Brewing Trouble

suggestions for the new and aspiring dean

2012-01-23T13:27:00.012-05:00

I got wind of a senior level faculty member who has been outed for his deanship desires. Despite claims he’d rather swab bathroom floors and sort used Kleenexes from bins designated for recycling, it occurs to me that deans come from somewhere and usually from among the faculty ranks. Whether deans start out as dicks or just become that way is not for me to say. However, I can envision how a mild-mannered, cat-fearing, non-grizzled professor might subconsciously lay the path for his own ascendancy. Because that trail is well-marked, I offer ideas about steps to follow once the name plate has been changed on the doorway to the nicest office in the building.

teaching assignment lottery
Next semester, one course from each faculty member’s load will be changed. You will not have a role in choosing which of your favored courses is reassigned. Instead, I will select the class, write the name on a slip of paper, put it inside a plastic easter egg, and place it among all the other eggs in a bingo cage. At the designated hour, I will call your name and you will draw an egg that identifies your new course assignment. You are NOT to replicate the way the course has always been taught. You must do it differently and you must do it better. If you aren’t smart enough to figure out how to lead students to learn the material, then you’re too stupid to remain in our department, college or school. Should you decline, your office will be changed to a regional campus housed within a 24-hour convenience store.

keep your old shit at home
You will no longer be permitted to store stuff at school that won’t fit in your home. This includes unread books, recycled heating devices (e.g., microwaves and coffee pot), demonstration materials (esp. old bicycle wheels and decrepit wind-up toys), and/or various kitchen, rumpus room or garage cast-offs. This is a professional building, not a storage shed to hide stuff from your spouse, partner or parents. We will be entering offices to clear them of these contents according to this schedule:

Monday: videotapes and cassette tapes
Tuesday: poster boards, butcher paper, etc. that depict “notes” from a class.
Wednesday: boots, sweaters, socks, running attire.
Thursday: tea bags, granola bars, Laffy Taffy and other disgusting sugary treats.
Friday: dissertations, theses, handbooks, encyclopedias.

distribution of desktop speakers
Every faculty member will receive a pair of high quality desktop speakers through which background music should be played. The volume should be adjusted to drown distracting noises (e.g., the sounds of old man Coolidge’s shit going into the dumpster or inane undergraduate phone calls to their mothers) and so when you have a visitor, they can detect the genre if not the artist. You can listen to anything you want to with the following provisions:

Odd numbered days: each song must include a harmonica, accordion, Tuva throat singing, pedal guitar or glockenspiel.
Even numbered days: playlists consisting of Jethro Tull, Frank Turner, The Corin Tucker Band, Little Feat, Black Dub, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Charles Mingus, and Lyle Lovett. No, you may not play Journey -- ever!

future changes
More adjustments are forthcoming. If you say or do something idiotic, I'm gonna make a rule about that. Be on your guard and make sure you haven't abandoned something in the office refrigerator with your name on it.

journey preparations

2011-12-19T19:37:00.001-05:00

The backpacking trips I've taken in the past few years have involved renting or borrowing or using cast-offs of other people's equipment. Zero gave me his old backpack, his pre-teen daughter has somehow been tricked into letting a geezer use her sleeping bag, and lodging has often come from a poor old guy who is too busy enjoying his new wife to give his tent proper use. My headlamp and flask were gifts. And I've even had to borrow other's bear canisters to keep the wildlife out of my food. Because camping has become a renewed annual tradition, I feel justified in acquiring my own equipment. Earlier this week, I inadvertently ended up in an REI store where I bought a new membership and my first sleeping pad, yet another vital piece of equipment I'd had to charm away from somebody else. The directions indicate the pad should not be stored all rolled up so it rests under our bed, partially inflated, and its presence has infused my dreams.

My mind is already thinking about gear for next summer's trip. Having always borrowed stuff, there has not been much advanced preparation beyond stashing spare undies and socks into ziplock bags. As I consider what type of sleeping bag and tent I need, I find myself weighing options that previously had not been part of my preparations. Before, I knew I'd get by with whatever color, weight, or sizes were presented. Now, I wonder whether a creamsicle orange sleeping bag is a good idea or not. The price is good, the filling is down, and the weight is low. Can I sleep with something so incandescent? Then there are the tents where "comfort" will be determined by some odd equation that juxtaposes weight against roominess.

None of these internal debates are troubling. I do wonder whether my desire to be toasty warm justifies the extra weight and expense of a bag that is rated for 15°F or colder. Similarly, once I know I can sit upright in a tent so I can put on socks, does it really matter how much space there is on either side of my sleeping pad? It's not like I require floorspace for a library or rock collection or multiple outfits. However, what strikes me is that having the choice of equipment prompts me to consider what is necessary and what is just convenient. Frankly, it's a great mental distraction. I envision a discretely colored tent concealed among the brush. I hold onto the dream of having no equipment lashed to the outside of my pack. I squirm at the notion of my pillow (last year's only equipment buy) nestled inside a large and lofty sleeping bag.

What does prevent me from falling asleep is wondering how to compel a novice researcher to nominate a theory – any theory – as a useful cognitive tool as she descends into a the swamps of interview transcripts. Because she has never had to find her way out on her own, she does not appreciate just how important it is to have packed the right equipment. She's got a canvas bag thrown over her shoulder that holds a digital recorder, a new notebook, and a rainbow assortment of sticky notes. Those will work fine only if nothing unexpected arises. And if nothing unexpected arises, then the journey was not worth her trouble. Had she taken advantage of previous research opportunities, then she might lay awake wondering whether there are sufficient tools for sorting through the mess of data. Or she might even have a couple of tools to consider and will make a final decision as conditions warrant. Unfortunately, the choice she appears to be making is the glorious presumption that the interviews and concept maps will all coalesce around intriguing and meaningful concepts. To distract myself from that impending disaster, I wonder whether I can find something like an Adirondack tin cup that would bring an East Coast flair to the Sierra and Cascade cups that jostle for hot water each morning.

knuckle sandwich

2011-12-12T12:47:00.002-05:00

temptations

2011-12-11T19:30:00.001-05:00

The holidays are a tough time to maintain a boyish figure. In contrast, during a backpacking trek, calorie consumption is not a concern. Even a twinge or hint of hunger is justification to haul out a robust energy bar. But when time is spent sitting at a computer and the only calories burned come from avoiding the need to grade projects, then all variety of treats are a terrible temptation.

On one of countless treks to the kitchen this weekend, I demonstrated admirable resolve. No, I didn't avoid all treats. Indeed, an average-tasting sample of chocolate crinkle cookies, a handful of fig newtons, and some so-called fruits in the form of dried dates were each crammed down my gullet. What I was able to avoid was eating the barbecue chips on top of the fridge. How was I able to avoid this deliciously deadly temptation? Mainly by avoiding eye contact. Yet there the bags reside, on top of the refrigerator – lurking and tempting me like two satanic consciences (one per shoulder), tag teaming me with the imagined delights of crispiness in the mouth and salty, spicy sugar being licked from my fingers.

Despite numerous plaintive requests to not have certain treats in the house, they still find their way from the stores and into my grubby hands. Candy corn and jelly belly beans are small and tasty. Once a bag has been opened, it is just a matter of minutes before it is an empty shell. Why do the continue to appear? Part of it is seasonality: candy corns arrive in October and jelly bellies are usually gifts for birthdays (mine in July and the return of the sun in December). But the BBQ chips: why did they make an appearance, and why now?! The answer is pure economics.

Our local supermarket has gas pumps at one end of its parking lot. For every $100 spent indoors, we receive 10¢ off each gallon when we fill one of our cars. Sometimes there are promotions. This past week, by spending $50 on groceries in one trip, an amazing 30¢ discount accrued for gasoline. My spouse is usually quite good about estimating the cost of items in her cart. This day, something she meant to get wasn't available and when her favorite clerk (yes: we've been here long enough to form opinions and make acquaintances) tallied only $40 in purchases, an expected savings was about to be lost. Needing to grab $10 of groceries in a hurry, she ran to the nearby large bags of potato chips. Four bags would equal ten dollars and then we'd save thirty cents times a tankful of gas -- about $3.60 when the Element's fuel light goes on. I suppose there is some reverse Polish notation that would show me how this constitutes a savings. For me, there's the ever losing battle to expend more energy (or even an equal amount) to what I cram into my digestive system. Perhaps the calculus will all become clear and this won't be a loss of 40¢ but instead a tip of the balances toward snacking bliss and poor judgment.

arrival of a piano

2011-12-07T08:46:00.001-05:00

I was asked to be a little flexible about the start time for a meeting this morning. The occasion: the expected delivery of a $200 piano. Initially, I couldn't quite understand the excitement: "our very first piano!!!!" But then I realized how important piano ownership had been in my family. It occurred to me that my colleague and my parents shared the distinction of not only being first generation college graduates but advanced degree winners at that. I was puzzled about the appeal of listening to others struggle to master a tune — unlike the glorious and rare opportunities I've had to hear a skilled keyboardist). In my typically sluggish thinking, it gradually dawned on me that owning a piano is a social distinction. Perhaps the delivery of a piano is not only an acquisition but a signal that one has arrived at an important social status.

Such puzzlings were rewarded by a brief internet search. I uncovered a thesis entitled Entertaining a New Republic: Music and the Women of Washington,1800-1825 submitted for a Masters of Arts degree in American Material Culture (remember when people only majored in science or art?). Somebody else also finished a study in 2011 in the form of a dissertation: Reading the inventory: Household goods, domestic culturesand difference in England and Wales, 1841–81. That study examined "household inventories" to, among other things, discern which room pianos were located. I don't know whether we should be surprised but 38.5% of drawing-rooms contained pianos compared to just 10.2% of parlours. This is all to say that I am pleased that others have taken my momentary curiosity to the extent of complete studies.

Regardless, the delivery of a used piano on this rainy day in New England is a significant moment – perhaps in ways that strike a chord and resonate across the years. Another family has to now decide which room is the best spot for their new piano.

presenting research via dance

2011-12-03T13:08:00.001-05:00

An insightful and wise colleague recommended this video to Zero and me. At its core is the notion that important ideas might not always be best presented via Powerpoint. The presenter goes so far as to tabulate the financial losses accrued by wasting people's time with the estimate that one-fourth of all Powerpoints are worthless and bad. In clever ways, his dancers are used to explain lasers and photons. Most profoundly, his talk concludes with the wistful hope that people might simply enjoy watching performance art for its own sake, or as the frame around the MGM lion recommends: Ars gratia artis. That this video offers multiple types of inspiration confirms this last point.

A more devious person who send this my way with the expectation that I'd become obsessed by the idea. Such an individual would chuckle knowing that I would begin to scheme how try it out in a public setting — a situation in which humiliation and/or infamy might occur. Unlike arranging for dancing Chinese lions or sporting a lobster costume in a banquet hall, thinking about dance is far beyond my imagination. And yet I couldn't help but wonder.

One reasonable question is whether there are particular gains to making a professional presentation via dance. The struggles of the urban student, the challenges of maintaining trust within a school, the resistance to stereotypes of failure versus excellence — each of these crossed my mind as valuable stories to share. In contrast, the TED talker does some odd things with easy chairs and footstools that are amusing but did little to extend his message. I've learned that doing silly things for their own sake is only partially fulfilling. In contrast, cleverness combined with deeper meanings resonates louder and longer. For example, the Nightmares event when Zero pretended to field a phone call from home was silly on one level; it also reminded us that we are more than the actors we portray during professional meetings.

For now, I don't see how dance will find its way into a presentation at a conference. But if I were to proceed with this idea, the downloaded moves (left) might guide my solo interpretive performance. Maybe it's not that hard to envision …

gustatory input substantially contributes to the preferential ingestion of beer

2011-11-28T15:51:00.001-05:00

Bugs and Bass Ale

One year ago, I visited the NSF website on a very regular basis. I was in the midst of a glorious sabbatical (probably a redundancy) during which time I submitted two research proposals. Today I was on that site to update a budget for somebody's project they are resubmitting and for which I would be the evaluator if things work as planned. One interesting thing was that I had forgotten my password but could recall my NSF ID number – a nine digit sequence that my fingers remembered even though I could not have listed those numbers out loud. While navigating the NSF site, my eyes were drawn to a press release that included the word "beer." Neuroscientists at University of California-Riverside have been hard at work.

Apparently fruit flies are attracted to beer and the researchers wanted to know more. More than describing that Drosophila like beer, the scientists wanted to uncover a causal model that explained how the bugs were drawn to the beer. The flies were hungry and thirsty so they had been primed to go after something. Using Bass Ale as one temptation and yeast solution, rotting grapes, or smashed bananas as alternate choices, various strains of fruit flies were allowed to choose between the drinking options and regular sugar water. Some fruit flies had a certain gene removed from their DNA, a gene that would otherwise allow them to detect glycerol. In this diagram, the white boxes represent the strain of files with the Gr64e sequence missing from their bodies. Because they lacked that gene, their attraction to beer was much reduced compared to "normal" wild fruit flies. The quoted line that forms the title of this entry translates to: "flies with taste will drink beer." Not only is this an important discovery, it was sufficiently noteworthy to appear in Nature.

What'll you have, Bugsy?

I, for one, have no problems with paying a research team to do this work. Their article provided answers to some of my question such as "how did they know which liquid the flies ingested?" Turns out the flies were presented with beer dyed one color and another liquid containing another color. That sounds smart and resourceful to me. But I felt bad for the treatment of the satiated flies: "Starved flies were placed in the Petri dishes in a humidified box at 25°C for 2 h, after which they were frozen and scored for abdomen coloration." That's right: starved, allowed to feed, then captured, frozen and torn open to see what was in their guts! Gratefully, no images of this procedure were included in the report. What was also fascinating to me was that the researchers provided the DNA sequence for flies that could taste beer* as well as those variants who could not. All in all, a pretty nice linkage between DNA and behaviors. I wonder what sorts of petty machinations the researchers had to go through to buy beer. Why an Irish important rather than something more local -- even though Sierra Nevada brewing is a nine hour roadtrip away? Especially since NSF funded projects are required to use domestic air carriers for international trips (say, a conference trip to Belgium in 2013), it seems logical that domestic beers would be preferred instead of imports. Apparently the logic fails in this situation.

All of this got me thinking. What other research has been done with insects and beers? The tragic news is that drinking beer can make one more susceptible to mosquito bites. In the geography, that could result in malaria:

Body odours of volunteers who consumed beer increased mosquito activation (proportion of mosquitoes engaging in take-off and up-wind flight) and orientation (proportion of mosquitoes flying towards volunteers' odours). The level of exhaled carbon dioxide and body temperature had no effect on human attractiveness to mosquitoes. Despite individual volunteer variation, beer consumption consistently increased attractiveness to mosquitoes. These results suggest that beer consumption is a risk factor for malaria and needs to be integrated into public health policies for the design of control measures

The moral:

It is NOT impossible to receive federal funds to do beer research.
Beings who drink beer prefer its taste over other spoiled liquids.
If you are going to drink beer in malaria country, be sure to get your shots. Or maybe do shots instead of drinking beer.

* In case you are curious, Gr64a (5’-GGCGTTAAGCAGGTGGAGAG and 5’-CCAGATTCGAACAACTGCTGG),

jumping from a plane

2011-11-11T17:11:00.000-05:00

Next Friday, I am scheduled to pitch a daring and innovative idea to administrators in my building. The particulars are less important right now than the process. What looms is not my capacity to articulate an ambitious vision. Rather, the challenge is to make the endeavor worthy even when the exact path is somewhat murky. In short, I am confronting a systemic attitude the infects everything related to education in this state. The editorial page of the capital newspaper phrased the condition this way: "Connecticut is genetically programmed to resist change, even when change is called for." While the paper was referencing a group of school superintendents who have some ideas for rethinking the purposes of K-12 education whereas I am proposing a new process for preparing future science and math teachers, the giant block that has to be tipped, toppled or eroded is uncertainty. What I need to decide is how much emphasis to put on the possibilities versus doing all that I can to convince others that there is essentially no risk.

As I think about the right strategy for this situation, I remind myself how glorious my life has been over the past several years because I have not been obliged to think along these lines. Today I am especially proud that my asymmetric compadre, who has helped co-father many a wild adventure, was the recipient of a prestigious award at his appropriately appreciative university. As I would expect, he prepared an unconventional presentation that ranged far and wide – not for the sake of being unconventional but because that is the only way to accomplish an authentic representation of his work and aspirations. There might be risks in announcing the possibility of applying money to buy beer. And as I hear the polite chuckles in my head, I want to explain that he's serious with the only question being whether I will be a peripheral participant in his purchases. Standing in front of a sizable crowd (I envision SRO with even the wait staff pausing to consider the wisdom and cherish the humor) to give a talk has the equivalent risk for some people as jumping out of an airplane is to others. There is an illogical aspect to both because neither is especially necessary. However, neither adventure – using newly discovered presentation software or leaping with others out of a perfectly viable aircraft – is stupid. Daring? Yes. However, I would like to emphasize how the two leaps are comparable.

Here is a photograph taken by one skydiver as a Chevy exited the back of an aircraft. We can see two other parachutists that are following the red vehicle having paused after pushing the car into freefall. At a very basic level, this is a clever publicity stunt and the resulting commercial will be sufficient to propel consumers to the local Chevrolet showroom. Personally, I am less puzzled why someone would go to this much trouble to film a commercial and am much more confused about how this scene makes one think it's a good reason to take out an auto loan. Which is all to say that I enjoyed finding out what the skydivers and videographers were thinking as they prepared for their task:

You look at the situation and you say, "Okay, this is what can go wrong." Basically, you step back from it and look at all the variables. "Okay, what am I going to do to minimize risks?"

With the falling Chevy, I would think minimizing risks would translate into making sure the parachutes were extra big to ensure gentle landings. With the presentation, wearing a reliable (I almost typed "depend-able") pair of trousers is a brilliant strategy for minimizing risks and reducing the scope of things that could go wrong. In brief (!) a wise person anticipates problems and makes adjustments to bring the uncertainties down to an acceptable level: lots of preparation and a great deal of thinking, rehearsing, double-checking and more thinking. There remains the understood uncertainties that will reveal themselves and that's all part of the preparations. Ultimately, those efforts occupy a considerable factor of time greater than the duration of the actual event:

You're putting things together as best you can — and then it all boils down to that one minute.

Too often, I fail to remain fully cognizant of the culmination of the experience when I'm in the midst of it. Perhaps this is reasonable given all the hours I've rehearsed possible response to the various scenarios. When the magical time arrives, I have to jolt myself to realize that this is IT -- and I need to soak it and do my best to etch it into my mind. With that comes the need to enjoy the outcome of the accumulation of plans and preparations. There are more opportunities in the future to make more plans. But the instant when the plans are put into motion have almost escape my noticing:

It's just about being in the moment. And this is where I want to be.

I am depending on the guest speaker today to have found moments he can freeze in his mind enough to hold onto forever, or just long enough to pass along to me. Maybe a caring partner or public relations cub reporter will capture the event with a snapshot. As for myself and next Friday's sales attempt, with the possibility that this will serve as the seed crystal for another amazing adventure, I need to remind myself to be in the moment and appreciate that it is just where I want to be. It isn't just the outcome, but it's the free fall of almost uncontrolled tumbling that can be equally important. Whereas the descending automobile had many videographers along for the ride, I don't know that I should expect such in the Dean's office. Maybe I'll stick my digital camera in my pocket just in case. Or maybe I can find ways to be entirely engaged in what happens without also losing myself. What fascinates me about this video is that I was completely unconcerned about how the landing turned out. Instead, I was transfixed by the journey. I trust today's talk has a similar feel: the leap, the rush, the sense of accomplishment.

SONIC from Drea Cooper on Vimeo.

processes of becoming

2011-11-04T20:01:00.004-04:00

The embarrassingly trivial tenure and promotion guidelines used within our school are finally being revised. In the past, the categories were simplistic and vague. If there was a benefit to this (writing as a faculty member) those ambiguities were not used to evil effect. But they could have been. This Wednesday, all 27 pages of the newly drafted guidelines were placed before members of our department for discussion. To paraphrase Taylor Mali, it was the best time we’d spent together since Christmas. The conversation was honest, respectful and varied. The document served as an object to direct our comments. What then ricocheted around the room was quite revealing.

For one, the energy of the conversation demonstrated the substantial need many had in voicing their notions about “the academy” and what it stands for. That many spoke, novice and veteran, was an indication that several are struggling with these notions. This was a rare opportunity to be heard. What was intriguing was how an otherwise mundane department meeting "degenerated" into such a revealing and useful conversation. Beyond its rarity, it is not the first time where a dull document opened doors to deliberations that were not anticipated but ended up revealing a great deal. I don’t typically view my department as rich in quick thinkers even though they are warm and nurturing teachers and advisors. Nevertheless, and I don’t want to be misunderstood as labeling my peers as dull, the discussion brought to mind this excerpt from John Dewey’s How We Think:

As the metaphor of dull and bright implies, some minds are impervious, or else they absorb passively. Everything presented is lost in a drab monotony that gives nothing back. But others reflect, or give back in varied lights, all that strikes upon them. The dull make no response; the bright flash back the fact with a changed quality. An inert or stupid mind requires a heavy jolt or an intense shock to move it to suggestion; the bright mind is quick, is alert to react with interpretation and suggestion of consequences to follow.

In trying to lighten the load in my file drawers at home, the previous weekend I disposed of the just-found personal statement I submitted when I went up for associate professor almost fifteen years ago. My recollection was similar to what I read before the document went into the bin. Then I made the case that my research was not necessarily all along the same path but still showed some purposefulness even though others could misconstrue it as wandering. At the recent department meeting, I found myself taking exception to a young scholar who was advocating that a quality tenure dossier ought to show a clear research trajectory. I don’t fault his perspective because that was his training and he has done a very admirable job following that path. While it worked well for him, and I have been a clear beneficiary of his scholarship as has the field, I was reluctant to endorse that as THE sign of being worthy of associate status.

Just as students in an undergraduate non-majors physics class can be seen as in the process of becoming, I have been wondering about newbies to the academy. How can we describe what is expected at the outset from those who will pursue promotion six or so years into the future? Beyond the end products, what ought to take place along the way — what do we expect or hope for among this who plan to become tenured faculty in an education department? The corollary is to exit those who choose not to use the academy as we feel they should. Added to this, what are the various ways we might allow people to become, including those who are not living in the same world or coming to the work along the same path as me? Whether a person is referencing their students as they work quizzes about muon travels or considering how to specify what it means to become a professional academician (or educator) it seems that having high ambitions combined with considerations of differences is both a challenging and a refreshing way to contemplate the growth of others.

taken for granted

2011-11-02T19:10:00.014-04:00

New England has suffered a plague of bad weather. Even though Hurricane Irene was demoted to a tropical storm before it struck in August, it inflicted impressive damage to trees and electric lines. Those in the countryside might be thought to be self-sufficient: well water, septic systems, wood stoves, vegetable gardens, and so on. In contrast, those of us residing in towns are subject to the vagaries of the water, trash, and sewer utilities. Much of the distinction between the city mouse and country mouse vanishes when electric service is disrupted. My friends in the woods don’t have water when the pumps’ electricity is caught off. Fans and motors that move heat, air and so on are also rendered useless. The latest snowstorm came through four days ago and the accompanying map shows how widespread the damage has been as measured by power outages. Without electricity, each and everyone of us feels the pinch of a primitive existence.

