A girl, age 18, tells a story. “Once,” she begins, very matter-of-factly, “I was leaving class to go to the resource room and a boy in my class asked, ‘Why does she have to leave?’ The teacher looks straight at him and says, ‘Because she’s retarded.’ That’s one of the things that made me want to go into special ed, because I want to tell all the kids who heard that and overheard that all their lives that they aren’t. They can do what they want to do.”
Let me just pause and let that sink in. She is, in the year 2014, eighteen years old. This story happened when she was in elementary school. I thought we were past this. I thought teachers knew the power of words, and how sensitive kids are. (Apparently not.) And then too—she is bright and beautiful, attractive and talented, a published writer, and yet the cliques at her middle school had no place for her. Maybe that was related to her hereditary brain imbalance, that makes it harder for her to pay attention in school, but she had to move halfway across the country to find friends. Like Charlotte, too different, ostracized, for something that is none of her fault. I thought we were past this.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
Just one reflection
“Select the students who are least likely to do well, but in all your communications with them, convey the idea that you have selected them for this special program not because you fear they will fail, but because you are confident they can succeed.” Who Gets to Graduate? by Paul Tough
If the modern American schooling system—or perhaps it is endemic to modern Western educational systems—has a fault, it is that we become so absorbed in logic and rationality that we forget that the other people involved in the system with us have feelings. Every person comes from a particular background, with idiosyncratic influences and unique ideas, but the range of human emotion is not as broad as the profound individualism we are drilled in may make us believe. Thoughts are unique, but emotions are not. Every person has emotions, and while particular responses to triggering events are particular to the individual and influenced by background, everyone is going to respond to, for example, rejection, with a negative spectrum affect. More simply, some people will feel sad, some angry, some hurt, but everyone will in some way feel bad about feeling rejected. As a more concrete example, I felt extremely negative about a certain assignment for a class once, long ago in the dawn of time, which showed up as the particular negative emotion of rebellion, accompanied by the rebellious act of doing the minimum required for the assignment. That is an emotion particular to me, influenced by my background and the particular interpretation I placed on the situation, but the far more common one, which I heard expressed all around me in response to the same assignment, was anxiety about the length and requirements. The same events that inspired anger, frustration and rebellion in me inspired anxiety in others—a different emotion, yes, but similar in being negative.
In addition to not thinking about other’s feelings, we tend to underestimate their intelligence. Not only do emotions have limited range, humans are very skilled at reading other humans’ emotions, and it is a survival trait that develops at a very young age. In other words, students can see, not what we think of them, but how we feel about them, especially if it is negative. And so I come around to the quote that I began this impression and reflection with—that we teachers must believe in our students. Nor is it a situation of “against all odds, I have faith in your ability to conquer” malarkey—no. Students can succeed, if they are only given the appropriate tools—and the appropriate tools have little to do with ability and much to do with emotional coping. In David Yeager’s interventions, at UT and elsewhere, a mind-bogglingly short intervention is correlated with a spectacular swing in statistic—from 82% of students from the at-risk demographic (at risk of dropping out, or taking more than four years to graduate), up to 86% of them completed at least 12 credits their first semester of college. Those from privileged backgrounds (that is, not African-American, Latino, or first generation college students) complete 12 credit hours in their first semester at a rate of 90%, apparently unaffected by treatment—so the correlation between a sort of flexible mind-set (that everyone encounters difficulty and feels out of place in college, but that does not need to stop you from being successful) and completing those twelve credits, which are statistically correlated with graduating on time and at all, is impressive. In I Corinthians there is a verse which says that nothing “has come upon you except what is common to mankind” (10:13)—but as we teachers forget that students have feelings and can pick up on how we feel about them, students forget or never have known that every feeling which can be felt has been felt, and that they are not alone. This thought, this poisonous “I don’t belong here,” has been thought millions of times by millions of people, and it is all too easy for teachers to reinforce—yet the results of its reinforcement are disastrous.
