Kingly- but not perfect

I think, sometimes, that I am living as a king would have lived during earlier eras. I have more clothes in my closet than I really need. I have more shoes than most earlier people had in a lifetime. I live in comfort during both winter and summer so that whether it's 100 degrees or 10 degrees, I sleep in total and absolute comfort. On any given day, I am certain that I have access to more food, whether it is by having money to spend at any restaurant I so choose or the number of items I have in my refrigerator and pantry, than most people of any era or any area of the world. I can travel faster and farther than nearly anyone who lived before my time if I wanted to purchase a ticket to fly.

In terms of having access to knowledge, it is unprecedented for me to be able to access whatever I want to know in whatever field I choose. I can view Mars from a device I hold in my hands, recover from laparoscopic surgery in a matter of days, control what happens in my car or house without being inside either one, and see my cousin while talking even though we live in towns hundreds of miles apart. I can't even imagine living at any previous time, not even as a king, not even as the emperor of Rome or the pharaoh of Egypt.

If I could only add one matter of the heart to this world, it would be perfect beyond what any human deserves. I really, really should be satisfied... but satisfaction eludes me for now. I live in a world only dreamed of by so many now and by all who have come before; still, I strive for perfection in that matter of the heart... one day perhaps...

Please see your shadow

Every year has four seasons. They come on a regular basis. They're not always the same length, though. Sometimes winter hangs on a little longer than average. Sometimes spring comes early, sometimes late. Sometimes there is snow in November, sometimes no snow comes in any month. Some summers are intensely hot, others are mild.

In various cultures through the ages, proverbs have existed comparing phases in life to the seasons of the year. A good example is from Oedipus the King by Sophocles, written slightly before 400 BCE.  A riddle that Oedipus needed to solve in order to become king used the idea of the seasons of life divided into four parts.

I know in my own life there are certainly times when everything is rockin' and rollin' and times when the number of hours in a day seemed like 124 rather than 24. It wasn't too long ago that I passed through summer. Times were fun, fast. Days were enjoyable, every one. There was laughing and deep joy. Then the leaves turned to yellow and a little later the ice came.

I hope the groundhog has seen his shadow. I'm ready for spring in the worst possible way.

Over time

It doesn't take much of a review of language to realize that language changes all the time.  But it is hard for most people to see a change in language as it is happening.  It is easy to see that modern English has changed radically from the extant Anglo-Saxon records.  And, it is easy to recognize a huge difference in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and modern English.  Even the English of Shakespeare is so different from modern English that many teachers require students to have a modern English version of the text if they decide to read one of his plays.  But, modern language is in flux too.

Think, for example, of the past tense of the verb show (showed).  Well, it hasn't always been showed.  It was an irregular past tense at one time (shew).  And the past participle form (shown) was also an irregular form.  It followed the same  pattern in its 3 principle parts as draw, drew, drawn.  Some people still use shown with the auxiliary verb have/has/had, but for the most part, people these days use the regular verb pattern for the principal parts, show, showed, showed.  I have even heard English teachers who teach shown as the form to use in the perfect tense use showed in a setting when not teaching in their classrooms.  The verb changed during my own lifetime.

So has the verb dive. when I was growing up, the past tense was dove, the past participle was diven.  Although I hear dove as the past tense on occasion, I never hear diven and haven't for some time.  Now the verb is learned and even taught in many places as dive, dived, dived.  And that has occurred in my lifetime.  Strike, struck, stricken, has changed to strike, struck, struck.  And, plead, pled, pled, has changed to plead, pleaded, pleaded, the regular verb forms. The last two have changed in the last 30 years.

I see the same kind of changes taking place as the years go by in my own life as those that have happened in language. I can see great changes in me from the time I was a teenager.  A little time spent not long ago with a friend and former basketball teammate from high school showed me just how great those changes have been.  I can see a lot of change,too, from the decade of my 20s in several major areas of life.  And a number of years later, I can point to two very great events that happened to me, and see my life before those events, then after those events, and view the change.