When the electricity cut off at our house, these realities came home. The clever wall mounted devices that turn a room from dark to brightness were suddenly nothing more than heavy duty plastic clickers. As late afternoon transitioned to evening, the house was quiet. The laundry was certainly less agitated as it took its time soaking. The hum of the computers’ fans went silent. We watched the pinkish sky filter through the trees which were in turn showing off their golden foliage. But with the dimming light came concerns about the increasing chill. Heavy winter blankets and quilts were pulled from closets. A new high efficiency gas furnace is nothing without electricity to give juice to its control panels. While the water was still flowing and before the nearby water tower drained, I stocked our home with water. Once again, I counted my blessings to be a home brewer.

Unlike the August storm, heat and hot water were a priority. In my all-grain brewing package was a wonderful insulating pouch that has proven its ability to keep 6 gallons of water quite hot for many hours. So one brew bucket was filled with piping hot tap water with the knowledge that hot top water would be at a premium in just a few hours. This was supplemented by three, six-gallon containers of non-heated water for other sanitary uses. Next was the concern about lights. In addition to candles, I found my camping headlamp and a crank radio that gives some light, too. The gas stove wouldn’t light on its own but a handy grill lighter allowed my partner to boil water for spaghetti and heat a jar of sauce. No meatballs alas because we had to keep the refrigerator and freezer sealed against thawing over the coming days.

Others who lost power several days before ours gave way have been at work. It allows them to access the web, use a shower, and sit in a chair without wearing coat, gloves and hat. None have actually spent the night in their office as far as I know but who could fault anyone for contemplating such a thing. After all, going to work is in some ways a blessed convenience, even for simple things has having a toilet seat to rest on that isn’t icy cold. And having considerable light at one’s command is another glorious phenomenon along with on demand music, beverages heated to near boiling in a couple of minutes, and ambient warmth. This is all to say that I realized just how much I was taking all of this (and more!) for granted. For those 65 minutes between when the electricity left and when it returned, I renewed my admiration for the miracle of modern conveniences.

Dear Subscriber,

2011-11-01T22:02:00.008-04:00

Many thanks for taking the important step: you have chosen to receive email alerts each time a new blog entry is published. As you may be aware, our productivity has been a little irregular as of late. At this moment, it appears nearly two and half months have passed since the previous posting. While some might suffer guilt for not writing over the time frame, our production team is pleased to report progress on other fronts during that time. These include:

Our sources indicate that over this brief timespan, nearly 15,728,924 new human souls have been added to the planetwide tally. While we are not about to take credit (nor blame) for this increase, this is a trivial piece of information. Whether 15.7 million births is an outside limit for time between blog entries is an open question. There is the assumption that this escalating rate at which people hump and squirt babies out of their private parts will only increase in frequency. Frankly, we don’t have the energy to do the math so if this intrigues you, have at it.

The second edition of our textbook has just been released. Our company sent us a half dozen examination copies and we have received a report from Chicago that a colleague’s bookstore has assured her there will be a supply available for her students in early 2012. Interestingly, one can order a used copy for 20¢ less than the listed price for a new copy. I wonder if used versions will extend their price difference by an additional 10¢ per day as time marches on. Quite amazingly, a request posted this summer asked us to send a free instructor copy to an adjunct instructor – with the plea to also autograph the book. Audacious!

Two highly botched graduate level education courses have been unraveling. The first is loosely based on the material embedded in the above-mentioned text. But with a ragged start (i.e., just one class meeting in September) we have yet to establish any momentum. Five students were missing this past week because of food poisoning, feeling ill, traveling back from ROTC training, another stranded by the snowstorm – and the fifth for reasons that are still unknown. The other course is a weekly seminar associated with student teaching. There is a hodge-podge of reading materials (including an educational graphic novel) and a loosely structured set of requirements: open-ended reflections and lesson plan outlines. The reason this week’s class will not go badly is because that regional campus has now been closed for the remainder of this week due to power problems and downed trees.

It is feasible that few of these things would have been accomplished has there been more attention given to this blog. If we are able to kick-start the writing machine, it may well be that fewer books will be written, fewer children will be born, and a smaller fraction of graduates will sustain class meetings where the professor is so distracted that they aren’t sure he knows where he is. Time will tell. If this all sounds interesting, then the subscription service will suit you well. If you want to unsubscribe, you’ll have to figure that out on your own.

unfinished business

2011-08-18T11:27:00.032-04:00

A recent season of the Amazing Race was called Unfinished Business because it was composed of previous race participants who had not won. Similarly, the last day of our secondary science methods class within TCPCG used the same theme. I indicated that Jenna and I had provided them all we could and that now it was a matter of becoming immersed in actual classrooms with real-live students. In addition, I revealed that studies of experts suggest that it requires 10,000 hours of thoughtful practice to become really good at one's craft. Thus, while the course was officially ending, there remained considerable business to finish. On the other hand, there was a great deal that they had mastered and the last class meeting was their opportunity to demonstrate as much.

The premise of the competition was this: A local school was interested in hiring the teacher candidate and there was the expectation that a Demonstration Lesson would be delivered by the applicant two days from now. Using the key ideas we had taught to our preservice teachers, they were to use resources at their disposal to develop an exemplary Lesson Plan. They were to work in groups of 4 and there were several challenges dispersed throughout. The first challenge was to identify the elements named in a song being rapidly sung by the actor who plays Harry Potter.In this picture, you see the Yellow Team working on this problem:

On the BBC program The Graham Norton Show during Series 8, Episode 4 (broadcast in November 2010) the actor who plays Harry Potter sings a song about chemistry. In this show, what element came just before and what element came just after when he sings the name of the element whose chemical symbol is Sn?

I thought this would be a difficult task because the words fly by very quickly, the element names are not especially easy to discern, and I anticipated they would eventually search for the lyrics for this famous Tom Lehrer song. But each group figured out their answers in just a few minutes. In addition to being surprised how quickly they decoded the challenge, we were even more surprised how quickly they dashed out of the room to receive their next clue from our administrative assistant. They ran full tilt, took two different stairwells, and Monica said she knew when she needed to be ready because she heard their thundering approach. Turns out one of our students who had been told there would be a competition that required some physical activity had actually brought sneakers for the occasion. Apparently, we had been mistaken in our worry that they would not engage with this activity.

Inside the envelope (see sample here) they received a fictionalized email from their host teacher. I would remiss if I didn't acknowledge the extraordinary design and assembly work by my co-teacher. Her passion for marine biology is matched by her enthusiasm for crafts. A week ago, she showed a video of a commercial that several of her friends had forwarded because it reminded them of Jenna. The class saw the similarities. Sure enough, by the end of the day, the classroom tables, floors, and even our faces were enhanced by glitter ("So much glitter!"). Why was their glitter? Because one challenge was to create a door hanger that would be a visual reminder of some aspect of science teaching that the novice wanted to keep in mind (e.g., wait time). Hot glue, colored markers, and glitter. Big jars of it.

In addition to the crafts, the teams were also required to generate a Lesson Plan outline that attended to the structure we had emphasized since the first day of class. Beyond addressing each component, that Lesson Plan had to be ambitious, collaborative, and public. A nice thing about our program is that everyone has a laptop and they could have done this work on a google doc or through some other collaborative electronic media. However, the closet from which glitter and glue sticks emerge also contained buckets of sidewalk chalk. Thus, each group had to generate their Lesson Plan in the parking lot.

I tend to believe I have a pretty good imagination. This was much more impressive than even I had the right to expect.

The only disappointment is that my next methods class is held at night in a building far from a parking lot, and concludes in the winter. So until then, I have these pictures to remind just how much fun it can be to set people up with a challenge, encourage them to enjoy themselves, and then stand back and capture it with a camera.

teaching science reality show

2011-07-31T20:58:00.010-04:00

As with many great ideas, this one arose during an offsite meal during regular conference hours. In brief, I was talking with a former grad student now assistant professor about how to help preservice teachers learn to generate great lesson plans in short order. If my memory is accurate, I was probably lamenting (another common precursor to brilliant advances) how in the spring after I taught them science teaching methods in summer, many of my science teaching candidates forget all that they learned. This all comes to a head when one of them is invited to teach a lesson as part of the job interview process. They panic and send me drafts of their lesson. These are so bad, that I have used them as counter-examples in subsequent courses.

I suspect future teachers come to their preparation program with preconceived notions about teaching-as-performance. What else would explain why a middle school candidate, when told to do a lesson on magnets, included in her plan a video of a frog suspended in a magnetic field. Luckily, even via email, I was successful with having my former student recognize the folly of her plan. And in sharing this story, my crepe-munching companion suggested that I should train them to prepare lessons as if they were on the Amazing Race. If you aren't familiar, the signature moment is when the competitors tear open an envelope to learn their next challenge. What if instead of rushing off to eat live octopus or find objects in a rat-filled building, the competitors had to develop a winning lesson plan?!

Many of my teaching strategies are designed to help manage my own petty frustrations. For example, I thought it unfair that a student could earn all the points in a class to earn an A and have poor attendance. Rather than become perturbed, I created a policy whereby I would calculate a final grade based upon the lower of two percentages: points earned or attendance rate. No-shows didn't trouble me at all because it had the potential for influence their GPA. I also felt as if that policy reduced absences. Fast forward to 2011 where I'm irritable that all the best instructional strategies we discuss and rehearse are put in a box and shoved under the bed once a teaching interview arises. This summer, I have been emphasized the Grand Unified Lesson Plan (GULP) as the lesson framework:

Step 0. Identify topic and Translate into Big Idea

Step 1. Pre-assess Every Student

Step 2. Engage: Build Public Representation

Step 3. Explore: Small group activity

Step 4. Explain: Combing Findings with Teacher Input

Step 5. Access Scientific Information: Quick Read

Step 6. Extend: Application Discussion

Step 7. Evaluate: Closure / Exit Slips

In an effort to reinforce this framework and the associated expectation, on a whim I proposed that this was much like "Iron Chef." You know in advance that you have to prepare a multi-course meal. You must have the necessary preparatory and plating skills along with some creativity. It isn't until the secret ingredient is revealed ("Frozen PEAS!!") that you are able to channel your skills and expertise toward a product. Several students nominated this analogy as valuable in their weekly electronic reflections. And so the trap has been set for the last class session.

On that morning, students will be divided into four person teams representing a cross-section of science certification areas. After a few preliminary bits of foolishness (e.g., "what element is sung immediately before and which is sung immediately after the element whose symbol is Sn?") the troops will receive the topic that is to be the focus of their lesson plan. They are to create an entire GULP format lesson based upon this supplied term. They are to also employ accommodations for English language learners and make sensible use of an educational technology. Actually, we may have to scratch the latter because it feels unrealistic. But in many ways it simulates what should transpire in the days and hours leading up to delivering a sample lesson to a roomful of strangers. Furthermore, it forces the participants to engage in debates about instructional design. Ideally, it will also induce them to engage in the spirit of collaboration that we believe is so central to the profession yet rarely demonstrated -- let alone practiced.

And that is our plan for now. Otherwise, I'm working on concepts that would be useful whether a person has allegiance to biology, chemistry or physics and have some evidence of a variety of student misconceptions. Currently, those topics are Oxygen, Energy Transformations and Conservation of Mass. Admittedly, it's not as clever as turning sheep fuzz into footwear. But at least I won't have to imagine how it all comes together.

2011-07-30T16:05:00.000-04:00

WTR: WTF in ATL?

2011-07-30T13:21:00.013-04:00

Apparently the miraculous improvements in Atlanta Public Schools can be explained by cheating. There are many reasons this is disturbing. One is that it undermines the possibility that Americans might be coming closer to the belief that all children can learn. This trend was something that occurred to me when I finally watched Waiting for Superman. While many claims in the film were left unsubstantiated, including the statement that schools of the 1950s were doing a great job but lost their way in the 1970s. It is convenient imagery but not the truth. Regardless, what I most appreciated was that this film makes it much harder for mainstream citizens to hold onto the belief that inner city parents don’t care about their children's education. The other myth eroded by this film was that it is impossible to overcome the burden of poverty when it comes to educating a child. That these entrenched falsehoods are slightly undone by this film was my reason for hope. Perhaps the public would change its perspective about the value of educating all children. That the Atlanta Public Schools were a success was another piece of evidence -- until the curtain was pulled back and cheating was discovered.

By examining student answer sheets, officials can identify unusual response patterns. One metric they use is WTR: the number of erasures changing a Wrong answer to the Right choice. The first indication that cheating might be taking place was when some schools in Atlanta had an average of 14 WTRs on a 40 question multiple choice test. A startling statistic but circumstantial — except that after an investigation of schools with high WTRs in 2009 showed a dramatic drop in erasures for 2010. Sadly, those were accompanied by plummeting scores in some schools. A subsequent investigation (think: "mixed methods") involved interviews of hundreds of people. Many, many individuals confessed to cheating. Sometimes a teacher would tell individual students to change their answers. In certain schools, the principal made it clear that changing student responses was a desirable strategy. There were also reports of “changing parties” in which groups of adults systematically corrected mistakes.

As expected, many see this as evidence that standardized tests are inherently evil and the pressure to raise scores provoke such behaviors. If this is true then the solution would be to simply stop using standardized tests. Somehow I can’t believe that this is sufficient. After all, at some level adults were aware that their dishonest actions were harmful to children. Many who would have received educational intervention services because of low performance were not identified. And yet they and their parents were never alerted to their academic struggles. What puzzles and intrigues me is more than how widespread the problem is but rather that it is proving to be systemic. Evidence is mounting that coercion and intimidation trickled all the way down from the then-superintendent's office and to individual classrooms throughout Atlanta.

A common refrain about reform is the difficulties of making change systemic. The Atlanta situation proves otherwise albeit in an insidious way. Rather than praise the superintendent for influencing an amazing number of people to do things they might not have otherwise done, one wonders whether there is any hope for a similar transformation that is more honorable. Could we realistically imagine energy being invested throughout a large school system that would produce genuine learning gains rather than artificially inflated scores? Or is this an example where a simple solution took hold and spread whereas the more honest approach is so fraught with difficulties that it is naive to expect anything different? I would like to believe that there are leadership lessons to be learned from Atlanta that that would resonate across a school system but by drawing upon the goodness in educators and parents rather than draw out the scheming and self-interested aspects of far too many people.

image © NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/
2011/07/22/opinion/22letters-art.html

parlay view

2011-07-29T19:40:00.025-04:00

English has been my language for quite some time. I tend to be in places where it, or some variant, is what everyone is using. The longest time I have spent outside of the USA was during my father’s Australian sabbatical when I was in eighth grade. My Midwestern/Southern ear failed on only a few occasions. It was several months before we realized that the little guy next door, who we and his family called Tiny, was actually christened “Tony.” Similarly, a trip to Ireland was made all that much easier because knowing how to translate in order to ask for the toilet or a beer was not a necessary prelude to using or abusing either one. For the most part, my travels have not been impinged upon by language differences.

The two-week China adoption trek (already five years ago!) was so tightly managed that I never even contemplated trying to acquire any Mandarin. In my role as support staff (aka "the Manny") I would only ever be on the receiving end of messages. It was clearly brazen when I traveled to Colombia with nary a sentence nor even a phrase book. We were confident our host and hostess would translate anytime it was necessary. The flaw in this plan revealed itself when our flight departing from Colombia was cancelled. Nothing like being frustrated and anxious AND mute. My upcoming trip to France promises to offer some linguistic challenges since Lyon is best known for its gastronomy and the associated displeasure with those who attempt to speak only in English.

Beyond plans to tote a French phrase book, I bought an introductory language CD that contains eight, thirty minute lessons. I had to re-listen to Lesson 1 four times before I could follow the introductory conversation. In general, I can mimic phrases with close to the right intonation. However, the stereotype of the nasally Frenchman struck me as far too comical for me to authentically copy. In Spanish while the r’s are rolled, in French there is a preponderance of throat-clearing. My goal was to produce sensible words in a French restaurant, not a sample of slime from far back in my mouth. So I was conflicted: how to sound French without making myself laugh at my own voice.

Having mastered the exchange in Lesson 1, I girded myself for Lesson 2. It turned out to be basically a review and only introduced a couple extra word variations. This was a great distraction since at the time I was driving on an essentially deserted stretch of interstate. I was bored, it was blazing hot outside, and there was no shame in talking to my digitized tutor. In trying to speak loud enough to hear myself over the air conditioner fan, I began to find my voice. Simultaneously, I was realizing there was not a lot of French I was going to master over the next month. The combination of my loud voice and the recognition that I wasn’t on pace to become conversant turned into an increasingly pitiful call-and-response:

CD: Say: “I don’t understand.”
Me: Je ne comprends pas. Je ne comprends pas!
CD: Say: “I don’t understand French.”
Me: Je ne comprends pas le français. Je ne comprends pas le français! Je ne comprends pas le français!

As the volume grew, I was startled by the urgency in my voice. What might have been amusing in my pronunciation was overwhelmed by the earnestness. I believe you would have felt badly for me even if you could not understand my words. The meaning was clear and I felt it to my core. I imagined being at the train station ticket counter, money and schedule in hand, unable to make a purchase to get from Paris to Lyon. I continued repeating the phrase, beating my fist and becoming louder and more plaintive. I envisioned myself rising from my table at a nice bistro, first addressing the waiter and then appealing to the other patrons to take pity on me. Hungry, thirsty, tired, far from home: I don’t understand French!

meeting the new principal

2011-07-07T21:03:00.009-04:00

Three or so years ago, in what seemed like a doomed search for schools to pilot test an urban ecology curriculum, I chanced upon an assistant principal at a local magnet school. She had worked in biology labs at Harvard and actually knew E.O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould. Somewhere along the way she discovered that urban schools were where she wanted to spend the balance of her career. In the time since I met her, she has completed her doctorate at a Hartford university and also served a one year internship with the superintendent of Hartford Public Schools. This spring, she hit the jackpot: a former preK-6 elementary school is being transformed into a middle school with an expeditionary learning theme. And she has been appointed the principal. She has a muralist updating office walls, a moving company taking out the tiny chairs, her custodians are vigorously emptying the closets, and she is rehiring just 5 of the existing staff while bringing in an additional 30 people. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to tour her school and witness her interactions with a couple of her staff. The most amazing scene occurred when she suggested we make a candy run before I departed.

We walked across the street and into a classic bodega, the kind most of us have only experienced by watching movies. Just inside the door was the counter on the right, framed by plexiglass. Two local kids were laboring over the candy choices displayed on either side of the cashier’s window and below. Surprisingly there were also fresh vegetables and locally baked bread available to purchase. My friend had been here before and knew where the plain M&Ms and Sour Patch sticks could be found. Understandably, she wants to become known in the neighborhood. While I would have been content to simply observe the confectionery conversations, Stacy asked the taller boy what grade he was in: “Eighth” he answered brightly. His buddy was going into sixth. When Stacy uncovered that they were going to the “new” school across the street, she offered her hand and introduced herself as their principal.

The delight on the boys' faces as they left the store to get on their bikes was something to witness. It was more than the glow of having met a celebrity. Their faces suggested an unexpected eagerness about the next school year. The regular neighborhood school they had attended just a month earlier was being transformed over the summer. It was going to be a new place. And now they had met the lady who was going to be running the place. Excitement, anticipation and hope. Stacy has an incredible amount of work to do between now and the first day of school. Over sandwiches she and a couple of her team members were trying to figure out how to rotate three grade levels through a tiny cafeteria. And then there is the matter of who will supervise the children as they eat. But even with the countless tasks required to physically whip the place into shape, I envy Stacy and am proud that she also noticed the glow that her handshake pumped into her future students. Things are going to be different, things are going to be better, and if I am wise then I’ll find ways to contribute and reap benefits.

boxes

2011-06-12T13:39:00.009-04:00

Our town issued each resident a rolling tall recycle bin. Somehow we ended up with two that are emptied on a biweekly basis. Plus the green one for trash that is collected every week. Because of a trip to Maine, we missed one recycle event. It ended up we were clearing stuff from the basement and the boxes and now useless paper scraps filled both blue bins to capacity. The absence of any real work schedule has made it easier to chuck old files. I even found a syllabus from 1993 that I decided I could now discard. But it had to wait until this Friday morning because there was no room at the bin. Saturday, I returned to the basement and making considerable progress with again filling the bins.

Some stuff has to be kept. Now I could probably scan in the old photos of me with Cleveland kids, or with four nieces and nephews on my lap (now all high school graduates) and even before that, photos of my adult Boy Scouts in Illinois. And since some pictures were a little stuck together, it would make good sense for me to spend a day converting those to an electronic format. Otherwise, when I'm in the retirement home, I'll have no way to recall what color kerchiefs the men in uniform wore nor how cute and innocent the third graders were at the time. I also found a small moose antler and a jester's hat in gold, green and purple … a great deal of junk. Even random pages from an old Far Side calendar. If I don't decide what gets trashed, those dispositions will be determined by some other force, either human or mildew.

None of these feel like cares and woes. But it is strange to find bits that remind me of experiences I might have otherwise never recalled. I'm not sure whether those reminiscences are valuable. Truly, it's more of a curiosity to stumble across, for example, the list of words distributed during a conference Buzzword Bingo game. Again, nothing profound or revealing. At best, it confirms I was here and maybe indicates that I can appropriate the eulogy offered by Frank Turner: "But on the day I die I’ll say: “At least I fucking tried!”, and that’s the only eulogy I need."

innocence lost during interviews

2011-05-18T22:01:00.014-04:00

Maybe it was innocent. Perhaps it was naive. All I know now is that asking future teachers to speak about diversity can be an intense experience. The conversations were only an hour in duration. Further, the event was bracketed by several formalities. With all of this, there was no expectation of my exhilaration and awe. I suppose I’m waiting for potency to fade before going back to the data. For now, I feel I ought to confess that whatever hint of remote and objective research is gone. The sterile glass container has shattered and I’m shocked by all that has poured forth. Even as it spills over me, it is still too sudden to decide whether the contents are scaldingly hot or bracingly cold. There is a much longer story to be told. But for now, I wanted to report that I had not expected all that emerged.

I made use of the recommended Seidman interview protocol. First, I asked them to describe their experiences with diverse populations, in school and work, prior to entering the program. I then shared with them their responses to the surveys and we looked to see where their views had changed the most. I also invited them to describe any “critical incidents” (what they renamed as “whoa” or “wow” moments). I had expected and hoped that they would describe a pivotal course reading, classroom debate, or even a confrontation during their field experiences that shook them and shaped their views. While some of that did emerge, there were other revelations and disclosures that caught me off-guard.

One physics student told me that he graduated from the smallest high school in our state and experienced almost no diversity at that time. He recalled, as he was at a private New England school, how he would occasionally see the one black student (a woman) on campus and being struck by her presence. In contrast, his student teaching experience was in the largest high school in the state. He spoke with such respect and admiration for his students that it was hard not to be moved. He was reverential but also quite clear that his direct interactions with individual students shattered any stereotypes he might have had about urban youth. Not everything was ideal and he reported his revlusion when another teacher spoke disparagingly of "those Spic students." Despite that individual, this novice teacher could not have been more complimentary about the students.

Another graduate described growing up in the rural south. She met her future spouse over the web and during a courting phone call, he revealed that he was Jewish. She had no sense about the potential significance beyond this being a religious background. A third revealed that he student taught in his former high school and that he was witnessing a substantial demographic shift, a shift to which not all faculty were responding an in admirable fashion. Another (also physics) was deeply influenced by the notion of hegemony and found Paulo Freire to give him intellectual tools that he desperately needed to make sense of his chosen profession.

