I suppose I should post something, anything, since it's already getting late into the week. I don't have the time or energy to do something long or involved. It's interesting why. I actually have more time now than in the past, in terms of school, since I have the day off, after test day yesterday. But I don't really have the day off, I'm about to get lunch and head back over because I might be behind on practice hours.
In any case, I took the little bit of time I had to study intensively on a non-school homework topic that I've been really interested in for a while. Perhaps some would find it strange that after a long bout of intense intellectual work I'd take a break by doing some more intense intellectual work, but I have penchant and love of research, especially research that can be practically applied.
I have a lead on something that might be very helpful for people who want to change when change is hard. And in researching that and how to be effectively trained in that, I ran across some information that triggered a deeper and longer lasting obsession, that started somewhere around the time I started taking classes to be a teacher.
This obsession, which seems rational to me, has to do with teacher training. It blows my mind that there has not been systematic research into what methods of teacher training are most effective. It just seems insane. Or perhaps there is good research out there, but it's just remained in obscurity. My guess is there are small pockets of good research but they probably need more funding to be conclusive.
I suppose it's also possible that it's difficult and hotly debated, what constitutes the good student outcomes that would have to be measured.
In any case, it kind of enrages me, that there are so many institutions training teachers, which I see as one of the most important jobs, and they are doing it based on... I don't know what. unscientific theories, philosophies, feelings. I think we have pretty robust research on what leads to learning, though unfortunately a lot of that focuses on the stuff that's easy to measure, like test scores, and not on some things that may be more important, like social, moral, and deep learning outcomes.
But I don't think it would be too difficult to test really, I think it's possible, and I think the results would be damming. In fact, I think that's why I got into a huff in the first place, was looking for research on what was good training, and finding basically that research shows most of the methods used for training teachers have little to no impact on teacher effectiveness. They are nice theory, nice curriculum. Nice ideas, that if applied correctly, would yield good teaching. But the fact seems to be that telling people, even in detail, what good teaching is, does not yield good teachers.
From my informal and super brief review of the science of obtaining mastering or at least high proficiency in a skill, what is needed is repeated practice, with clear, measurable feedback, and mentoring by experts who can observe the trainee practicing the skill and give directed advice. There are other things that seem to help as well, practicing the various teaching and managing skills in structured peer groups with review and feedback, but the basic idea is the same.
And in just about any training program you can think of, the amount of that you get is tiny. Even my graduate program, which had a lot of time practicing, had very little of that time monitored in a way that I could get immediate or prompt feedback either from a mentor or form some kind of rubric that I could be scored on objectively, while teaching. My overworked, lovely professors only had time for that occasionally.
I could have tried to do a self assessment rubric myself, but I had no time. I was learning theory stuff and writing papers and losing sleep over how stressful student teaching was.
I think if you would look at Finland, or some country like that, you still wouldn't find an answer, you'd just find that it was a highly respected profession, so they had pick of the litter for teachers and so they could get people who already just happened to have the skills and drive necessary to be good.
That's not fair. If you have the desire to teach, you should have the chance to be trained in a way that gives you the skills for effectiveness, in teaching and in creating an environment that doesn't cause premature greying. It's not magic, it's technique and skills and knowledge.
Innate predisposition may get you the gold medal in the Olympics, but good training will get 99% of the population to competition level in their local town or state.
well, I was going to write something short and that did not happen. I'm very... um. "passionate" about this subject.
I really hope someone else does the obvious thing of observing, analyzing, and breaking down all the skills of the most effective teachers and then goes about designing a program that trains people in those skills in a way that is tested scientifically for effectiveness. You know, just following up with the graduates of the program, and determining that there is a large impact on teacher performance, and student performance, because of the training.
Because if someone else doesn't do it, then maybe I'll have to, and it sounds like way too much work, and I'm certainly not the best person for the job.
