Susan Lawler is a lecturer in genetics and evolution at La Trobe University who, a few years ago, started an unusual experiment in teaching. Frustrated by the poor writing skills of her first-year students, she hit on the idea of using letters to teach both writing and genetics in one fell swoop. 

Rather than have her students write another barely literate essay she would ask them instead to write a letter explaining the fundamentals of cell division to T. H. Huxley, the evolutionary biologist who lived in England from 1825 to 1895.  Huxley was famous for his championing of Darwin’s ideas – he was known as “Darwin’s bulldog” – and possessed two qualities uniquely fitted to this teaching experiment:

• he did not suffer fools gladly
• he could write.

When reading his words, Susan Lawler says, she

began to dream about my students writing clearly and thoughtfully. (1)

She would then answer each student’s letter in the guise of Huxley thinking he was corresponding with fellow initiates.  Thus, he either “dismissed their letter as a hoax by local schoolchildren (which was likely if their grammar and spelling were below par)” or “he engaged with them as a fellow scientist.” (2)

As Lawler says,

I put in hints to their grades and explained these when I handed the letters back: if he invited you over to dinner you got an A, and if he quoted Wordsworth, you got at least a B, and so on. (3)

*****

Unexpected results

The experiment had some interesting, unexpected results, not least for the teacher.  Taking on the persona of Huxley freed Lawler to say what she’d never been able to say to her students previously. 

The letters she wrote back to her students as Huxley were brutally frank, witty — Huxley, she says, “likes telling jokes he knows the students won’t get” (4) – and freely expressed dismay at “bad grammar, sloppy expression and uncritical thinking.” (5)

As Huxley, Lawler says,

I did not hold back.  I wrote it how I saw it, as if I were writing a scientific review and I felt that I was honest for the first time in 17 years on University lecturing. (6)

For the students it seems to have been a shocking experience.  They were shocked by Huxley’s honesty and by receiving a handwritten letter, and the experience of

being addressed personally in quite a formal manner just “hit them in the gut.” (7)

Indeed, so unused to the free exchange of views were the students that several dropped out or complained that Lawler/Huxley had been mean to them.  On the whole, however, the experiment was a huge success.  It’s been repeated a few times now and most of the students from that first year told Lawler they’d kept their letters from “T H.” 

As she says,

Interestingly, the next time I was handing the Huxley letters back, the senior students chose to wait outside my lecture theatre to counsel and reassure the young ones who had just received their bad news.  Then those students thanked me for the experience and urged me to do it again. (8)

*****

The letters

What are these letters like?  Here’s an excerpt from a letter to a student who did not get a good grade.

Dear Miss A,

I doubt very much that you have seen many of the things which I have; I have seen many things, enough for ten normal London lifetimes, and I can see by your childish handwriting and grammar that you are very young.

Excuse me for doubting that you have come up with a process called meiosis.  The word is beyond you.  I cannot believe that someone who cannot spell ‘align’ would think of it.  Besides, I have had recent correspondence telling me that an Oscar Hertwig in Germany described it several years ago.

You are vague on many points.  If you want to become a scientist, you must learn to be specific.  And to know what you are trying to say.  I have no idea what you mean when you say “haploid cells have one of each type of characteristic.”

… if you write to me again, please be truthful, and try to explain yourself with fewer, but more apt words.

Sincerely,

T H Huxley

And this is an excerpt from a letter to a student who did well:

Dear Miss C,

You did not alarm me at all, in fact you delighted me.  I can see by your name and signature that you are female, and relatively young, but the depth of your observations astounds me.

You may not know that London University changed their charter six years ago, allowing women to gain degrees.   Furthermore, the only woman in my first science degree topped her year …

I would love to discuss the implications of your observations further.  My wife, Nettie, and I have the pleasure of guests on Fridays at 4 Marlborough Place.  Do come and join us.

… I hope you will forgive an old agnostic for quoting Wordsworth, “Not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.”

Sincerely,

T H Huxley,

PS. My friends call me Hal.

*****

Why so successful?

Susan Lawler has this to say about why the letters have been so successful.

My students appreciate that their feedback is just for them.  It is personal, readable and unique.  Most of them took it to heart.  It also forced them to think about the history of science and of ideas, which is never a bad thing, and it pointed out to them in a very concrete way, the importance of the written word to the progress of science … The secret of T H Huxley’s success was his ability to persuade and explain, in English, the exciting ideas of his era … He really did help me teach my students how to write. (9)

*****

Image: Caricature of Huxley by Carlo Pellegrini, Vanity Fair, 1871

Notes

1. “How T. H. Huxley helped me teach my students how to write,” Ockham’s Razor, ABC Radio National, October 11, 2009 
2. Ockham’s Razor
3. Ockham’s Razor
4. Suzy Freeman-Greene, “Return to splendour,” The Age, January 9, 2010
5. Ockham’s Razor
6. Ockham’s Razor
7. The Age
8. Ockham’s Razor
9. Ockham’s Razor