If the modern American schooling system—or perhaps it is endemic to modern Western educational systems—has a fault, it is that we become so absorbed in logic and rationality that we forget that the other people involved in the system with us have feelings. Every person comes from a particular background, with idiosyncratic influences and unique ideas, but the range of human emotion is not as broad as the profound individualism we are drilled in may make us believe. Thoughts are unique, but emotions are not. Every person has emotions, and while particular responses to triggering events are particular to the individual and influenced by background, everyone is going to respond to, for example, rejection, with a negative spectrum affect. More simply, some people will feel sad, some angry, some hurt, but everyone will in some way feel bad about feeling rejected. As a more concrete example, I felt extremely negative about a certain assignment for a class once, long ago in the dawn of time, which showed up as the particular negative emotion of rebellion, accompanied by the rebellious act of doing the minimum required for the assignment. That is an emotion particular to me, influenced by my background and the particular interpretation I placed on the situation, but the far more common one, which I heard expressed all around me in response to the same assignment, was anxiety about the length and requirements. The same events that inspired anger, frustration and rebellion in me inspired anxiety in others—a different emotion, yes, but similar in being negative.
In addition to not thinking about other’s feelings, we tend to underestimate their intelligence. Not only do emotions have limited range, humans are very skilled at reading other humans’ emotions, and it is a survival trait that develops at a very young age. In other words, students can see, not what we think of them, but how we feel about them, especially if it is negative. And so I come around to the quote that I began this impression and reflection with—that we teachers must believe in our students. Nor is it a situation of “against all odds, I have faith in your ability to conquer” malarkey—no. Students can succeed, if they are only given the appropriate tools—and the appropriate tools have little to do with ability and much to do with emotional coping. In David Yeager’s interventions, at UT and elsewhere, a mind-bogglingly short intervention is correlated with a spectacular swing in statistic—from 82% of students from the at-risk demographic (at risk of dropping out, or taking more than four years to graduate), up to 86% of them completed at least 12 credits their first semester of college. Those from privileged backgrounds (that is, not African-American, Latino, or first generation college students) complete 12 credit hours in their first semester at a rate of 90%, apparently unaffected by treatment—so the correlation between a sort of flexible mind-set (that everyone encounters difficulty and feels out of place in college, but that does not need to stop you from being successful) and completing those twelve credits, which are statistically correlated with graduating on time and at all, is impressive. In I Corinthians there is a verse which says that nothing “has come upon you except what is common to mankind” (10:13)—but as we teachers forget that students have feelings and can pick up on how we feel about them, students forget or never have known that every feeling which can be felt has been felt, and that they are not alone. This thought, this poisonous “I don’t belong here,” has been thought millions of times by millions of people, and it is all too easy for teachers to reinforce—yet the results of its reinforcement are disastrous.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Self-Absorbed Reflection
It is the end of the semester. A time for thinking, reflecting, and receiving final grades. With those final grades, theoretically at least, there comes the final knowledge of how well you did. For the ninja, the information thus received is pretty good—in addition to sneaking and prowling skills, ninjas tend to be very brainy creatures, though we keep that information classified so governments and the like don't continually pester us. A grade, though, is just a number, so I would like to explore my writing over the semester, and see how well it reflected me and my views. --I did mention in the title that this would be self-absorbed……
I always write to an audience—writing is meant to be read, and I have never written with the idea that the product would be "for my eyes only." As a child, I was obsessed with my own mortality (why yes, depression does run in my family—both sides ^_^), and a favorite genre of mine was always the real or imagined diaries of historic people, like the Royal Diaries series (a fairly enormous series imagining the daily lives of various princesses from history) or the more poignant Diary of Anne Frank—so it never occurred to me even in writing my diary that it wouldn't eventually be read. To put it in more technical terms, my ethos is always on my mind—and always being edited, too.
Ethos, for reference, is the sense that the reader receives from the writing of who the author is—whether, for instance, the author is someone whom, as a reader, I would trust to give me the facts impartially, to be fair to the opposition, to have carefully considered the implications of both sides. The Wiki article on ethos (the relevant section is titled Rhetoric) points out that ethos is something which exists in the mind of the audience, which I found particularly interesting—I as an author can influence my ethos, but not entirely control it. There's a certain amount of indeterminacy (a term used in both music and quantum physics), then, involved in how authors present themselves to the world. Perhaps that's why I spend so much time and effort in my writing on it—it's the impossible project, in a way.