I'm looking at Gottman's work as a template: he very carefully observed and coded the interactions between couples, determined the "masters and disasters" in relationships, and determined the key factors of each group. They he went about trying to teach people how to avoid the behavior of the disasters and learn that of the masters. And he measured the results of his attempts: at first he was not very effective, but with help and experimentation, he got to a place where he was quite effective.
By the end, he could tell with about 90% accuracy, from something like a 15 minute conversation between the couple, if they would divorce, stay together, or grow emotionally distant but not quite divorce. And he had a short seminar that had some of the highest rates of marital relation improvement and maintenance of improvement over time, of any program out there. Perhaps the highest? I don't know, but it seems likely it was the highest and longest lasting for such a short intervention/training.
On of the things he discovered in his research was that a significant portion of the common knowledge about the field (of relationship advice) was wrong. Just simply wrong, but nobody had taken the time to research stringently the advice they were peddling. I think there's a similar issue with educational systems. especially in the gap between research results and actual implementation.
Well, I've gone on way too long now.
Normal disclaimers apply to the above stuff: I'm just an armchair philosopher, actually putting it into practice is way more challenging. There are a lot of wonderful people who also care deeply about this, doing huge amounts of work and pouring their heart into training new teachers. And I'm sure some of them are doing a great job, though it's impossible to know who, because we're not following graduates of teacher programs around and measuring their increase in effectiveness.
But I do know there are a lot of very wise and kind expert teachers, who are training new teachers, since those are the kind that I looked for. I know they've got good advice too. I just don't know how much of it will actually translate into me moving towards mastery in teaching. That has to do with deliberate practice, measurement, feedback, in a loop, ideally according to a plan that has been honed over time based on objectively observed outcomes that account for other variables skewing the results. That we don't have, as far as I know, and I think the world would be a better place if we did. Maybe it exists as individual consultants?
anyhoo, goodbye! this conversation can't end in my head because I don't have an answer, but it has to end on paper so I can go about the rest of my crazy day, week, and year.
the end
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Ramana Maharishi, Quote, Awarness-fluid.
"If everything is important, than nothing is important."
-me
this is an Isaac-ism that I've had for a while. It refers to the fact that if you have, say, 10 habits that you want to establish, you won't have the energy or time to establish even one of them, whereas if there is just one your working on, you've got a good chance of eventually getting it set.
If you have a room cluttered with objects, the important one's get lost in the mass, and you don't notice them, and so they don't get utilized enough.
If you're trying to practice twenty self-improvement techniques, then you end up learning none of them. Etc. It applies in a lot of different fields. If you give your employees a huge mound of tasks to do, saying they are all top priority, then none of them get done as top priority. I've heard the term, "addition by subtraction" and it's a bit similar. It's like you get one cup of attention fluid (I think of it as clear, but a bit more clingy than water, like quicksilver, maybe a bit syrupy, and slightly iridescent, like soap bubbles) and if you're trying to do a million things, each of them is a cup that just gets a tiny bit of the attention liquid. And... I don't know, I'm stretching this analogy, but maybe it's more like a bunch of plants, and they need attention-water to grow, and if each plant gets a few drops, they all die or at least wither. You need to choose a few important ones, and make sure they get enough. then if there's any left over, you can decide where it goes.
Anyhoo, that's what I was thinking about today.
Also mulling around the idea of making writing/creating a more regular habit (which would mean, a shorter habit.) but this concept is giving me pause, before I add yet another habit to nurture. Right now I'm quite busy with my getting lots of school work done habit, and one more spiritual habit, that would require a post of it's own. I'll give the sneak peak by referring to a great Indian saint named Ramana Maharishi, and one of the things he gave most importance to, which was the question, "Who am I?" for me, that takes me to really powerful place, not even intellectually, but a direct experience, and so I find it extremely potent. That's my one thing, spiritually speaking, right now (that I'm adding. I have a few things already established as a habit, that get to run on auto-pilot.)
