How to create a deviant

Quick review:  Psychs wanted to be respected as "scientists.". Behavioralists created "reasons" for learning nonsense, or learning nonsensically, depending on how you look at it.  Now here's another interesting development--enter the number crunchers!
Now, first, I have to say that number crunching is fun.  I know you math-phobic people don't believe that, and that's okay.  But I think it's great fun to find patterns like "square root day" (3-9-81 when I was a kid, or maybe 2-4-16 coming up in a few more years).  It's fun to prove that the "economy size" isn't necessarily the most "economical" per ounce.  It's fun to "count cards" and try to beat the odds in blackjack.  Shoot, it's just fun to even understand the odds in blackjack!  And it's even fun to answer simple questions with long calculus based explanations!  Math is way cool!

And I'm not the only one who thinks so.  Businessmen think so, because they want to calculate risks and measure success and minimize loss.  Environmentalists think so, because they want to calculate risks and measure success and minimize loss too.  Politicians also think so, for the same reasons.  Even Sly measures risks and opportunities and tries to make the most of his calculations and deliberations (thus his refusal to subscribe to some online game because it was just that--an ongoing commitment to continuing to give up money for access, rather than a one-time "you own it" purchase.  I had nothing to do with it!).

Even math phobic people like to see numbers that "prove" something or that back up their thoughts and values or that tell them what they did right or what they should do next.  

Enter the testers.  I found this fascinating.  When the US entered WWI, they had a huge number of recruits that they had to sort through and organize to fill jobs and roles in the military in execution of the war.  In order to manage the task, evaluators and testers were hired to figure out who should be officers and who should be infantry and who should be artillery and so on and so forth. They did the job, and the war eventually ended (on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, btw, for you number people. And obtw, no one "won" the war--everyone just agreed to go home and quit, basically.  But that's another post--sorry!). 

So, the war ended and there were all of these newly unemployed evaluators and testers who enjoyed determining people's military assignments for them.  Guess where they found a new set of subjects?  In the schools, of course!  There were all these captive kids with disconnected "nonsense" to learn at prescribed times in prescribed grades in prescribed ways--perfect fodder for testers and evaluators! 

The testers want people to test and categorize.  The mega-employers wanted warm bodies to fill factories and jobs and be "good employees."  The politicians wanted to know how to spend money and on whom to spend money to make suitable employees and suitable (manageable) citizens.  The testers and evaluators were willing to calculate and categorize the students for them, some for menial labor, some for academics, some not worth either, and so on.  

Thus also began "tracking" in schools.  It was a win-win for everyone!  "Smart" kids were the ones who tested well.  They were the ones who could more easily learn the prescribed "curriculum" in a detached, artificial, classroom environment, regurgitate the "right" answers for the test, and not rebel at the system in general.  They were the good kids, the ones that were teachable/trainable, the ones that got A's and gold stars and smiley faces, and followed the rules and colored between the lines and stayed inside the prescribed box.

Then there were the other kids.  They weren't on the same time line.  Or they were bored.  Or they didn't learn the "right way," which strangely enough was this new invented way of "learning" and not the classic way of learning (by interest and collaboration and in the real world with real relevance).  Those kids were "behavior problems" or "problem children" or "learning disabled.". The tester and evaluators (and employers and politicians) were more than happy to create new "scientific" groupings for these "deviants," and to be able to "allocate resources" accordingly.

Fast forward, and we have federal govt dictating national standards and rewarding and punishing performance of not only individuals but of entire schools and systems, and it's all based on a very un-natural/artificial system of measuring the learning of "nonsense.". Kind of makes you stop and think (if you didn't unlearn how to think when you were in all that schooling!).

Okay, enough for now, and sorry this post has been more "disjointed.". Between flu recovery and baby-brain, it's what I'm capable of at the moment!

Congrats to Sly and his teammates!!!!

