Do It Yourself government - what I wish I learn in school about democracy (part 1/3)

 I vaguely remember what I learned in primary school about democracy. I do remember the phrase: "the government of the people, by the people, for the people.." That sounds good, but a little too abstract! how do we actually execute it? I also remember something about election and freedom of speech... as "tools" for us, the people, to bring in a good government  and keep it under control.

Too bad, these are the only two tools I (and possibly many other people) got to learn about.

Today, we end up interact with our government only by casting ballots and protesting on the street.

I'm an engineer by training. Whenever I build something for myself, I would like to have a lot of control on the construction process to make sure that I get what I want. After the construction is done and the product is in use,  I would still like to have all these tuning knobs so I can keep tweaking and tuning it to function properly. There may be a few bugs to handle manually.. there may be some changes in usage context to adapt to. If we think of democratic government as something "engineered" by the people, we would hope for such level of controls.

......Unfortunately, that's not what we have.

Right now, we just pick from "a few choices of government" handed to us by someone else during election. Those choices are mostly terrible so we just pick the most bearable one.  Then, once the government in power does not work properly, we don't know what else to do except for expressing our frustration on FB or streets. Rallying political movement takes time, money and charisma which most of us don't have enough. Thus, we join those few "movement leaders" who have more time/money/charisma available. Unfortunately, most of them also have their own political agenda. 

We risk becoming pawns of someone else's political games. We probably know that...but again we have no option.. we just pick the most bearable one.

We have been talking about educating people about democracy..but what should actually be taught?

I think the useful lessons should be less about "how the government work"..and more about "how do we get the government to do what we want" The former is like physic.. the latter is like engineering. 

Sure, it is important know the laws of physic to understand the constraints.. but in the end, it is even more fun to be able to build a gadget that works!

Cynics might say that politicians are way too corrupted beyond repair and there is no way to get them working for our interests. I would argue that, yes, lots of terrible politicians and mafia are out there. Still there are a lot that can be done. We engineers have built an oil platform in the middle of the ocean, a castle on the cliff and space station up the sky. We didn't remove the ocean, flatten the cliff or bring the sky down the ground. That's too difficult. What we did we was to work around the constraints: 1) making good blueprint, 2) studying the landscape carefully, 3) developing tools for specific landscape challenges, 4) experimenting on small scale and gradually building things up. Perhaps, seemingly terrible politics is merely a challenging landscape. With well articulated goals, good understanding of power structures, right political tools and thoughtful experiment, we might be able to get any government to do what we want.

(to be continue)

Teaching tips

After attending ALA session last Saturday, I recalled these two teaching tips I learned over the past years, mostly through mentoring experience at my research lab and STEP. These two tips could be applicable to almost any teaching/mentoring subjects besides leadership and career development.These two tips may be commonsenses for most people but I found very few seriously try to execute them when it comes to teaching.

Tip#1: Between you and your students, begin at the end in mind --and say that out loud. Ask "what's the best case scenario at the end of this?"
      When I decided to join the lab, my adviser and I took a long walk. His first question to me was: what do you wanna get from working with me over the next 5 years? What's the best case scenario at the moment your leave? I found that simple exercise very helpful. I had a tendency of jumping into work and keep working hard without having clear mental model of the end product. It is true that our goals definitely change more or less over time. Nonetheless, I think we need to start from some goals..and at least keeping some goal in mind through out the project.When it comes to "teaching/mentoring", whether the subject is molecular engineering or tennis or leadership, I think it is really important have students say or write down what they wanna get out of this educational session.  Then, you will have to check with them throughout the program and in the end if the students get what they want, if their goals change and how you can help them to get their.
       For  my summer research students and rotation students, we had a 1-1 meeting at the beginning of the the program and maybe every couple weeks when we tried not to discuss low-level technical stuffs (like hey what do you think about that research paper? or how do you get this bacteria growing on that media?) but focus on checking high level goals (how is the lab? are you stilled excited about what you are working on? did you get to learn what you wanna learn? Let's suppose you have to leave next week, what will be the one thing you wanna get done?). For my STEP students, especially last year, I asked them to prepare and present "the final presentation" on the second day of their three week program. I asked on the first day "let's supposed the program will end tomorrow night, what will be the story you wanna tell at the final presentation?" Then, we iterated that process once a week and I'm amazed to see how much they improved by the time they are at their real final presentation. In the past, students had problem focusing..there are so many interesting things..so many possibilities along with associated challenges. Somehow this simple trick helped them focus.

Tip#2. Give short homework often.
     When you teach someone skills, you would hope that the person can eventually use that skill by himself, in the absence of you. That's why homework is important. Homework differs from in-class exercise in that it should be done in the absence of the instructor, TA or other class room setting where the students first learn the the skill.Whether you teach your students about how to fry egg or about how to be an active listener, ask them to try that at home and then report back to you on the next day. Good homework should be short to make it is more likely to be completed. Having someone complete a small task (that he couldn't do before) in the absence of you, the instructor, is a great way to build his confidence. When students report back to you, ask them about what they found difficult about that homework..and then craft the next homework to address that point.


