Remarkably smooth elliptical excisions

Steve Schwartzman

Jul 3

On June 28th in my part of town I stopped to check out some mountain pinks that in previous years had grown horizontally from the face of a low roadcut. What caught my attention first, though, was a Virginia creeper vine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), several of whose leaflets had had some remarkably smooth elliptical pieces excised from them, as shown above. Wondering what creature had done that, I got in touch with local expert Val Bugh, who gave this answer:

"Oh yes, we find this all the time. It is the work of leafcutter bees, Megachile sp. The females make the cut and carry off a piece in about 10 seconds, which makes it quite challenging to photograph them in the act (I've only done it a couple of times). They use a number of different kinds of leaves as well as the petals from TX bluebell flowers, probably because the texture is about right. The leaf bits are used to line or cover their nest capsules. They act as a sort of fungal/bacterial/moisture/etc. barrier. I've found nests under rocks, between boards and even just placed in a mailbox. They look sort of like weird handmade cigarettes."

Thanks, Val. I never did see any of the leafcutter bees, much less any of their nests. I did, however, notice that even with daily high temperatures now often over 100° signaling how far from fall we are, a couple of Virginia creeper leaflets were acting as if it were November and turning the warm colors expected from that species toward the end of the year. Flash and my macro lens's smallest aperture of f/32 account for the unnaturally rich dark blue of the sky.

❧

❧ ❧ ❧

❧

In light of last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing the racial preferences illegally given to some students at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, let me resurrect an editorial that I wrote close to three decades ago. It appeared in the Austin American-Statesman on April 6, 1995, and, for all the effect it had—which is to say none whatsoever—has remained a vox clamans in deserto, a voice shouting in the wilderness. In fact American students are on average less well prepared now than when I wrote this editorial 28 years ago.

Much of the recent discussion about preferential treatment and affirmative action has focused on the wrong end of the problem. A March 26 [1995] article in the American-Statesman indicated that although blacks and Hispanics make up 20% of our population, they make up only 10% of college graduates. If blacks and Hispanics were as well educated on average as whites and Asian Americans, there would be little need for preferential treatment.

The disparity in educational achievement is evident even in elementary school. Blacks and Hispanics on average score significantly lower than whites and Asians on standardized tests. In light of these results, some minority advocates have claimed that standardized tests are biased against them. Still, these advocates have failed to explain how an arithmetic test favors white children over black children, or why Asian immigrants, whose native languages are more remote from English than Spanish is, still generally do much better than Hispanics on standardized tests.

Once I had a car whose oil light came on because of an engine problem. After working on the car, a mechanic assured me the problem had been fixed. Later I found out that the mechanic had painted the indicator light so I couldn't see when it was lit! That's the way many American educationists have responded to current problems. Since American children in general, and certain minorities in particular, score lower on standardized tests than children in many other countries, educationists have tried desperately to find something that American children can appear to do well on. One recent vogue is "assessment portfolios," which may contain drawings, reports, projects, videotapes, recordings of songs — as many things as possible to dilute the contribution of traditional tests to students' grades.

Similarly, educationists refer disdainfully to "drill and kill," but they don't explain how children are supposed to master multiplication tables or vocabulary or chemical formulas without drilling. At the same time, no educationist would risk ridicule by criticizing the members of the football team or the band or the cheerleading squad for all the hours of "drilling and killing" that they do during and after school to master their routines. Instead of complaining about "drill and kill," the people in charge of education should be urging students to "drill that skill."

We should return to a system in which students must master certain facts and skills in one grade before advancing to the next grade. The re-established standards should be at least as high as those currently upheld in other industrialized countries. American students who come from homes without an academic tradition may have to work harder and longer than others to succeed. We can help them with extra tutoring, summer programs, computer-assisted instruction, etc., but under no circumstances should we exempt them from the standards. If we begin adhering to raised standards now, there will be much less discrepancy in the test scores of the various ethnic groups a generation from now As a consequence, groups that are under-represented in certain professions now will be better represented then.

Like the unscrupulous mechanic I took my car to, many of today's educationists keep trying to produce the appearance of accomplishment even when there is little or no accomplishment. They put the cart before the horse by offering self-esteem classes instead of imparting the knowledge and skills that confer self-esteem on the possessor. The mathematician Euclid once said to a king who wanted some quick and easy way to learn mathematics, "There is no royal road to geometry." If educationists don't take that to heart, we should fire them.