Sly and two other homeschool friends put together and submitted a truly last minute effort in a computer programming "digital film" competition sponsored by a state university a couple weeks ago. They entered the middle school level team division. The presentations/awards ceremony was today, and they officially got Honorable Mention/4th place out of 8 teams. However, you had to be present to receive any prize, and 2nd place didn't show up. Therefore, Sly's team was awarded the 3rd place prize. They did awesome!!! Next year they can start working before the last week of submissions and REALLY kick some butt!!!! Y'all done GOOD!!!!

Jman Art: Harold's Rocket Ship (and the art of conversation!)

Just a little while ago I walked into Jman's room while he was in the midst of coloring in this drawing of his. I commented on the amazingly cool train layout he had going around his room and out into the hallway, and then simply stopped to watch him color for a bit.

And that's when the beautiful stuff happened.

Like I said, instead of talking at him, or trying to get him to respond, or anything, I just stopped and watched him color. And that gave him time and space.

And he said to me, as he continued coloring, "Black." (He was coloring outer space, but with a blue crayon. My interpretation: He needed a black crayon, but was making do with what was left in the box. It was both an observation and a sort of request, though he clearly was NOT expecting me to hand him a black crayon because he just kept on working with what he had.)

I answered that I guess we needed to buy some new crayons.

Then he said, "Rocket ship." (He paused in his coloring just long enough to point at the rocket as he spoke, and then promptly resumed filling in outer space again. Yep, that's a rocket ship, all right.)

Then he said, "Purple." (Quickly after the rocket ship comment, he pointed to a small area of outer space where he had apparently initially begun coloring with a dark purple. In addition, he may have been letting me know where the picture came from, in case I didn't already recognize it.)

I observed that he was drawing a picture from a nearby book on his bed, "Harold's Trip to the Sky" by Crockett Johnson. Remember the Harold and the Purple Crayon books? Fabulous books! And Jman has been enjoying them again recently. And drawing lots of pictures from them. And coloring in the pictures in the books as well. Great books.

Right after my comment, Jman piped up again with, "White baby." (He pointed at his drawing of Harold on the rocket ship. Yep, Harold was white, and he was a 'baby.' Thus, in this color dominated conversation, Jman so eloquently elaborated and described more of his drawing for me!).

I commented, "Yep, that's Harold!" And Jman continued finishing the coloring in of outer space.

Is that an AMAZING conversation, or what? I mean, seriously, for a man of few words, such as Jman, that was QUITE the conversation! And HE started it! And kept going with it! And it all made perfect SENSE! No scripting. Nice turn taking. On topic. Great elaboration. Mutually interesting to us both. Relevant. Sharing. Not trying to "get" anything from anyone. I was not trying to get words or attention. He wasn't trying to get anything from me either, just sharing about what he was working on, while I was seeming interested by standing there just watching for a few moments (and I genuinely WAS interested!). It's totally the kind of conversation ANY kid might have with their mom when mom walks in and sees the kid is drawing a picture--the same KIND of conversation, but with a LOT fewer words, of course!

Anyway, I was just fascinated. What a cool thing. It also reminded me of several other things he took the time to show me today, mostly when I walked in to see what he was doing, but once when he actually brought something to me just to show me. I guess he just wanted me to see what he'd made. Way cool.

So, Jman art--both his drawing AND his art of conversation! Who'd've thunk? :) I'm so glad I didn't go in and start asking him questions or start commenting myself on what he was doing! Less is more. Just give Jman time and space to think, and he can blow you away! I love that boy!

Creating a "Reason" (that's reasonable, isn't it?)

So, back to schools discussion (humor me!).  Last post I talked about how psychologists a hundred and fifty years ago or so were trying to establish themselves as a legitimate "science," but in order to do so they had to generate something "scientifically experimentable.". The way they figured out how to do that was to eliminate experience and prior knowledge and personal relevance (and thus personhood, when you think about it), and teach and test people on something no one could possibly know or even have a use for, NONsense.  The discovery was that people have a hard time learning nonsense because it's, well, nonsense, and WHO in their right mind wants to work hard at learning meaningless disconnected useless information simply for the sake of learning it?  No one! (no one in their right mind!)

