The Alchemy of a Great Teacher

What makes a great teacher? I recently took some coding classes at the local public library. As a bonus, I observed at close hand the essential qualities of a great teacher.

For the past two years, I've thought, "I need to learn coding". After all, there is positively a dictum these days that the illiterates of the 21st century are those who can't code. Even Michael Bloomberg says so.

There are so many online coding courses. Yet I never progressed beyond wishful thinking. Why? I was intimidated by it. I'd think, "People spend years at specialized schools to become computer engineers and web designers. The learning curve teeters ahead of me at an impossible angle. There's no way I can even get started".

I decided I needed to get over my inhibitions and just plunge into it. In that spirit, I enrolled at the free coding classes available to the local public library. Suffice it to say, it wasn't easy for me to sign up. I spent the past weekend at the local library. Four classes over the two days. Enter Carlos Paz, a great teacher. 

HTML, CSS, Javascript. I cannot think of a more uninspiring, dehydrated word salad. Carlos Paz. Warm, collegial, collaborative, accommodating, easygoing, and endlessly patient. These qualities exemplified Carlos, our teacher. He made these dry subjects accessible and non-threatening to all of us students. The notion that we were all learning together, even he. Explain to demystify. Explain again to demystify. Creating an atmosphere of trust and comfort. The unspoken assertion, "Don't worry. I'm here to make sure you don't fall (fail)". As our classes progressed, I saw how each and every student came out of their shell, participating actively in the exercises, asking questions, helping each other out. Everyone. The older woman, owner of a flower shop. The older retired gentleman. The young career woman. The D-I-Y immigrant with English as a second language. Different ages, different educational backgrounds, different work experiences. None of these differences mattered. In short, Carlos actively and mindfully created and sustained over those two days the methods necessary to empower each student in taking charge of their own learning process. Non-threatening! I saw how important it is to be non-threatening to be a good, nay great teacher.

Sure, we were a small group of motivated individuals, self-selected by our commitment to learn coding. As a scientist, I'm aware of the caveat while singing the praises of this particular teacher. The caveat of how to motivate the unmotivated student. Nevertheless, surely some essential clues to the alchemy of a great teacher lie in simply carefully analyzing and cataloging the teaching process of great teachers like Carlos Paz? Policy makers, politicians and education tsars endlessly argue and pontificate how a great education system needs great teachers. We already have the key. How do great teachers like Carlos Paz teach? How do mediocre and average teachers teach? Compare and contrast. Then select and/or train more Carlos Paz'. Because of Carlos, I'm no longer intimidated by coding. Ah, the alchemy of a great teacher!

https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/The-Alchemy-of-a-Great-Teacher

Exchanges that engender value

Last week, I went to my car mechanic for routine car maintenance. Pablo has a hole-in-the-wall auto repair shop specializing in Japanese cars. He doesn't overcharge, and is direct and no-nonsense. Three years and counting, I've visited Pablo about twice a year. Each time, I look for improvements or expansions to his business. The immigrant in me wishes this immigrant to succeed. This time, he had expanded to an additional bay and had a spanking new bank of tool drawers along one wall. "Pablo's business must be improving", I think to myself.

Maintenance done, we head upstairs to his office for the paperwork. Pablo's new business cards draw my eyes, a bright pop of color in the otherwise drab and functional office. Paperwork done, as I get up to leave, Pablo says his new business cards have helped drive new customers his way, and it's thanks to me.

Here's what happened. The previous time I visited Pablo, I told him his business cards were ugly, dreary and unwelcoming. I suggested he try a brighter and more welcoming look. I guess I communicated my message well enough that Pablo told his wife who took a closer look at those business cards, agreed with me, and set about designing the newer, brighter ones. Pablo says he used to hand out his old business cards wherever he went. Nothing much came of that. Not so with the new cards. People remember them and comment about them, he says. Apparently, even business started to improve after he switched to the new business cards. In fact, Pablo was positively effusive in saying so.

Pablo's old business card

Pablo's new business card

I didn't design Pablo's new business cards. His wife did. I merely told him his old ones were ugly. A customer offers constructive criticism, the business owner considers it seriously and acts on it, business improves. No big deal, right? Not so and here's why. This equation could have worked out quite differently. Pablo, the business owner, could have ignored the criticism or he could have taken it to heart. Taken it to heart the wrong way! What about the other end of this equation? Pablo says none of his other customers ever commented about his old business cards even though he asks for frank feedback about his business. Why didn't his other customers comment about Pablo's old business cards? Of course, there isn't such a thing as universal aesthetics but surely, given the outcome, I wasn't the only one to find the old cards uninspiring? What else? Apathy, undue burden, indifference, shyness? We won't know for certain, shall we? Yet what a loss of opportunity to build an enduring connection with another by engendering value! Here, both ends of the equation worked in sync, giving both satisfaction. Thankfully, when I trusted my instincts about Pablo and gave him my input, it paid off. Yet did I not take risk in giving my input in the first place?

