On CNN today the author of a book was trying to tell why women apologize "all the time" and men rarely apologize. Her explanation was that women know they are "bitchy" at times. So, they know that saying "bitchy" things takes up time and space to help them clear the air for themselves. That's when they apologize. They know that they have wasted someone else's time just to help themselves. The apology is for a few moments of self centered expression. Men, on the other hand don't take up someone else's space and time to clear the air for themselves, so they apologize when needed, not for "merely breathing."
Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion. Validity, on the other hand, is a little harder to come by. The statement above is by a woman, so who am I, a male, to call her into question too much? I would refer to some literature about the subject, however. Some psychologists would say that women apologize to show deference, to symbolize their role as slightly inferior, or to denigrate their self-efficacy so that the males might have an opportunity to show prowess. Some linguists see the behavior more as a way to manipulate the conversation to get what they want. If a woman shows weakness, the male will respond with a statement of redirection, but in so doing leaves himself open to being led in logic toward a desired goal by the woman. The apology is a distraction from her goal, so that the man doesn't see it but feels inclined to comfort or guide. Then, the woman obtains her goal by leading the thought process from that point.
The CNN author's explanation doesn't seem too plausible because women don't like to waste someone's time anymore than men do. Women's self-efficacy is not deficient in any way to men's. The psychological explanation seems plausible only if women actually feel as if they need to defer for some reason or that they want to cater to a man's view of the world. That seems unlikely since they want just as much from life as men do. But, the linguists' point of view seems to have some merit. Humans in general are manipulative because they seek to control what they can of the world around them. Using language to aid in keeping control is something that both sexes do.
People don't like to think in terms of manipulation. The word connotes deviousness and deceit. But, creating facades is a practice humans commonly engage in. Everyone does this for their own survival first, and for control after that. When I hear an apology from a woman, I know that I should not be distracted. Something in the environment is about to move on me ( a nice way to say something is being manipulated).
I remember distinctly hearing a special education expert say that a method of teaching to special education students was to use hand signals in explaining grammar to them. And then she explained that that what was good for special education students (the signal system) was also good for regular education students.
I thought to myself, "Did I just hear that a method that worked in a special situation for a special population could be generalized to the mainstream population?" Surely not. Oh, but I did. In fact, I heard more than one special education expert say the same thing to different people.
Now I could understand that someone untrained might have the notion that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. But, I would never expect an expert in the field to make such a statement without empirical evidence. None was forthcoming, however. That's because the statement is counterintuitive. What is good for special education students should be easier for regular education students.
I hear too many stories coming out of education like this. I remember the 1990s. It was the decade of the learning style (Ken and Rita Dunn), even the reading style (Marie Carbo). A four segment teaching plan was circulated for a while that bordered on learning style. The categories of styles were different, such as "kinesthetic" or "visual," but were stylistic categories nonetheless.
Of course, if the originators of the style theories had done empirical studies on their theories to prove them, the notion of styles enhancing learning would have been less trendy than they were. But, no, quantitative evidence was not forthcoming. The learning style theory faded into oblivion with other notional ideas about education like hemisphericity of the brain. And, testing over a common curriculum will share the same fate as the rest of the notions as it runs its course in a few more years, thankfully.
I would hope that colleges of education would provide more informed educators in the future in order to lead eager and willing students into a better way of thinking.
I thought it very curious today as I watched and listened to a young high school student from Mexico City join in a discussion with adults who had migrated to the U.S. from Mexico The young student seemed unable to believe her ears, it seemed, at the reasons and other attitudes expressed by her fellow compatriots toward their native country. However, she came to accept their explanations for leaving and ended the discussion by saying that her generation could be ready to reject the current government's status quo and create a nation that gives people jobs and makes the country safer. I hope she has success in this when she returns to her education in Mexico next September and finishes soon with a medical degree. I tend to believe her efforts because of her sincerity and because by going to the best university in the whole of Mexico she has positioned herself in an influential place.