Two interviewees were especially striking. Both persons were unknown to me before the interview and yet were sufficiently willing to share their views that we exceeded their one-hour scheduled times with me. The first tearfully described a conflict in a multicultural course where her classmates expressed dismay by her racist comments about Middle Eastern Muslims. They were troubled by her claims that members of that population operate within a culture where human life is undervalued and where violence is an almost expected trait. Truly, her comments sound harsh. My understanding is that the course instructor struggled to manage the explosion of words on that day. But she was tearful during my interview, I believe because she felt so strongly and was not being fully understood. She also explained that she lived in Israel for over two years (as an adult), has gained Israeli citizenship, maintains close contact with folks there, and returns as often as she can. All of this to say that her "racist" comments arose from direct experience. She knows people who have died from attacks. Her views of diversity, while not uniformly accepting, are so much better informed than mine.

The other striking interview was a student who also was raised in a homogenous and privileged setting but was placed in another tough urban high school setting. As with the first student, she developed immense admiration for her students and came to understand why they behaved as they did. But this was accompanied by an ever-growing horror about how adults in the school interacted with the students. The worst offender was her host teacher for reasons I'll reveal some other time. She spoke so glowingly about her students and was so sincere in her efforts to accommodate their language difference and home backgrounds that I asked if those factors were influencing her job search strategies. I was knocked speechless when she said she had decided to not be a teacher but was pursuing a receptionist position in NYC. Her passion for her subject matter (esp. poetry) and her delight with passing that appreciation along to urban students failed to alert me to just how awful the things were that she witnessed. It came down to her host teacher who was devious and manipulative -- yet powerful and well-regarded within her school. That person drove this ambitious and dedicated individual away from the profession.

Beyond their willingness to share, there was a startling intimacy that thrilled and frightened me. The stories they told were incredibly evocative and stirring. I became lost in what they were sharing and stopped being a researcher and instead became a witness. I am by how vividly they could relate their experiences and emotions. In addition, they felt free to do so. In turn, i believe I had a physiological response, a combination of the empathy I felt for them in their uncomfortable circumstances as well as a drive to use what influence I have to make things right. But when the stories ended, I came back to the realization that it was just the two of us, separated from everyone else but now simply in a small meeting room. The incident was over despite how powerful it had all been just moments before. And then the interview reached its end. I thanked them for sharing, invited them to select a water bottle, and they shook my hand as they left. I appreciated what they had to say and was pleased that I had been able to create a space for them to feel comfortable talking about their views. But still, the intensity of this encounter startled me and I wonder what to do with the confusion of sensations. I have since discovered that others have written about similar feelings but with much more difficult topics (e.g., survivors of violence or responding to death of someone close). I knew there was something valuable regarding diversity that could emerge from individual interviews. I just had no warning of the immense intensity that would accompany the story-telling.

matters of trust

2011-05-15T11:14:00.010-04:00

One of my former students (and favorite bar-maidens) Ms. A is completing her second year as an inner city science teacher. Her close colleague this year from TFA is leaving so A contacted me about a viable replacement. I instantly thought of Miss B who just graduated last weekend from the same program through which I met A. Added to this is that Principal C is A’s boss and I am a huge fan of his leadership. After B called me to tell me that C was moving ahead to hire her, I stopped by the school and spoke with A about the arrangements.

Me: So you think you can work with Miss B?
A: I’m sure. Both B and I said that even though we just met, we trust you.

This is a major amount of confidence for such an incredibly important decision. As you might expect, I was honored and moved to know that my perspective was so valuable. This exchange also elevated “trust” to an entirely new level for me. Knowing how deeply A cares about her students, how idealistic yet determined B is to become an exceptional teacher, and how committed C is to making his school an exemplar I realized trust is an amazing thing to behold. It is difficult to earn, can be readily dispensed, and has a huge influence upon how we proceed through life.

The research project that is about to get underway posits that the leadership in the school (from the principal as well as teacher-leaders) has a powerful influence upon reductions in science achievement gaps. At first blush, the role of the principal may seem very far removed from the performance of children on a standardized test. However, other researchers have identified tangible and significant influences across this large divide. Our short-term goal is to identify those practices in certain schools that distinguish them from schools where achievement gaps are large. In the long run, my ambition is to help schools with sizable science achievement gaps to turnaround by changing leadership practices and the school organization.

Plenty of researchers have studied trust and I was prepared to follow their lead. But given the comment by A (and B) it seems foolish to reduce trust to something that can be measured with a handful of survey items. Furthermore, I am now uncertain how trust differs from "dependable" or "credible." Others rely upon "psychological safety" or "interpersonal ties." Yes, of course all of these feel as if descriptors of healthy work environments. But does it all come down to something we could label as trust?

I trust those who I go backpacking with that if I have troubles, they’ll help me out — with encouragement, first aid or other assistance. I also expect that they will let me know if I can do anything to lighten their load. When canoeing, I trust the person in the bow to paddle in a way that simultaneously moves us forward but also so I can also anticipate what to do in order to keep us going in the desired direction. I trust I will be charged a fair price and receive the appropriate quality and quantity inside the bottle of the beverage I buy at the corner store. Ultimately, such trust frees me from spending energy to monitor all these exchanges.

I also take solace in those relationships for which I can rely upon not being able to rely on trust. But is dependability all that trust involves? Is trust inherently positive or simply consistent? Also, if trust is at one extreme and distrust is at the other, what resides at the midpoint? Finally (for now) are faith and trust essentially the same. From a research perspective, it is important to stake out clear territory which fully encompassed trust and exclude non-trust. And yet from a human relationship perspective, is the trust identified by A, B and C a truer and better measure that I ought to take into account? It is a tremendous comfort to be going forward on this with collaborators. Not sure I fully trust myself.

religious beliefs lost and found

2011-04-24T14:14:00.009-04:00

This winter, I was again struck by how beautiful a great snowfall can be. At worst, a big snow is an inconvenience because it makes it hard to move around. But my life is such that moving about is an option I gladly exploit. When the weather is particularly bad, even my employer cancels work but pays me anyway. And with a very short driveway, shoveling is not only manageable but a welcomed opportunity for exercise.

One realization about snow this year was that its beauty has no purpose. Unlike biological phenomena such as bright flowers, beauty from non-living sources cannot be explained as due to evolutionary forces. Why then does snow exist? It falls with grace, it obscures the dullness of winter, and it offers such delightful recreation. But the reason for snow cannot be explained by the same tropes we use in biology. There are no adaptive benefits to snow’s softness or brightness.

I can excuse non-biologists for believing in a higher purpose. As long as I mainly attend to phenomena such as migration or photosynthesis or sugary fruits, evolutionary processes are sufficient for me to explain nature without resorting to faith. How much harder it must be for physical scientists to find similar purpose in the phenomena that are enchanting to their eyes. For this reason, I can appreciate how religious beliefs have emerged and also why they continue to hold such powerful forces for people even as many of us will privately confess to having lost our religion.

Indoors, this day was not especially different from other Sundays in our house. True, a chocolate bunny appeared on the coffee table and the radio announcer reported that the Pope gave a special service at St Peter’s. Otherwise, it could be any Sunday. Yesterday, the weather was grim: chilly, rainy and gray. I did a quick run to the local dump to toss bags of dead leaves onto the humongous compost pile. It was misty and smelly and depressing. But out doors, today is not only a complete contrast but is so spectacular it is almost miraculous. Bulbs I shoved into the cold autumn dirt have arisen, transformed into sunny tulips. A hops vine I thought I had transplanted resurrects itself in the place where it once suffered from a lack of sunlight and attention. The air has heft and caresses and squeezes rather than piercing or pricking exposed flesh. We check with amazement each morning to see the lilac outside the kitchen window, first with buds, then with incipient leaves, and now floral clumps with a slightly purple haze. Walt Whitman famously noted the memories evoked by lilac blooms:

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle …

It is all quite astonishing, not at all diminished by a knowledge of biological processes. Without theories and facts, days like today would not surprisingly cause people to believe that mystical forces are at play. I respect that even though it no longer works for me. Pagans, priests and poets have much to celebrate on days like today.

to be released in late fall

2011-04-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

here comes a flood

2011-02-23T21:39:00.012-05:00

The story is that a guy who used to work for the NY Times had his wallet stolen from his jacket as it hung in the closet at work. Somebody found it stashed in a wall. Time between loss and find: forty years. It has been quite a while since I've misplaced a wallet. I have eventually found what I lost: in a pair of pants I uncharacteristically hung up or where it slid under the seat of a car. I can empathize with the dull panic and self-recrimination of having lost something so important. Watching the video of the man being reunited with his wallet after so many years took me far beyond what I could have imagined.

But there is much more to this than the return of a wallet. What I had not initially realized was the the office of the NY Times had moved. When the old guy gets out of the elevator, it isn't the same space in which he had once worked. It's all stripped bare, a staircase has been removed, and it's described as an Egyptian catacomb: dark, dusty and ancient. And when the hero finally holds the wallet out to its long-separated owner (at 1:22), the old man exclaims — and turns away. It is obviously his and he can barely believe he is looking at. He gently accepts it into his waiting hands.

Then the scene becomes holy. One reason this is such a fascinating moment is that it is pure, unrehearsed and profound. As he opens the wallet, the ensuing flood of memories and emotions makes him turn, as if to use his back to take the brunt of a wave. The camera maintains a respectful distance. We see him flipping through the images and papers. He talks to what is in his hand, softly like a child would to a small fluffy animal. He continues for a very, long minute. In excruciatingly clear words, he says exactly what we might expect: "I don't know what to say." He isn't tearful. But it hits him hard. It's difficult to know whether he is feeling the power of the reunion. It is not as simple as seeing pictures of people like his father who are long dead. There is something more taking place but we are left to wonder. He does snap out of his reverie but I suspect that's because of the camera's presence. I am fairly confident that when he went to bed that night, the wallet was on his chest and he lay awake for a long time.

I shouldn't guess at what he was thinking. Instead, I can imagine what might go through my mind. At first, I'd be startled by the rush of memories: an old credit card, a newspaper clipping, and so on — the sorts of things I wouldn't have remembered missing. On seeing them, I would feel and hear a clap just above my head as the "gone" and the "here" slapped against one another. Most of all, I expect I would feel warm with recollections but also chilled by the reminder of finiteness. I would bask in the memory of where I was standing when I took the pictures but also staggered by the realization that those moments are gone — and have been for quite awhile. The consolation for me is a scrap of verse. Noticing the advance in years is a reminder of the life we made for ourselves. To not miss what I experienced would be an indication that I may not have lived as I should've or could've. The hurt would be preferred to having no feeling at all:

“The ways we miss our lives are life.”

A Girl in a Library

by Randall Jarrell

the blog entry i may never read

2011-02-21T20:08:00.011-05:00

The Interweb is an amazing space. Long ago in graduate school, I would spend an afternoon at the library browsing all the journals. I’d walk down one display aisle to the next, picking up whatever caught my eye. For those publications closest to my anticipated trajectory, I’d open the lid behind the display and thumb through a stack of the past year’s issues. Back then, Science Education had red construction paper covers. There were only 6 issues per year, one of which was entirely dedicated to summarizing all science education research from the previous year.

Now I not only read journals from home (albeit not being able to access copies published during my doctoral years -- presumably because they are far too old) but I receive automated updates of new issues. As I was composing this entry, a little chime indicated that the the latest issue of Mind, Brain and Education is now available. Once upon a time, I marveled that an author could cite someone else’s work that was “in press” because that meant it was possible to have pre-publication access. Now, that’s also a routine process for anyone in the field.

On the other hand, there are terrible things one can find online — images that make you wish for a bottle of eye bleach. I have become wiser about not clicking out of fear. For example, some news page indicated that girls are posting videos of cutting behavior for others to see. Not wanting to judge whether these are calls for help or exhibitionism, I really did not want to have those images seared into my visual cortex. I apply similar caution when puppy commercials or dog rescue stories appear on the television set. I am not strong enough and by changing channels or leaving the room, I insulate myself.

One of the great treats these days is when Zero posts a new blog entry. The announcement appears in Google Reader. Most of the time I pounce on it; other times I use it as my reward for moving more mundane tasks from the inbox to the outbox. Today, the subject line was a warning to avoid clicking too hastily. The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. The title sounded more like an elegy* than an entry that would fill me with delight. Instead, something cold and sinister lurked beneath the blue-cheery link. What I was feeling was dread. In a similar vein, I discovered a poem by Robert Frost that gives me chills for its finality:

"Out, out…" §
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.

I suspect that the “a press release in the hands of my mother” will be similarly dreary and disheartening — a moment of greatness and celebration adeptly minimized and mocked with an offhand comment. As I consider that highly likely possibility, I just sigh. Were I to actually read it, I suspect I would cringe and moan. I probably can't resist forever. But I certainly will wait until a warm, sunny and sober moment.

- - - - - -

* The elegy--the traditional poem for mourning--began in ancient Greece as a sad song lamenting love and death, often accompanied by a flute and written in a specific meter.

§ Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
~ Macbeth

School Subject Area Scores

2011-02-21T14:16:00.014-05:00

This lacks sophistication as a blog entry. But it does give me a chance to post information in an interesting way. The data is from the Grade 5 statewide mastery test. It only spans 3 years because the science test has only been given that long. Not sure what to make of it except for variability in changes between schools and from one year to the next. These particular schools (all pseudonyms) were chose because half had high achievement gaps in science (by Students of Color, % ELLs and low income families) and the other have had smaller gaps — not that anyone (even me!) can tell which is which from this display.

baseball tribute

2011-02-16T12:24:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I envy the die-hard fans of a particular sports team. Me, I like to watch. But I don't have the mind for memorizing players and positions. Maybe if following a team had been a core piece of my childhood, my mind would be wired differently. On the other hand, it is a true fan's inevitable disappointment. Every sport can only have one champion and all the rest are, if we can be honest with ourselves, losers. And yet, I envy those who so strongly identify with teams, especially in Major League Baseball. True, we found ourselves swept up by the Cleveland Indians in the 1990s and even attending a World Series Game in October. It was bitter cold yet we have many memories. This includes the plaintive cry of a young women seated somewhere in the five remaining rows above us, encouraging and reminding each batter how she felt: "We love you Omar! We love you Manny!" They say love conquers all but there just wasn't enough. We lost this game and ultimately the Series to the Atlanta Braves.

It must be the metaphors associated with baseball that explain how deeply many fans embrace it. The video and lyrics below were created as a tribute to a baseball announcer. What touches me is not simply the effort to honor the man and reminisce about one's golden youth. There are lessons and ambitions and promises this artist makes that caught me off guard. In addition to the highlight of his 1995 season during which the baseball announcer calls an amazing final inning win, this musician looks at his life, what he has done, and where he's going. The title quotes the baseball announcer but also how many of us feel when we look back on things and are amazed by what we've seen and heard and felt. The whole video is great as are the lyrics. What I have provided below are just the final few moments which say so much and stand alone.

My Oh My by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

I don’t really collect cards anymore,
Just a box and some old cardboard.

Memories embedded in the dust,
In the fighters that age
Just like us
Living somewhere off in the drawer.

This is what you make of it
Yeah we play to win
Live it like we’re under
The lights of the stadium.

Fight
Until the day that
God decided to wave us in,
Right.
Until he waves us in.

Not sure that this would appeal to a larger audience as a conference talk. So maybe it's enough to post it here and let others decide what to make of it.

closing a fund, ending an era

2011-02-14T10:37:00.014-05:00

The current leader of our school was in a different administrative post when I arrived. He has many traits that we admire. In a profound change, he has indicated that our school will not provide data to US News & World Report so that magazine can generate report cards on teacher preparation programs. Standard #1 is Classroom Management, there is no standard for science for elementary majors, Standard #12 equates excellence in secondary teaching with content area coursework, and Standard #16 is Selectivity presses for high GPA and/or standardized test scores that will certainly preserve the lack of diversity among teacher candidates. At the very least, this is one less initiative where we would have been expected to make efforts to game the system. This is a signal that we our leadership is shifting toward increased substance and reduced self-promotion.

The major challenge our leader faces is financial. He was asked by central administration to give some money back to ease the university’s crisis. He first dipped into his discretionary accounts. But there wasn’t enough. So he started looking at faculty accounts, especially those that consisted of leftover money from projects that had ended. Normally, I would be guarded about this. But with the new leadership and the fact that the economy has had very little impact on the workplace left me feeling calm. He has decided to essentially “tax” accounts in the amount of 6%. Not a large sum and not in any way jeopardizing ongoing grants. My department chair explained this all to me and I was imagining I might have a few hundred dollars less in my travel budget. However, the tax wasn’t across all accounts. Perhaps they only went for each faculty accounts with the smallest balance. I had to kick in three dollars from my first faculty account.

When I moved, I had to be sly about extracting funds from my former university. Truth is that there was probably an above board way to transfer foundation money to my new employer. But I had an evil scheming supervisor at the time. A lovely administrative assistant helped cut the check that I could then use for tidying up the remains of a conference I had hosted in Wisconsin at Wingspread. For some reason, that I arrived in New England with a check from my old place to my new university put my former dean into a rage. In retrospect, I believe that having unspecified funds was a potential lightning rod for audits. Perhaps there were other accounts and sources that were larger but of even more suspicious origins. Regardless, we got it settled and I was able to cover the necessary costs for my attendees. The fund was in an account for which I did not receive monthly statements. In a show of great generosity, I told our budget office that I wished to close the account and turn all those funds (around forty dollars) over to the Dean. How nice to end that account in such an optimistic and generous environment given that it began with great “Sturm und Drang” and has ended in a thaw promising renewal, warming and growth.

helping them to listen

2011-02-13T21:16:00.010-05:00

Confusions about what to say are complicated by uncertainties about when to say it. What might feel like a missed opportunity to communicate an idea to a larger audience might also be a matter of making sure the audience was prepared to hear those messages. Interviews are under the control of the guy or gal at the microphone. They field the call-in questions and massage the query before handing it over to the guest. Generous and gentle guests, whose voices are luxuriantly sonorous even over hundreds of transmitted miles, will accept the question as posed. Other guests who are more politically adept will deflect and reshape the original question so they can push their pre-determined message by pretending to respond to the caller. Only rarely does the interviewee chastise the host for asking questions he would never ask of himself. Such are the privileges of living every waking moment thinking about language and being celebrated for every syllable, pause and throat-clearing.

There are situations where I suspect that pushing an agenda would not have much of an effect. For example, as much as I or someone else might like to highlight the inequities in educational opportunity and attempt to advance a reform that seeks to be more inclusive rather than selective, the truth (as I know it) is that not everyone is ready for that type of exchange. As an instructor, I have the time and power within a course to move my audience along over multiple episodes. I am not restricted to a single broadcast. I can even press the audience members to influence each other. The other day, a student asked why I insisted that the class used a theory to structure their research. I called on another student to describe the first time she drove to her urban high school field placement (she had shared this story in an assignment). I used her impressions of the situation to illustrate how her “theory” influence how she interpreted what she saw and heard and felt on that day. Thus, I can prepare my audience to hear the messages. Plus, I recognize that I have more than one shot to make this happen.

I made an appointment with a colleague to have coffee and to work through an issue he had unknowingly created that was producing challenges for interns placed in the school where he had done some consulting. I went to his office and he had to fax something before we trekked to the coffee shop. I hadn’t told him why we were meeting and I wondered if he suspected something that wasn’t too good. I offered to walk with him down to the fax machine and politely asked how he was doing. He was non-committal but asked if I would hold his hand as we walked down the hall. He grinned and I declined. But I was not attuned to what he wanted me to hear. I was so intent upon steering the conversation so I could smooth things out for my interns. In fact, he and I came up with a simple remedy. Turns out, he needed to talk to someone about challenges he was facing at home. Luckily, I was in no rush and was open to hearing him out.

He shared how is son was undergoing cognitive and psychological tests. I’d heard stories of the boy’s fascination with science and math, but also knew the routines of a primary grade classroom (e.g., phonics worksheets) were a source of frustration. As I expected, the child did very well on the cognitive tests (something like the 98-%ile). But his non-cognitive self was showing developmental issues including very poor fine motor skills and behaviors that were on the “autistic spectrum” for his age. His adopted father, my colleague, shared that there were indications of fetal alcohol syndrome that might have contributed. The good news is that they have located a therapeutic regimen that will help the family through the next 2 or 3 years and get everything on track. But those demands will prevent dad from continuing his pursuit of interesting school reform efforts that were just beginning to gain traction. We commiserated about the luxury of having resources (e.g., experts, dollars and the time) to give the child what he needed. Nevertheless, the restrictions this places on dad, who is struggling to be happily productive, remain.

Here then is an example where it just happened I was ready to listen at the time my pal was ready to speak. It was not a magically intuitive act on my part. I had no sense that there were issues needing to be shared. Further, I was caught off-guard by the privilege of being a worthy recipient of this information. In retrospect, even though there is usually a zone of physical detachment I would never cross, perhaps a held hand was exactly what he needed -- if only metaphorically. Meanwhile, maybe it is wise to determine in advance what messages should be widely broadcast. And yet lamenting what should have been said might need to be balanced against the possibility that a particular forum was not the best one for sharing one’s deepest ambitions. Still such an experience reinforces strength with which those beliefs are held. Because there is much greater likelihood that another opportunity will present itself, it is all but certain that in time others will hear what was not fully revealed last Friday. I plan to be nearby and especially attentive when that moment arrives.

pen caps

2011-01-30T16:48:00.009-05:00

There have been considerable lamentations of late about pens and caps. I sympathize and wish to offer solace and remedies. In preparation, I conducted a quick search for "pen caps" and "blogs" and discovered many interesting sites.

Somebody who has designed eating utensils that incorporate pens caps so they fit onto Bic pens — presumably so you have a full set of cutlery in your top drawer.
A video of guys throwing pens and caps so one lands on the other. Basically the ballpoint pen version of trick shots.
A medical journal article describing the removal of inhaled pen caps from children using rigid bronchoscopy. No: this was not a control/treatment experiment.
A discussion about changes in pen cap design in the future (or made larger as a by-product of time traveling).
Several others that include the same images as in #1.

Suffice it to say that pen capping is not an isolated concern and is probably deserving of attention. I was even surprised to discover that Nirvana recorded a song called "Pen Cap Chew" which, not surprisingly, never contains "pen cap" in the lyrics. Now, I have three offerings to make for the pained and stained reader (and his long-suffering family and colleagues).

FIRST.

Clothing stains are a solvable problem, even when traveling. Proctor & Gamble even sells an "instant stain remover" that you might be surprised to discover that your roommate had in his shaving kit. It has been well-received and seems to perform as promised. Admittedly, its effectiveness and longevity will be reduced if one fails to put the cap back on this "laundry pen."

SECOND.

Decent fountain pens exist that have overcome the mess of dipping the nib into the well and making sure the ink is of the proper viscosity. Of course, purists and those who are "green" may object to the notion of a disposable fountain pen. But the one sold by Pilot is pretty good. Some folks use them for everyday writing; I keep a couple around for those rare occasions where I need to sign a document with a flourish. Once again, their utility will shrink in direct proportion to the failure to replace the pen cap.