Change is part of living.  Even great changes.  And as far as those two events go, I wish the first had not occurred and want the second to have different resolution (I have faith here).  I have had to work their outcomes thus far into my current way reasoning.  That has led to a new way of thinking about change and an altered belief system.  I am comfortable in my own skin still, as I always have been, even though my skin is a different hue now.  And I fully expect the next 20 years to bring a few last changes to my beliefs before settling down to enjoy the last few minutes of the 4th quarter.

Windswept

Wuthering Heights is a novel from 1845 from an English society very focused on class, prestige, and treatment of those in a lesser position.  The two main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, fittingly come from the two polarized classes, Catherine from the rich and enviable, Heathcliff from the poor and dispicable. Both of them had to deal with the harshness of life no matter which set of circumstances they were born into.  Mainly the book centers on learning two lessons.  Lesson one was to learn to live with the cards that had been dealt them.  Lesson two was to learn to overcome the situations in the cards that had dealt them.  Catherine's character was developed primarily around the first lesson, Heathcliff's primarily around the latter although both characters experienced the taste of both types of lessons.

I really identify with Heathcliff's character because he had to overcome so much.  Life was not kind to him.  He started at the lowest rung in society and, through a lifetime of two steps forward and one foot backward, he slowly climbed to a rung near the top as a wealthy landowner.  The title says it all.  Yes, Heathcliff made it to the height of society, but oh what circumstances wuthered his way as he climbed to that height.

"To wuther" was a word in regular use at the time of the book, so people knew what it meant.  It has since dropped from use in America, but in the 19th century, readers would have known that the verb meant a blustery wind blowing or a person coughing in fits.  Both images are planted throughout the book.  Heathcliff symbolically had many a coughing fit due to the damp weather and plenty of blustery wind as it blew across his life.

The song, Send Me an Angel, by Scorpions, signifies so very well the theme of the book as described above.

Wind will blow into your face
As the years pass you by.

No truer words... wuthering.

Close your eyes and you will find
A passage out of the dark.

Yes, a way to overcome, to achieve heights.

And I rise every day, to work at bettering my life, or in the words of the song,

Here I am
In the land of the morning star.
Will you send me an angel?

I have to say, that an angel did appear in my life... with laughter and cheer, love and strength... and taught me much about the horizons I was viewing and those I was missing out on in my life.  This angel taught me to

Seek the roses along the way,
Just beware of the thorns.

and to listen to

My voice inside, and
The call of my heart.

I am without my angel for now... But, I still awake every morning to work at bettering my life.

Here I am
In the land of the morning star.

This time, though, without asking the question that follows.  I have seen my angel, and I am so, so very grateful to have been in the presence of my angel to learn true happiness, true love, true loyalty, true enjoyment.

I was sent an angel who guided me out of the wuthering dark.

Chicanery

At the trial of George Zimmerman, Zimmerman's attorney brought up the testimony of the lead detective and quoted him in his closing arguments.  I have read several times in different sources about the training detectives receive in trying to get the witness to tell the truth.  The training has its roots in psychology.  The method used has the detective try different methods of identifying with the suspect in order to make the suspect think that the detective is working in the suspect's best interests.  How deceiving the method is.  I guess it falls in the category of fighting fire with fire - in this case fighting deception with deception.

I have seen this method used on TV in a number of police shows, including CSI New York, CSI Miami, SVU, and Blue Bloods.  The method is even touted in FBI bulletins written by one of their agents who investigates interrogation techniques.  The method works, not because it detects falsehood, but because the suspects don't have training in psychology enough to recognize the underlying intent of it.

However, detectives get caught up in the method and think their notions of how to extort truth (yes, "extort" because it is a tortuous method that gets people to change their information whether or not the change is from falsehood to truth) are truly the scientific way to uncover truth from a testimony.  They feel so confident that this method is scientific that they tell attorneys that they have x number of years of experience and consider themselves as an expert (but not by the legal definition or the scholarly definition) in revealing truth and deception.  Here's a truth for them - 30 clock hours of training does not an expert make!  In fact, their training only makes them dangerous (quoting Alexander Pope here: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, drink deep, therefore, or taste not the Pierian Spring. Shallow draughts intoxicate the brain.  Drinking deeply sobers us again."