The generation of people 20 or younger right now will certainly come to power in about another 25 years, and they will have absolutely no influence from the generation I am a part of. I trust the swing generation of those in their 30s and 40s currently have done a good job of leaving the world a better place for them. I'm an optimist. The world gets better by degrees as it turns around the sun. The world seems to be coming together a little at a time. Brave New World will come true someday. Probably not in 25 years, but in about 10-15 of those 25-year periods, shades of a one-world government might surface. Katie bar the door when that happens. What the world won't achieve at that point!
The Algonquin Native Americans gathered their strawberries in the first half of June every year. The strawberries had a really narrow window for harvesting the berry. Of course, the moon has its phases in June, but at some point in June a full moon appears. When it does, it has a name just like every other month of the year when a full moon occurs. In May, the full moon is called the flower moon, because all the flowers are blooming during this month, and in April, the full moon is called the pink moon because of the color of the pink phlox that bloom as they cover the ground. So, that's right, you guessed it. For June the full moon is called the strawberry moon.
So, tonight I drove home with the strawberry moon looking through my passenger window. It was really, really pretty. But one thing I noticed was that the strawberry moon was not strawberry colored in the least. In fact, the full moon in June is nearly always a golden color because when it is low on the horizon the heat from the Earth colors the view of the moon, transforming its usually white glow to a honey shade. Those who drink ale or amber beer call it the old word for beer - mead. So, tonight my passenger on the way home from work was the honey moon, the mead moon.
This moon was a little more special tonight than most full moons, though. Tonight is Friday the 13th. What are the odds that a full moon would land on a Friday the 13th? Pretty high, right. The last time that occurred was October 13th, 2000. The next occurrence of a full moon on a Friday the 13th will be in the year 2049. Now, that's special. So, I'm feeling pretty loved for my good fortune of having the honey moon accompany me on my way home tonight. But, this is really a much more special moon than what I would have ever imagined. The last time a honey moon appeared in June on Friday the 13th was in 1919, almost 100 years ago. The next time that will happen will be almost 100 years in the future, 2098.
I am now feeling that the celestial order has treated me royally. The majestic splendor of the strawberry moon rode with me my entire 50 minute commute from work to home. Wow. I haven't been treated so special in I don't know how long, and couldn't help but compare it, figuratively, to times in my life when I was treated that regally. The strawberry moons in our lives, like the real ones, happen rarely, and the figurative honey moons of Friday the 13th even more rarely, so when they happen, we see their majestic splendor. The most recent strawberry full moon for Friday the 13th in my life was so special that I still feel its warmth, its heat coloring my life in the amber of mead. It was my honey moon because it was pure gold, my strawberry moon because of its taste - J ust L ike S trawberries.
I only live on a small block of a very big nation, but the idea of "being smart" is still the talk of young mothers and young teachers.
The idea of intelligence and ranking that intelligence is still alive and well. The arguments that surface most often in favor of its existence are that some kids score high on tests consistently, understand a concept the first time, need very little reinforcement to retain the concept, and retain the concept over a six-month span of time or longer.
They make some good observations that have to be addressed. Those who believe in intelligence take the three observations above and construct measurements that correlate initial depth of understanding, speed of understanding, and length of understanding.
At the outset, a definition of terms needs to be addressed. Understanding and learning are terms that appear to be synonymous among those doing the measuring. In popular vernacular, the two terms certainly have the same meaning. But, when working with statistical measurement, it is important to make all terms clear. Understanding contains the idea that information has been taken in and that a person can manipulate it, use it, have experience with its applications, and have enhanced familiarity with it without forgetting the concept or the mechanics involved in massaging it. Learning is related to taking in information and in a very short period of time after the information has been presented, mimicking or applying the principles to a problem containing them on a test (an artificial written instrument, not experience nor manipulation in real-world use).
So, when people begin to make observations about intelligence, they tend to measure learning rather than understanding, they exclude real world application and experience with a concept in favor of presenting information in books and testing retention. And, they restrict the learning to academic subjects. Of course, many kinds of information can be learned besides what is contained in books in a so-called core curriculum... many, many kinds.