In our relatively short journey on this planet, we could choose to exist on the narrow and reflexive or we could choose to take some risks, risks that focus on engendering value. Sometimes our seeds may fall on the wrong soil or may get planted at the wrong time. That is part of the risk. Yet, if we are to have a cumulative experience of gratifying exchanges, we need to take those risks, big and small. My experience teaches me what I gain from taking those risks is more meaningful than what I lose. Gains encompass better relationships, better judgment, greater self-confidence, a honing of the instincts; the loss is usually merely some measure of vanity.

http://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Exchanges-that-engender-value

Choosing to create value, a life-enriching habit

March 2013. My pregnant research assistant, Nithya, is in her 3rd trimester. It's time to organize the baby shower. I search for baby shower cake ideas and choose this one.

Who but my local cake supplier, Lacomka Bakery and Deli. Russian food., could make this cake!

March 2014. My valued research assistant heads for greener pastures. The night before the move, while feverishly finishing packing, she finds time to make a Shadow box of something that had become quite precious to her. The icing decorations from her baby shower cake. Precious because she carefully collected them after the baby shower, took them back to the bakery and got them glazed to preserve them.

The bakery owner's daughter-in-law, Alena, decorates cakes most beautifully. Her joy in her work emanates right through the photo. How fortunate to have such talent for creating beautiful things!

By now you might be wondering where this story is headed. Patience!

This isn't a story about baby showers and cake decorations after all. Rather it's a story about choices. Choices made by each person involved in this story led to something of lasting value.

At every step, a choice.

I could have bought an off-the-shelf cake from a supermarket. I didn't. With the baby shower, I wanted to create a memorable event for Nithya. I searched and found an idea for the baby shower cake that resonated with me. I chose someone with the talent to realize the idea for the cake.

Alena could have "phoned it in". Instead by choosing to exercise her unique innate talent, she imbued the cake with an indelible quality.

I gave the cake to Nithya whom I appreciate dearly. As usually happens when parties end, the icing could have wound up in the trash. Instead, Nithya chose to preserve the icing to commemorate the celebration of her child's birth. Doing so, she imbued the icing with a lasting value.

Any life is but a collection of habits, and I've learned to appreciate the particular joy that comes from choosing the habit of creating value. How fortunate then that the three people mentioned here each chose to create value. Long live the contents of that Shadow box! In their creation intersected the lives of three women, and through them, their lives will remain forever intertwined, celebrating the beginning of another life.

http://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Choosing-to-create-value-a-life-enriching-habit

Our appendix: expendable no more. An allegory that scientific ideas reflect the culture* of their times.

Textbooks teach us our appendix is a vestigial organ. Charles Darwin (1871, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex) concluded that our appendix must be an evolutionary remnant from a primate ancestor that ate leaves.

I never thought to question received wisdom about our appendix until 2007 when I read a Journal of Theoretical Biology in-press article Biofilms in the large bowel suggest an apparent function of the human vermiform appendix proposing that our appendix is not vestigial but has an important immune function in maintaining symbiotic gut bacteria. Let's systematically consider what William Parker and colleagues at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina propose and how our appendix could function immunologically.

Our appendix has a narrow lumen and is located at the lower end of the cecum. As Bollinger et al's figure above shows, anatomy and location suggest that our appendix could selectively harbor beneficial microbes and prevent their contamination from potential pathogens in the fecal stream. Further, our appendix is rich in lymphoid tissue (Gut-Associated Lymphoid Tissue; GALT) and thereby rich in IgA and mucin. Bollinger et al show that IgA and mucin in turn provide a rich milieu that supports mutualistic biofilms of beneficial microbes. Bollinger et al propose that our appendix is optimally located and structured for maintaining gut bacteria in a protected manner from peristalsis-propelled expulsion.

As Laurin et al propose in the figure above (The Cecal Appendix: One More Immune Component With a Function Disturbed By Post-Industrial Culture), when infected, the gut uses diarrhea to purge the infection. Unfortunately, this eliminates beneficial microbes as well. They propose that during such purges, location and anatomy protect appendix-associated microbiota that are then ideally positioned to re-inoculate back into the now microbe-depleted colon. This theory ingeniously accounts for anatomy, position and physiology in proposing this novel function. Each aspect of our appendix considered in such fashion lends plausibility to the theory.

Another striking aspect of this story? Journal of Theoretical Biology and The Anatomical Record, respectable scientific publications though they may be, are not the journals an immunologist would likely think of when asked to list top-tier immunology journals. That honor goes to journals like Nature, Science, Nature Immunology, Immunity, The Journal of Experimental Medicine and their ilk. Yet this remarkably plausible theory did not originate on their august pages. As Anton Ego indelibly points out in the Pixar animated film Ratatouille (film), "Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere". This theory published in a relatively low profile journal was even considered plausible enough to attract the attention (Your Appendix Could Save Your Life | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network) of a major popular scientific magazine, Scientific American.