I have experienced first hand the arrogance of a detective trying to use the methods he was taught.  He resented greatly being called out on his methods because he "thought" that they were foolproof in getting to the truth.  And, I have analyzed the interrogations of detectives of witnesses and suspects to see how each of them implements these same methods.  It's appalling and galling to me to see detectives use this deceptive and, to me, abusive method to work with deception.

So, when the attorney for Zimmerman quoted the lead detective, saying that if a suspect tells the same story again and again, it shows rehearsal, and rehearsal makes his story a lie, I nearly left my chair in hysterical disbelief.  Justice is in serious trouble when an attorney uses a detective's opinion after 30 clock hours of training as more than a simple notion.  Not only is the detective's opinion a simple notion, it is counterintuitive.  Truthful and accurate statements about deception are many times unexpected, but few scientific conclusions about deception are counterintuitive.  All of this is not to mention there are several scientifically proven methods that are not notions but based on empirical methods and statistical evidence.

Well, such chicanery worked for Zimmerman.  It allowed him to have different details in versions of his story.  Therefore, he was likely to be more truthful.  What a sham.

Special Day

Happy Birthday, my lovely young lady!  You're 5 now.  My how the time flies by.  Already reading and writing your name at age 4, and now you have just one more year before you start school.  You will wow everyone in first grade because you will already be so brilliant.  You are always smiling, always minding your business doing exactly what you want to do and what you do best.  You win and charm everyone's heart.

I hope you have a great year.  Somehow, I know you will because I know the mother who raises you - fantastic, amazing, determined, talented, and high-achieving.  You form the dynamic duo.  Follow her; she has cleared a beautiful path that few children get to walk down.  Model yourself after her, throw in your own spin, and you will lead a long, productive, and fulfilling life.  Happy  5th!!

A moon moment

Rays of orange were everywhere on the horizon.  It was 8:00 and a good 30 minutes before sunset.  A number of gray clouds were on the horizon as well shielding the sun from view, yet they couldn't contain the rays from breaking through.  But that wasn't the main attraction.

My eyes drifted up from the horizon where the sky was still blue and a few white clouds were drifting by.  There - in the middle of the sky - was a perfectly round and luminous moon.  Three-fourths of it was visible, white against azure.  It was so round I noticed.  So I gazed at it, imagining that it was just a day-trip away.  I could see what appeared as continents, but the coloring was wrong - white seas and gray land.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it for a good 5 minutes, thinking of how it hung there suspended at just 245,000 miles from the Earth in its own orbit around us.

It looked so inviting.  Before turning back to the task at hand, which would be to drive 15 minutes to my house, I couldn't help but think how luminous my life had been when it had orbited a companion planet so full of life and diversity, no two days alike, every day with the beauty of the blue atmosphere of laughter and cheer, respect and enjoyment.


Now, 4 hours later, I lay my head to rest, but my mind is stuck back at the scene of the pre-sunset minutes when the moon appeared above me to remind me of a time when...

Saturate me

Rain symbolizes to me very good things.  I know there is the saying, "Into every life some rain must fall."  But rain doesn't represent sorrow or difficulty to me.  I associate rain with events that refresh me, that rejuvenate my inner spirit, and that invigorate my tired body.  Rain brings the idea I will get to see something that I haven't seen before, that broadens my horizons, or that allows me to bring close what has been in the distance.  Rain brings hope, vibrance, and sweet aroma.

Tonight marks 48 hours of a constant, soft, beautiful, vibrant, and fresh-smelling rain.  Everything is not just wet, but saturated.  I will close my eyes shortly and hear the thousands of little splashes against the window and deck and ceiling of my house.  I revel in it.  My eyes will close, my mind will bring forward my most special and sacred scenes of the one who is associated with every property of rain I have mentioned.  My heart will revive as I nod off because of the life this one gives me.  Like rain, This One gives me hope, vibrance, and a sweet aroma. And I will most happily let those thoughts do what rain does best... saturate me.