THIRD.
Pens must be treated with respect. Admittedly, retractable pens have added blotches to the thighs of a couple pair of my jeans. It wasn't because I fiddled with them but because, in sitting down, the ink dispensing portion pushed free of its housing and the ink pooled like the blood from the handiwork of an assassin, ala Jason Bourne. And I carry the guilt of puncturing a guy's front seat because I was carrying a pencil in my back pocket. The lesson is that it all comes down to vigilance and care. The man who produced this thatched room did so to create a cap for the pig pen. Even if he had used the right materials and carried vast experience and credentials, if he failed to pay attention and allowed lapses in concentration to occur, there is nothing that can be done. Use a pencil, buy a fancy fountain pen, do whatever you feel is right. But you and your science pants are doomed if you can't find ways to quit your fidgeting.

what you should do

2011-01-24T11:27:00.009-05:00

After removing the outrageous conference registration fee from my travel reimbursement form, my last jaunt before my sabbatical ended cost exactly $1000. Well, maybe more but I can't claim alcohol and dispose of those receipts before anyone gets wise to those charges. As others have very eloquently noted, the camaraderie and revelations that arose from this trip make the excursion worth every minute and penny. A particular portion has moved me to think about what drives some of us in our work, to-wit:

May we celebrate the gardeners of hope,
that sow seeds of promise,
that commit their dreams to the development of the potential of others,
and breed possibility.

Soaking in the coffee shop afterglow of the third Crossroads, the moment when I believe we really hit our stride, someone was a little hasty in offering some advice for future meetings. In particular, I realized how adverse I have become to comments directed at me that begin with, "You know what you should do?" One reason this irritates me is that I am very sure about the many things I should do.

I should be more generous toward family members.
I should stop creating excuses for avoiding the necessary (e.g., straightening the basement).
I should avoid sweets.
I should be more attentive in the moment rather than discover later just how great it was.
I should be careful about mockery that I mean to be funny but might seem cruel and/or offensive.
I should complete important and enduring tasks before detouring into foolish follies.

Suffice it to say, I feel I have burdened myself sufficiently with "should do's" without needing for someone else who is less circumspect to add to my teetering heap of inadequacies. There is the gospel about taking care of your own problems rather than pointing out the flaws in others. But now, I can look back on this scene without having it filtered through red fury. It all comes down to punctuation.

I'm not as generous as Zero can be about assuming good intentions in others. Hell, I even refuse to engage in problem-solving with callers when they mistakenly dial my phone. I just say, "Nope, wrong number" and disconnect. Certainly there are many who game the system for personal gain. Professionally, such individuals provide a tepid offering to the research community so as to bilk their employer for travel funds. But, without invoking deficit thinking, I doubt there are many who really know what to do. Or maybe it would be more accurate to suggest that they are unsure why they might. They do without a sense about why. Or they do and there is not even a subconscious why involved. There is to try. There is to do since there is no try. But then there is to do because one should, for reasons one knows without being fully aware.

Here now is my new form of advice. Maybe it's a slide in a future presentation:

You know what you should do?
versus
You know what you should do.

That is pretty much what I have to offer. I don't know much about the possibilities of science for children with autism. I don't understand hermeneutics nor can I begin to appreciate what is required to persist when the system is designed to push me out. What I can do is recognize in others what I believe reveals itself on occasion to me. And that is the ability to know what the right thing is to do and then to act accordingly. I lack the wisdom to offer guidance beyond listening to the circumstances, asking questions to bring options to the surface, and then granting my support to whatever choice you know is the right one. I know what I should do and you know what you should do. All I know is how great it can be when those who know what is right decide to follow that voice.

trying to stay current

2011-01-14T21:06:00.012-05:00

Revising a well-received textbook offers challenges I had not expected as a co-author. For one, our Editor explained that we should not dramatically change the book because this is to be a 2nd edition, not a new book. Certainly, we don't want to be those kinds of authors who simply put a new cover on a rapidly aging manuscript. While I had hoped revising would allow us to bring some material up to date, this is turning into a mixed bag.

Early on, I had imagined we would omit the occasional blurbs about the old National Standards and replace those with the new ones. That would certainly have been a timely move -- except that to make this text ready for fall adoptions, it must be well into production long before the new national material is released. A much better sequence would have allowed us to drop the new stuff in and put us ahead of all our competitors which would have been an impressive accomplishment for students and professors this fall. Alas, the exact opposite will occur. Ours will be the last science methods text to ever be published under the old regime and the furthest from current as can be imagined.

Fortuitously, there are unexpected gems that arrive at just the right moment. For example, a recent article in Science News indicated some tiny adjustments in atomic weights as well as the formal naming of the latest element: Copernicium. How glorious it is to show the tentativeness of science via this example. I especially like this because the Periodic Tables in chemistry classrooms always seem so permanent — and these stories shows the plasticity of scientific knowledge. And a physics example of tentativeness just came to my attention this morning. Turns out there is now a 13th sign in the zodiac that has been named Ophiuchus. Coincidentally (perhaps) my co-author just forwarded to me the revised commentary to be embedded in the Nature of Science chapter. Juxtaposing his fine contribution with this new constellation framework could only be better if I could show how this contributor's sign changed with the new arrangements. At best, I'll have to editorialize by commenting how the tentativeness of science has even forced me to change from a Cancer to a Gemini. This nicely suits my fascination with the 1960s space program. So while we'll miss the boat with the new national science frameworks, we'll still be able to incorporate enough contemporary science tidbits to show how up-to-date the second edition is even in something as "unchanging" as astronomy.

someone else's shoes

2011-01-11T06:49:00.003-05:00

Treading 'cross the years
Feet clad in thrift store loafers
Without empathy

amateur poetry analysis

2011-01-09T09:17:00.015-05:00

This summer I stumbled across a free downloading of Bonnaroo songs c/o Spin magazine. At the time, I was chasing down tunes by Tinariwen — and how I got there is a mystery. And actually immaterial. As often happens, my immediate reaction to new music rarely lasts. Stuff I like immediately wears thin. Occasionally there is a song that I find myself enjoying and I am unaware that I have heard it before. So it was with the Bonnaroo stuff. I had unchecked a song by Mumford & Sons but have since become somewhat of a fan. And The National has become a group I appreciate even though the meaning of "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is up for grabs. But as the old iTunes shuffles through my large music library, I found myself enjoying a song from the download that is over-the-top country, complete with steel guitar.

The song is by Jamey Johnson and when I ask the iTunes genius to create a mix starting with this song, it nominates artists such as Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakum, Waylon Jennings and Lyle Lovett. I love this song yet it's full of contradictions. First, it sounds a little like Jimmy Buffett and the first verse reminds me of Joe Walsh "Life's Been Good" about living the kind of life possible from great fame and wealth. But there are only two verses which leaves an entire third of the tune with twanging guitar and humming. And here's the kicker, the verse that is lodged in my mind:

Place Out On the Ocean
I been riding down a two-lane highway
For pretty much all of my life
Trying to do things my way
Wondering if I'll ever get anywhere but where I came from
I hope I'm sane by the time I'm done

Many of us live with the fear that someday we will be uncovered as frauds. I don't mind the reminder that for all I may try to do, in the end I may end up very close to my roots. But with that rueful admission, there is the clear wish to not go crazy at the end. "Dear Lord, if your plan is for me aspire to someplace big and wonderful but ultimately drag my ass back to the equivalent of my dull hometown, at least when you do that, don't take my sanity from me." That's how I interpret this verse.

What really puzzles me is the meter and rhyme here. It absolutely works and is lovely. But when I try to unpack it, I'm lost. The "scheme" might be ABACC which apparently has no formal label. Who doesn't feel badly for "life" being left to dangle at the end of line 2, never to hitched to another? OR, if the line breaks after "anywhere" to cause the last two lines to rhyme then I think this becomes ABACDD. But probably not since I have little idea why I'm writing about.

No real moral here except perhaps to realize that some things can be really good for reasons we cannot fully explain.

belly laugh

2011-01-08T20:35:00.009-05:00

Every time there’s a small amount of leftover money from a project, my institution creates a new account for me. My logic is that I should spend down the one that is closest to expiring. But I was warned that accounts that have not been active might become swept up by the university. Certainly a perverse academic version of Robin Hood. That was the signal and license to order some books without having to explain at home why there was a sudden burst of online bookstore activity.

Our administrative assistant emailed me on Thursday that the books had arrived. Here are the titles were worth the trek to campus:

1. Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks and Good Food
2. Start Where You Are, But Don’t Stay There
3. Someone has to Lose: The Zero-Sum Game of Public Schooling
4. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
5. The Warmth Of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
6. A Body Worth Defending: Immunity, Politics and the Apotheosis of the Modern Body

Book #1 and #4 are part of my reading as background for a future proposal on “public understandings of science” which, if funded, would allow me and some fellow enthusiasts to visit several microbreweries to determine how the workers there apply science knowledge. Book #2 and #3 are by amazing authors who write with great clarity yet always blow my mind. Book #5 will help fill in some gaps in my own understanding about why so many of my students of color in Cleveland has such strong southern accents. And Book #6 (which I previewed through interlibrary loan) explains how the metaphor of the body’s immune system as being a form of defense has political roots. Realistically, I am unlikely to finish all of them. But they hold so much promise and intrigue. For example, both cooking books have extensive information about yeast and fermentation. Yippie!

Not surprisingly, I bumped into a couple of friendly colleagues and they were caught up in another internecine situation. I'll try to recreate the storyline here. First, an applicant to our doc program had very weak credentials and the committee chose to not admit. Second, an administrator submitted a letter supporting the candidate (long after the deadline) and pretty much said he would take on this candidate and personally (not programatically) lead him through to the PhD. Third, the next layer of committee also rejected the applicant, the administrator's support notwithstanding. Now at the moment I was present, the committee's "no" letter was resting in the administrator's mailbox and an eruption was imminent. Fourth, someone else revealed during this hallway discussion that the math dept (where said administrator held a joint appointment) has recently been approved to initiate their own math education PhD program. Normally, a duplicate program would require approval from the now redundant program. Fifth, my own department chair had just learned about this situation and was said to be sputteringly livid. Sixth, the math department does not list this PhD program on its website even though it was cleared by the Provost's Office. Seventh, there was evidence that students were being admitted to this mystery program … and when someone said they heard a student has already graduated from this program, I was laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath.

With all the grief I have received and wrath that has rained down for what was perceived as my attempts to work around or beat the system, I discovered I had turned an emotional corner. As people have been asking how sabbatical has been, I sincerely explain that the true test will be in how things go for me once sabbatical had concluded. I suppose the reason I felt I needed to bookmark this incident was a reminder about how far I have progressed and that I need to stay on this path. I already see it will be tricky because I need to keep limits on my indifference because uniform apathy is a poor corollary to uniform anxiety and anger. A whole new type of balance I had never imagined could exist. Finding ways to notice the foolhardiness and laugh accordingly, as well as being vigilant about what is offensive and calling it for what it is -- well, maybe that's where sabbatical has left me.

there are 3 options around here

2011-01-05T18:49:00.013-05:00

Thanks for stopping by. At that last program meeting, I sensed you were getting frustrated. You haven't been here all that long and maybe my perspectives will make you happier in the short run — and keep you around for the long haul. I'm not going to try and convince you about the issues that arose. Instead, I am hopeful that my insights as a veteran might help you understand how decisions are made around here.

It is perfectly natural for people to see things in slightly different ways. My belief is that what is important is to distinguish between the possible and the unrealistic. This is completely different from issues of right or wrong. The reason is that if someone new to our organization, such as yourself, is quick to take offense and sense an "injustice" about something that's going on, the frustration is only going to grow if you don't know where to invest your energy. I am not suggesting that you give up on your ideals. Instead, if you position yourself on the wrong side all the time and nothing ever goes your way then you'll kill yourself from the stress. What I am going to offer you are three options that are always available. As long as you use these as way to filter your ambitions, you can avoid needless stress.

Let's think back on the program meeting. The crux of the issue was adjusting courses so that the sequence was more in line with what other places have undertaken. You proposed that we switch the timing of field experiences. In fact, if memory serves, you wanted to move the big clinical a whole semester earlier and create a capstone course for the following and final semester. There was not much support for that idea. I really don't want to rehash the various arguments and personalities. Instead, just as an exercise let's explore together three general options as I see them.

Option 1: Keep with Tradition. It is generally not a good idea to try change a system that serves us well. Change for the sake of change just does not make sense. Now if our accreditation found us to be out of compliance then it would be prudent to make adjustments. In this particular case, we have a steady stream of students who come to us fully of enthusiasm and leave very happy with the program. We don't receive many complains and the occasional problem is dealt with without fanfare. But in the end, the program first developed in the 1980s continues to serve our population and constituency. Once you come to recognize these factors, then you will avoid getting all worked up when you have the ambition to switch things around.

Option 2: Choose to Do Nothing. I know this may sound contradictory because doing nothing might feel like giving up. But it IS a choice we have. Think about it: when somebody claims they are "pro-choice" that does not mean every woman decides to get an abortion. Instead, they have an option -- which includes not having an abortion. The option of doing nothing and exercising that option is one of the greatest freedoms we have in this country. In fact, it might be worth contemplating whether we ought to exercise that choice more often. Cicero wrote "He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing." And the greater writer Oscar Wilde claimed: “To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual." If you are looking for a challenge and you wish to be recognized for your intellect, then the option of choosing to do nothing is a huge one to consider.

Option 3: Follow the Tradition of Doing Nothing. This can be a real win/win option because it takes the best features of Option 1 and Option 2. You might think of it as 1 + 2 = 3. Choosing this option not only creates the least disruption but it honors the traditions of our place. For me, this is my default and look how happy I am. I have almost no stress and life is good.

Do you feel better now that we've talked?

mi familia

2011-01-04T18:07:00.007-05:00

Stories can sometimes capture the essence of even the most complex human interactions. In the retelling, words can be changed, tone can be adjusted, and the original incident may depart from its reality. But technology can capture what might otherwise slip away: movie cameras, videotapes, and now, social networks. What follows is an unexpurgated exchange with identities obscured. Additional commentary and contexts appears immediately after.

Sister #1
So, I've worried all day that my vision was getting much worse. Just now realized I'm missing a lens from my glasses. What an idiot! Wednesday at 10:47pm via iPhone. Friend TN likes this

Friend ZZ
LOL!!!!!! I love you! :P Wednesday at 10:50pm

Friend JI
That is something I would do Wednesday at 11:30pm

Friend MJF
How much u been drinking??? Lol jk jk Thursday at 2:36am

Big Brother
OMG that sounds just like 200 or more professors that I know. Thursday at 7:06am  

Mother
Didn't you feel a draft on your lensless eye? Dad llost his lens at [Sister #2]'s last week - didn't know it, but I saw a lens on the carpet andd asked whose it was. Eye doctor is closed untill Monday, - luuckily has a second pair. Thursday at 11:59am 

Sister #2
It was the heavy lense that Dad lost, so his glasses were pretty crooked while he was here. 3 hours ago

There is a lot happening here and not all can be fully captured in a way that won't exceed the reader's limited attention span.But here are some insights and insides:

The comments are from friends and co-workers of Sister #1 ... until Big Brother weighs in. Then once the family lumbers onto the scene, everyone else disappears.
Not only does Mother find a way to inflict a slight jab (didn't you…?) but then discloses that Sister #1 shares characteristics with her doddering daddy.
Sister #2 supplies the enriching imagery of said father walking around with droopy spectacles, presumably reducing what little correction would offered by the eye behind a heavy lens.

There is a lot happening here and not all can be fully captured in a way that won't exceed the reader's limited attention span.But here are some insights and insides:

The comments are from friends and co-workers of Sister #1 ... until Big Brother weighs in. Then once the family lumbers onto the scene, everyone else disappears.
Not only does Mother find a way to inflict a slight jab (didn't you…?) but then discloses that Sister #1 shares characteristics with her doddering daddy.
Sister #2 supplies the enriching imagery of said father walking around with droopy spectacles, presumably reducing what little correction would offered by the eye behind a heavy lens.

Little Brother is missing from the exchange. For his part, he shared a story of co-workers bringing in favorite Christmas photos from when each was young. Lil Bro had his picture taken seated in front of a Christmas tree weighted down by tinsel and bulky lights. He had good memories of all this. But then a co-worker asked about the packages in the background: "Did your family wrap gifts in newspaper?" Blind to that tradition, the scene was now one of shame. The only shining spot was that being cheap can also appear to be a environmentally-conscious lifestyle. No, there are no transgendering meanderings here. Just uncertain clarity and vision.

when I came to, I tasted wild berries

2011-01-03T11:56:00.008-05:00

The college classroom is typically a place of great safety and over which the professor exerts considerable control. Violent events at colleges (Virginia Tech or Huntsville or UGA) are especially terrible because they destroy the general sense of calm and well-being we associate with campuses. Incidents in college classrooms are very rare — which makes the following story all the more unusual.

Dr. M has long experienced an unpredictable medical condition: his shoulder pops out of place. It would happen when he’d play pickup basketball. He even had to give up golfing because during big tee-offs, his shoulder would disconnect from its socket. His friends said it looked like he had been shot as he would swing and then crumple to the ground. There was only slight discomfort (aside from the embarrassment) and Dr. M could put the joint back into place. The ease with which it came out meant it could be returned without much exertion.

Given that in the past, a dramatic physical movement caused the shoulder to dislocate, it was quite unexpected when Dr. M felt his shoulder pop out while gesturing during a class. He assured his class that the shoulder would pop back into place in just a moment There was no need for alarm. But then he fainted and came to while on the floor. He tried to explain that the chair he was in had wheels and that was why he fell. As he got up to move to another chair that was more stable, he reiterated that his shoulder would pop back momentarily. And he passed out a second time.

As he awoke, Dr. M realized his shoulder had returned to its rightful place. But he was also struck by the smell and taste of wild berries. No, it wasn’t that he had struck his head and was having a neurological response. Because when he opened his eyes, he discovered he was face-to-face with one of his female students. She looked very upset although relieved her professor was alive. Apparently, when his eyes rolled back and he collapsed, this young lady perceived that he was having a heart attack and initiated CPR. The berries happened to be the flavor of lip gloss she was wearing, some of which was transferred while she performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Whether Dr. M actually had stopped breathing or not was somewhat immaterial because he was down before the lip-lock and he came to immediately after.

The class insisted that Dr. M remain on the floor despite his attempts to reassure them. The voice on the cell phone of the student who had called 911 reinforced the recommendation that he rest until the paramedics arrived. He checked out fine and acknowledged to the ambulance driver that he would indeed consult with an orthopedist about the shoulder. Presumably the interruption had broken the flow of discussion. Dr. M let his students leave fifteen minutes early. The balance of the semester proceeded without incident and Dr. M has resumed the weight-lifting routine that had been previously prescribed to strengthen muscles to avoid shoulder dislocations.

doing some busting

2011-01-03T07:26:00.013-05:00

Maybe it is because we upgraded to more channels that I have noticed a lot of busting as of late. Of course, there's Mythbusters (which is rendered almost unwatchable by the college-aged sidekicks) and for some reason Ghostbusters is popping up a lot. While I missed my favorite scientist scene of all time, YouTube allows me hear it again and again. And I briefly entertained the notion of having a ghost containment box installed in my office, with a waiting smoking ghost trap occasionally propped on my desk. Alas, the plans online seem either too complicated or inadequate (e.g., no blinking lights). But how great it would it be to roll one of these babies near somebody who is running over their time at a conference presentation, or running over my tolerance during a department meeting. Sigh.

As the seasonal celebration of miracles, notably the Jesus/Santa combo, my textbook co-author and I foolishly discover how frantically we must work to meet our February 1 deadline. While I harbor reservations about doing so, the Nature of Science chapter has been elevated to Chapter 2. I have to make heavy edits because when it was Chapter 8, phrases starting with: "as we have already described…" made sense and now they would elicit scorn. Despite the tedium of such vigilance, this does afford me a return to some myth busting of my own with "the scientific method" as my favorite target. And in a new chapter on Experimenting, I was struggling to describe why "hypothesis" is such a contentious term. For some reason, I equated the adage that it's an "educated guess" with the myth that Eskimoes have a hundred words for snow. I discovered that a woman who led the charge to unpack this particular myth was an anthropology professor from Cleveland. Best of all was this list of snow words proposed by somebody who must annoy his spouse/partner and amuse his peers. Here's an excerpt:

ashtla          expected snow that's wagered on (depth, size of flakes)
huantla       special snow rolled into "snow reefers" and smoked by wild Eskimo youth
tla-na-na    snow mixed with the sound of old rock and roll from a portable radio
depptla        a small snowball, preserved in Lucite, that had been handled by Johnny Depp

We move forward in our lives, homes and courses, navigating between beliefs and evidence. Evidence can be turned onto beliefs, busting them to bits like a beer glass dropped on a stairwell. Miracles and myths would appear to be almost defenseless against the boot-kicks of empiricism. Nevertheless, we find ourselves clinging to beliefs and hopes in order to keep us moving along. Knowing that death is final and cannot be avoided by being good and doing onto others in a like manner, we deliberately advance into the dark and the cold in an effort to lead others to the warmth, light and comfort that comes from knowledge. Plans for a new course are infused with promise and possibility — and we believe in in the myth that ignorance is the enemy and wisdom will make the world a better place. We bust our humps preparing and worrying about the prospects for everyone this semester. Believers and skeptics lay awake the night before class, wishing for a miracle but preparing nonetheless (nice pants, neat syllabus, novel introduction) to make this course the one that changes the world.

anything is possible

2011-01-02T09:54:00.014-05:00

I enjoy sports but only pay attention to those teams that are close to where I live. In Boston, we watched every Celtics game on the local Fox affiliate during the early 1990s. In Cleveland, we watched the Indians go to the World Series, and the Browns go to Baltimore. In Utah, we cheered the home team during the 2002 Olympics. And in Connecticut, without a single major league professional team, we follow UConn. The end of 2010 and the start of 2011 has been rough on our 3 biggest programs: the women’s basketball team ended an amazing winning streak, the men’s basketball team were proven to not deserve their No. 4 ranking, and our football team lost badly in its first BCS game. Somebody is bound to suggest that there is some connection to the revelation that we are hiring our first woman as president. Cause and effect or another sign of a loss for the institution -- I’ll let others weigh in.

The Fiesta Bowl is sponsored by Frito-Lay and features their Tostios chips. We compromised and munched on nacho cheese Doritos until we were queasy. (Not many know that the name of the chip comes from the Spanish “Doritos” which roughly translates as “salty, orange, triangles of cocaine-like goodness”). When I was a youth, college bowl games were named after naturally-occurring foods: Orange, Peach, Sugar, Rose, etc. Naming rights for a bowl have long been determined by who wanted to shell out the crazy amount of money. The same is true with stadiums and fields as the owners often have first crack at having their names over the entrance. Corporations can also spend enough to have that right. When the new Cleveland baseball park opened, it was named Jacobs Field after the owners. Now it is Progressive Field, named after the insurance company that also supports NORML legislation. What startled me while watching the Fiesta Bowl, besides the fact that no one had turned the facility into a giant bowl of chips with salsa in midfield, was the name of the place.

University of Phoenix offers online education for adults. Somehow they can issue education degrees which lead to certification. That doesn’t trouble me because I believe it’s on the schools themselves to decide whether they want to hire someone to teach children who earned their bachelor’s while at home, in their pajamas, and eating Doritos. Instead, I cannot quite wrap my head around that fact that the Fiesta Bowl was played at the University of Phoenix Stadium, an institution which has no intercollegiate athletic programs. Truly, my mind is so jolted by this that I am unable to think of a parallel that is equally incongruous. Okay, how about Freedom Mortgage Company’s name on a prison? Or BP’s name on a water park? Just goes to show about anything is possible in 2011.

reaching an end

2011-01-01T10:00:00.012-05:00

Endings and beginnings are very odd pairings. In some cases, a beginning is loud and dramatic while the end is indefinite and discrete. Examples include human life (the screaming moment of birth and the quiet exhalation at death) and the calendar year (fireworks for January 1 compared to a flipped calendar page for December 1). We celebrate new arrivals and weep at the departures.