 






 

F*ck the system & focus on your success

Yes, I got this kind of question pretty often: "how do we educate our students better?"

...and yes, every time we discussed this topic, we ended up talking about students with bad life attitudes...talking about students lacking EQ... talking about students looking for well-paid jobs, rather than pursuing their passions or giving back to the society.

...and then we talked about training better teachers..making better environment in school & university....reducing bureaucracy.. .giving more money and freedom to talented scholars...
....Yes, we all agree on that.

..then, we go back our work, knowing that the system's not gonna change the way we want it to be.

Recently I interacted with quite a few friends, both Thai and non-Thai, who are passionate about tackling education problems. These folks are really serious and they do "build" things...organizing camps, teaching workshops, starting schools, tutoring online, writing books, making app, pushing policies, etc. I have a lot of respect for them. While the success of their approaches remain to be proven, at least they take actions...rather than sitting around and complaining. I'm honored to them as friends.

For my part, I have my own little agenda too...regarding education.
I called it a "megalomaniac approach."
The idea is simple: I will try to make students growing up wanting to be like..ME
(..yeah, see? that's why I call it a megalomaniac approach).
        I think it's much easier for me to first, of course, focusing on my own success..which I did have some decent track record...but there is a lot more to do. And, of course, the word success for me is not limited to academic and career..but also include all other aspects of life...financial security, health, community, etc...all aspects allow a person to live a happy life and share that happiness with people around him. I take this mission to "live a happy life" as an experiment..with myself as a guinea pig. Rather than debating over the philosophy of happiness and meaning of life, why don't experiment on different ways to have one? Of course, sometimes I succeed..sometimes I failed..but that's the nature of experiment..any experiment.. in the lab or in real life..hopefully we learned something about it.
        Then, there is a storytelling component...by words..and by actions. The point is I MUST appear to be really really AWESOME.in front of my students..(yes, many people will oppose this thinking that it's another pompous megalomaniac attitude I have). No matter how successful I am... no matter how much I have learned (and willing to share) about my recipe of success.., unless I look 'cool' enough..no one will care and no one will benefit from my personal success. No, I'm not talking about going around bragging about achievement..that's a stupid way to present success. One tip I learned over the past year was to tell plain stories..with great excitement...stories about really cool works I do..stories about great friends and colleagues I have....I don't have to mention any trophy..I don't have to use big words describing my codes of ethics.... just plain stories..with great excitement.
         So, who are my students? I'm not a professor yet ...and I don't have a school or workshops..yet. I think we all students and teachers of one another in everyday life. We're inspired and learned from those we interact with..through work, social gathering or other random activities. If whatever I do inspire or teach anyone around me..if my excitement and positive energy lit up anyone curiosity and passion ..even just a little bit....I counted that as a one small step of my educational achievement...and I do try to meet more people. I think I have quite a few good stories to share.
        For me, the best model of education is a small group of people..with a least one inspirational individual.
        I think our educational system is in a pretty bad shape now..and it's not going to change soon.
        My plan is: f*ck the system, focus personal success...
        ...and inspire other to do the same.


   












  

Grad student life

Except for a pressure to publish & graduate, I really like my job(s) these days. 

I'm in the lab roughly seven days a week. Of course, I'm not working at the bench every single minute. It's kinda like back and forth between office and bench; I'm mostly at the office actually, reading/documenting stuff, listening to music, sketching out random ideas. I'm pretty lucky that most of what I do don't require that much time to set up and implement ..and also don't cost that much relative to the lab budget. To be honest, many experiments I ran just because I'm curious to see what happen (oh, yeah my advisor has to remind me from time to time to stay focus). When things don't work, I joked about it with folks in the lab; when things do work..well, we celebrate. Early in the morning, late evening and weekend are my favorite time in the lab, actually. It's so quiet..the building (Y2E2) is locked..I can sit, lay down, roll around anywhere..any meeting rooms..any whiteboard..any table any couch ..from the basement to the third floor. Let imagination go wild.

 

Surreal week & amazing people - Part 4

Wednesday Nov 14th

   By the time I returned to Palo Alto Tuesday night, I got an email reminder from SynBioBeta (synthetic biology startup conference). The conference was just 20 minutes away from my home..that's not a problem.
The problem is..I got another email..reminding me that I have signed up (months ago)..for an investor pitch session.

Oh shit!
"I don't have any synthetic biology business to pitch," I told the organizer.
"That's ok..you can just pitch whatever idea you think interesting," he replied.

...so, I pitched.

"Alright, guys..I'm not gonna talk about businesses.. I'm gonna talk about market opportunity for you guys..".. and I talked about molecular cost&speed problems for molecular biologists in Thailand....and that these biologists could be (overlooked) early adopters of many technologies developed by new companies in that conference room..
(* you can read more elaborate version of this idea in my earlier posts.)