Another difficulty with manipulating ethos is that everything affects it—from grammar and spelling to content and presentation. One of my favorite methods for establishing rapport (and thus trying to get the audience sympathetic to my ethos-jiggering) is humor, which I'm sure comes as a great shock to my faithful readers—so, for instance, the title of my second major paper this semester was The Course of New Technology, a sly (possibly to the point of invisibility, but I know it's there) reference to the well-known quote, "The course of true love never did run smooth" (A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare). It actually works on two levels, considering that I argue in that paper that while there are hiccups with these revolutionary technologies now, things will eventually work out.
Considering that I am so ethos-obsessed, and that everything affects one's ethos, it may not come as a shock to you that I approached our last big project of the semester—a group project—with some trepidation. Bad enough that I can only influence my audience—now even the project has areas of influence-only! (I am not nearly as much of a control freak as this makes me sound, believe me—I'm just very attached to my 4.0.) The experience wasn't horrible at all, though—everyone contributed something valuable, and the whole project is interesting, and, I think, adds up to more than the sum of its parts. What more can you ask from a group project?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Plastic Brain vs. Technology
I had an interesting realization while listening to a book lately (yes, I'm a college student that has time to listen to audio books--but only because I make time), which is that micro-blogging has actually changed the way my brain functions. Let me back up and explain about the book that brought on this realization. The Brain That Changes Itself is a book about neuroplasticity--in plain language, it says that while your brain has areas broadly devoted to certain tasks, if the area devoted to a particular task is damaged, then your brain can reroute the task so that it is processed somewhere else. A key idea for this can be summarized in the catchphrase, "Neurons that fire together, wire together." (I hope you will forgive me this very brief description--it's a difficult subject to wrap your mind around, and I can't actually refer to the book, since I was listening to it.)
The appendix of the book explores the implications of the success stories--which are truly spectacular; stroke victims can relearn how to live normally, even after massive brain damage--for our lives and our culture, and one section in particular struck me. (I may have given it away in my title; not very ninja-like of me.) In the section of the appendix dealing with technology, Norman Doidge, MD, took the key concept that I mentioned above one step further. If neurons that fire together, wire together, then someone who composes with their fingers on the keyboard, so to speak, might be wiring the neurons involved in putting words together coherently with the neurons involved in typing motions. It may actually get to the point, in fact, that this hypothetical person cannot compose while dictating or writing by hand, because the words-into-strings neurons are so bound up with the finger maps of typing.
I know the feeling. I find it very difficult, myself, to write anything without talking, and I write my second language by hand much more than by computer--so much so that I must begin my essays on paper, because I write as fluidly in my second language as I type in my first. But even beyond that, in my day sans technology, I kept a record of the "posts that might have been"--the random thoughts that, on a normal day, sometimes get posted on the internet on my favorite micro-blogging site. Most of the posts in potentia stick fairly strictly to 140 characters (in itself surprising--I'm rather a wordy person), but one in particular amuses me in its sheer enormity. There's no reason why, when I have more to say than will fit into the space allowed at a micro-blogging site, that I shouldn't just blog about it instead (I obviously have a blog, and there might be others, for the ninja is sneaky). I could even write an e-mail to some trusted soul! Yet I wrote more than 10 responses of roughly the same length and division that I would have if I had actually been constrained to 140 characters--my mind finds it easier now, after nearly 2 years of almost daily micro-blogging, to divide enormous chunks of material into bite-sized pieces than to just write it all in a lump.
The appendix of the book explores the implications of the success stories--which are truly spectacular; stroke victims can relearn how to live normally, even after massive brain damage--for our lives and our culture, and one section in particular struck me. (I may have given it away in my title; not very ninja-like of me.) In the section of the appendix dealing with technology, Norman Doidge, MD, took the key concept that I mentioned above one step further. If neurons that fire together, wire together, then someone who composes with their fingers on the keyboard, so to speak, might be wiring the neurons involved in putting words together coherently with the neurons involved in typing motions. It may actually get to the point, in fact, that this hypothetical person cannot compose while dictating or writing by hand, because the words-into-strings neurons are so bound up with the finger maps of typing.
