Peabloggy

I am devoting this entire entry to the discussion of one problem from this past week’s problem set for Dr. Doyle’s class in Quantitative Methods. I think I speak for many in my cohort when I say that I will probably never forget problem 4 from chapter 4 of our SPSS book for the rest of my life. Dr. Doyle is a wonderful professor, and he is doing a great job of teaching a bunch of novices about statistics, but I must have missed something in class, because I couldn’t figure out how to recode all those variables.

Problem 4 is the only one I’ve ever seen that had a disclaimer at the bottom. It read something to the effect of “this problem will probably cause some head scratching…tips are included on the following pages if you get stuck.” (I’m having to do this from memory, because I am not sure where the book is right now, as I may have inadvertently thrown it out the window.) I think the disclaimer should have read like the following: “This problem will likely cause uncontrollable crying and bouts of rage. The examples on the following pages will show you what your screen should look like, but since you have no experience with SPSS, your screen will probably not look the same. Good luck, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Only after my wife called a classmate in Boston (at 9:45 ET on Mother’s Day, no less) were we able to figure out where we have gone wrong: it all came down to a pop-up message. Yes, a pop-up message. I had seen said pop-up message about 20 times before when trying to recode the variables for problem 4, and since I’ve been conditioned to think that a pop-up message while running a program means that you can’t do whatever you were trying to do, I started over each time. All I had to do was hit “OK” and the process moved along smoothly. So after about 4 hours combined work time by my wife and I on one problem, we had finally figured it out. It was the longest Mother’s Day on record in human history.

-Landon C. Clark

I have posted about Facebook many times already, but I found an article in the Washington Post a few weeks ago that I couldn’t resist writing about. Young, savvy networkers everywhere are flustered by parents attempting to “friend” their children.

I have thought long and hard about my own Facebook site, especially as a teacher, and have consciously avoided posting anything I would not want future employers to see. I realize my profile is available to only those whom I allow to view it, but I’m paranoid, I admit. Just a few weeks ago, a group of middle school students went searching for my Facebook or Myspace profile!

Social networking sites like these appear to be making it more difficult to keep boundaries between public and private life, college friends and family members. Depending on your security features, others have access to view all of your friends, read conversations, and see pictures that others may have posted without your permission. As more and more authority figures join Facebook, creating an online identity becomes more and more complicated.

–Katie Harris

“The most interesting thing I’ve learned about teaching is that kids have the memory of birds or fish,” she said, as we went around the room. “They can hate you one day, and love you the next.”

My fellow Secondary Ed. students and I are approaching the end of our first student teaching placement, and in our seminar discussion last Wednesday, we shared observations from our eight weeks in the classroom. Earlier in the semester, a former high school teacher and current Ph.D. student said, “There’s something incredibly redemptive about teaching. Every day, you have the opportunity to give a kid another chance.”

As I’ve worked through almost daily challenges in my high school placement in Antioch, I see the profound truth in what he said. But teaching is not just redemptive for the kids. As a new teacher, I find myself making mistakes daily, even hourly. And every day, the kids show up and, for the most part, give me another chance.

- Rachel Bowers

Just another observation from student teaching:

At the end of this last week, I felt an intense craving to be called by my first name. I needed a break from the constant barrage of “Ms. Bowers.”

This is one aspect of teaching that I did not anticipate - I’m wondering if I should get all my friends and loved ones to say my name into a digital voice recorder so I can play it when I need to be reminded of who I am outside of the classroom. : )

- Rachel Bowers

This Swedish lady has developed the fastest internet connection in the world. She is able to download a full-length movie in less than 2 seconds - from her house. Of course, the lady for whom she built the connection (her mother) only uses it to read internet newspapers, but it’s a terrific demonstration of what we, being the technologically advanced creatures we are, can already do (but don’t).

In her lightning-fast travels through the world of internet newspapers, I wonder if our lady hero ever heard about this story.

How long will it be until the morning comes when some smart-aleck kid says to his mom, “Sheesh, in all the time it takes me to get up, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, ride the bus to school, and walk down the hall to get to my class, I could be downloading terrabytes of knowledge-laden data directly into my bedroom! School is just a tax on my time as a kid!”

Where is Bill Waterson when you need him?

With a little digging, I learned that the following essay was written by a man named Hugh Gallagher, who has insisted that he really sent it to numerous colleges and universities as part of his applications. It wound up being published in Harper’s, and it won first prize in Scholastic’s high school writing contest in 1990. The piece has travelled several hundred thousand times around the world through “viral” e-mail and is available on hundreds of websites.

Not surprisingly, following his graduation from NYU, Mr. Gallagher published a book, Teeth which has met with generally favorable reviews. A website about Hugh can be found here.

Gallagher’s infamous college essay:
—–

QUESTION 3A: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS THAT HAVE HELPED DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently.

Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing. I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook 30-minute brownies in 20 minutes.

I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello. I was scouted by the Mets. I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire.

I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life, but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven.

I breed prize-winning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But, I have not yet gone to college.

—–

- Peter Beddow

Hat tip: http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001020.htm

Dr. David Cole, the professor who taught my Structural Equation Modeling class last Spring, wore a t-shirt to class one day with this quote on it:

Note: If you find it disturbing that anyone finds this quote hilarious, you may want to think twice before enrolling in a graduate research program -

- Peter Beddow

At one point in Mr. Robert Hill’s Poetry class at Middlebury, we studied Frost’s poem For Once, Then, Something. Hill engaged our class in a lively debate about the title and last phrase of the poem. What did it mean? How does it relate to the totality of the poem? And most important: How should it be read?

As wise college students, we had so many ideas about how to read that line:
“For once, then, SOMEthing.”
“For once, then…something.”
“For ONCE, THEN, SOMETHING!’

After an hour or so of discussion, Mr. Hill informed us that he had in fact heard Frost himself read the poem at the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference one summer. The class was hushed as he described leaning in to hear how Frost would finish the poem, aware that he was about to learn the answer from the master himself.

According to Hill, Frost read the poem beautifully, adding brilliantly musical inflection to every line - that is, until the end of the poem. When he came to the final line, he deepened his voice, paused and said robotically, “For. Once. Then. Something.” He never looked up, giving no tell whatsoever.

I do not know whether Robert Frost the man actually was how Hill characterized him, or if Hill just liked to characterize him that way. What I do know is that I’ve never thought of Frost the same way since. I wish ol’ R.F. were here to defend himself…

The point of my including college anecdotes such as these in the context of a weblog post by a Special Education major is simply to demonstrate how important it is for us to recall our own learning experiences as we endeavor into teaching students ourselves. I fear that too often academics become so schooled in their own fields that they forget where all of their students have come from, and - worse yet - where they may be going. In my view, our own collective love of learning is essential if we’re to teach students who may come into our classrooms with little or none for themselves.

- Peter Beddow

Previous: Robert, we hardly knew ye (link fixed)

Comedian Ron White, overheard on the TV while studying last night:

Don’t tell me vocabulary ain’t important. If I’d known the difference between “anecdote” and “antidote,” my friend Bob would still be alive today.

- Peter Beddow