During the break, two guys came talk to me.
The first one was a founder of Desktop Genetic, a startup in London working on cheap DNA oligo printing..now interested in providing their DNA printers to lab in developing country.
The second one, even more interesting, is guy from Biocurious,
"I wanna move to Asia and start a private biohacker lab there," he told me.
He's probably around 40-50 year old, used to be a software developer. The company he founded, back in 1990s, was among the first that make video streamline possible on internet. He sold his company four years ago ..he didn't say for how much ..but apparently, he doesn't have to work anymore. He traveled around the world for three years..been to several southeast Asian countries like them a lot. He learned molecular biology for fun at Biocurious starting less than a year ago. He also told me about his spirulina project at Biocurious.
"..seems like a lot of interesting papers came out from Thailand," he mentioned.
"..oh yeah.. I knew these people.I gave a talk at their university last December." I said.
"Great! we should talk more; do you have a card?" he said.
  
..I handed him my business card. He looked at it and said,

"Oh, you're the bike rental guy from Endy lab! I called you couple weeks ago for bikes!"

Surreal week & amazing people - Part 3

Sunday Nov 11-Tue Nov 13

"So, what's in the box?" I asked.
"Our gizmo... Spherical drive system..you know, like the wheel of Batman' motorcycle," the guy sitting next to me answer. His friend opened the box showing a weird looking wheel entangled with power cords and wires.
"..it took us sometime at the airport check point to explain that this is not a bomb"
I was in the Limo bus from the Washington Dallas airport to the hotel. Sitting next to me were three undergrads..one Chinese, one Indian, one Russian. They were one of CIC finalists from San Jose State U.

      For nearly 20 years, an organization called Invent Now put together CIC..a national competition of student inventors across the US. This year there were seven teams of undergrads and seven teams of grads selected for the final round judging at USPTO in Virginia. The "inventions" can be anything..from biotech..to electronic..to medical device..to robot...to aviation control systems. I and my colleague in the lab were lucky enough to in the final round..(for our work in DNA data storage..I'll talk about that in the blog sometime)..it was really an eye opening experience just to interact with these folks from totally different research areas. I'm also very surprised that we made it to this round given that almost all other contestants have taken their works very far toward application: a Turkish guy from UCSD already patented his drug delivery system..and raised money to start a company around it, a Egyptian guy from Wynes State U already got interest from GM for putting his autonomous combustion devices to automobile. .. Well, I'm still debugging these E.coli in the lab.
     The judging session was one Monday. Each team needed to present their work to the judge panel..it was a close room..with one big TV screen..the team and the panel..an the camera man...no one else (that gave me the same feeling as Qual). Most of the judges, for grad and undergrad sections, are "distinguished senior inventors"..well, I can't think of any more fancy words for that...We had Dr.Fogarty (inventing balloon catheter), Dr.Hoff (inventing first Intel CPU), Dr.Langer Keck (inventing fiber optic)..Dr.West (inventing electret microphone)..Dr.Sasson (inventing digital camera)..Mr.Starkweather (inventing laser printer) ..etc...What impressed me even more was how carefree these people are.. After judging session, we all went out for dinner together..contestants and judges. On the bus and around dinning table, we chatted random stuff and joked around.. Without reading their Bio, I wouldn't be able to imagine these funny grandpas & uncles were among the greatest inventors of our times.
     We had a ceremony on Tuesday at Newseum in D.C., host by NPR's Neal Conan. ....and yes, we did had a round table chat with Dr. Holdren (Obama's science advisor) at the Whitehouse.

    I did't get a medal...well but that CIC trip was one of a lifetime experience.

Surreal week & amazing people - Part2

Saturday Nov 10th,
     I had three bikes to pick up: one from Creeside hotel next to my home, one at Arastradero apartment, one from at a house in Palo Alto. I walked to get the first one, stop-by to get the second one on my way to lab, and picked up the third one on my way back from lab. Besides lab and bike, I had a script to write for CIC and an MV appointment with Dusit. I'll talk about CIC in the next post.
     So, as many of you know, I have a youtube channel..with hundreds of random videos of me..playing guitar, giving a talk, acting, snowboarding, cooking...etc. The channel has nearly 20,000 view each month..mostly thank to a controversial political speech of a famous Thai actor I impersonated. I got pretty decent amount of  views from playing guitar/singing..but to get good viewer comments/rating, I need help from guest singers.
     Dusit has a deep & sexy voice according to many friends...also a serious singer..performing all Stanford Thai events as far as I remember and..actually went to the Star audition once. .this guy is available almost 100% of the time I called him out for singing.
      I stopped by Dusit's dorm that evening after finishing up CIC presentation script. There was a party next door from the music room..people were walking by and wondering wat-da-fak there two Asian guys were doing ..it 's difficult because we had a flip camera..but not tripod.. we put it on the piano..the field of view was narrow and the microphone was not perfect so we really need to find the perfect angle to be in the frame...and maximize voice quality. Oh by the way, we also wanna make sure that we look and smile at the camera most of the time. We worked on BeeGee's "How deep is your love."
      The final clip came out ok.. I think.