St. John’s College staff member Kathleen Murphy. CourtesySJC
By KATHLEEN MURPHY
St. John’s College
In 1983, I met with my school counselor for the “career talk”. All vocational tests pointed toward the sciences, and I could taste a future at NASA. As I became more insistent about this pathway, my counselor oddly kept redirecting me to other jobs. He pointed out how well I was doing in English class, and wouldn’t I like to take an elective course in Creative Writing? He suggested jewelry-making. Jewelry-making? I left perplexed.
Walking home, I stopped in my tracks: I am a woman; THAT’S where the conversation had gone wrong. My counselor, thinking he was protecting me from the wildly competitive few openings for females at NASA, was actually re-writing my future.
It would be girl-power-strong if I could continue this story saying, “I stayed the science course! I ended up at NASA!” I did not. And looking back, I do not know if it was because the counselor planted a seed of doubt or simply carved out some creative open-mindedness that made me brave enough to take academic risks in college. I went into marketing for a while and eventually became an International Baccalaureate English teacher, what I was meant to be. IB’s pedagogy links subject matter so that students understand how everything connects. All subjects adopt the hypothesis mindset: “To What Extent…?” Teachers aren’t supposed to say who our favorite students are, but my favorite students were the science-minded women who approached fiction and nonfiction text through sensible science and math metaphors.
By the way, I have learned that jewelry-makers have a deep understanding of chemistry and geology. Hmmm.
As a retired teacher, I still have a small fear of losing my wonder for nature and inquiry, so I want to keep alive my love for the world of science. Summer Classics seminars at St. John’s College in Santa Fe are like sleep-away camp for the endlessly curious. This July 14 through 18, the Science Institute offers Du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics. Marquise Du Châtelet-Lomont was one of the foremost scientists of her day and was at the center of contemporary efforts to recover the works of early women scientists.
Famous for her relationship with Voltaire as well as the sole French translator of Newton’s Principia, her work is of interest both in connection to the intellectual currents of her time and in its own right. This seminar focuses on her groundbreaking treatise, Foundations of Physics.
The class includes a lab component on some relevant experiments, mathematical propositions, and related works that were of great influence on Du Châtelet, including Newton, Leibniz, and Huygens. Please note that no prior knowledge of physics, philosophy, or mathematics is assumed.
I hope you will join us here at St. John’s College! Summer Classics | St. John’s College