I know the feeling. I find it very difficult, myself, to write anything without talking, and I write my second language by hand much more than by computer--so much so that I must begin my essays on paper, because I write as fluidly in my second language as I type in my first. But even beyond that, in my day sans technology, I kept a record of the "posts that might have been"--the random thoughts that, on a normal day, sometimes get posted on the internet on my favorite micro-blogging site. Most of the posts in potentia stick fairly strictly to 140 characters (in itself surprising--I'm rather a wordy person), but one in particular amuses me in its sheer enormity. There's no reason why, when I have more to say than will fit into the space allowed at a micro-blogging site, that I shouldn't just blog about it instead (I obviously have a blog, and there might be others, for the ninja is sneaky). I could even write an e-mail to some trusted soul! Yet I wrote more than 10 responses of roughly the same length and division that I would have if I had actually been constrained to 140 characters--my mind finds it easier now, after nearly 2 years of almost daily micro-blogging, to divide enormous chunks of material into bite-sized pieces than to just write it all in a lump.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
A Day Without Technology
Wendell Berry wrote a very interesting article called Why I am NOT Going to Buy a Computer. As he points out in both the original article and his responses to the letters that the article provoked, he is a well-known conservationist, and tries to be as little dependent on fossil fuel as possible. He listed at the end his criteria for adopting new technology--
I'll be honest--I have never thought about the issues raised here. Computers have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, so questioning whether they are a good thing or not, for me, is like questioning whether, if you think hard enough, the ceiling can become the floor (ninjas have many skills, but we are still not spiders). I have given more thought to, and it has been easier for me to think about, the implications of my eating habits than to this slim piece of technology that I use literally every. day.
It is actually easier for me to fast, to go a day without eating, than to go a day without my laptop--even without one single website! Fasting technology is a big deal for me--in no small part because so much of my schoolwork requires not only a computer, but the internet. For one of my classes, the reading material is entirely online, for another I have internet exercises, for another 3/4 of the questions for my homework assignments live on a website, for another I write reports in Microsoft Word, and for yet another I write essays and even have a blog! Out of 5 classes, only one does not assume that I have access to a computer with internet, and I still use a computer for one aspect of it.
Far be it from a ninja, though, to conceal truth--I do have one segment of technology that I can give up without dire consequences to my grades, and that would be my favorite social network. You would never guess it from my blog posts, but my favorite method of communication with the outside world constrains me to 140 characters or less--a micro-blogging site. So for an experiment, a technology fast if you will, I neglected this site for a full day.
The result of the experiment was about half an hour, after I returned from the day's classes, where I nearly exploded. I seriously considered going to another social networking site and creating an account just to scratch the itch that not visiting my standard site created. Fortunately the madness passed, and I had one of my most productive afternoons ever--but that itself makes one wonder, doesn't it? Those of us that use these terribly addictive sites know that they're time-sucks, call them time-sucks, and completely ignore in our use Berry's 9th rule, above--that new technology shouldn't replace or disrupt what was there and good and worked.
There's enough material in this diminutive essay and my responses to it for another 3 blog posts, but I won't bend your ears any longer--to think I started this with the modest goal of 500 words!
1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.
I'll be honest--I have never thought about the issues raised here. Computers have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, so questioning whether they are a good thing or not, for me, is like questioning whether, if you think hard enough, the ceiling can become the floor (ninjas have many skills, but we are still not spiders). I have given more thought to, and it has been easier for me to think about, the implications of my eating habits than to this slim piece of technology that I use literally every. day.
It is actually easier for me to fast, to go a day without eating, than to go a day without my laptop--even without one single website! Fasting technology is a big deal for me--in no small part because so much of my schoolwork requires not only a computer, but the internet. For one of my classes, the reading material is entirely online, for another I have internet exercises, for another 3/4 of the questions for my homework assignments live on a website, for another I write reports in Microsoft Word, and for yet another I write essays and even have a blog! Out of 5 classes, only one does not assume that I have access to a computer with internet, and I still use a computer for one aspect of it.
Far be it from a ninja, though, to conceal truth--I do have one segment of technology that I can give up without dire consequences to my grades, and that would be my favorite social network. You would never guess it from my blog posts, but my favorite method of communication with the outside world constrains me to 140 characters or less--a micro-blogging site. So for an experiment, a technology fast if you will, I neglected this site for a full day.