In other cases, the transition from start to finish is a crescendo with the UConn Women’s Basketball team as a poignant example. Under great national attention, Stanford ended the Husky win streak at 90 games. [It was surreal to watch Condoleezza Rice celebrating, maybe vindicated for her failed Iraq efforts?] In contrast, our local PBS station just re-broadcasted the first game in the streak from November 16, 2008. It was a very typical game with no one sensing where it might all conclude, and nobody imagining that it would almost 1000 days later.

Each year, the media lists the more famous who have walked among us but have died over the preceding 12 months: actors, scientists, artists, etc. Almost inevitably, we are surprised to discover someone’s passing. People like the woman who played the wife and mother on Leave it To Beaver have been such a presence over the years that it is almost as startling to realize that she is a living person as to simultaneously discover that she is, finally and forever, not. As struck as we can be by an ending this is often followed by the sense that things continue. Maybe we believe the UConn win streak would go on forever, despite the coach making it clear that someday it would have to end. We were fooling ourselves into believing that there might be a basketball doxology:

As it was in the beginning
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end …

On the night of the famous loss, I went to bed heavyhearted with condolences arriving through the ether. And the next morning we realized we were going to be okay. The coach was quick to recover, quipping at the post-game press conference: “This losing stuff is getting old: I hate it.” Other basketball games are on the schedule and we have six pairs of tickets on the refrigerator waiting to be used — including the first appearance by the team after their spanking by the Cardinal.

What remains unclear is whether anything new really begins and if endings are especially final. Stephen Jay Gould himself charted this by examining time as an arrow or as a cycle. In relation to geology, he appreciated the dichotomy of the metaphors and praised the tensions it generated. And that worked well for Dr Gould in his professional life; in his personal life he has ceased to be. And yet, he persists in his works which continue to education and enlighten.

An acquaintance expressed astonishment that I was not regularly archiving my computer files. I discovered I had the software that just need to be reloaded. The hardware was already on hand but never put into automatic action. I also ran an anti-virus program as recommended and came back with a completely clean bill of technological health. Now I can virtually thumb back through several years of syllabi and manuscripts and conference proceedings. But Time Machine only looks backwards. On January 1st, it is all about possibilities. I am curious to discover a year from now what has been added and what is changed.

why educators make for bad epidemiologists

2010-12-09T10:51:00.006-05:00

I have had the flu for about a week and I am ready to be done with it. Admittedly, I ignored plenty of opportunities to be vaccinated. I should know better. But then again, I am more of an educator than a scientist. It is quite comical that I rely upon the former as a resource to deal with the mess in my body.

When I google immune response flu virus, the scientific sites are full of useful information. For example, the flu virus causes cells in the respiratory tract to die which in turn causes “impaired function of the mucus elevator.” I will allow the reader to imagine taking that elevator to the conference space.

Many of us know the fallacy of the four humor theory of health. No, this isn’t a taxonomy of ways to be funny. But if it was, I would nominate the following: sarcasm, self-deprecation, word play and pratfalls. Instead, this ancient theory suggest that our bodies consist of four liquids that must be in balance. When they are not, that is when we are sick. Not sure why the Greeks were so into two forms of bile, phlegm and blood. All I can say is that using Nyquil to balance out the green humor is not really a cure.

My strategy has been to use educational principles to rid my body of this illness. In the process, I ignore the fact that viruses exist. Instead my own body is the student body. Yesterday, my strategy was to create stimuli that would make my body believe it was healthy. Rather than drag out of bed and mope about, I arose, promptly took a shower, got dressed and began typing. My intent was to switch off my body’s ill-behavior (including that cursed mucus elevator) by re-booting with a healthful, working routine. I was back in bed by 10:30 a.m.

Today, I went for the workingman lesson plan. First, breakfast: an egg and toast, orange juice, coffee, and a flip through the first section of the paper. Then, composing feedback and sending emails. It is working a little better since it’s almost 11 a.m. and I haven’t gone back to bed. Then again, I haven’t shaved and I’m still wearing the same clothes I put on after yesterday’s shower.

I expect I will continue with the line of treatment. This afternoon, I will venture out for the first time since last Friday. I’m going to the university to retrieve an interlibrary loan book. Maybe that will make my body believe it is ready to act like a professor on sabbatical. If nothing else, by keeping at this I am confident that eventually my educationalist ways will beat this illness.

Time tensions

2010-10-23T14:44:00.003-04:00

A place with such ancient human history promotes reflective thinking. Walking among stone walls and thatch-roofed buildings stirs certain realizations that abrade against an American "can do" attitude. The ruins on the Aran Islands have names in a language that almost dissappeared. Those labels are certainly not what the structures were called by their original builders. This is because we are unsure who laid that first course or when that occured. To be in this place makes it obvious that this will be here long after I depart having already been here for millenia.

Meanwhile among my closest professional friends are individuals striving to improve the world. How strange it is to aspire to make lasting changes when the very ground I walked upon today indicates my pesence is barely detected. This produces a genuine tension ; the cliffs towering over the sea exist because those that were once adjacent have fallen and cushed into sand. In addition to a fear of losing footing and tumbling 100 meters into the surf, I should also accept the inevitability that this stone face will let go.

And yet there have been individuals whose actions have indelibly shape Ireland including St Patrick for his benevolence and Cromwell for his destructiveness. Maybe centuries is too clumsy of a measure of a persom's worth. Admittedly, a lifetime photographing pints of coder or stout might be inadequate. Yet somehow it feels both daring and proper to attempt to alter conditions for the betterment of those who will survive us.

a most clever technology

2010-09-01T09:39:00.007-04:00

It is not necessary to describe the inherent limits of technology — its potential to dehumanize and disconnect us from one another. And others probably have already spoken about the fact that the most ingenious technologies are those that call the very least attention to their presence. This is not the place or time for such diatribes and depositions. Instead, it's a quick intro to a very clever site I came across. If you have five minutes of interrupted time to spare, then open your Chrome browser and experience The Wilderness Downtown.

Since I have nothing pressing to accomplish today, I played on this site for quite some time. Here are some suggestions for you to consider:

You will be prompted to enter your childhood home address. I tried but it was a too obscure address. There is an artistic reason for providing that info. But if you receive this message then I would recommend entering a different address (your current residence) and imagine that is the place where you grew up: Your address doesn't contain enough Street-View and/or Google Maps data to 100% enjoy this experience
Don't click on windows. During the presentation, a bunch will pop up and cascade over each other. Let them be. The artists know better than you. Don't screw it up.
Lastly, DO engage in typing and doodling when prompted on the "postcard" page. Especially doodle. I became lost in throwing ink around the screen. And doing so gives others a place to roost.

Make your own interpretations of the message. Reject it or use it to re-direct you life's purpose. Me: I'm just amazed that I became part of the story.

maybe this is "the one" -- uh, no

2010-08-15T10:02:00.012-04:00

As is the routine for innumerable academics (existing and expecting), I receive email updates from The Chronicle about job postings. Honestly, I am not actively looking and rationalize that I signed up for the notifications just to keep abreast of what's happening in and around my goofy community. And so I was grading student papers when the automated alert came in. Although I'm typically as distractible as a dog among woodland critters, I tried to not chase the link as soon as it boinged.

In that pause, I began to feel the exhilaration. I wondered if perhaps this was THE job posting. While I don't have a specific place or position in mind, I can't help but fantasize. Maybe it would be a richly funded, endowed professorship. Not that the fame would be that great but to have a pool of money for grad assistants and travel (esp. for international destinations) would be a sweet deal. And to be situated in a dynamic community, both from a campus standpoint and located in a hip yet gritty locale, is also a possibility that quickens my pulse. Once again, I take a breath, click the link, and wait to see what new adventure awaits. This week there were two postings.

The first was for Augstana College in South Dakota which is associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. I don't see much alignment with my background there. The other is for a community college campus in the northwest with all of 25 full-time faculty. It's an administrative position and the title would be Healthy People Associate Dean. The central responsibility for the person who wins this plum assignment would be "lead accreditation and licensure requirements including reporting requirements for various internal and external reviews." Makes what I'm doing right now feel not quite so bad.

blowfly postscript

2010-07-22T15:20:00.006-04:00

For those who cannot never hear too many gross biology stories:

Maggots usually move away from the corpse into a somewhat drier area, and for them "drier" usually means "up." But moving up is not always a successful strategy. Once while working a very wet habitat, my students and I arrived early in the morning to find that maggots were leaving our dead pigs [proxies for human bodies] in search of a drier place to pupate. There was no dry area for several miles, but maggots have limited perceptions. They climbed trees. They crawled up the trunk, moved along the branches to their tips, and then fell back to the ground. Since there were three pigs in the area, each with thousands of maggots leaving to climb trees and eventually fall back down, it was quite literally raining maggots. The deluge was so bad that we had to return to the laboratory for umbrellas so that we could finish our sampling.
~ care of M. Lee Goff
A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes

a culture of killers

2010-07-20T13:27:00.009-04:00

I've been unpleasant lately and a large part is due to the oppressive weather. The heat and humidity are more characteristic of the southernishness of my youth. New England is unaccustomed to multiple days in excess of 90°F — let along nuzzling up to 100°F. And it's sticky. The window air conditioners work great except that the rooms become stale and noisy. I know it could be worse because I've opened the drywall hatch to the attic a couple of times and the blast of hot air is powerful. Good to know the ceiling insulation is doing its work.

Last night, I'm trying to do some work before going to bed. I'm tired of the purr of the air conditioner but I have yet to become sleepy. But irritable I was — and then a fly shows up in my office. Of course, it loves the only light sources which include the desk lamp and the computer monitor. It is a sizable fly but quick. I covered my just-poured Guinness with a camping catalog and tried to knock it down and out with a flyswatter. Yes, a disaster in the making: glass, books, suds, electronics — I showed some reserve. But had no luck. The killer in me wanted this thing dead and I needed to know it was no longer living anywhere in my house. Yes, this insecticidal rage is more common than we might want to believe.

Cleverly, I turned on another lamp that had a very alluring incandescent bulb. In moments, the fly alighted on the stem of the lamp — and I whomped it with the fly swatter. It wasn't a smash job but more of a "set to stun" attack. Curious, I scooped it up with the swatter (not about to touch the bastard!) and inspected with a handy-dandy magnifier. It was iridescent green with big eyes. Not a standard housefly as far as I could tell. But then i's legs twitched and there was a sudden transition in form from three- to two-dimensions. Totally dead.

Turns out there are several online resources available for identifying insects. I went forward using my memory rather than searching for a "flattened fauna" field guide for bugs. In very short order (sorry: bad biology joke there) I discovered that my invading insect was a blowfly. Pretty? Perhaps. But why was it flying around upstairs at night? Gulp. Killer confession. It was because of me.

Last year, I swore I heard little paws scampering in the attic. Even though my well-rested companion claimed it was the sound of the ceiling fan, I would not be deterred. I bought a pair of standard mousetraps at the hardware store, baited one with peanut butter, and placed in in the attic. And forgot about it. Then, sometime in winter, I checked (no oven blast of hot air by then) — and the trap was upside down. I flipped it over to reveal the mouse corpse. Who knows how long it had been there. Long enough to leave a body oil corpse stain on the beam.

This spring, I thought I was hearing little claws running above and re-set the trap. A couple of nights later, there was some weird snapping and bumping above — but I was half-awake and brushed it off. When I checked the next day, the trap ... was gone! There were little poop pellets. But the trap must have been carried away. And because the house's original pitched and shingled roof still shows in the attic, I surmised that the unfortunate rodent got trapped, flopped away, and fell into a deep recess of the walls. I could not see it. For good measure, I set the second trap (this time on a larger piece of old drywall) and caught a mouse and disposed of it they way one is supposed to — unlike it's poor kindred whose skeleton will be discovered decades from now. Except for the fly.

Turns out the blowfly is infamous for finding carrion. It can detect the smell of a carcass from several miles away. Was my late night visitor looking for the mouse in the house? Or was this the offspring from the eggs laid in the body several weeks ago? What have I begun and when (or how) will it end? Good luck with your bug invaders!

to soon be going nowither

2010-07-12T16:07:00.009-04:00

July 12 is a good day to being born by virtue of the company. According to the Writer's Almanac, today was born Pablo Neruda (1904) and Julius Caesar (100 BC). Also, in 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born. His parents named him David Henry; hence, we share the day of birth and a middle name. As my trip to the mountains is just nearing two weeks away, Thoreau's dreams of open roads and trails resonate.

Now I yearn for one of those old, meandering, dry, uninhabited roads which lead away from towns, which lead us away from temptation, which conduct to the outside of earth, or its uppermost crust; … along which you may travel like a pilgrim, going nowhither; … where your head is more in heaven than your feet are on earth; … where you can walk and think with the least obstruction, there being nothing to measure progress by; … by which you may go to the uttermost parts of the earth.

To a certain extent, the trek will be purposeful. We will measure how much trail we have covered and how far we have left to go. But the openness is what I am eager to experience. All the more, I realize the need to make the best of preparations so I not only have what I require for the hike but also can leave behind those matters which will be beyond my influence while I am away. That is how this expedition becomes a pilgrimage. It is an opportunity to re-learn how to live in the moment and release what is not within my control.

old timer stories

2010-07-12T02:57:00.017-04:00

In a land where frog gigging was not all that uncommon and where fireworks tents added color to the July landscape, my parents were not too keen on firecrackers. Sparklers? Yes. But nothing that exploded. Not even cap guns. But my buddy Tim, who lived a bike ride away on the other side of town, had less restrictive parents. I don't know that we did fireworks at his house every year. And I am puzzled by how two geeky junior high kids arranged any of this given that it was summer time and all we had for crosstown communication were landlines connected to hulking plastic wall-mounted telephones. Somehow we managed.

Tim just posted photos from his most recent July Fourth celebration. It was a very similar backyard to the one in which he and I lit fireworks. I remember his chocolate Lab named Justice being displeased by our pyrotechnics. I remember the satisfying sound and sight of a large coffee can bumping off the turf from a tiny explosion. The concrete pad of his patio was charred and stained by the small smoke bombs. When we were done, there were teeny scraps of paper in little red, white and blue clumps all over the grass. The air was thickened by the humidity and black powder smoke. I recall cicadas sawing out their songs and the enviable lumbering noise of his central air conditioning unit.

Since I was the guest and a little bit scared of the punks and fire and so on, my memory was that Tim did most of the lighting of fuses. Not every firecracker exploded as it should and those were opportunities for ingenuity. A couple of times, we joined a dud and an unlit firecracker with the same fuse and sometimes they would rip themselves apart in quick succession. While not especially dangerous, there was enough uncertainty and volume to keep two 13 year olds entertained.

As Tim retrieved one dud, he inspected the fuse end just in time to see that a small glow inside. He flung the firecracker and it exploded in mid-air halfway between us. The detonation was enough to make our ears ring. No fingers torn open, no flesh burned, no lasting evidence of this near miss. However, that brief incident not only gave us our story for the day, but became embedded in our minds.

I didn’t remember this event until I saw Tim’s pictures. I have been around plenty of fireworks since then so it must have been my association of Tim and July Fourth. I wrote a quick comment to his online photos just to see if he shared that memory. He does. He reported that he tells that story every July 4th to his children. And grandchildren. I know that math makes perfectly good sense as the years have rolled by: Tim married young and hurriedly, he later lost his wife in a car accident, and has since re-married and (I’m guessing here) is a trusted physician in the Midwest. But while I so busy doing other stuff, how did my firecracker memory become an annual mini-lecture my boyhood friend now gives to those who can hardly wait to tear open the cellophane and put heat to explosives?

my writing stimulus package

2010-07-01T09:59:00.016-04:00

Sometimes, my efforts to write go well. Those moments are fleeting, so sweet and brief that I wonder if they are imagined. More often, or more memorable, is when the writing gets tough. I know I am not alone in feeling I have slid off the road into a ditch. And bloggers are especially adept at compiling quotations by genuine writers about their struggles. But this isn’t about not feeling alone. It’s about not feeling like I cannot write.

Years ago when we would occasionally drive to the next state to visit a sibling and his young family, I would return home on Sunday fully invigorated for the work week. On such visits, the conversations were flat and dull. There was some fun, but it often was about babies tipping over or watching the kids evacuate the TV room during the scary scenes of a Disney movie. I was as if I was parked facing uphill and could see a in my review mirror a gray and cold town that would engulf me if I rolled backward. The light would turn green, I’d pop the clutch, and accelerate so my stomach rose when I crested the hill.

My inspiration comes from a fear of the dank maw of mediocrity. When I encounter writing that is deft and delightful, I feel inadequate. For example, the sentence below made be chuckle out loud. And the awe it creates would debilitate me if I followed the maxim of reading a great deal for inspiration:

Each resident was required to tie his or her dog up in the yard until it barked itself cross-eyed, presumably to frighten off coyotes.

I am humbled by great writing such as this. In contrast, I feel primed to write because of exposure to counter-examples. My inspiration then is not to reach the expert level but to distance myself from the worst. My writing is stimulated by a drive to move away from the chaff and dross. Here have been my recent sources of inspiration.

First, campfire conversations do not need to be deep existential discussions. I appreciate a good fart joke as much as any boy. But re-enactments of scenes from multiple Will Farrell movies just isn’t quite the same. I just looked at this clip and discovered that the version I witnessed in the Minnesota wilderness had been rendered with astonishing accuracy: sequence, scene, script -- all of it. Similarly, reading someone else’s former doc student’s writing encourages me to write. The force-fit of a theory, the data that reads like random snatches of conversation, the unsubstantiated findings -- it all makes me shudder as a consumer. But it inspires me to show how writing might be done. Third, I read a grant proposal written by a guy whose last name was the same as that of the small Floridian business college. He had started his own college and named it after himself. And it was accredited. The grant was not badly written although not especially academic in style. But it was audacious in its conceptualization, especially in wanting to receive federal dollars to improve science literacy of business college students. Again: inspiring.

Finally, perhaps this very writing sample will incite others to write in ways that place a heavy, muddy boot on this crummy essay. To write well is more a matter of writing a little better than the next guy. It’s akin to doing well enough to not be eliminated in the first round. Most nations will not win the World Cup. To even be there is better than watching from home. Write back!

that which goes unrecognized

2010-06-29T10:50:00.016-04:00

Using another computer for reviewing research proposals, there were several features of the hardware and software that did not come automatically. On my own computers, I can unthinkingly change text size, call up search features, and check the spelling. But on an unfamiliar device, it took me a couple of minutes to even figure out how to open it. I do like the stubby red button in the middle of the keyboard that allows me to steer the cursor all around the screen. On the other hand, there was a trackpad and a mouse that made the joystick more than redundant aside from its novelty.

One automated featured I take as a given on my own computers are the custom dictionaries. Of course my own last name is unquestioned on familiar word processors but raises hackles on the foreign computer. What is most intriguing is that the following words are identifed as improper on the foundation's unusual reviewing software. Most notable were these "errors" that arose repeatedly because they are central aspects of the stated mission:

underrepresented
transformative
mentoring
generalizability

What might this mean? Is underrepresentation by certain populations, in reality, unimportant? Is transformative not an actual goal? Mentoring: not recognized and hence not valued? And, at the end of the day, perhaps the lack of much that is generalizable should come as no surprise.

PEBCAC postscript

2010-06-10T07:25:00.005-04:00

Supposedly tech support people are challenged to identify the source of difficulties reported by customers. When the user is the cause then PEBCAC (or PEBKAC) summarizes the issue. Translation: Problem Exists Between Computer (or Keyboard) and Chair. Despite a previous posting about the delights of having gadgets that create few problems because of their familiarity, other issues persist that deserve the same label.

When the coffeemaker beeped signaling me (pure Pavlov!) to retrieve my first cup of the morning, I glanced at the pot before I began the pour. Apparently there can also be a PEBCAC that refers to the problem between the coffeemaker and the cup. Seems I forgot to spoon in the grounds so I ran 6 cups of water through a paper filter.

Rebooting.

alt coffee maker

2010-06-09T14:46:00.004-04:00

enough with the stuff

2010-06-09T14:13:00.006-04:00

While not opposed to gadgets, I have realized I am approaching a certain comfort level with my amount of stuff. That might be an admirable realization except that it arises out of concern that things won't last. In a little over one hundred miles, my trusty Element will have accumulated 100,000 miles. I took it into a local shop for a careful going over. The few hundred dollars they charged to replace parts that were flabby, wrinkled or cracked was a great investment. And with their recommendation, I had 4 new tires added at another joint -- all for less than $1K in total.

It isn't that I don't like new stuff. A box of equipment from CampMor arrived earlier this week. There was Christmas-like exhilaration as I pulled each item from the box, even though I had been quite deliberative in selecting in which before ordering them online. I now own a mismatched rainsuit (blue top, black bottom, both discounted!), an equally unstylish broad-brimmed hat, a frightfully sharp knife, a too-cute set of eating ware, a bottle of nature friendly camp soap, and a vial of pest-unfriendly bug juice. Oh the joy this stuff brings me!

But I may have believed that one day I will no longer be bothered by needing to master a new gadget. For example, in my favorite mug I can reheat coffee to the perfect temperature by setting the microwave to power up for 2:22. The coffeemaker, in turn, produces perfectly strong brew with 6 heaping scoops from a wooden spoon and with the device set to slow brew (the 1-4 cup feature). Unfortunately, the plastic lid on the coffee mill is acting up. When I press it down to activate the grinding mechanism, the lid snaps as if it has a crack in it. True, this was a castoff appliance from my mother-in-law a few years ago when she realized she did not need to grind spices. But if the lid fails, the rest of the device is rendered useless. This, in turn, destroys a vital link in the coffee production process that has worked so well for me.

Maybe this is a companion to the sense of needing a makeover. Certainly there are times when things need to be upgraded. But for very basic life functions, which includes coffee brewing and basic transportation, I would be perfectly content to allow objects and actions to continue operating as they have up until now. No, I don't want to learn how to make a new printer do its thing. Yes, I was actually quite content with the previous version of MS Office because it did all the statistics the new version has eliminated. No, I do not enjoying trying to make the new module play nicely with Excel -- it is only a simple ANOVA: why can't you do the calculations in your microprocessor that I once did with a calculator back in grad school?! No, I don't think this all sounds cranky and stodgy -- everything was going just fine until some idiot thought they could make some improvements. Bah! But wait. This looks cool. All I need to do is a Händler suchen and then this could be mine. I think I have an app for that.

turning philosophical

2010-06-07T15:53:00.007-04:00

A colleague asked advice about whether it would be appropriate to write something like, “What kind of jackass would continue to teach in selfish ways after hearing about the sources of inequity among students?” The uncertainty was whether jackass was too strong (we concluded it was) but the point being made was that at some point, individuals ought to take a stand. Injustices cannot be waved off as if problems are someone else’s responsibility.

This issue reminded me about the question about the kind of legacy we might like to leave. I suppose this an issue many people face at turning points in their lives and careers. There are even organizations such as Encore that assist professionals to find post-retirement ways to contributed to society. Their use of a semi-colon is pure marketing brilliance.