OK, I think I'm done for today? Oh, I'll try and give a few bullet points of general life stuff:
- practice written and spoken exams coming up along with the submission of my first album (subjects are broken up into three ring binders and submitted once we get all the presentations)
- so I'm working on preparing for that
- I realized that one of the must useful things I've been doing to help motivate myself to get things done on time or early, is making a checklist of all my assignments. It feels really good, getting to check them each off, and I can record how long they take, to continue to hone my methods
- the method I've tried out, has been super effective. Along with setting aside some hour+ chunks of time each day to get some work done over the week, it's resulted in a much more manageable workload over the weekend. Which is good, since I've got a bunch of extra things to do now, like organizing and printing out my album (and doing some hand numbering of the pages, unfortunately)
- relationship with my girlfriend just continues to grow and deepen. It's hard to think about it as a new relationship, as we've sunk to such a deep level of comfort and intimacy so quickly. It is a shining star in my life and gives me the emotional support to keep plugging away relentlessly at the homework
OK! Done for the week, unless I start doing more frequent, super short things. (seems unlikely, so dont' get your hopes up.
-me
this is an Isaac-ism that I've had for a while. It refers to the fact that if you have, say, 10 habits that you want to establish, you won't have the energy or time to establish even one of them, whereas if there is just one your working on, you've got a good chance of eventually getting it set.
If you have a room cluttered with objects, the important one's get lost in the mass, and you don't notice them, and so they don't get utilized enough.
If you're trying to practice twenty self-improvement techniques, then you end up learning none of them. Etc. It applies in a lot of different fields. If you give your employees a huge mound of tasks to do, saying they are all top priority, then none of them get done as top priority. I've heard the term, "addition by subtraction" and it's a bit similar. It's like you get one cup of attention fluid (I think of it as clear, but a bit more clingy than water, like quicksilver, maybe a bit syrupy, and slightly iridescent, like soap bubbles) and if you're trying to do a million things, each of them is a cup that just gets a tiny bit of the attention liquid. And... I don't know, I'm stretching this analogy, but maybe it's more like a bunch of plants, and they need attention-water to grow, and if each plant gets a few drops, they all die or at least wither. You need to choose a few important ones, and make sure they get enough. then if there's any left over, you can decide where it goes.
Anyhoo, that's what I was thinking about today.
Also mulling around the idea of making writing/creating a more regular habit (which would mean, a shorter habit.) but this concept is giving me pause, before I add yet another habit to nurture. Right now I'm quite busy with my getting lots of school work done habit, and one more spiritual habit, that would require a post of it's own. I'll give the sneak peak by referring to a great Indian saint named Ramana Maharishi, and one of the things he gave most importance to, which was the question, "Who am I?" for me, that takes me to really powerful place, not even intellectually, but a direct experience, and so I find it extremely potent. That's my one thing, spiritually speaking, right now (that I'm adding. I have a few things already established as a habit, that get to run on auto-pilot.)
OK, I think I'm done for today? Oh, I'll try and give a few bullet points of general life stuff:
- practice written and spoken exams coming up along with the submission of my first album (subjects are broken up into three ring binders and submitted once we get all the presentations)
- so I'm working on preparing for that
- I realized that one of the must useful things I've been doing to help motivate myself to get things done on time or early, is making a checklist of all my assignments. It feels really good, getting to check them each off, and I can record how long they take, to continue to hone my methods
- the method I've tried out, has been super effective. Along with setting aside some hour+ chunks of time each day to get some work done over the week, it's resulted in a much more manageable workload over the weekend. Which is good, since I've got a bunch of extra things to do now, like organizing and printing out my album (and doing some hand numbering of the pages, unfortunately)
- relationship with my girlfriend just continues to grow and deepen. It's hard to think about it as a new relationship, as we've sunk to such a deep level of comfort and intimacy so quickly. It is a shining star in my life and gives me the emotional support to keep plugging away relentlessly at the homework
OK! Done for the week, unless I start doing more frequent, super short things. (seems unlikely, so dont' get your hopes up.
 |
| awareness fluid ;-) |
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Death the greatest teacher. daydreaming for maximum performance. our robot overlords.