Enter the behavioralists!  They gave people (starting with animals) a "reason" to learn the nonsense that they would otherwise NOT spend time learning (to only forget/brain dump quickly after "learning" it).  They gave "reinforcers"--postive reinforcers (such as cheese at the end of a maze) for right answers to encourage repeats of that behavior (doing/choosing the "right" but non-relevant to anything otherwise personally meaningful answer), and/or negative reinforcers to discourage repeats of other behaviors (doing/choosing the "wrong" answer, or perhaps refusing to participate in the first place because there was no reason to, except for the artificially created reason/reinforcer).

Is any of this sounding familiar to anyone?  Not necessarily the details, but where this is heading?  I'm out of time for this installment, but I foresee part 3 and maybe a part 4 (depending on time blocks available to me).  Oh, and please forgive the typos in these posts--again, with my time availability, typos are low on my list of priorities!  

Regurgitating and Brain Dumping

I want to talk about school for a few minutes.  Do you remember back when you were in school wondering why on earth you had to learn some of the things "they" said you had to learn?  The particular "irrelevant" subject certainly varied from kid to kid, but there was almost certainly some class that you had to take to meet "graduation requirements" that just seemed to have no relevance to your life at all.

Even more so, I bet there were classes, including perhaps many you did agree might have usefulness down the road, but especially the boring/irrelevant/meaningless to you classes, where you spent a lot of time "cramming" for the test so you could regurgitate the correct answers and get that good grade, or make the honor roll, or keep yourself from being grounded.  And odds are you brain dumped most of what you "learned" as soon as the test (or the class) was over and the "final results" were in.  

I could give you many personal examples from my own schooling, but I really doubt that's necessary.  I'm sure you've already thought of your own.  

So, what's up with that, anyway?  Do you remember how stupid itnall seemed back then?  Do you remember griping with your fellow classmates, wondering when you would ever use any of this disjointed information you had to pass tests on?  

Okay, now here's another question:  Have you actually used or needed a lot of that regurgitated and brain dumped information, or was it really just something to "test" you on and keep you occupied with at the time?  I bet you say "yes and no."  Some of the info you probably did need or want to know later and some of it you probably didn't.  

So, one more question:  When you DID need to know that "something" down the road, how hard was it to learn and actually understand and even remember it (instead of forgetting it again) when it finally had personal relevance to you (beyond the relevance of getting the grade)? Is that not when the "real" learning finally happened?

Okay, so, if the "real" learning happened when you had a personal, meaningful interest in the subject and it had personal relevance to your life (perhaps of necessity or perhaps as a hobby), and if that learning actually came easier and lasted longer than the disected "regurgitate and brain dump" learning for the test/grade/credit, why do we spend so much time and effort learning disected information in chopped up classes and segments that we are just going to brain dump anyway once the class is passed?  And if this is something we already know intuitively (as we did when we were cramming and regurgitating and brain dumping and wondering why when we were in school), why do our schools not only still "teach" that way, but do it even more so than they did when we were in class?

Guess what!  I found out why!  There IS a reason for the insanity!

Back in the 1800's, psychology was trying to prove itself as a legitimate "science.". But there was one BIG problem.  To be a respected "science," you had to be able to conduct experiments, and you had to have both an "experimental group" and a "control group" and a testable "variable."  (surely you can still recite the steps of the scientific method!  If not, then how do you judge all the "science" in the news today?)  But psychology with regard to human learning had some big challenges, because everybody's life experiences were different, and what they had already learned was different, and how they learned it was different, and why they learned it was different.  The wanna-be psycho-scientists couldn't create valid and repeatable experiments because they couldn't create "equal" or "comparable" experimental and contorl groups, and they couldn't find unique variables to test the groups' ability to learn because everyone already knew different stuff and had different learning backgrounds already.  That's just how life is!