My colleague endeavors to use her influence and access to push others to change their beliefs and associated actions. Ideally, after reading her essay, the jackass would see the errors in his ways and turn his life, and his legacy, around. Others might be convinced to consider the long-term implications for their work through humor. The following scenario is a good reminder for me:

Three friends are killed in a car accident and meet up at an orientation session in Heaven. The celestial facilitator asks them what they would most like to hear said about them as friends and relatives walked past their casket.

The first man says, “I hope people will say I was a wonderful doctor and a good family man.”

The second man says, “I would like to hear people say that as a schoolteacher I made a big difference in the lives of children.”

The third may says, “I’d like to hear someone say: ‘Hey look! He’s moving!’”

The source of this joke is a chapter about existentialism within a broader effort to teach about philosophy via humor. At a very basic level, the jokes are really good and I may use this venue to share more of those in the future. In addition, the book really works. I believe that philosophy can help us make sense of our world(s). Or at least learn to laugh about it all.

nice weather out here

2010-06-03T19:33:00.013-04:00

The meteorologists claimed there was a good chance of thunderstorms today. Multicolored swirls marched across our tiny state on the interwebs all day long. Warm, humid but not a lick of precipitation — until 7:30 this evening. I saw the indications on Wunderground before I heard the splattering raindrops on the roof outside my office window. To get closer to the rain without getting wet myself, I made my way to our wrap-around porch.

We are fortuante to have a couple of very large maples bracketing our house. They provide a playground for squirrels, offer substantial shade during summer, and produce interesting rain shadows. Once again, the pavement in front was damp while the circles directly under the trees' canopies were dry. As I stood there waiting for the water to find its way through the leaves, I glanced up as a sedan drove by. I'm beginning to realize I should always tote my camera with me in Willimantic. Here is what I witnessed.

Atop the car was a mattress. I'm guessing it wasn't tied down because the passenger was sitting through his open window holding the mattress down. He had a crew-cut and wore one of those shirts my nephew calls "wife beaters " — a white, thin tank top. I don't believe this endeavor was being conducted by academics. The driver was presumably trying to maintain the right speed: not so slow the mattress got rained on too much but not so fast that the wind separated the furniture from the automobile. I also have the hunch he was steering with one hand and holding onto his edge of the mattress with the other. Just past our house, the holder of the mattress leaned down and reported to the driver, in a somewhat pleasant tone, "It's fucking nice out here." Apparently I wasn't the only one appreciating the cool drizzle and the refreshing breeze. Hope they all have a good night's sleep.

pitiable

2010-05-25T21:33:00.012-04:00

There has been a stretch of unsupportive feedback over the past few weeks. First, I lost a modest grant proposal – and it received a low rating. Second, a piece being revised for a major journal did not meet with their expectations — the final disposition is in and it is a clear rejection. Third, I thought I was just one correction away from IRB approval — but just days before the summer session begins, they want a complete and un-exempted proposal. Each of these negative decisions directly targets the quality of my writing. By extension, these also bring into doubt the strengths of my thought processes.

The little distance created by the passage of time reveals the germ of truth under these three instances of thumbs-down judgments. I had told myself the grant application was a long-shot and that persistence and pugnaciousness appeared to be the formula for success. There was only so much I could provide to the journal editor and reviewers and it was fundamentally impossible to demonstrate that the five young women who provided such compelling stories were not special. Maybe I do have to concede, as indicated by one reviewer, that this was simply an exploratory study. And the IRB review was accurate but badly timed. Their care was appreciated but not at the eleventh hour.

One after the other, the erosion of ego accumulated. Not taking any of personally is the logical approach. To be fair, the rejections were kindly worded and all acknowledged the effort expended on all of the tasks. But in the final calculations, no matter how admirable my exertions, the work products were not sufficient. No funding this time, no publication in the targeted journal, and a scramble to re-cast the IRB application onto a new form. All manageable and none of it dire. More than just annoying though because I stumbled on three hurdles in quick succession.

Then I received a most conscientious message that has helped immeasurably with the healing process. It spoke admirably of my constitution. But it also offered sage and cautious advice about what lies ahead on our path. Exertion, altitude, and equipment in considerable quantities offer challenges that cannot be avoided. The key: proper preparation. Truth is, I had purchased a replacement pair of trail shoes. Like their predecessors, they are low, light and dependable. But against high-altitude, rocky passes and a long haul, I realized that my new treads might be better as my post-hiking footwear each day. In my closet are two pair of decent hiking boots. Both sets are broken in but not in the least bit old. The dilemma is that one pair is clunky and best for heavy wet snow — and trudges from a parking garage to an office. The other pair is preferred because it is less like wearing bricks. The question is not whether the selected, Sol Fun endorsed trail runners will suffice — because they won't. The question, is which of the existing footwear options is as supportive of the ankles as my buddy is of my well-being. Right now, the ego is intact and there is no need to continue with my personal pity party.

first, Third Thursday of 2010

2010-05-20T19:37:00.005-04:00

The monthly street festival in our mill town is held on the third Thursday of each summer month. It is probably one of the very best things about living in this oddball town. We were eager to visit the Puerto Rican church ladies tent. We bought a plate of 4 empanadas and another combo plate: pork, taco and rice with pigeon peas. Rather than sit on the curb, or try to manage standing up and eating, we went to the nearby beer garden.

I bought a wooden nickel, showed my identification, got a wrist band, and finally secured a cold beer. We sat listening to a local, three-piece mariachi band. The weather was spectacular: the sky was blue (although the buzzards always seem to be circling) and the air had suddenly lost the cold damp chill of the previous few days. Three amigos resplendent in black suits and somberos facing off against a pasty swarm of stiff New Englanders. At first there were only few of us listening but the crowd grew to about a hundred by the time our food and drink were gone.

The musicians were really good and for a moment I contemplated how to organize a conference such that the evening artist would expand beyond our tradition of poetry (indigenous music as craft?). I was pulled out of my reverie by the four little white girls, maybe 3 to 4 years old, dancing with abandon. They were dressed in combinations of pink, light green and baby blue outfits. The mostly hopped as individuals or held hands in pairs and spun about. Javier showed up and did his best to recruit a partner. He was not especially lucky and we saw him throw his hands up at one point as if to say, "Hey, chicas! Don't you have heard about the Latin man?!" When one girl did begin to spin with him, it was too fast for his taste so he returned to bouncing on his own.

A dad arrived with pizza slices and the dancing took a new twist. The girls would run a couple of laps around the concrete pad and then peel off to take a bite from an upside-down pepperoni slice. Then, back into the circuit. It was an imaginative blend of interpretive dance and auto racing: moving to music interrupted with refueling stops. When my partner demonstrated that she could sing along to "Ring of Fire" then it all just became too weird. I stood up and proposed we begin a search for ice cream. And now our summer has unofficially begun.

sunglasses

2010-05-16T21:09:00.008-04:00

Yes, this is the "oh my he just realized he's getting old" entry. During an otherwise exhilarating bike ride around the rock and sand of south/west Utah, our guide commented upon my sunglasses. Having worn prescription eyeglasses since I was three years old, I never really get into the groove of buying sunglasses. The clip-on type, even with the strong magnets, were about as satisfying as clip-on ties. When a national fishing and hunting store advertised sportsman sunglasses that fit around eyeglasses, I was intrigued. Once I learned they could be outfitted with polarized lenses, I was ready to buy.

The Cocoons have to be larger than the cool sunglasses most people wear. Quite obviously, they must accommodate the size of the eyeglasses that remain underneath (see picture). My brother (only 5 years my junior but refusing to believe he is aging, loves to mock these frames. But dammit, they do a great job of both shielding my sensitive eyes from painful glare AND letting me focus upon my surroundings.

Back to our guide: she was trying to be sweet and complementary by remarking upon my sunglasses. But then she bumbled and said it might be worth telling her father about them. I caught her: "Why, because he's old, too?" Before she could repair her comment, the young couple stepped in — actually stepping into it — by suggesting that they've seen lots of people on in Florida wearing such sunglasses.

Doctor Zero would have been a complete gentleman had he kept his opinion to himself. The old guy was already wheezing from the altitude and exertion. And yet, even though he let this moment pass, he couldn't resist patting himself on the back a couple of days later. He recounted the whole incident and proudly explained that he avoided the obvious opportunity to pile more insult onto the humiliation. So in the end, he couldn't completely let it go. We'll see who gets the last laugh when senior discounts are offered at the local brewhouse. I just hitched up my long pants and pedaled away.

full disclosure

2010-04-21T19:48:00.015-04:00

Welcome to session 17C in the Ukulele Room. I know it’s late in the day and as the discussant, I join with our 3 presenters in thanking you for making your way to this session. Rather than simply read out loud their names and institutions, I would like to introduce our speakers to you by way of explaining my relationship to them.

First is Dr. A who I knew of when I was a graduate student. At the time, he was the editor of a modest journal. My advisor suggested I do an analysis of the educational backgrounds of the authors of the dominant textbooks on the market. It was the kind of simplistic study we’ve all done and neither remarkable or completely without merit. Dr. A, and I’m not sure you remember this, refused to send our manuscript out for review. Instead, he delayed it for nine months by deciding instead to share it with organization’s Board of Directors. Now this is all second-hand and circumstantial, but it is pretty obvious to me today that Dr. A was fearful that this study would attract the attention of big names in the field. After nearly three years, by which time I was then a tenure-track assistant professor, the sanitized and outdated study finally saw the light of day. Three years and only 10 pages long. But that was many years ago and Dr. A has now completely ruined his liver and his color is almost as bad in sunlight as here under these fluorescent lights. I know I recognize his title from previous meetings but somehow he made it onto the program. So in a little while, and with the assistance of his orderly — I’m sorry, "doc student" — we will hear from Dr. A.

Next, we have Professor B who works at a well-funded private foundation. Again, I’ve known this individual for many years but under different conditions. She was a familiar and encouraging face at almost all my presentations when I first attended this conference. After each talk, she would push her way to me and offer warm congratulations. Once, I think it was in Atlanta, I was getting on an elevator late in the evening — and Professor B rushed on just as the doors were closing. It was an awkward moment when we simultaneously reached to push the buttons for our respective floors, and doubly awkward because our name badges became entangled. Before I knew it, and once she stands up you’ll understand the circumstance, Professor B was able to use her body to leverage and steer me into the corner. Even though she was saying something about untangling our badges, her pelvis was sending very different messages to my knee. As I recall, there were numerous plastic swords in her bouffant, presumably lofted there by her drinking buddies. Just as her pudgy hands were reaching for my ears, the elevator doors opened and I was able to fall backwards toward my room. The elastic string on my name badge gave way at the moment and the flying plastic holder lodged between her spectacles and her gray tangle of eyebrow. It’s interesting to see her again today under somewhat different circumstances and I must confess relief that others are here at the same time.

Finally, Dr C has come to us all the way from New Zealand. It’s great to see her here. I became aware of Dr C several years ago because one of my colleagues claimed she looked like a Midge or Skipper doll. I played along until I heard Dr C speak. There’s something about the accent of those from the former British colonies that accelerates my pulse. It's convenient to be here today so I can obtain a fresh manuscript directly from her delicate hands. I can report that she makes good use of her time at this conference: she turns off the lights in her hotel room around 10:30 pm, spends about 45 minutes each morning in the hotel workout room, and has a pretty good singing voice when she showers afterwards. She likes milk in her coffee but not sugar. I don’t want to embarrass her but she wore that same skirt a few days ago at the Michigan State reception, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen her wearing those pumps. Her hair is about the same length as when I first became aware of her — but I cannot confirm or deny whether it smells of eucalyptus oil. Sometimes, it can be fun just to imagine the possibilities. I hope we have time to ask questions about her research since she is scheduled on a 7 a.m. airport shuttle tomorrow in order to make her connections back to her brick condo on Blacksheep Lane in Christchurch. Please give a warm welcome to Dr C.

Who would like to present first?

choosing bottles

2010-04-06T08:03:00.006-04:00

Four weeks from now, I will be on an adventure. First off, in the morning I present the research I have been doing for two years to the Administrative and Leadership division of the American Educational Research Association. True to form, the background material, theoretical framework and research methods are solid. The data are all in and mostly coded -- and yet I am unsure exactly what findings I will report. But by noon of that same day, I can remove my tie and begin making the transition for an outdoor trek. Part writing retreat, part desert expedition, the subsequent several days will be about as different as the preceding days as almost anything I could imagine.

The entire trip involves ten days from home. All the tickets are purchased (but need to be printed out and compiled), lodging arrangements have been made, and an initial directory of drinking establishments have been mapped. What is puzzling to me is what to include in the large suitcase. The first four days, I’ll need to look presentable to fellow academics: nice shirts, pretty ties, maybe a jacket, shiny shoes. The balance of the trip would surely ruin these. Instead, I’m envisioning t-shirts for daytime, denim shirts for night, and a pair of trail shoes that may give up their tread due to the abuse I plan to give them.For the first few days of the trip, I could spend daylight hours almost entirely under artificial lighting. The following segment of the travel will be the opposite.

Ten days is a long time and comes with the need to haul my belongings. Digging through cosmetic supplies under the bathroom sink, I am cautious about packing every single thing I may need. I need to make choices. For example, I have a sizable bottle of sunburn gel. It’s blue-green, thick gel (because of the aloe), smells fruity, and is always cold. It’s the perfect antidote for burned skin. Or I could bring a supply of high-SPF lotions that would effectively preserve my winter skin tone. I do not need both because the availability of one eliminates the need for the other. It’s a choice: one preventative and the other curative.

How do parents deal with this when hauling around 2 or more kids? I don’t expect one can really anticipate preventing every problem (rain, dirt, hunger, cold, boredom, exhaustion). But on the other hand, one probably ought to pack expecting problems (extra diaper, spare shirt, small book, a chew toy). What criteria do you parents use when choosing between a bottle of formula versus a juice box? Thinking about my conference responsibilities, I probably should post my presentations to an online resource in case my laptop goes out or goes bye-bye. And even though I’ll use Keynote, I need to have a version in PowerPoint and QuickTime. Also, a thumb drive and a power cord. More broadly, how should we go about packing for life? For a long time, I have accepted that there is only so much I can prepare for in advance. Others operate with the fear that the unanticipated might occur. (You can either sense the tension this creates or bear witness to it.) Blue cooling gel or opaque white lotion? I might could (a southernism I picked up from Peaches) take both of them. But where’s the adventure in that? Local liquor or flask from home? Okay, that's not choosing: that is simply being smart and prepared.

all about the data

2010-03-30T18:55:00.014-04:00

Data provides the fuel to drive the current educational reform movement. Perhaps that is what distinguishes this era from reforms in the past. Sure we could lament the imposition of standardized testing. For me, despite misgivings about the quality of some tests, I am in many ways pleased by the attention to evidence. Rather than argue via emotional appeals or political exhortations, discussions and decisions are grounded in numbers. This trend has even caught the attention of columnists:

"This is the age of research, so there’s data to back this up."
~ David Brooks, NY Times, March 29, 2009, The Sandra Bullock Trade

The Sandra Bullock comment was in reference to happiness indices and whether she is foolishly trading fame for contentedness. What fascinates me is the notion that it doesn't seem wacky to measure happiness. Or trust. And to then use those measures to inform decisions. A local study documented the positive associations between reciprocity among neighbors and a family's sense of food security. To me, this is serious stuff and informed and advanced by data.

Within his comments about reforming schools, one panelist at Yale's Education Leadership Conference, an entrepreneur, offered that schools spend $25 billion on the Four Ts: textbooks, tutoring, testing and technology. Until that moment, I had envisioned technology as an instructional resource: computers, simulation software, smart boards, etc. (but no longer overhead projectors). But what I have just begun to realize is that technology includes data gathering and analysis. More data, more interpreting, more "drilling down" and more graphical displays. That's what happens in the business world as comparisons are made between stores along with within store comparisons made about years, quarters, and days. And adjustments are influenced by the interpretations of data.

Meanwhile, the educational purists lament the loss of innocence, as if the shift to empiricism will be the ruin of our schools. From where I sit, it appears too many schools are in ruins. We are not sure what should be done. I hope we can begin the conversation by agreeing that something ought to be done. While the use of data might not be the solution, I believe the thoughtful and deliberate use is imperative if we hope to make progress.

leadership as dance

2010-03-29T21:21:00.005-04:00

As I continue to puzzle over social entrepreneurship, it becomes apparent that business is at the center and "social" is a slight modifier. In my search, I discovered that PBS has materials in this realm. Within their Resources section, all of the research organizations based in universities are housed within Bizness Schools: Harvard, Duke, Columbia & Stanford. All wonderful places but also not where one would expect a strong advocacy and social consciousness to pervade and inform the work. I'm not yet ready to abandon social entrepreneurship just yet, but I need to develop some financial savvy first.

One should recall that much of this thinking (by me) was prompted by the Yale SOM Education Leadership Conference on Friday, March 25. What I have discovered is an interesting conceptualization of leadership. In this scenario, it isn't so much the first individual who starts something new but the first and second people who follow. Metaphorically speaking, a good leader is the first guy to start dancing. You don't have to be especially good at dancing (done!). But you must be easy to follow. There are risks involved with attempting to lead as well as risks in deciding to be the first few who elect to follow. This might sound very familiar. Seeing it represented as a dance at Sasquatch, complete with leadership narrative, really drives this home. Perhaps millions of dollars are required to be a social entrepreneur. But good timing and a sense for what the people can do is all it takes to lead.

the party goes on without us

2010-03-28T22:28:00.005-04:00

On Friday I drove to New Haven to attend an Education Leadership Conference. My motivation was to learn more about leadership given my recent research in schools as well as my ongoing puzzles about leadership within my work life. It only dawned on me slowly that this was not an ordinary education conference. Somehow I didn’t catch that our host, the Yale SOM Education Club, had deep roots in the business world. In fact, MBAs are offered in the School of Management and there is little cause to wonder why they don’t call themselves a School of Business given the associated acronym.

Many big names were in attendance including key people from several activist reform organizations: Achievement First and Teach for America. Also, several government folks including a guy who was on the Obama transition team for education along with local superintendents. If Lara Smetana had not gotten off the wait-list at the last minute, I believe I would have been the only university educator in the crowd. Everyone else was very energetic and it appeared that many were selling (e.g., promoting their little projects) while others were trying to buy (i.e., recruiting soon-to-graduate Yalies for their companies). Nevertheless, the discussions were about reducing achievement gaps, elevating school success, improving equitable access, and other educational movements I have come to admire.

I attended a panel about “creating a financially-sustainable education venture” because I was curious how to think about tapping into a revenue stream to keep things like Crossroads going. But the session was much more than that. The guys were all heavy hitters who fund social entrepreneurs and I was struck by their attention to returns on investment. This sometimes occurs through revenue streams (e.g., fees for service) whereas many philanthropists and investors are interested in impacts resulting from their money. It reminded me that any source of support is contingent upon results and while I cannot imagine making money for somebody else, I recognized the importance of thinking about our work beyond the delight brought about by an annual gathering.

Independent of one’s regard for those who seek to make money from education, I came to recognize that many of the biggest initiatives in contemporary education reform are fueled by substantial revenue streams. Alternatively, district and state leaders are being propelled and compelled to produce results on standardized assessments. Less than a month ago, a superintendent in Rhode Island announced that an entire high school’s staff would be dismissed at the year’s end. She was supported by the state commissioner of education and even Arne Duncan applauded the move. Truly, the school had been doing very badly by its students for many years which makes it difficult to dispute. And yet, this all adds to my feeling that educational reform is charging forward and we in the academy are being left behind. I didn’t know how funny that last bit was until I typed it.

There were hundreds of people at the sold-out Yale meeting who are moving ahead with great purpose and energy to change schools. They speak about charter schools. They mention “proof points” as indicators about how to proceed. They rely upon metrics to shape decisions. In many ways, they are doing what educators have always said needed to be done. But they do not feel the need to check in with us in the academy (Panelist: “All they give us R when we need R&D!”). Then again, I am not sure who I would recommend they quick in with given how little we appear to know about effective teaching and how slowly we have gone about our work. I remain very conflicted because I've seen the lack of action by most of our peers as despicable. And yet all this interest in schools by business types makes me uneasy. Action vs. inaction vs. reaction.

back to the wall

2010-02-04T16:51:00.008-05:00

Poetry comes in many forms and from a variety of sources. I have been repeatedly listening to Steve Earle with the following lines from his song "Guitar Town." It's on the iPod, Pandora, Last.fm and a CD in the Element. As a song, the rhymes and the meter work really well — especially when punctuated by shouts of "Hey!" And since I'm not a good memorizer, I played the following several times on the way home from school today to force me to learn the lyrics. I wondered how it would play without the music:

Hey pretty baby don't you know it ain't my fault
I love to hear the steel belts hummin' on the asphalt
Wake up in the middle of the night in a truck stop
Stumble in the restaurant wonderin' why I don't stop

Gotta keep rockin' why I still can
I gotta two pack habit and a motel tan
But when my boots hit the boards I'm a brand new man
With my back to the riser I make my stand

What first caught my ear were the last two lines. Each time, I envision pair of scuffed cowboy boots slamming down on the oak floorboards, kicking up dust. In superhero fashion, the guitar player comes to life — jolted out of limbo. He rises. Fiercesome and powerful. A warrior demanding to be heard. Stomping and shouting, confessing to the urgency and daring others to respond to the internal call: "you know it ain't my fault." In a way, he's out of control but in other ways, he is in complete control. Damn!

snowman comics

2010-01-31T17:48:00.006-05:00

I have a working hypothesis that any comic involving a snowman is automatically funny. My earliest recollection of this phenomenon was a cartoon from National Lampoon showing a snowman police officer lifting a sheet to reveal a puddle as a very sad snow person looked at the mess underneath. No words but huge hilarity. Of course Calvin & Hobbes make use of snowmen to great effect. There are probably a few snowman comics that are not all that funny. But here's another one that landed in my lap and it made me LOL. Not sure I even want to dissect the reason as I am content to accept it as is.

exertion

2010-01-14T09:54:00.006-05:00

A few years back, we did a study of future teachers and about their view about teaching science as well as being effective with students of color. Most striking was how strong their confidence was about their competence -- on the first day of their only course about how to teach science. Since then, I have valued the potential for self-doubt and uncertainty as powerful mechanisms to promote learning and change. I am usually untroubled when someone expresses frustration because I have a tendency to believe that such discomfort is the very force that will propel them forward. On the other hand, I recognize that confidence and persistence have great power and this power comes from successful experiences. Therein stands the tantalizing tension somewhere between the already-done and the yet-to-know.

Yesterday this became especially clear as we prepared to hike a section of the Appalachian trail on snowshoes. It was an out-and-back trip of about an hour but the temperature was really cold. Plus, we had not been able to do genuine backcountry snowshoeing in five or more years. We had all the necessary equipment and believed we were sufficiently fit. Plus, the altitude was about 10% of what we had flourished in when we kicked powder in the Wasatch Range. Nevertheless, the bindings were awfully cold, our first attempt to ascend was far too steep, and snow was creeping into gaps in my clothing. One finger was especially cold and I was sure that if I removed that glove, it would be the color and consistency of lead. But we found a trail going the opposite direction that was open to hikers, skiers and snowshoers. Someone (and it looked like only one) had blazed a trail. Because the blaze markings on trees were white, our unknown guide must have been familiar with the route.