I am bowled over with gratitude. It is the end of the weekend, and I am actually almost done with my homework. It only took all weekend, and I had time to run other errands, I even had time to leave my room. My brain doesn't feel like melted plastic.
How did all this happen?
I gave myself time to do nothing.
I will explain. I didn't exactly have time to just day-dream, but even those of us who are most busy, still need to go to lunch for at least a few minutes, travel from point A to point B, etc. And during that time, most of us are absolutely terrified of having nothing to do. It didn't used to be this way. There has been the option to disappear into a good book while you ate for a long time, but never have such intense levels of distraction/entertainment been available, as now, with the advent of the smart phone. People can't just sit down and focus on eating their food and ponder over their life. Or, well, they can. But they don't.
It's like a monster in the closet, people are afraid, maybe even a bit terrified, of just being with themselves, without something to distract them. But like the monster in the closet, if you actually do just sit down with nothing strongly pulling your attention, you find that you don't curl up into a dehydrated husk and start smoking. You're ok. The fear is more in the approaching the thing, not the experiencing of what's actually there. again, like the monster in the closet.
"Ok, here we go again with the technology bashing" you might be thinking. And your right! technology has emotionally and intellectually crippled and isolated us and cut us off from the juice of life. But it's also offered us the possibility of a greater quality of living, objectively speaking, than we have ever had in recorded history, as well as the potential for an incredible level of knowledge sharing and communication and organization, and economic and educational equality.
Of course, how much we make use of that is dependant on squishy, human factors, and so very little of the potential for good is being utilized. Mostly we use technology for surfing porn (about 30% of total Internet data transferred.) or non-pornographic distracting/entertaining videos (maybe 50ish percent is stuff like YouTube and netflix)
though I suppose those info graphics are measuring data, not time. Perhaps there is a lot of erudite reading going on to, and it just takes less bandwidth.
anyhoo. Human nature. Great potential, often unrealized.
the point I wanted to make, with a specific illustration from my own life, was the Archimedes, eureka type moments that come from those precious opportunities we have, to take a break from our intensive work, and let our mind relax and drift. these are often the moments when we have breakthroughs, make new and novel connections, solve problems we've been banging our head against.
If we flip on our phone the second we're free of work, we deprive ourselves of the breathing room to do that. to day-dream, invent, and also to take a step back to look at the overall direction of our life, and make the big, life-steering decisions that can lead to much more satisfying lives.
While I was doing that over lunch, not listening to an audio book, just trying to remember to chew enough times before swallowing, and letting my mind drift, I had a eureka moment with my homework: as I've mentioned just about every week, the shear volume is a bit soul crushing, or at least body and brain crushing. I've been continually measuring, reflecting on my process, and trying to streamline and improve things in various ways, repeatedly prototyping new protocols and testing to see if I can somehow reduce how much of my life it takes and how painful it is.
I've made steady progress on that front, but there was really no way to condense the actual actions down very much. I could do the bare minimum, but I had to balance that with not shooting myself in the foot for exams, because this material is supposed to make that much easier, and it should, if done well.
I know there are some (many?) students who basically sit in class all day, and work on their homework. I've been alittle tempted, but I tried it once, and it was impossible for me to task switch fast enough to capture the notes and stuff that the teacher was doing, with any depth of understanding, and lots of stuff was missing altogether from my notes and consciousness. Granted, some of what I missed were just aside the teachers made, but those aside are half of why I'm there, if I just wanted the facts I could have gotten them from teachers who weren't as good. I want to soak up all the wisdom they have to offer, and I don't have time to marinate in it now, so I just have to capture it for later review.
but I had a brainstorm about the things I could be doing while the lecture was going on, without missing anything extra. at least while the specific presentations were being given, it little extra work, to just record down what was being said, in abbreviated form, and that's basically what the presentation summaries and chapter summaries are. I realize I could probably do that, do a passable job, and not be zoning out on the lectures. I needed to switch back and forth between a few tabs to try and capture asides they made, and I've missed a few, but I've gotten most of the extra notes, especially since they tend to come before and between the actual demonstrations.