Just on the basis of how restricted the sources for learning are (academic sources only) that are measured, the results should never be generalized from such a narrow database to the larger world of learning. The learning is different outside the books and core curriculum, so the results cannot be generalized. A non sequitur exists.
When it comes to the observations of depth, speed, and length of time applied to learning, then one sees right away that other factors enter in. What is depth? Is it how much that can be reflected in a test once or should it be how much can be applied in 10 different situations? Is it a percentage of correct answers on a test or is it knowing how to act, what to say when one is in the presence of someone whose career or life's work uses the information, someone with the knowledge of something through experimentation and presentation of a variety of problems?
What is speed? Reflecting a right answer on a test immediately following a concept? Showing knowledge after working with carefully constructed experimentation? Spending a year in the same grade level and remembering a particular fact for that length of time? Is it learning something, forgetting it, being reminded, forgetting again, finally seeing the fact appear in one's environment, forgetting, seeing the fact again being presented in the environment, not forgetting finally (like learning the tax code, jumping a car from another car's battery, knowing to check air pressure in tires in spring and fall because of the fluctuation in temperature during those seasons, applying rate of metabolism to exercise and intake of calories, etc.)?
What is length? Understanding implies experience. How long does that take? Learning doesn't necessarily require experience or manipulation. Learning can be a demonstration of facts. Retention of facts depend on how synapses in the brain have been organized by individuals. That organization is dependent on children's backgrounds. So, is length related to a type of background that produces a particular synaptic organizational pattern? Of course, that thought is absurd since synaptic organization is as individual as fingerprints. So, should there be different measurements for length? One for learning facts and one for learning applications?
Even if one could measure what is learned, then is it proper to tie those individual measurements to a general number, an index number? What does a 70 IQ mean? Does it mean that someone has difficulty with understanding or learning? Is the problem with speed, length, and depth, or is one area more affected than another? Is the problem transferring learning to understanding? Oh, right, transfer was not part of the measurement process... ha. And other factors enter in that are considered more minor to the intelligence measurers like background and personality traits, neither of which is considered in their IQ index.
I wish people would not be fooled. Unless there is a defect in the development of the mind in the womb or shortly after birth, every child is smart because the chemicals of the brain are distributed to the same areas and in amounts common to all humans. Biologically, infants learn to navigate their new environments in predictable ways. After two years of age, personality enters into the equation of navigating the environment as does a child's health. As time goes by, the influence of the parents begins to enter into the navigation. And as a little more time goes by, peer influence becomes a factor.
Intelligence is a false notion. It is a game concocted by those who want to structure society according to a system of role recognition so that they can belong to the role in some prestigious way, a way that touts the taste of apples above the taste of oranges or grapes.
On April 17, 2014, an Earth II was discovered in the habitable zone of the Kepler 186 star system, constellation Cygnus. It is about 10% larger than Earth and could contain life. You can read all about it in the journal Science.
On June 2, 2014, an Earth II was discovered in the habitable zone of the Kepler 10 star system, Constellation Draco. It is a little over 2 times the size of earth and has dense composition for rocks and other solids, so life could exist. You can view the press conference made at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society to hear all about it.
There will be many more announcements in the future simply because there are a myriad more planets to be found all around our galaxy. And when we can break free of our own spiral arm of the Milky Way, we'll find thousands more. They're out there. Once you start looking, you tend to find what you're looking for.
Discoveries like this sure make me wonder about life out there. I'm quite sure we'll meet ET sooner or later. It would excite me beyond words to be a part of the first contact. I would love to hear the story he or she tells of the existence each one has in the universe. I won't make it to that point in time, nor my daughter or my granddaughter. But in a couple or three hundred years, I'm hoping that some posterity of mine will eventually migrate to the place I'll be staying at that time and tell me what it is like to know about all those other worlds and the ETs that exist on them. I can't wait to have that conversation.