We were finally underway having established a comfortable stride. The sky was overcast at 10 a.m. and there were no large breaks through which we could absorb spectacular views. Now we’d found our groove which coincided with the path cut into the deep snow. Toes and fingers warmed. It became fun and comfortable. However, because of the conditions, the cold could begin to creep in if we dallied in place. While the gloves were almost too warm, taking the off was not an option because of the recent memory of dull metallic flesh. As long as we pushed forward, we could deal with the elements. Having hiked far enough uphill, we broke new trails coming back down. There were several moments where the platform of the snowshoe floated on the snow’s surface so I many steps were more like glides that clomps. And I did get moving too fast, once grabbing to a tree trunk that noted my presence with a heavy dumping of snow on my head and into my collar.

It occurred to me that what made this excursion so fun was a combination of boldness and caution. First, rather than become too worried about my cold extremities I literally plowed forward. The excursion itself, in the face of bitter and indifferent surroundings, generated the heat to keep me going. And yet when there was insufficient exertion, the cold and emptiness and gray pressed in on me. All of which suggests that we have to keep moving to stay warm and alive. The trick, I suppose, is to not exert so heavily that we exhaust ourselves. But moving at the right pace is necessary to remind and ensure us that we are living.

dave brubeck (sob)

2010-01-01T09:05:00.009-05:00

Because there was nothing else better to do and since I knew most of the people being awarded, we watched the Kennedy Center Honors the other night. The one awardee I didn't know was an opera star, Grace Bumbry. The others were an actor (Robt De Niro), a comedian (Mel Brooks), a rocker (Bruce Springsteen) and a jazz musician: Dave Brubeck. All the tributes were great even though no one was quite able to cause any of the mega-stars to tear up. Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks look really old but they are still poking at each other in ways that only long-time friends can. Makes me long for an outlet to perform the 2000 Year Old Education Researcher.

I was surprised by how much praise they heaped onto Dave Brubeck. In my brief and immature jazz appreciation history, Brubeck followed Vince Guaraldi who I will always associate with Christmas-time and dancing with abandon. But I never imagined Brubeck was such a trailblazer and innovator. I thought he was playing "nice" jazz with a regular beat (except for Take Five) and with a melody I could follow. But in his day, he was breaking all kinds of new ground -- even as a white guy who walked the Earth when other magnificent jazz musicians were around.

It was interesting to see who they paraded out for each honoree. For Bruce, Ron Kovic literally rolled out as the author of Born on the Fourth of July. Ben Stiller was among those going at De NIro and Jon Stewart was unable to conceal his adoration for Springsteen. But again, those who were at the center of attention seemed content but not overwhelmed. Maybe being adored that much just gets to be normal after awhile?

However, there was a moment I won't soon forget (and if I do, it's now forever on the InterWeb). It starts nicely enough when Dave Brubeck's band is performing. Great medley of very familiar tunes. Then the US Army Jazz Band joins the quintet on stage. They are in uniform and although good musicians, they are stiff as ... well, soldiers. There are some glorious cuts away to the Obamas (Michelle and her hubby) who are clearly enjoying the music. Dave Brubeck is having a pretty good time, too. But the moment is when a piece of the stage set slides back to reveal who the announcer indicates are the four sons of Dave Brubeck. The old guy is blown away. Anybody can read his lips. If you watch carefully, he almost forgets to breathe and is unsure what to do with his hands.

There is pure delight when the first son gives a jazz trombone solo, utter pride when Son #2 has a piano solo. And when the cellist's solo begins, even Dave Brubeck leans forward to take it all in: jazz cello?! As it continues, his grin becomes so large his cheeks all but squeeze his eyes shut. They conclude with a rendition of Happy Birthday because, as Herbie Hancock earlier revealed, it was Dave's birthday. The performance was really good -- but Dave Brubeck had the most fun of anyone. THAT is how to recognize someone's accomplishments!

getting around

2009-12-19T19:24:00.015-05:00

International travel continues to surprise me. Not only are the differences from my routines so astonishing, but so too are the unexpected similarities. The recent trip to Colombia reminded me how nicely I've insulated myself within my native language. What startled me was how varied the voices were among those who grew up speaking Colombian Spanish. There was husky voices and grating voices, some were high and a few were low. Also the homes we visited had subtle architectural features. Our friends' condo had open transoms over every door and tiled floors left uncovered. The combined effect was a happy home as laughter bounced off the walls, up and down the stairs, and into every room. Another house was openly framed with huge sections of local bamboo, a response to environmental issues by using local materials.

Despite the contrasts, one similarity between cities in Colombia, China and South Africa in the varieties of transportation found on the roads. All three have a higher proportion of buses and taxis than I typically see in the USA. But there are also two-wheeled wooden carts pulled by hand, large luxury SUVs, and a range of motor scooters. Unique to Colombia was that there were at least three tiers of motorcycles. While cars tended to remain in their designated lanes, cycles and scooters would fill any and all interstitial spaces. When the traffic signals turn green, vehicles sort and segregate according to horsepower: mopeds watch as they lose pole position to motorcycles and sports cars. Finally, I can report that domestic airports in Colombia are as casual as very nice American train stations. Stroll in the door, throw down a few thousand pesos and you can be in the air to another gorgeous location with very little hassle.

So many other images and so much additional information fills my head that I can't imagine how to organize and present it. We saw giant bronze sculptures of chubby people, rode a tramway over two mountains under which were tin shacks, and ate a meal that consisted of 20 "moments" several of which relied upon liquid nitrogen as part of the effect. But most stunning of all was a tiny town in the lush valleys of central Colombia. I hesitate to write about it for fear of disclosing its existence. There are inexpensive rooms to be rented and wondrous coffees to be consumed. I took pictures but they don't do justice to the glories it holds. It's best left to direct experience. Make your way past the shops and eateries, ascend the stairs, and its just over the hill past the guy offering cervezas from a cooler at the crest. Coffee bushes, palm trees, bubbling brooks and inviting trails. Since the weather is so consistent just 4°N it doesn't matter what time of year to go. Not a matter of if but simply when.

warm snowy memory

2009-12-02T17:27:00.011-05:00

During the last presidential campaign, Sue and I were invited up to New Hampshire to meet a candidate. It's a longer story than I will tell here but Sue actually shook Barack's hand while the closest I could get was to watch him make his way to and from the house on a snowy morning. This snowfall was very heavy and wet but it wasn't especially cold. In truth, the weather was accurately forecasted; at the time, I would barely allow myself to dare believe this guy would become President.

All of this came back to me today when Sue reserved a birthday gift of a framed picture of that day. Our host is also a photographer and when Sue unwrapped the gift, I realized I probably need to take more pictures. Seeing this image was as if someone had scanned a cluster of my neurons and downloaded the image. I can feel the moisture in the air and remember happily trudging through the thick snow. In addition, I recall Beyonce's performance of At Last where she became so overwhelmed by the moment that she hurried away from the spotlight before the tears really flowed.

I googled Barack Obama New Hampshire and quickly found the text of a speech he gave shortly after we saw him. It includes lots of "yes we can." Even after nearly two years, despite the economic downturn, the legislative battles, and even the difficulties of managing wars, I confess to feeling a lump form in my throat as I read his words. While he never wanted to be a savior, he was evidently prophetic:

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.
We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Sometimes it feels brash to plan too far into the future. Although Sue had heard the line before when uttered by the Car Talk guys, the physician's diagnosis that "you shouldn't buy any green bananas" struck me as funny ... but also uncomfortably reminiscent of cautions about getting our hopes up. Clearly it is important to recognize the dangers of promises about forever. And yet, there is value in living with an awareness of finiteness. Poet Sharon Bryan has been very helpful to me by expressing a middle age view of life in this way in her poem Foreseeing:

so you know without a doubt
that it has an end—
not that it will have,

but that it does have,
if only in outline—
so for the first time

you can see your life whole,
beginning and end not far
from where you stand,

the horizon in the distance—
the view makes you weep,
but it also has the beauty

of symmetry, like the earth
seen from space: you can't help
but admire it from afar

Here in Connecticut, we just had our first hard frost. Otherwise, it's been very mild, light-jacket weather. But winter is on its way. I am eager for the first true snowfall, where the flakes are so heavy they pull eyelids down and where one thinks that if there was no traffic, the collisions of flakes with branches and pavement would be audible. And in that moments, I'll have a fleeting recollection of Barack Obama making his way, late from a previous appointment, up the walk which the Secret Service had so thoughtfully sprinkled with sand. And I won't be ashamed to hope some more.

pieces and puzzles

2009-11-20T13:11:00.010-05:00

In response to Zero's suggestion, I have been making my way through Ted Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual. I was curious at first, then intrigued by the fresh set of ideas and techniques about writing in general. The chapters on Working with Detail and Fine Tuning Metaphors and Similies took root in my mind without my knowing it. There was also an article describing metropoems, so named because they are to be written between stations while riding the Paris subway. Combined, these lessons prompted me to pull out a cheap pad and a substantial pen while waiting for the bus.

Truly, I was not looking for a chance or reason to write a poem. But it was a bright November morning and because I was planning to be indoors on campus all day, I chose to look around rather than read something. Up the hill is the Board of Education building that was previously the town middle school and before that, the high school. At my feet, was a jigsaw puzzle piece. It was dry and firm but had sustained enough moisture to have lost its image while also hosting some fuzzy mold. For some reason, this made me wonder about opportunities I might miss that would leave a hole in my life. It also made me contemplate the dangers of moving too fast without thinking of consequences. And what could be lost in the process.

So these ideas tumbled out onto the little yellow pad. The bus filled, as it does in the morning, with one of the widest array of skin tones one could ever imagine. International students tend to cluster in an apartment complex on the edge of our town. Later on the trek, the bus picks up a few more passengers in the parking lot of an old country general store. On this day, an Asian-American girl boarded along with a scruffy skinny boyfriend. All seats were filled so he took an unsteady position right in front of me. There was no more room to write and the views that were inspiring me were blocked. Instead of forests and ponds, a cheap carabiner with a couple of keys, clipped to the belt loop of brown jeans swayed in front of me.

The view-blocker seemed unsure of how to stand on a bus. He'd grip one strap, then switch to a horizontal bar. And if he was with the girl, he was doing a bad job of being with her. As we approached campus, I noticed him turn toward her and lean in as if he had a secret to whisper. But that was all a prelude to his collapse.
Yep, collapsed. Head into the lap of my seatmate, a south Asian women who was probably horrified by the cross-gender physical contact. He folded into me a little bit but with the heft of a mannequin. A few people moved so he could stretch out on the floor, head on someone's backpack and feet up. He opened his eyes and I recognized the combination of being too warm, standing up, and not eating. That happened to me in a chow line as a Scout years ago. The driver pulled over just on the edge of campus, radioed for an ambulance, and the boy gradually regained his composure and expressed his embarrassment. Because we were at a stop, people trickled off to walk the rest of the way to their labs or cubicles. I stayed because he was right there at my feet and I didn't want to add to his shame by scurrying off. I did vacate when the ambulance arrived, and strolled away.

Mine was not a great first aid performance but fortunately, there was no obvious bleeding or stopped breathing or wacky convulsions. Just a bony young guy with temporary loss of muscle control. Since I had no place to be, I decided to take advantage of the nearby coffee shop where I could finish my creative writing task and move on to more academic pursuits. But as I entered Starbucks, I couldn't find my pad or favorite pen. Not in a pants pocket, not tucked in my coat, neither inside my book bag nor in the outside pouch. I vaguely remembered sliding it under my leg during the slow motion descent of the tipsy passenger. Now it was gone. I've made use of found poetry before but this was the first time I'd lost it. I wondered what the finder might think.

No poem to work on and my desire to buy coffee vanished. So I turned around and continued walking toward campus. A block or so later, the only other white guy on the bus (works at the library: I once saw him reading from a Kindle) was coming toward me — and he was holding out my pad and pen. We exchange awkward scholarly chit-chat, barely speaking of the bus/ambulance incident. He went his way and I went mine. I'm sure I'll see him again on the bus but I don't have anything profound to share except to thank him for his conscientiousness. And after all that, I'm not sure I'd be all that pleased if I went back to read my SFD of a poem.

exact measure

2009-11-14T10:17:00.010-05:00

Not much in my world relies upon exactitude. On those occasions where exact amounts arise, such as having just the right amount of change for a coffee, it surprises me. I'm not burdened by being inexact. I don't believe knowing, for example, what kind of gas mileage my car gets really would make my life any more full. Instead, general numbers about how many breaths a person takes in a day or average lifespan suits me just fine.

Over time, it has become harder to tally. For the longest time, I could remember the seating chart from my fourth grade class. And I could count how many times I had taught a lesson on electricity or enumerate the students who'd survived my science methods courses. Alas, too many circuits and too many sections have gone by for me to give an accurate count. However, I can give an exact number (actually a volume) for an experience even though I anticipate that will be flooded and washed away before too long. Here it is: in my life, I have consumed exactly a half-glass plus one full bottle of Connemara. And the only reason that I finished the bottle was that I bought a new one during our recent trip to Washington, DC. The new recruit has replaced the empty, fallen soldier.

This is not simply a beverage that displaced my previous admiration for Jameson and Tullamore Dew. This Irish whiskey has a mystical quality. For one, it has a very interesting and distinctive flavor. Another blogger fascinated by whiskeys ended his review of Connemara in this way:

Very drinkable, even quaff-able, with sweetness, and an interesting summer weeds type of presence. And plenty of peat, but don't expect a peat beast; this is driving-through-the-country window-seat-peat.

How about that! Makes me want to drive through the countryside with the windows down. Before the winter is over, because I'm the lone local consumer, the tally may reach 2 bottles plus half a glass. But in May, I expect to lose track because the other mystical aspect of Connemara is with whom it was first tasted. Already, I'm making luggage choices based upon whether I need to bring this beverage with me (which would require checked bags) or if we could locate it in the Denver area (not an easy thing to determine online). Even then, I'd still be able to maintain a fairly exact measure of my consumption. Should a semester in Ireland come to pass -- well, then my accounting would go to hell.

Key to the Connemara mystique is that the two of imbibed just a few hours before the start of our last Crossroads. The distinct, brief exposure of both produced sensations carrying forward into the future. Just a half-glass opened up a whole new world of sipping; only a half-hour of talk about a possible project similarly offered a host of possible ventures. I've made gains on my research project, which includes forging some formal and helpful alliances. Also, there's a still-corked full bottle of peaty elixir that will carry me over until my compadre is in his proper spot in an adjacent chair. Such evenings (or noontimes) are the exact measures that create mileposts by which I can evaluate the delight-full qualities of my life.

notes to myself

2009-10-16T17:53:00.012-04:00

Just before rushing out the door to attend a national conference a couple of years ago, I printed out a personalized schedule without reading it carefully. In the weeks leading up to the conference, whenever I came across an interesting author, I'd search for his or her name on the conference program. If they were presenting and it sounded intriguing, I would mark it. But the hurriedly printed version only gave times, dates and locations. Dutifully, I followed the itinerary and showed up at various ballrooms and salons not knowing what was in store. It worked out better than anyone could have imagined. My pre-conference self did a fantastic job with selecting sessions that would have escaped my notice during the unsystematic searches on-site (e.g., "okay, what's available this afternoon?"). What I needed to know was provided for, just when I needed it, through a note I'd generated for myself.

Sometimes the notes to myself have been generated by another person ... but I had left them in an odd place to discover at some unanticipated moment. The poet Naomi Shihab Nye has been doing this for me lately. When I thought I had only first discovered her, I realized I'd actually heard someone else read one of her poems long ago. Yesterday, I found myself reading another of her poems in a compilation I'm certain I had been through before. One of her poems is one I've printed a couple of times and jammed into my bookbag with the expectation I'll pull it out of a mass of papers, re-read it, and remember what matters. In particular, The Art of Disappearing ends with a reminder that strikes me as bold and clear -- and memorable:

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second
Then decide what to do with your time.

Occasionally, I leave notes to myself that I can't quite decipher. For example, I was double-checking the travel time required for Sue and me to reach our favorite restaurant*. I typed the town's name into the mapping search engine and then used the "search nearby" feature. This place is called Still River Cafe and it is a culinary gem in the middle of nowhere. But as I typed, the search engine suggested I was looking for rivera nocturnal landscape — which brought nothing to mind. It was as if a ghost was writing for me, just like in a Harry Potter scene where a deceased boy writes replies into the book where Harry quills in his questions. Later, I pieced together that this was a Diego Rivera painting (adjacent) that reminded me of a photo Zeroeth took during a teacher trip. Even though this was not an example of a note to myself (at least not that I can yet pinpoint) it is evidence I leave scraps here and there.

The final note to myself to report upon arose during breakfast when I was lucky enough to reconnect with the guy who hosted me during a trip to Cape Town a few years ago. He travels here to interview applicants for the spring honors program as well as student nurses for their fall expeditions to his country. He inquired (as I feared and hoped he would) about prospects for education students. I shared with him my pessimism. Somehow, because he was quietly chewing or I needed to continue, i explained my ambition had been to help students see diversity and poverty in a dramatically different setting such that they could return home to see those conditions here with fresh eyes. The words came so easily that upon hearing them, I recognized them as something I had expressed before when a South Africa trip was still a possibility. Now those ideas have come to the surface again and I'm looking for an angle to pursue such an opportunity. A verbal note to myself that I was carrying in my skull but had been forgotten until I shared it with myself.

- - - - - - - - -

* The sky was very overcast but there was a break in the clouds to the west at 6:30. It was not a lightness that illuminated nor a glow that gave warmth. Instead, it created the ache that comes from knowing that it will become much darker and colder — and these times will be of sufficient duration it might be that warmth and light won't return until after life has departed from the body. It seemed the perfect conditions to see deer along the country road. I announced this sensation and less than fifteen minutes later we passed, untouched, through a herd of whitetail as they ambled across the blacktop. Another message from and to myself.

just might work out

2009-10-14T19:57:00.004-04:00

Most teachers know about the great fun of preparing for a new group of students. Everybody is new, anything is possibility, and every thing is beautiful ... in its own way (see pop culture reference in a this unique video). Later we discover how foolish it was to plan for students in two separate courses to do the same assignment and have it due the same week. In this case, despite the workload it's a good idea. In brief, they are to find a cute or clever or classic hands-on activity and upgrade it so it incorporates effective teaching practices (e.g., learning cycle, process skills, standards-based, inquiry, differentiation, etc.). I'm sure once I finally open the pile of papers and associated email messages that it will work out.

What this is competing against are my efforts to generate two complementary NSF proposals. I have not had the best of luck winning sizable grants but on this occasion, I am emboldened. For one, the idea has stirred great enthusiasm and interest among those who may be involved, including colleagues in the Ed Leadership department and someone else at another university down the road. In addition, I'm getting some badly needed advice from people I've never met. To one in particular I sent a bold email asking for a copy of his recently funded project. Not surprisingly, he declined but we've since arranged for a consultation phone call later this week. Also, we have a great budget guy at our institution and he sent back a revised spreadsheet that corrects some of my mistakes. Having this means I can see for myself the financial implications of dropping from 3 to 2 graduate assistants. That change allows me to increase travel funds for fieldworkers and still bring us in under budget.

If there's anything unfortunate in all of this is that the two tasks are competing with each other. There's less than a month left to align all the pieces, obtaining all the necessary supporting documents and finalize a compelling description about what we'll accomplish in the NSF project. Even though I'd rather do some wordsmithing, this late in the day is not a good time to undertake such a creative intellectual task. What makes it so fun is that the proposed project is similar to writing a syllabus: it's all possibilities and exciting ones at that. The additional encouragement from friends and strangers, far and near, only makes it more grinnable.

gone crazy

2009-10-11T12:43:00.010-04:00

Earlier this year, there was discussion about whether it might not be best to envision colleagues as mental patients. In a very pragmatic sense, this construct held true due to its verifiability in multiple sites. Turns out this may be more than idle speculation in light of empirical evidence.
According to a recent article, mental disorders by people may reach a 60% incident rate by age 32. And even higher values as one ages. Here's a quote from the researcher as reported in Science News:

Life flu, if you follow a cohort of people born in the same year, as they age almost all of them will sooner or later have a serious bout of depression, anxiety or substance abuse problem.

What should be comforting to me is that I already suspected as much, which suggests I may have greater interpersonal sensitivity than I might have believed. What is subsequently discomforting is the seeming inevitability of this for me. I suppose if I am to continue my contrarian ways, I should avoid anxiety and depression by opting for cannabis dependence. On such a sunny autumn afternoon, perhaps I should perform a google image search to see whether I can begin a leaf collection that will place me on the normal path to mental disorders.

indulgences

2009-10-04T10:15:00.006-04:00

First weekend in October and there are many indulgences. Two days of intermittent rain extended the period of nightfall such that I have slept all night and past 8 am for two nights in row. While the clouds prevented us from gazing at the full moon, there is still a Chinese mooncake waiting to be eaten. Dense, glutinous, sweet — it almost certainly transport billions to their childhoods upon the first bite. Me: I learned how lotus paste tastes and am not surprised the hard-boiled egg yolks are not common within most past pastries I have encountered.

We drove across the border in search of an orchard recommended by a local friend. Along the way, the steering wheel all but jumped out of my grip as we approached a sign indicating it was New England’s largest liquor store. The parking lot was full and inside we were greeted by a costumed scarecrow (note: purchased costumes such as lobsters are far superior) and clots of people. Turns out it was Octoberfest and the locals were swarming around tables for beer tasting. On the periphery, others hovered with their bratwurst. We made our way around one soggy swarm to an aisle of whiskey and a section from the isles of the United Kingdom. Four different styles of Tullamore Dew varying in supposed age and by bottle design. Nearby, distinguished and aloof, was my choice of a tall cardboard sleeve or a regularly corked bottle with the hazy landscape of Connemara in western County Galway.

Further, weaving on narrow damp roads toward the orchard, my co-pilot asked what I might want to eat at this place. Bratwurst was on my mind and her response indicated that was a feeble hope. We parked in a meadow and walked toward the store and apples. We heard music. Turned out there was a live band doing a very decent job generating southern rock from beneath a shelter that held a dozen or so picnic tables. A trailer was selling onion rings, french fries and other greasy foods. And so I had my bratwurst with kraut. There were goats and llamas to survey. A weedy pen held a sign explaining the world distribution of the emu but none was to be seen. Sue tossed a piece of my brat bun to a chicken who then fell head over claws in love. We ambled back toward the music, selected a peck of Galas, and headed down the road.

Breakfast on Sunday was a caramel apple we bought at another orchard the same day. The whiskey sits next to the coffee maker (temporarily) and I resist the indulgence of a snort or a sniff. It ought to be enough to enjoy the lightening sky where I am instead of attempting a mental escape. A reverse recollection would accompany the odor of peat-smoked malt, perhaps a vous jàdé experience where I know in the future I’m going to remember this moment. Quite sadly, I discover there are no cheap flights later this month between Hartford or Providence and Salt Lake City. The whiskey find then is a somewhat hollow victory. Somehow or another there has to be a way to indulge this increasing desire long before May 1 in Denver. Wheels begin to turn.

first day discoveries

2009-08-31T18:55:00.003-04:00

I am reminded that the routines of preparing for a first day of a new semester should not be completely crowded out by preparations for something more exciting.