I've also started spending some of the break-time in between class segments, filling in a few more details, summary type things that are easiest to do when the info is still fresh in my mind, that would take twice as long to do at the end of the week, when I have to fully re-read everything to get the gestalt of it so I can summarize. Granted, that would be better for memorization. But if they wanted me doing that they should have given me a non-ridiculous amount of stuff to do.
as is, with this new strategy, I've cut down probably... at least a third, maybe a full half, of the amount of time these take, and it should say something about how overwhelming that was, that it still took me working an hour or two every week day, and some break time between lectures, and most of Saturday and Sunday, to finish things.
But I'm doing it with actual breaks in between, and I'm taking care of other essential things too. Life has much more balance to it.
So: I'm super grateful to the universe
And: I'm super appreciative of the power of empty time, not filled by distractions
I'm sure you could do that in a not particularly profitable way, I was kind of day-dreaming about my work process, reflecting on what I'd been doing and wondering what else I could do. So that's semi directed. Your results may vary.
But I feel like another important thing that could use some daydreaming time, is reflecting on how one is living life, in general. I frequently pose the question to myself: how am I going to look back on this (my current way of living) from my deathbed? will I be satisfied with how I lived, or regretful. I think the overwhelming majority of us, as Thoreau put it, "lead lives of quiet desperation." We are unhappy, our lives feel meaningless, and the fear and distraction during all idle moments is to avoid facing this simple truth. Avoiding it will not solve it.
But perhaps some focused daydreaming, some good questions, will begin to.
who said that quote?...
ah, good ol' Marcus Aurelius: "it is not death that men should fear, but never having lived"
I have some cool pictures I want to post, but then I'd want to talk about them and it would take too long. Hmmm, ok, lets see if I can do it in under 5 minutes...
hmm, 8 minutes (have I mentioned I'm almost obsessively tracking my time, to try and manage my efficiency and reduce time waste?) a bit longer than I hoped for, especially for two little pictures. As I thought, hard to keep myself from talking when a new subject comes to mind.
anyhoo, I hope your lives are filled with meaning and time to pause and daydream constructively about what is most important to you, big picture. Even ten minutes can make a difference. even five.
have a nice week ^_^
How did all this happen?
I gave myself time to do nothing.
I will explain. I didn't exactly have time to just day-dream, but even those of us who are most busy, still need to go to lunch for at least a few minutes, travel from point A to point B, etc. And during that time, most of us are absolutely terrified of having nothing to do. It didn't used to be this way. There has been the option to disappear into a good book while you ate for a long time, but never have such intense levels of distraction/entertainment been available, as now, with the advent of the smart phone. People can't just sit down and focus on eating their food and ponder over their life. Or, well, they can. But they don't.
It's like a monster in the closet, people are afraid, maybe even a bit terrified, of just being with themselves, without something to distract them. But like the monster in the closet, if you actually do just sit down with nothing strongly pulling your attention, you find that you don't curl up into a dehydrated husk and start smoking. You're ok. The fear is more in the approaching the thing, not the experiencing of what's actually there. again, like the monster in the closet.
"Ok, here we go again with the technology bashing" you might be thinking. And your right! technology has emotionally and intellectually crippled and isolated us and cut us off from the juice of life. But it's also offered us the possibility of a greater quality of living, objectively speaking, than we have ever had in recorded history, as well as the potential for an incredible level of knowledge sharing and communication and organization, and economic and educational equality.