Even with her giddy extravaganza, Nature is purpose-driven parsimony personified. Yet, we looked at our finger-like appendix and thought expendable. It's inflamed? Cut it out. Our appendix could be a poster child metaphor for our foolhardy predilection for overlooking the important in life. I learned anew to question received wisdom after reading William Parker et al's ingenious new theory for the function of our appendix. This particular story reveals an emblematic truth about scientific discovery and the shaky ground of the much-vaunted scientific objectivity. Science is built on successive paradigms and a given paradigm reflects the popular culture of its times. Our appendix conveniently became an expendable organ when our culture was dominated by the idea of expendability. Now it's a "safe house" for symbiotic gut bacteria. Genius lies in teasing out a truth that stands the test of time. I hope this is the case for William Parker et al's proposed new immune function for our appendix.

*: pun intended

http://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Our-appendix-expendable-no-more-An-allegory-that-scientific-ideas-reflect-the-culture*-of-their-times

Tissues and Immunity: Let No Human Put Asunder What Nature Put Together

What is immunocompetence? Seems like a simple enough question. In the past, we would have said, "That's easy. T cells and B cells, of course". Then along came a pantheon of innate immunocytes (dendritic cells, macrophages, NK cells, NK T cells to name a few), and the concept of immunocompetence expanded to include them. While traditional understanding of immune responses accorded major decision making powers to T and B cells, our newer expanded understanding accords considerable influence to these innate immunocytes. However, we have yet to take a critical conceptual step forward.

In particular, for the most part, we continue to consider tissues and organs to be passive players in immune responses. Instead, we accord to the innate (dendritic cells, macrophages, etc.) and adaptive (T and B cells) elements of the immune system the capacity to orchestrate an immune response from beginning to end. In response to alarm, we imagine that the tissue-resident dendritic cells are activated, that they mobilize and migrate towards the draining lymph node(s) where they engage with and activate antigen-specific T cells, which then orchestrate the rest of the immune response to resolve the alarm and re-establish homeostasis.  Of course, this scenario is not purely hypothetical: we do have an abundance of supporting experimental studies. Yet, is not this tapestry stitched according to our preconceived notions of what constitutes an immune response? Whither the tissue itself amidst the tumult of an immune response?

If we attend to the poor tissue at all, we imagine it doing its part in initiating the alarm and then passively waiting for the immune system to resolve the problem. On the other hand, if we accorded the property of immunocompetence to every cell in the body, we could perhaps perceive immune responses rather differently. Imagine if every cell in the body were immunologically competent, capable of not only responding to and communicating alarm to its neighbors and to immunocytes but also capable of actively participating in and regulating immune responses. Such a scenario would upend our current understanding of immune responses.

Imagine now, in health, a tissue in intimate contact with its environs, selectively welcoming the mobile elements of the traditional immune system to come and reside within it. Among others, these would be the progenitors of the tissue-resident dendritic cells and macrophages coming in and settling down to life within its environs, bathed in its unique interstitial fluids. Let's imagine that this tissue's unique immunological identity would ensue from its unique composition, embellished in its unique fashion with various elements of the immune system, and from its unique function. This would be why the anterior chamber of the eye and the seminal fluid would be rich in TGF-beta, while the liver would have an excellent capacity to regenerate. When an alarm is initiated within this tissue, instead of sitting passively in its immobility, we could instead imagine the events constituting an immune response differently.

This tissue with its unique composition and unique function, would it not respond in its unique fashion to a given alarm? Would it sit passively in wait while its tissue-resident dendritic cells mobilized towards the draining lymph node(s) to elicit T cells towards it? This tissue has spent its entire life assuming its identity, growing and developing and changing with time, performing its unique function, and responding to changes in its environment. When any change in its homeostasis necessitated an immune response involving this tissue, why would it not respond in a manner unique to itself?

If we agree that it makes sense for a given tissue to have unique structure and function, is it not reasonable to assume that it could also sound alarm in response to unique cues, have unique modes to communicate such alarm, and have unique approaches to elicit, control and resolve immune responses that occur within it? In its moment of trouble, when it and its body's very existence may be in question, is it reasonable to assume that a tissue would cede its raison d'etre to immunocytes? Yet, this is how we have tacitly envisaged immune responses. Why do we not conceptually accord greater decision-making powers in immune responses to tissues and organs? If we did so, we may improve our understanding of what constitutes an appropriate and adequate immune response at a particular site, better understand the immunological strengths and vulnerabilities of different tissues and organs, and be able to design more effective vaccines and immunotherapies.

http://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Tissues-and-Immunity-Let-No-Human-Put-Asunder-What-Nature-Put-Together