As a PhD student, I went through many difficulties in my research. When I graduated, I wasn't willing to1so many hours away from my young children with so little to show for it. Instead, I accepted my love of teaching by working as a2.
A decade later and with my kids in school, my scientific3came out of hibernation(冬眠)and I4a position at a new arts college. In my undergraduate classes, I asked my students to complete controlled experiments that were5guaranteed to produce reasonable data. But after a few years, I grew6with the gap between those perfect experiments and my own research projects.
I decided to 7a new course that would give our students experience performing8experiments, ones that had the potential to fail. Then after a solid hour of struggle and some leading questions on my part, one student finally9, "It doesn't make10. "Hallelujah! One of them had stepped back from seeing what they expected to see and described what the data11 showed. The breakthrough helped the classmates start to look at the results with more 12eyes. Within minutes, they were overflowing with questions and13 about what could have gone wrong. My students were thinking like scientists.
Research is 14 and full of failed attempts. Trying to protect students from that reality does harm to them. I hope my students will bring an15with them that success doesn't always come easy.