The result of the experiment was about half an hour, after I returned from the day's classes, where I nearly exploded. I seriously considered going to another social networking site and creating an account just to scratch the itch that not visiting my standard site created. Fortunately the madness passed, and I had one of my most productive afternoons ever--but that itself makes one wonder, doesn't it? Those of us that use these terribly addictive sites know that they're time-sucks, call them time-sucks, and completely ignore in our use Berry's 9th rule, above--that new technology shouldn't replace or disrupt what was there and good and worked.
There's enough material in this diminutive essay and my responses to it for another 3 blog posts, but I won't bend your ears any longer--to think I started this with the modest goal of 500 words!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Nothing is new
The ninja has been contemplating on the subject of technology, and was particularly struck by a comment on this blog. The comment said, roughly, that while role-playing games do contribute to our sense of community, they do so at the cost of isolating players from, as it were, the real world. Can one really say, the comment continues, that these players are giving their whole attention to their jobs, with the pull of such a mesmerizing experience just out of reach?
I'm not sure what class the writer meant to include in that sweeping statement, but I think he, or as the case may be, she, didn't take into account that not all who play have compulsive personalities. For example, it isn't likely that I will ever start playing World of Warcraft, because ninjas have notoriously high addiction rates to fantasy lives. ;-) But seriously, I won't play because I am the sort of person who will be unable to stop, and I know this because I was addicted to exactly the sort of fantasy life that this comment writer feels is so inevitable in gamers, even though I've never been a gamer. Yes, that's right--I became addicted to a fantasy life, not through computers, but books.
And so, I have come, once again, to the very old conclusion that nothing is new. It is almost paradoxical to say that in connection with technology, because I think it's safe to say that nothing in the history of the world has changed and developed as quickly as computers and their associated technologies have. Yet the problems we encounter when we use technology are the same as we encountered during any other time.
Take physical fitness. Is there anything worse for your body than sitting at a computer, straining your eyes to deal with the glow, not moving for hours at a time? But think about manual labor, and being continually bent over to rake, hoe, plant seeds, milk cows, feed livestock. Or think about working in a factory, and being subject to repetitive stress injuries from moving in the same few ways in the same order, over and over. It is difficult to live in a body without damaging it!
And if it is true that the same disadvantages hold for this development in human history as in any other, perhaps it is also true that the same advantages hold as well...... a point to be considered, ne?
I'm not sure what class the writer meant to include in that sweeping statement, but I think he, or as the case may be, she, didn't take into account that not all who play have compulsive personalities. For example, it isn't likely that I will ever start playing World of Warcraft, because ninjas have notoriously high addiction rates to fantasy lives. ;-) But seriously, I won't play because I am the sort of person who will be unable to stop, and I know this because I was addicted to exactly the sort of fantasy life that this comment writer feels is so inevitable in gamers, even though I've never been a gamer. Yes, that's right--I became addicted to a fantasy life, not through computers, but books.
And so, I have come, once again, to the very old conclusion that nothing is new. It is almost paradoxical to say that in connection with technology, because I think it's safe to say that nothing in the history of the world has changed and developed as quickly as computers and their associated technologies have. Yet the problems we encounter when we use technology are the same as we encountered during any other time.
Take physical fitness. Is there anything worse for your body than sitting at a computer, straining your eyes to deal with the glow, not moving for hours at a time? But think about manual labor, and being continually bent over to rake, hoe, plant seeds, milk cows, feed livestock. Or think about working in a factory, and being subject to repetitive stress injuries from moving in the same few ways in the same order, over and over. It is difficult to live in a body without damaging it!
And if it is true that the same disadvantages hold for this development in human history as in any other, perhaps it is also true that the same advantages hold as well...... a point to be considered, ne?
Friday, February 12, 2010
Twist Collective is a knitting magazine, and one unlike just about any other magazine in print. For one thing, you can't really call its genre "print," since the magazine is entirely online. The articles are free, but the patterns are sold by piece, allowing the designers to be paid "royalties" instead of by magazines sold, and the most popular designers and patterns are rewarded more than those less attractive to their audience, the knitters. It's a bit like American Idol; the better a designer's patterns sell, the more likely they are to be in the next issue as well.
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