Give way

Socrates would have laughed his head off if someone would have told him to give grades to his to his two students Plato and Xenophon.  Socrates would ask a question to his students in order to start them thinking about a subject, then continue asking questions about portions of their answers until the two students had achieved clarity in their own minds about the subject.  Socrates would have asked, "What's a grade?"  And upon an explanation, he would have asked again, "What good does it do to grade something if the information graded is not connected to something real, live, or otherwise utilitarian?"

The popular and imperially endorsed Roman teacher Marcus Flaccus never used grading.  He would allow students to present their work and correct them on the spot.  One of his favorite methods was to have contests among students and reward the winner with a copy of a rare book.  Romans pushed each other in real life, so grading, especially as an end in itself as it is practiced in modern times, would have been eschewed by Flaccus who would have thought that it lead to nothing but self-pity, self-importance, or neglect of doing something for society's good.  A student needed to show his worth in relation to the group.

Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, patrons were needed if someone wanted to pay a tutor or master to school him.  Otherwise, guilds or entrepreneurship provided your training.  A student had to keep his patron informed of his progress.  Progress was determined by the tutor or master, who generally were hard to satisfy.  Mastery of a subject would have to be shown by spewing back everything the master taught him plus having some original thoughts, particularly about  philosophy.  In higher education, students were recommended for their degrees by their masters, they didn't "pass" due to grades.

Grades were initiated to even the playing field among students, becoming especially popular in western schools because it seemed more democratic in nature.  But, grading limits students on what they know since it presumes there is nothing more than to make a high grade to show mastery.  Grading doesn't ask questions to extend an idea as in the Socratic method.  Grading doesn't push people through competition or status or connectedness to society as Flaccus would have wanted.  Some personalities are competitive and drive students to do well in relation to others, but for many students, grading is merely something to show them that they are mediocre or almost as good as someone else, and thus, adjust their goals accordingly.  And, grading doesn't require the human touch between master and student, an environment in which a master helps to personally expand the dimensions of knowledge for his or her student.

Grading will give way to another method in the grand scheme of things.  Who knows what the next method will be, but it will have to include much more of a connection to what happens in society than the current system.  Dagget's quadrant system for charting what is learned is a step in the right direction.  Imagine his system with a real world proficiency measured not by grades but by how well the learning extends to both the  real world and the future expectation of the learning, and you might just be seeing the next method of learning.

The important idea is that the current grading system must give way.  To me, whenever it does give way will not be soon enough.

Simple and fulfilling

I read a story once to my son and daughter when they were in elementary school called The Big Jump.  It was about a little boy who owned a puppy in the days when kings ruled from castles.  The little boy would always bring his dog with him when the king would make announcements to his people.  And, the little boy would always be amazed how the king would appear in his window one moment to see that the people had gathered below, then disappear for about a minute and reappear from the top of the castle to make his announcement.  How could the king go from one place to another seemingly magically.

One day as the boy was listening to the king, the boy's puppy wiggled loose from the boy's arms and ran away from him.  The boy began looking and calling the puppy's name.  The boy ended up at the back of the king's castle where he finally heard his puppy's familiar bark.  The puppy was perched at the top of the wall at the top of the castle.  How did he get up there, the boy thought.  Then he noticed that steps zig-zagged upward from the ground all the way to the top.  Now, he knew the secret of how the king got from the window to the top of the castle so quickly.  It wasn't magic.  It was simply one step at a time.  His puppy had revealed what people couldn't see from the front of the castle.

I have several goals in my life at the moment.  One of them I reached yesterday.  It brought a smile to my face.  This particular goal is in four 6-month increments, and to reach the increments in consecutive 6-month periods, I will have to do exactly as the king and the puppy - climb one step to get to the next, to get to the next, etc.  In 18 months from now, I should be looking down from the top of the castle.  I'll be smiling... but it really is as simple as climbing one step and then another till I reach the top.  Simplicity revealed, but a monumental task achieved.