Copying a syllabus a week in advance, putting it on color paper, and stapling the two pages together is all wasted effort if you fail to move it from your home-office floor into your book bag for the first day of class.
Emailing your syllabi to your department's administrative assistant, even before it is requested, means you have copies in your email outbox -- even if you wrote the syllabi on a different computer.
Baking soda dissolves and mixes with water much more readily that does corn starch. While green and semi-solid, unless oobleck is made from a box that say CORN STARCH instead of BAKING SODA (even though they look like the same box) then it's just as well to dump the slurry down the drain.
Recycling an old powerpoint slide show can, with just a little bit of Q&A, fill the time during which students would have been investigating oobleck.
Except for the corn starch, I have all the equipment needed to make oobleck for the next time class meets. Since Labor Day is next Monday, that means there are two weeks to remember to buy the right box.

geography lesson

2009-08-29T08:43:00.010-04:00

According to my traffic widget, I has a visitor to this blog from Kuala Lumpur. No, I didn't know where this was but now know it is in Malaysia. Halfway between Australia and India. I wondered whether I might have a new science education colleague reaching out from southeast Asia. Too late for him or her to come to Crossroads in 3 weeks. Pity.

Actually the link that brought this web surfer to my blog was also included: it was a Yahoo search of Statistical Projection of Kentucky Fried Chicken Company. Really? This has to be some scam. Could someone legitimately stumble across my blog using those words? Maybe they were writing a report for an economics class or doing some work for the government about whether to let KFC into the country.

The hit was due to excerpts from my rant about having a hick heritage along with my ramblings about mental illness among faculty:

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan arrived from search.yahoo.com on "Brewing Trouble"
... suits (except for on the Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets rolling around in pickup ... Because of criticisms that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders ...

Sure enough, when I ran that search this blog was the tenth on the list of sites. I couldn't replicate this result with a Google search. I feel bad for my Malaysian pal and wish there was a way to discourage him from using Yahoo anymore. Otherwise, he's going to develop an even more bizarre impression of America -- or crash and burn on that Econ assignmet.

bus to school

2009-08-29T08:17:00.005-04:00

A concern raised about the proposed magnet school site is that the country road is dangerous. One citizen recommended that we travel that road when buses are on it. So Wednesday, first day of school in town, I did. First time was from 7 to 7:30 a.m. and then later around 4 o'clock. While somewhat narrow, I didn't find the road to be any more hazardous than most two-lane roads. No drop-offs, no suspension bridges, no firing range. But in that calim, I realized I had forgotten the significance of this annual rite, waiting for the first bus ride of the new school year. I suppose because two or three buses stop twice a day at the building across the street from us, the symbolism of boarding a bus to school has faded. I also saw moms and dads waiting with children at the bus stops in town -- some had cameras to presumably capture the moment. All the hope and possibilities in the minds of the family along with the uncertainty and optimism of/for the children.

Without any office on campus, I decided it made no sense to buy a parking pass. This decision was partly economic but the situation also makes it a minuscule amount less easy to drive to campus because I have to make sure I have enough cash to exit the garage. Plus, there is a local bus from our town to campus that is free with a university identification card. I took a couple test runs this week to see how dependable it was. Unlike with a car where being late to an appointment is almost entirely under my control, when someone else drives I trade the time to daydream or read in exchange for a sacrifice over my schedule. So far, so good. Yesterday, I became so comfortable on the bus (my 4th trip: heading home on the second day) that I fell asleep a couple of times.

I never thought about who would ride the bus. Yesterday morning, I was the only white person among 2 dozen passengers. The rest were Asian and live in apartments on the north end of town. They seem familiar to the bus drivers and it's fascinating for me to be in the minority on a country bus in New England. While waiting for the trip home, I had 3 different guys asked for help with the schedule: an eastern European, a Chinese guy (trying to get to Wal-Mart), and a Bangladeshi doc student in economics who is just starting this fall. Students also use the bus to visit a large grocery store since there is not one within walking distance of campus -- beer is available nearby but not bread loaves. One of my international grad students has suggested that I keep a journal of all the people I meet -- she's bitten by the "every person is a potential data point" bug. I'm not sure if there's a connection, but last night was the first in a week where I didn't suffer from sleeplessness. Don't know if it's being around the interesting mix of people, the calm that comes from knowing I can now plan trips to campus without fear of being late, or the healthful benefits of a brief doze as the diesel rumbles beneath my seat.

to be so happy

2009-08-23T13:02:00.006-04:00

Ever since I first saw the apprenticeship video that Zero included in his keynote address back in 2007, I find myself emotionally overwhelmed when I see examples of pure joy. This is not usually wistful thinking because I'm not longing for times when I was as joyful. As far as I'm concerned, those aren't events that live in my past:I expect it to happen a few times during our time in Portland. Rather, I am so drawn to the purity of such moments: rare, crystal clear and brilliant.

Evidence of this type of happiness leapt from the computer screen the other day. I'd heard an interview with the 3 kids you make up the Homemade Jamz Blues Band. Their name comes from the fact that their father built the lead and bass guitars himself. Actually, he assembled them using old guitars and new auto parts, especially mail-order exhaust systems. There's evidence of joy when hearing them perform. But when I watched a clip from the Tavis Smiley show, that's when I saw genuine happiness. And of all places, it comes from a young girl during her musical performance. There are many places to witness this but a good place to jump in is when at 14:10 and again at 13:08 (time left in the video). I tried to capture a good still shot but it's the happiness in motion that is part of the magic.

In a similar fashion, Naomi Shihab Nye (a future poet for our conference -- she lives in San Antonio) uses her poem So Much Happiness to capture the surprise and delight that happiness provides:

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

This runs somewhat counter to the adage that we're each responsible for our own happiness. But what makes most sense to me is that when happiness arrives, it's best to just let it flow -- and become known for doing so.

lake and mountains, men and mortal

2009-08-18T08:52:00.006-04:00

A colleague who was with me for one year in Ohio and with whom I've now reunited in New England introduced me to the essay "The Student, The Fish and Agassiz." I don't know whether that first exposure stuck with me or whether that was the first of many encounters with it. Somewhere over the years, I became sufficiently impressed with it to include in within our book chapter about observing. Here is an excerpt as a reminder:

On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the museum, but had gone and would not return for several hours. Slowly I drew forth that hideous fish, and with a feeling of desperation again looked at it. I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the ﬁsh; it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my fingers down its throat to see how sharp its teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me—I would draw the fish; and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the professor returned.

“That is right,” said he, “a pencil is one of the best eyes.” (Scudder, 1879, p. 450)

It turns out that my guide was correct in speculating that two significant features of our recent expedition were obviously connected to this fish tale. First, Mount Agassiz was the dominating peak that we looked up to throughout our expedition. The other was Lake Scudder, the calm lake next to our final campsite. According to the Utah Geologic Survey, these two features are named after these two scientists. Our worry that the calm water boasting of so many large dragonflies was named after a different Scudder can now be dispelled. The Scudder of insect paleontology fame is that same guy who was made to stare at a fish.

Turns out that a Google search to find the burial site of a paleontologist produces LOTS of links, none of which reveal his gravesite. Instead, lots of older fossils are described.

new chapters

2009-08-14T21:51:00.000-04:00

There is a niche of "movements" out there that appeals to the more privileged and experienced among us. For example, one Marc Freedman has written books such as Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Reinvent Retirement and Revolutionize America which is part of his Civic Ventures program. In a nutshell, he focuses upon directing baby boomers toward post-career lives that are personally fulfilling and civicly minded. One of my favorite parts of this initiative is the logo they use for their Encore Careers website. This site purports to connect "retired" professionals with new work that fills the void presumably left by lucrative yet hollow careers. The use of a semi-colon designates as work-life separating then from now. For some writers, a comma signifies one beat, a semi-colon two beats, and a period represents four beats. The appropriate use of a semi-colon indicates that the idea is continuing but their is a slight pause along with a possible change in direction. Thus, the semi-colon is a perfect little squiggle to represent transitions and also a sly wink to those whose college education trained them on the use of this form of punctuation.

I made my weekly trek to campus today including a stop at the library to return one book and check out 9 others, most of which were poetry. And once I'm home again, I received notice that another Interlibrary loan book I requested was in. I'd forgotten the title and when it appeared in an email, it was cryptic enough to startle me: "The third chapter : passion, risk, and adventure in the 25 years after 50." It refers to a book by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot and I'd watched part of an interview of her by Bill Moyers. The book she wrote was based upon interviews of people in the later part of their lives who were trying to find meaning to what they do. She mentions developmental psychologist Erik Erikson who in the 1950s divided life into chapters and stages.

Each one of these stages is characterized by a crisis, a crisis of whether we're going to move forward, progress, or whether we're going to move back, regress. So, it is this tension always, at each of our developmental stages, between progression and regression. And this third stage is a crisis between what he calls "generativity" and stagnation. Sounds very dramatic. Generativity, having to do with using your energies to serve, to teach, to mentor, to express through art, to innovate, to give something to society, right? To leave a legacy. And stagnation, meaning, "I'm going to stay right here, and make my mark, continue to make my mark, in an individual pursuit."

What I understand is her belief that many people reach a certain age and then decide they ought to be making a difference in the lives of others. What I would respectfully dispute is whether this is necessarily restricted to those in the penultimate chapter of their lives. I suspect that this may be a common message for many people but there are a lot who, because they are caught up in careers or other distraction, may not hear until their worries have subsided. The reasons I requested this book (as a prelude to an actual purchase) is to see whether she uncover phenomena similar to what many seem to acquire from Crossroads.

There's a tale about another developmental psychologist titled "the American question." As Piaget described childhood stages of development and the ages at which changes occurred, there were often Americans who wanted to know how to accelerate that process. Of course, this amused him because he believed his sequence and timing was perfect. I recognize the humorous parallels to my question, but I'll pose it anyway: is the generativity vs. stagnation tension restricted to those in the final third of their lives — or is it possible to encourage and provoke individuals to listen to their internal passions and desires to leave a legacy, to make a lasting mark, to serve others' needs through one's exceptional efforts? I already know the answer to this question given what I witness among those audacious to take on new challenges even though they've earned the leather recliner of tenure. I suppose I'll be looking for evidence to support my beliefs by reading Lawrence-LIghtfoot's book. I do not expect to disagree with what she reports. However, I plan to appropriate her discoveries for my own purposes.

forms of hunger and gluttony

2009-08-09T09:47:00.004-04:00

After two weeks of contrasting vacation experiences, I'm struggling to get back into a productive groove. I believe the core problem is my gluttony. When on trails in the Uintas, I was constantly shoving mountain scenery and trail food into my face. At the beach, I was continually ingesting seawater, sugar-cereal, and time with the most enjoyable segment of my biological family. Now that I'm home and freed of distractions from nephew/nieces or alpine meadows, I'm shoving information into my mind. I already have a few books requested online via inter-library loan, I have spent time looking for poetic references to "zero" for a pending proposal, and am listenining to music from an odd array of online sources.

I confess to having insufficient discipline. There are plenty of important and pressing tasks that need my attention, the most important of which is catching up on a backlog of emails from my secondary science methods students. There is also the matter of reviewing conference proposals, providing feedback and formatting resubmissions. And yet, I'm checking a recent email announcing the pictorial evidence of backpacking and then listening for the third time to a tune by the Rural Alberta Advantage and wondering whether to download some tracks. I've not been deprived: the coffee was good and strong over the past two weeks and I have ingested too many cups this morning along with a heaping bowl of Frosted Flakes that were leftover. Can't quite understand why the letters on my monitor keep jumping around.

desire to press top left button on keyboard

2009-07-21T18:22:00.012-04:00

Driving home from campus this afternoon, I was finally able to get around a slow van when the road expanded to two lanes on my side. I pulled alongside mister law-abiding, right-at-the-speed-limit. His was a contractor's vehicle with a phone number on the back, metal racks on the roof … and this interesting symbol on the side.

I knew it was Greek but I wasn't sure which letter. Theta? No, that has a horizontal bar. Iota? No, that sounded too small which probably wouldn't be blue collar enough. Then I wondered if the electrician was playing some clever game. I know it's pretty rural where we live and I'd almost expect sly intellectual references if I was in Cambridge (notwithstanding being within a horseback ride to the best public university in New England). So I puzzled and puzzled. How do you pronounce phi?

The owner also had his last name on the side. In fact McPhee turns out to kind of a big deal within the electricity industry. Plus, their offices are far from Storrs. Phi was the mystery symbol and some purists argue it is pronounced as a long e sound. To rhyme with McPhee. Wikipedia informs me that this letter represents electrical potential which is an amazing advertising gimmick. I was very impressed and somewhat envious about the confluence of names and professions and symbols.

And I was about to end this entry when I followed a couple links and found that phi also is used to represent fugacity…

Fugacity reflects the tendency of a substance to prefer one phase (liquid, solid, or gas) over another, and can be literally defined as “the tendency to flee or escape.”

The fugacity coefficient is useful as a measure of the escaping tendency of a substance from a heterogeneous system.

fugacious |fyoōˈgā sh əs|
adjective (esp. poetic/literary)
tending to disappear; fleeting : she was acutely conscious of her fugacious youth.

Last random thought. A friend from Cleveland once told me of a sailing competition among various modest sailing clubs. All the competitors taught sailing during the summer and presumably were ski bums or college students in cooler weather. One team claimed they were descendants of an Indian tribe: the Fugawee. It sounded odd but its significance became clear as they shouted to other boats at each turn "We're the Fugawee?!" I can attest that when scented with beer, the voice that shouts that line sounds as if there is some uncertainty about one's location.

Turns out if you want footwear authentic to Paul Revere's time, you could obtain them from the Fugawee corporation. Further, there is a type of soil classified as Fugawee

Fugawee soils are on gently sloping plateaus and moderately steep mountains. Elevations are 6,000 to 8,000 feet. Slopes are 2 to 50 percent, but are mainly less than 30 percent. Fugawee soils formed in material weathered from basic volcanic flows, breccias and agglomerates. The average annual precipitation ranges from 35 to 60 inches. Mean annual temperature ranges from 37 degrees to 44 degrees F., mean January temperature is 24 degrees F. and mean July temperature is 59 degrees F. The average frost-free season is 30 to 80 days.

Time to flee and disappear. Fugaciously escaping.

teaching without a net or web

2009-07-15T19:44:00.013-04:00

First day of a very intensive (6 weeks x 6 hours each) of secondary science methods. I have enjoyed the challenges of thinking about what this group really needs. I suspect they want really practical information: how can I make kids behave, where can I find cool labs, how will I find a job? I know that making it appear I'm giving students what they want is a great way to gain their loyalty. And their tolerance. But I am also responsible for looking out for their well-being in that part of their life that takes place after student teaching. Fortunately, I was able to ask advice of students who just completed the program so I was making course decisions on more than just my hunches. One suggestion/confession: learning to reflect upon one's practice is not as dopey as it seemed at the beginning. My response? I ask for a blog entry each week about something in the course that has made them think or re-think.

Since it has been two months since my last teaching episode, I have had a lot of space to contemplate And since I also teach the undergraduate version this fall, I feel as if I'm doubling my investment because I will get two courses planned at once. It's not an especially stunningly innovative course and there's obviously a lot that had to be left out. But on the other hand, I'm operating under the belief that I will have more than one shot with both groups. There are electives they will likely take with me after their student teaching that will help me help them. It's not exactly that I've conceded that the course is just good enough. But it is sufficient for the time available and for what is most pressing for them.

I was prepared enough for today' that I had an unusually sound night's sleep. That rarely happens prior to a first class meeting. A bag of handouts, a spare projector in case my classroom was without, a spare marker in case the others were uncapped and dry. I even ironed my shirt and put a water bottle of sweetened coffee in the freezer to give me a boost for all 6 hours plus the 45 minute drive home. I loaded a milk crate of popular science books (Natalie Angier, Stephen Jay Gould, etc.) and hoisted my bookbag full of handouts into the vehicle. I left home without rushing and early enough that under even the worst traffic conditions I'd be on time.

At about the two-thirds point of the drive, I was wondering in what order to carry stuff in since it would take more than one trip to get everything into the building. Kind of like that old puzzle about a boat that can only carry two things at a time across the river: a fox, a goose, a bag of corn. [A little freaky that googling four words (boat fox goose corn) takes you right to the puzzle.] Since we had an instructor's laptop swiped from an unintended classroom two summers ago, I decided that my bookbag should be in the second run. The bookbag full of handouts. And so heavy it didn't register that the laptop was at home on a table. With a nice Keynote that would help provide structure for the whole day. To turn around could make me late and would certainly make me visibly flustered from the get-go. So I kept going.

We made it just fine. The Keynote was more of a planning document to organize my thoughts and when I was later able to pull it up (albeit as pdfs on the iPod) I was close to what I had planned. Instead of making them watch the Ott Planetarium NOS show, I gave them the link and suggested they watch it on their own time. Some other slides will fit into next week's schedule just fine. It was more than a little exhilirating to have to reinvent my plans going 70 mph. But it also meant it only took one trip to haul stuff because the projector had lost its purpose. I did read two poems: Like Lily Like Wilson just before lunch and To Be of Use to close the day. We were in a too-small room for 12 students and it was a little stuffy so letting them out at 2:40 instead of 3:00 was okay. Next time I'll remember the laptop AND the program secretary has secured a larger, carpeted and very air conditioned room. Still I'll probably improvise at some point, maybe shuffling like Thelonious (the Blue Monk). Or wonder whether I'm going crazy like old Bud Powell … who I just discovered c/o Lawson Inada. Not a bad day for creating conditions in which I had to teach without the Web to catch me.

sheep dispenser

2009-06-21T08:11:00.019-04:00

There is little that compares to witnessing a three year old having a complete meltdown as evidence that not becoming a parent was a wise choice. Luckily for everyone within earshot, I didn't pretend or imagine that there was anything I might do. Knowing my limits allowed me to almost completely detach from the screaming, hyperventilating, and throwing. Mother Kathy managed very well and brought the storm to a successful calm and with greater patience than I could ever muster. I supposed decades teaching middle school science is good preparation.

This same middle schoolteacher, ex-clown disposition toward the world also explains why she carries in her car a toy sheep that dispense jelly beans. While I sometimes wish I could inflict such off-color projects upon children, at least in this situation I was an admirer and not an instigator. On the other hand, perhaps such tendencies on my part explain why few nieces and nephews ever visit and those that do so make trek only rarely.

Picture 1 shows the key objects: (A) an enthused child, (B) a sheep dispenser (head tilted to reveal the cavity) and (C) a supply of Jelly Bellies. Only a few people in this world know that the confection is this superhero's Kryptonite. An open container is just a few hours from being an empty one. Fortuitously, I also am forgetful and hid this container in my own office after receiving it for Christmas. So out it comes and now Molly and I are debating which beans are the right color. She gets the joke because white ones and red ones are wrong. For you should know that the sheep will dispense beans from an opening just below its tail. Browns and blacks would be ideal -- and the little squirt knows it!

Very little training was required to prompt Molly to begin dispensing beans. Pressing down on the sheep's bag forced the legs into the body, the tail to lift, and the bean to pop out. Bean after multi-colored bean. And since it was a gift to me, there was no struggle about whether it would remain in Connecticut. I am somewhat disturbed to discover that there are many varieties of such toys available for sale. But I am grateful for an unusual stocking stuffer idea for my distant nieces and nephews.

hick vs. southern

2009-06-17T09:32:00.010-04:00

I may need to reconsider the possibilities associated with southern-ishness. Without southern gentility and graciousness, I suspect that I may have overreached. In my hometown, there were not any cotillions. There were no southern belles or men dressed in white suits (except for on the Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets rolling around in pickup truck beds). Yes, there were biscuits aplenty. But those were at all-you-can-eat buffets -- which were available as breakfast, lunch and supper at the same joint. Labeling state routes with letters may have more to do with the an effort to avoid confusing the locals with numbers (or ciphers). In actuality, there appears to be a legacy of hillbilly and hick-ishness. Instead of the endeariig drawl that can rival an Irish maiden's accent, we were blessed with Foghorn Leghorn as the voice that penetrated our skulls.

There were live bluegrass music performances to accompany the Sunday morning church programs on the teevee. Anything contained within our skins was touching our innards. At the mini-mart, there were 6 varieties of leaf chewing tobacco for sale. They sold gum to kids in containers the same shape and dimensions as a Skoal can. Many men buy their clothes at the hardware store ... perhaps because that is where wide and rugged suspenders are sold. The list goes on but after a bit, it seems downright silly. For a visitor, it all could seem quaint. For a local, it all seems just fine and dandy. But for escapees, it all seems a little too familiar and frightening at the same time. I would have to think twice before mentioninng Obama in mixed company. But I could hear the prices for hog bellies and corn futures during the noon radio news, something that is not as easy to obtain in New England.

my southern-ishness

2009-06-16T08:57:00.011-04:00

It started with new reports about a tornado that hit our hometown in mid-May. A local feller was interviewed and his twang made us look at each other with the question about whether that is how we sounded. It didn't seem like it was possible. But the recent trip back to Missouri revealed some southern inside of us. To a certain extent, it's similar to learning that I descended from an exotic race from a previous generation. As startling as such a discovery was for us (admitting that it is a geographic inheritance and not biological) it helped clear things up a bit and pull together some odd pieces.

There were lots of signs, literal and figurative. One example is the hydrological feature that others would call a stream is what our kin refer to as a crick. Another was the somehow familiar yet odd realization that state roads in Missouri are identified by letters: Route P ran northeast out of town and Route K was a major north-south road west of Kirskville. Culinarily, I was struck by how often biscuits were available and that coffee cups held hot brown water that had very little taste. Religion, as in fundamental Christian religiosity, was everywhere (someone tried witnessing to me at a reception) and most everyone was polite and cheerful. I was startled by how quickly we fell into conversation in the car about the scenery: Is that a pasture or are they not farming that plot? That has to be wheat -- and over there, the corn won't be knee high by July Fourth.

Now I won't go so far as to suggest that we are "pure" southern. There are many distinguishing features of the Old South that don't apply. We don't have a rich literature base with the likes of Faulkner (Twain: maybe but he did all his writing after moving away). Nor are we as steeped in history. We can lay claim to some artists. Paintings such as this one really capture the agricultural richness and the angry storms that sweep the countryside. This image of yellowed corn indicates that this was an autumn scene. And our arrival in St Louis airport was closely followed by a vicious thunderstorm that drove the rain sideways, lightning that tricked the streetlights into turning off, and the amazingly dense air the next morning. It was so reminiscent of our youth but simultaneously strange. I noticed for the first time how dark green the roadside oaks were compared to the maples that dominate the New England landscape. Distinct and special -- a perspective made possible only by an extended absence.

slim jims and nitro-glycerine

2009-06-10T06:48:00.013-04:00

Not wanting to make fun of the death and destruction, but this news item really makes me wonder what they put in these things. I think I tried one once but much prefer the flattened jerky-style "meat products" over these mysterious cylinders. Don't ask me why I take comfort in something that looks like it was stripped from the outside of a tree as opposed to a slim and glistening think stick of protein dynamite.

An explosion at the factory in Garner, North Carolina, which makes Slim Jim meat snacks, caused extensive damage to the roof, Garner Police Sergeant Joe Binns said today in an interview. Deaths have been reported and hazardous-material teams were on the scene, Binns said. … The company makes brands like Chef Boyardee, Hunt's tomato sauce, ACT II popcorn and Hebrew National hot dogs.

I guess I suspected there was some ingredient that induced ... um ... gastronomic explosions. But I never suspected that the detonations might be an attendant risk of the manufacturing process. Do you suppose the price of Slim Jims is going to spike, at least in this part of the country that relies upon the North Carolina factory? Or perhaps the shelf-life is so long that it may be decades before the culinary and economic impact of this incident influences our daily lives.