Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[falconer66a]

Honed my skills with high school students.

Incredible posts with details that everyone can understand. Well done and thank you!

I thank everyone for the respectful commendations regarding my Anavex biology postings.

But, let me say, the iHub audience , here, is easier to deal with than the gifted and talented kids in my Advanced Placement biology classes I taught, perhaps for a reason.

Those kids were striving for admission to top-line colleges, to study in the sciences or medicine. I knew they'd have to learn to be adept in both questioning and answering the multitude of questions that arise in the sciences. So, I encouraged them — with instantly granted extra-credit points on their next test — to ask me difficult and confounding questions themselves. "Say, Mr. Falconer [sic], you said this.... But that doesn't fit with what this expert says."

The deeper or more confronting the question from the student, particularly if it brought into question something I had taught, the more extra-credit points for bringing up the matter — in my required well-formed sentences; no "ah's, you-knows, likes, or sort-of's" allowed from the students.

Often, with an utterly straight face I'd tell an outright biological lie. If someone didn't immediately raise his or her hand to confront me with the error, I'd stop and tell everyone that they were either not paying attention, or were too reluctant to bring my error to my attention — a gross error. Lost extra credit points. In a few weeks, the kids and I had the deepest, most intellectually gratifying discussions of complicated biological topics; equaling those they would participate in in college.

I also taught my students how to write their science well; not what they learned in typical English composition classes. I got many commendations from my students later in their college years. I had prepared them well, in both the facts of advanced biology, but also (crucially) in how to communicate those, in both verbal discussion and technical writing.

Perhaps I should start awarding extra-credit points to those who post questions, here, for me to answer.