We all know that scientists have been working on artificial intelligence for 30 years now. It's old news. But news clips have been reporting that progress in the field has made great strides and have shown robots that greet you and carry on a simple question and answer exchange. The military has demonstrated its own success with drones (primitive, but first-step AI) in both a battle and surveillance mode. They run remotely and are controlled to a certain degree, but they also can think for themselves when taking camera shots or adjusting missile ranges and margins of error, or make recommendations to fine-tune any commands they think aren't entirely accurate.
Everyone knows that the day is coming when machines will think for themselves. And we know we will get there step by step. So when Apple held its news conference two days ago, step one for the commercial use of very early AI was seen. My goodness, now the apps on a phone can communicate with each other. Apple called it a "kit." They had two that they announced. The home kit takes a voice command, "I am going to sleep for the night," and turns off the lights in the house or turns off the ones you want off and leaves on the ones you want on. It also adjusts the thermostat, sets the coffee pot to turn on at a particular time in the morning, sets alarms, turns on night lights in halls and/or bathrooms, and activates the alarm system, shuts off or changes the setting of ceiling fans, and about anything else that is electronic in nature. That is all coordinated by a voice command.
Oh, it will get increasingly more sophisticated from here, but this is an impressive first step. I wonder what a person would have had to know to make this kit come together. You would have to know how devices communicate with each other. You would have to know how to bundle them. In old computer terms you would say you have to know how to make the information into a macro. You would have to tie the macro to oral language. You would have to know how to parse speech into the particular syllables that spark the catalyst for the macro to cause all the settings, adjustments, and activations to take place. In other words, you would have to know how technology works, how code works, how algorithms work, how spoken language is keyed to electronic signals, etc.
Would a student in an average school today even understand the first thing about the concept of a kit? They would be reading stories and adding, doing a little averaging, working with fractions, writing an essay or two. Ha! They would know how to work in a job for the 1980s well enough. Can anyone see that the syntax of coding has replaced stories and essays, that sets and algorithm use have displaced averaging and fractions, that the dreaded science fair project is really the kind of logic one needs to have as a rule, not as a project so uninteresting that kids won't do it and their parents try to help them save face? Tell me how important the facts of Westward Expansion are or the Treaty of Versailles in a world where the boundaries of space are pushed outside of our solar system and instant communication happens between people 24/7? The cell phone is a major tool so the apps and now the kits that control a person's environment seem a little more important than learning how a speech course, for example, painfully and slowly reviews the rudiments of face-to-face interaction for occasions that might not even exist in about another quarter-century.
If Apple's announcement didn't get the attention of those in charge of children's learning, then truly they are dinosaurs seeing the meteor streaking across the atmosphere within seconds of wiping them out never to return as one of Earth's life forms again. I trust there are those out there who understand adaptation and make some bold moves. The world is not in books. It's in real time. We'll get more of the past if we continue to prepare people by studying it and filling the ranks with those who know it. 3D copiers, 3D imaging, holographic transmission and viewing are already in use. Tablets (the electronic kind) for two-year-olds contain cameras for pictures and software to photoshop them. That's the new child's play.
Holy Mackerel!!! The Earth has gone around the sun 900 times already since the Medieval Ages, 238 times since the Yankees and Red Coats fought, 70 times since World War II, and even 34 times since the advent of the personal computer in commercial markets.
When my children were in grade school and younger, we used to buy party invitations for their birthday parties, write out the details of the party, and invite the friends they wanted to come. There would always be that R.S.V.P. number on the card for people to reply if they were coming or not. So phone conversations would ensue, at least 10 of them.
That was then. This is now.
I click on the Facebook icon on my computer's favorites bar to bring up my newsfeed. I scroll down and see that there is a picture of a birthday invitation saying that I and only 24 other people have been invited to click on the card. So I do. I am taken to a screen that gives a few details of the party for this person's twin 6-year-olds and a way to reply to the invitation, meaning I acknowledge that I am coming.
If social life has changed this radically in just 20 years, I'm thinking that other things have too. For sure it applies to how information is learned. Dinosaurs on the cusp of the KT boundary of reading and writing from books need to take note - just saying yet one more time.