Of course, how much we make use of that is dependant on squishy, human factors, and so very little of the potential for good is being utilized. Mostly we use technology for surfing porn (about 30% of total Internet data transferred.) or non-pornographic distracting/entertaining videos (maybe 50ish percent is stuff like YouTube and netflix)
though I suppose those info graphics are measuring data, not time. Perhaps there is a lot of erudite reading going on to, and it just takes less bandwidth.
anyhoo. Human nature. Great potential, often unrealized.
the point I wanted to make, with a specific illustration from my own life, was the Archimedes, eureka type moments that come from those precious opportunities we have, to take a break from our intensive work, and let our mind relax and drift. these are often the moments when we have breakthroughs, make new and novel connections, solve problems we've been banging our head against.
If we flip on our phone the second we're free of work, we deprive ourselves of the breathing room to do that. to day-dream, invent, and also to take a step back to look at the overall direction of our life, and make the big, life-steering decisions that can lead to much more satisfying lives.
While I was doing that over lunch, not listening to an audio book, just trying to remember to chew enough times before swallowing, and letting my mind drift, I had a eureka moment with my homework: as I've mentioned just about every week, the shear volume is a bit soul crushing, or at least body and brain crushing. I've been continually measuring, reflecting on my process, and trying to streamline and improve things in various ways, repeatedly prototyping new protocols and testing to see if I can somehow reduce how much of my life it takes and how painful it is.
I've made steady progress on that front, but there was really no way to condense the actual actions down very much. I could do the bare minimum, but I had to balance that with not shooting myself in the foot for exams, because this material is supposed to make that much easier, and it should, if done well.
I know there are some (many?) students who basically sit in class all day, and work on their homework. I've been alittle tempted, but I tried it once, and it was impossible for me to task switch fast enough to capture the notes and stuff that the teacher was doing, with any depth of understanding, and lots of stuff was missing altogether from my notes and consciousness. Granted, some of what I missed were just aside the teachers made, but those aside are half of why I'm there, if I just wanted the facts I could have gotten them from teachers who weren't as good. I want to soak up all the wisdom they have to offer, and I don't have time to marinate in it now, so I just have to capture it for later review.
but I had a brainstorm about the things I could be doing while the lecture was going on, without missing anything extra. at least while the specific presentations were being given, it little extra work, to just record down what was being said, in abbreviated form, and that's basically what the presentation summaries and chapter summaries are. I realize I could probably do that, do a passable job, and not be zoning out on the lectures. I needed to switch back and forth between a few tabs to try and capture asides they made, and I've missed a few, but I've gotten most of the extra notes, especially since they tend to come before and between the actual demonstrations.
I've also started spending some of the break-time in between class segments, filling in a few more details, summary type things that are easiest to do when the info is still fresh in my mind, that would take twice as long to do at the end of the week, when I have to fully re-read everything to get the gestalt of it so I can summarize. Granted, that would be better for memorization. But if they wanted me doing that they should have given me a non-ridiculous amount of stuff to do.
as is, with this new strategy, I've cut down probably... at least a third, maybe a full half, of the amount of time these take, and it should say something about how overwhelming that was, that it still took me working an hour or two every week day, and some break time between lectures, and most of Saturday and Sunday, to finish things.
But I'm doing it with actual breaks in between, and I'm taking care of other essential things too. Life has much more balance to it.
So: I'm super grateful to the universe
And: I'm super appreciative of the power of empty time, not filled by distractions
I'm sure you could do that in a not particularly profitable way, I was kind of day-dreaming about my work process, reflecting on what I'd been doing and wondering what else I could do. So that's semi directed. Your results may vary.
But I feel like another important thing that could use some daydreaming time, is reflecting on how one is living life, in general. I frequently pose the question to myself: how am I going to look back on this (my current way of living) from my deathbed? will I be satisfied with how I lived, or regretful. I think the overwhelming majority of us, as Thoreau put it, "lead lives of quiet desperation." We are unhappy, our lives feel meaningless, and the fear and distraction during all idle moments is to avoid facing this simple truth. Avoiding it will not solve it.