Right - ROI in education

In the world of investments, return on investment is the most important measure of success.  Of course, the greater the return, the better.  But, the standard on luring people to investments is for them to make more than the interest rate on savings.  In the last century, the interest rate was anywhere between 7 and 11% with 10% being the ideal rate to beat.  In this century, the interest rates have been between 1/2 and 4% with the ideal being 3%.  So, return was lower, but then, the economy was much less productive.

When you look at the mind and its development, people often think of return on investment.  What kind of "product" are they getting for their money?  Well, if there was something like the percentage rate for savings, then this would be an easy answer.  Oh, you say there is?  Oh, stupid me.  Of course, it's the course grade.

Well, what exactly shows that there's an increase of knowledge?  Is it straight As?  As and Bs?  Moving from a C at the beginning of a course to an A?   Increasing from F to a C?  Oh, that's right, your school uses numbers.  So, going from 92 to 95 is a good return?  88 to 92?  68 to 72?  How about a whopping 15 points, say from 50 to 65, a greater gain than any of the other scores listed?

What about the person who makes 30s in September and 50s in May?  Surely 20 points is a good return in anybody's book?  Oh, that's not passing you say.  Why, I thought an increase in score was a worthy measure of return on investment.  No one would say going from 50 to 70 was not good.  But, it's the same 20 points!  Oh, 70 is passing you say.  Even though the increase is the same?  Really?

Why is 70 the chosen number for passing?  Oh, you want someone to know a percentage of material.  So, does the grade represent percentage of material?  If I begin by knowing 20% of the material presented (which, of course, is horrendous as an average percentage for a course in education) and double my knowledge in a six week period of time, what investor wouldn't want to buy into that?  But, no, that is not good enough in education because doubling the knowledge didn't measure 70% or higher.  If I show that I can answer 100% of multiplying by 5, but only 10% of multiplying by 9, and anywhere from 60-80% of multiplying by all the other numbers from 1 to 9, then I have a grade that is "worthy" because it is passing, but do I have enough knowledge of the material?  Or, if it takes me 9 months to increase my "average" passing knowledge from 70 to 77 in multiplication, but I am introduced to other concepts in math later in the year, especially the second half of the year, and I don't have quite as long to know the material, so my average drops to 75, does the drop show a drop on the return?  Or is  70, 77, and back to 75 OK because it is steady?  Is 70 to 77 and back to 60 not OK because it decreases the average to below 70?  Those who invest know that retracement is part of the investment game and don't worry so much about it.

If my grade is 90, then 80, then 70, is the drop due to so-called complexity of material?  Shouldn't "scaffolding" prevent the idea of dropping due to complexity?  And, what about those concepts learned at the beginning of the year that yield a grade of 90, but the grade for the same concept at the end of the year is 80; it's just mixed in with other concepts that have been learned more recently so that the overall grade is 92?  Is that called regression or increase?

I think I hear you saying that investments and grading are two different things.  Grades don't measure increase in investment.  EXACTLY!  So, never should one confuse grades as a return on investment.  Which begs the questions, "How does one know if he is getting what he should from education?  How does one know if she is developing the knowledge base necessary for what she will need later in life?"

The answer to those questions make for great discussions, but the answer will not be found in the practice of what the schools measure or of what the schools send as a report every 6-9 weeks.

Surely there is something that gives me an idea of ROI for 13 years of my life?  Right?

Momento

Night had fallen.  Darkness magnified the sound of croaking frogs not too far away.  Constellations of summer shone brightly, inviting me not to merely glance upward but glance and gaze.  It was a quiet moment so that not even a car could be heard in the distance.  The breeze blew the willow branches and bullrushes that lined the trickling stream that ran a half mile down the draw.

It was just the kind of moment in time that nudged me to smile at the pleasure of strong memories that were as magnified as the croaks, as inviting as the stars, as pure as the silence, and as refreshing as the breeze against my cheeks and the sight of the stream cutting through the draw.    Oh how invigorating was the face in my mind's eye that lingered in that moment of time, along with the form, the scent, the laughter!  Oh, such deep, abiding contentment.  So very, very pleasurable.