So they had a real problem on their hands.  They needed to invent a way to create testable and compare-able groups, and they couldn't find a way to do it.  Until someone solved the problem--you had to detach the "learning" from real life!  You couldn't scientifically test and compare how people learned in real life (which people had already "known" for thousands of years--you learn from other people, and you learn what is interesting and relevant).  Instead, you had to scientifically test and compare how people learned NOT in real life.  Which means you had to create "fake" learning.  Detached learning.  Disembodied, disconnected, irrelevant learning.  Irrelevant meant it had to have no possible meaning to anyone's real (real--relevant).  What the testees had to be tested on, what they had to learn, had to be irelevant, it had to make no sense, it had to be NONsense.  

And that's the magical solution that a German psych named Hermann Ebbinghaus came up with in the late 1800's.  In order to study how people learn and remember (and later how they forget), he devised a list os NONsense syllables for people to memorize (and regurgitate).  Because the syllables were not part of any known language, they could have no relevance to anyone's previous life and learning, and therefore they not only made for a great test variable, but they also created by default acceptable experiment and control groups.  Problem solved!

And guess what his experiments showed?  Exactly what everyone already knew, of course.  Learning nonsense, information with no relevance to ones life experience or interests, takes a lot of effort, precisely because it has no relevance to the learner.  Subsequently, he "discovered" that we quite quickly and easily brain dump all this irrelevant nonsense because it is, well, irrelevant.  What we learn and remember is information and skills we are interested in and which have relevance.  (It has a lot to do with "short term memory" vs "long term memory," btw, but I'm already writing a book here!)

So. if the discovery was the confirmation that we learn and remember what we are interested in and what has relevance to our lives, and that we only "memorize, regurgitaite, and brain dump" the info that we don't have experience with or interest in learning (beyong learning for the grade), why on earth do we run our schools (and our autism intervention programs, I might add) precisely that way?  I can answer that question too, now, but I really ought to stop for now and get on with "real life" again this morning!  Perhaps I'll find another large uninterrupted block of time for "part 2" if anyone else finds this relevant and interesting!  (I sure do, and not because I have to pass a test for "them," whoever "they" are!)           

These are my men.

These are my men.

Here they are out front. Habeeb is teaching Sly how to shut off the main water supply and the sprinkler water supply. The other men are along for the ride.

With the sprinkler water supply off, Habeeb can teach Sly how to solder in the new part for a sprinkler control valve. Unschooling and ManBuilding is good stuff! Nothing like learning in real life!

Meanwhile, this little man is learning to tell the difference between "red" and "green" in the strawberry patch nearby. Red strawberries--yum! Green strawberries--wait a few more days! It sure beats flashcards, huh?

And my other man is just being silly this day!

Hiking

Sly was at the air show (post below), and the rest of us were hiking. It was a GORGEOUS day!

Air Show

Sly got to go behind the scenes with a VIP group from CAP to meet and greet (and of course watch) the Blue Angels, the US Navy Flight Demonstration Team. Way awesome cool! He did awesome with his self-portraits! Thatsa m'boy!

IAGO

sometime during the 11th inning

We managed to get a decent family self portrait! And the home team won. :)

Cleared for takeoff!

Last Thursday Sly got his first CAP orientation flight. He loved it (gee, go figure!). Now he says he wants to get his pilot's license, of course. So, should I go back and pick up an Instructor's rating and homeschool flying lessons too? Or shall we outsource ground school and flight intruction for high school? Decisions, decisions! Either way, he HAS been informed that he gets to help foot the bill. He might want to pick up a few more lawn customers!

Jman Video Art: "Ow!"

Jman got some Toy Story legos for his birthday. He recently pulled them back out, and today we caught him making a home video of Woody and Buzz riding RC and wrecking on the kitchen counter. It's blurry. It's short. But when we heard Jman's "Ow!" at the end, we decided this HAD to make it to the much neglected blog. You go, Jman!