But perhaps some focused daydreaming, some good questions, will begin to.
who said that quote?...
ah, good ol' Marcus Aurelius: "it is not death that men should fear, but never having lived"
I have some cool pictures I want to post, but then I'd want to talk about them and it would take too long. Hmmm, ok, lets see if I can do it in under 5 minutes...
 |
| from Gottman institute: book : seven principles for making marriage work card deck: 52 questions to ask before marriage or moving in both: cat approved |
 |
| a baby pepper I found inside a pepper plant. I find the colors and shapes deeply, deeply beautiful, aesthetically pleasing I could stare at it for a long period of time it's even more pretty, in real life and even closer up, which is how I looked at it. Some things give me the tingles, just because of how aesthetically pleasing they are. makes me think of the potion shop I visited saturday but that story will likely never be told on this blog simply because I don't have time. short version: it was really aesthetically pleasing, too. |
hmm, 8 minutes (have I mentioned I'm almost obsessively tracking my time, to try and manage my efficiency and reduce time waste?) a bit longer than I hoped for, especially for two little pictures. As I thought, hard to keep myself from talking when a new subject comes to mind.
anyhoo, I hope your lives are filled with meaning and time to pause and daydream constructively about what is most important to you, big picture. Even ten minutes can make a difference. even five.
have a nice week ^_^
Sunday, July 7, 2019
melted plastic. request to the universe. catch 22's.
my brain feels like a plastic toy that's been torched with a flame-thrower. Like it's melted and partially deformed. I gratefully got two extra weekend days this week, which I gleefully spend relaxing, getting some much needed supplies, and cleaning up and organizing my room. I got a teeny bit of work done as well, but really, not that much. So this weekend was a lot like any other weekend, for the actual Saturday and Sunday.
I'm at peace with the crazy amount of work I have to do, but I will never think it's healthy. My body, my brain, are sluggish, exhausted. Like working out too much, but mentally. It's also too much of the same kind of task. I can understand the necessity of it. The school is trying to cram a lot into a little amount of time. And they're trying to do it with a large number of people, at a reasonable cost. Given an infinite number of resources, it could be done much more ideally, but the real world has constraints.
It's hard to think much, about other things. When I think, I think deep, and that takes a large chunk of time usually, as I research and think and research some more. But even ten minutes where I'm not focused is a good thing. I need to remember that. It's important to have time to let your mind relax.
There are many stories of inventors that devised various ways to catch themselves at the edge of sleep, because of the creativity that happened at that juncture. The story of Archimedes is the classic example: working for a long time on a really difficult problem, and then when he finally relaxed, the answer came to him. You sometimes need that open, relaxed state for new connections and combinations to be made, for things forgotten to surface.
and you sometimes need a lot of time to redesign your systems so that they are more efficient, which then gives you more time. a sad catch-22 when you don't have that time to redesign in the first place. This is where a lot of people find themselves: constantly running to keep their head afloat, doing things inefficiently, thus making them have to keep running forever, though if they only had the time to stop and think and plan, they could reduce the craziness.
I'm trying to take that time, in little bites, as I can. I've figured out a few little ways to save a bit of time, and I've identified some of the problems that are taking up too much time. But I still haven't found any big things.
But I think I'm ready to tell the universe, "hey, I don't want to work this hard. this is too much. I don't know if you need to change the work your giving me, or the way I approach it, but I want it to feel better, and take less time, so I have more time for other important things in my life."
hmm, lets end on a positive note. I got a lot of incidental todo's off my list with the long weekend, my relationship is still wonderful, just keeps being that way, deeper and deeper, and because of it, it's the most pleasant "away from friends and family, working" time I've had thus far in my life.
I feel confident that if I just take the time to sit down, clear my mind, and get clear on what I want, I have the tools to make it happen.
OK, that's all I have time for, see ya next week. Hope your summer is less busy than mine.