Eating Dust

You know, it took institutional education about 10 years to finally deal with on a limited use basis the possibilities that exist with new technology.  So, now the schools have labs for computers.  But classrooms still don't have enough computers for every student.  Therefore, the instruction is not using technology except on a rather random, haphazard appointment schedule.  How far behind is a student who can't access the internet for a subject?  Let's just say really far because computers have been available for a really long time (20 years) for commercial use.

Then came cell phones and apps.  Well, the forward thinkers among us have figured out how to use the phone apps for instruction... an app for the particular types of math, apps for literature and grammar, apps for various facets of science, and apps for instruction on anything under the sun, including how to make an app.  Online schools know how to use cell phone technology, adapting some of their online courses to cell phone use starting 2 years ago.  Public schools?  They still take up cell phones in some places, but even if not, the phones are to be pocketed and silenced till break times.  Laughable.

Use of social media has been around for 8-10 years, depending on what you see as the roots of social media.  What a great tool, especially for literature classes, language classes, computer classes, film classes, art classes.  What a great way for anybody, including young people to share knowledge through pictures both still and moving.  Embedded videos into formats like Instagram is something easily done.  Oh yeah, these sites are barred, blocked, and otherwise discouraged for use during school hours for both teachers and students in many places.  Wow!

So, on the announcement by Google of their newest device called Google Glasses, how do you think that will impact education?  It should have an immediate impact.  But, given the history of how long it takes public education to figure out the legitimacy of new technologies, and to work it into actual use for the benefit of the students (remember, computers are in classrooms and schools, just not for every student yet, 20 years after their commercial use), I say another 10-15 years.  By then, holographic applications of the virtual and real worlds will exist and Google glasses will have already become less helpful and useful.  Bizarre if you think about it!

Oh?  Never heard of Google Glasses.  Watch this for 3 1/2 minutes.

The world accelerates to a new height, a new level.  I think now you can understand how much of a quantum leap ahead students will be if they educate themselves through home education associations or through business sponsored schools, through online schools, or through MOOCs, or through just educating themselves.  In a year or two, smart schools will be giving Google Glasses to new enrollees.  That won't put their students just a little bit ahead of public education.  Can you spell Q-U-A-N-T-U-M   L-E-A-P.  A voice command computer lens in front of the eye is something that leaves those who don't have it in the dust.

If I were a dinosaur, and someone told me a huge meteorite was about to smash into the Yucatan Peninsula...

A great next step

Now we're on to something.

This kind of education will develop nicely and be able to use the available technology, including holographic representation, which will become available in a few short years.

The following link shows the rising use and popularity of such a course.  It's not just reform rhetoric - it's happening now.

MOOC

The art of the trade

My linguist friend and his linguist wife joined me for dinner tonight.  We are friends from way back.  I loved the comfort of the conversation, the ease of their manner, and the topics of conversation.  They have been doing work in Nigeria for the past two years and have come to the states for a couple of months each summer.  I love to hear of their work because it involves great stories of the Nigerian language.  Tonight we talked of their work in reducing an only spoken language to writing, and their work of teaching translation principles to the Nigerian students.

Also in our conversations, they speak of their living conditions.  I am always aware of what they have given up to be in Nigeria.  They are part of the educated elite, so they could live anywhere, or they could have stayed in the states.  They have traded their need for comfort and familiarity for enjoyment of their talents applied to their mission in life.

If there's one thing about life that I have learned, it is that life is a series of trade-offs.  I am usually satisfied with most things in life.  Another way of saying that is that most of the time, I can live with what I have traded off to be in the position I find myself.  But, as I think of trade-offs tonight, I am very dissatisfied that Life has required my heart of me even though it has left me with external trappings of beauty. My best effort at navigating has not yielded the result I wanted.  It has been a brutally harsh exchange this time.  My friends have been content to live near Jos and Lagos rather than the States, but it has been the deep end of the ocean for me.  I have faith that one day I will surface from the deep with my heart again in its place... that true contentment will return once again.