. But in exchange for increasing the number of adherers, Evangelicals lost their relevance to the daily lives of their members. Pearcey's book, Total Truth, aims to do "nothing less than to liberate Christianity for its cultural captivity, unleashing its power to transform the world," she writes.

Nancy Pearcey writes in the tradition of her former teacher and prominent Christian philosopher, Francis Schaeffer. As her predecessor did, Pearcey addresses the artificial gap between reason and faith. Modern people have divided their world into two categories: the tangible world, which they consider to be real and reasonable, and the world of emotions, faith and the supernatural, which is considered to be fantasy and unreasonable. All things is separated into the quantifiable and the qualitative. The quantifiable is unarguably true, but the qualitative depends on preference and experience.

In his books, Schaeffer shows how the chasm between the material and immaterial began in philosophy and then spread into the arts until it finally became absorbed into modern thought. Pearcey also address the philosophical roots of the divide, but once she has established the roots of the divide, Pearcey's book branches into new territory -- science and the history of the church.

The most interesting portion of Pearcey's book was the three chapters on Darwinism and naturalism. Pearcey argues that whoever defines the Creation story also defines humanity. Thus, according to the Darwinist view, humans are solely the products of competition and natural selection. A human's primary goal in life should be to procreate and to outmaneuver all other humans. Any altruistic actions arise from his selfish desires to ensure the survival of his own species. Emotions, also interpreted in the light of Darwinism, take on a bleak appearance. Feelings are strictly biochemical reactions developed to ensure survival. Love is the desire to reproduce and to have a companion in trials. Religion is simply an adaptation humans developed to give themselves meaning and to provide a foundation for morals.

Today's overwhelming emphasis on religious tolerance is derived from the Darwinian perspective. Religion has no meaning outside of what the worshiper ascribes to it. Thus, any argument over religion is fruitless, because religion itself is void of purpose.

However, the Darwinist mindset cannot be applied practically. No one truly believes that the emotion he feels for his wife is simply a desire to procreate and the security derived from having a companion. Something deeper, richer than lust is occurring. When a woman is raped, or a man brutally murdered, we know something wrong has happened -- something greater than our societal norms has been violated. When we encounter beauty, we sense the sublime and we stand awed and worshipful.

Humans have innate desire to worship and a longing for meaning beyond that of survival. I once lived with a girl who intellectually subscribed to evolution as the beginning of life, but when something disrupting occurred to her, she would recite, "There's a reason for everything." Reason implies a reasoner. When confronted with difficulty, my atheist roommate became a deist.

Darwinism fails, in part, because it cannot be lived out. In the Bible, God says He has written his law on our hearts (Romans 2). While modern man has tried to diminish the effect of this internal law by calling morals a matter of preference and societal training, in times of crisis, man knows this to be a lie.

Rather than a lure away for the Creator, I have found science to be a window into God's mind. The intricacy and harmony of the material world points to an intelligent and powerful Creator. The cell buzzes with tiny machines that each work in unison to support life. Each machine relies on the others and on the parts that constitute it in order to operate. When viewing a collection of blood cells, my ex-Catholic art professors exclaimed, "How can you deny there is a God?" It's beautiful. But that beauty does not enhance its survival, nor does it seem to obey the laws of natural selection.

There is no true answer, but that it was designed to praise God.

If the tangible world speaks to God's glory, why should not God have something to say about interpreting that world?

Finally!

I spent much of the first semester agonizing over the grades my seventh grade science class earned. Half the class approached failing on every test and the students were clearly not reviewing the material or ineffectively studying. As a first year, untrained teacher, I was scrambling for a means of helping them. Could I exhort them to study more? Lectures produced few results. Should I remind them that we are uncovering the secrets of the natural world and learning of God in this pursuit? When I did, those students who already performed brilliantly smiled and the apathetic ones wondered what was wrong with me.

Late last semester, my husband suggested that I give the students daily quizzes. These mini-quizzes forces the students to nightly review the material and begin the memorize it days before the test. I have noticed significant improvement in the students' grades thanks to these quizzes. I can also diagnose a difficult topic or notice a struggling student long before test day. Parents could be enlisted to enforce study times and the students will have something pressing to study.

I have also increased the time between giving the material to the students and testing them. I typically have three days of review before a test. On the first day, the students will have a creative project. Last chapter they designed and built models of skeletal joints. This chapter, they are writing a short story, poem or song about their favorite food's journey through their digestive system. The creative work must incorporate all the organs of the digestive system and their functions. I found the writing project to be especially beneficial because my students had to retrieve their notes, review organ functions and then write about the organ functions -- all great ways of apprehending knowledge.

The next day, I have them complete study guide questions in class. I will walk around and help them address various difficulties they might encounter while answering the questions. On the day before the test, we play a review game - often Jeporady or Buzz. I invented buzz as a competition between two teams of students. One student from each team will compete at a time to answer a question posed by me. They are required to "buzz" in by yelling "buzz" before being allowed to answer. The students enjoy the competition and I can gage how much they know.

Blizzard!

Over night, our yard was iced with a thick layer of snow. When we ventured outside, we encountered thigh-deep drifts. On Monday, my husband had purchased a lawn tractor and plow from Craig's List, and today's snowfall gave us an excellent opportunity to test its snow-moving capabilities. It did indeed push snow; however, the snow was deeper than our plow and each portion of our quarter-mile driveway required several passes with the tractor before it was clear. Often, the tractor's wheels would spin furiously unable to find traction, despite the chains that encased them. To provide additional weight, I stood on the back edge of the tractor with my arms draped around my husband as he drove the machine. Between my husband, me, and the baby in belly, we were able to clear much of the drive. I certainly hope that my days of being a ballast are through. My back was sore from the doubled over position I assumed and the jerking I experienced from ramming snowbanks.

After much of our driveway was cleared, I returned inside to bake bread and finish cleaning my home. The bread was scrumptious - it had a good crust and pleasant taste. Best of all, it was a no-knead bread that required minimal effort. Yum.