I'm at peace with the crazy amount of work I have to do, but I will never think it's healthy. My body, my brain, are sluggish, exhausted. Like working out too much, but mentally. It's also too much of the same kind of task. I can understand the necessity of it. The school is trying to cram a lot into a little amount of time. And they're trying to do it with a large number of people, at a reasonable cost. Given an infinite number of resources, it could be done much more ideally, but the real world has constraints.
It's hard to think much, about other things. When I think, I think deep, and that takes a large chunk of time usually, as I research and think and research some more. But even ten minutes where I'm not focused is a good thing. I need to remember that. It's important to have time to let your mind relax.
There are many stories of inventors that devised various ways to catch themselves at the edge of sleep, because of the creativity that happened at that juncture. The story of Archimedes is the classic example: working for a long time on a really difficult problem, and then when he finally relaxed, the answer came to him. You sometimes need that open, relaxed state for new connections and combinations to be made, for things forgotten to surface.
and you sometimes need a lot of time to redesign your systems so that they are more efficient, which then gives you more time. a sad catch-22 when you don't have that time to redesign in the first place. This is where a lot of people find themselves: constantly running to keep their head afloat, doing things inefficiently, thus making them have to keep running forever, though if they only had the time to stop and think and plan, they could reduce the craziness.
I'm trying to take that time, in little bites, as I can. I've figured out a few little ways to save a bit of time, and I've identified some of the problems that are taking up too much time. But I still haven't found any big things.
But I think I'm ready to tell the universe, "hey, I don't want to work this hard. this is too much. I don't know if you need to change the work your giving me, or the way I approach it, but I want it to feel better, and take less time, so I have more time for other important things in my life."
hmm, lets end on a positive note. I got a lot of incidental todo's off my list with the long weekend, my relationship is still wonderful, just keeps being that way, deeper and deeper, and because of it, it's the most pleasant "away from friends and family, working" time I've had thus far in my life.
I feel confident that if I just take the time to sit down, clear my mind, and get clear on what I want, I have the tools to make it happen.
OK, that's all I have time for, see ya next week. Hope your summer is less busy than mine.
 |
| too many papers |
Monday, July 1, 2019
The grindstone sharpens, expertize and 30 year novices, habits & addictions for good
This must needs be a short post.
One of my fellow students and I had the following exchange:
Me: this insanely heavy workload, it's just, wearing, on me
Them: I find it sharpens me.
This person had grown up going to a Montessori school, so part of me was a little angry and wanted to be mad at them because they already had all the training to be disciplined organized and use their time well, right from the beginning, they didn't have to painfully, slowly unlearn bad habits and force themselves to learn good ones, like I had, struggling for years. against the flow. They had just gotten it and absorbed it, when it was easy to form habits.
But then I thought, being angry/jealous is dumb and hurtful, so I decided to feel happy for them and appreciate their strengths instead, feeling gratitude for my own gifts. Much better strategy if you want to be happy and successful yourself. I almost immediately then realized it was a wise perspective, and decided to apply it to myself:
Having a heavy workload is a stretch, a challenge, that is not easy for me, and the only way we can grow sometimes, especially when we hit a plateau, is to stretch ourselves outside of our comfort zone. This is why many doctors (It depends the field) are not any better after 30 years of practice, than new doctors. They are not doing deliberate practice: effortful, focused work to improve specific things, that is actively measured and reflected upon.
This is my greatest nightmare as a teacher: not that I will fail some particular kid, of course I will make mistakes, but that I will fall into a rut and not get noticeably better, year by year, or the progress will be minuscule. It is a very real possibility, it happens all the time, and I refuse to be a part of it.
Within the book, "Moonwalking with Einstein" about memory training, there was a section about... ah, what's his name...Anders Ericsson, who is a leading researcher on what makes experts, experts, and how they get that way. He is the one popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule" (which Anders points out is a gross over simplification and not really true. Just made for a good read. Tut-tut Gladwell) And his wisdom is perhaps of greater utility than the memory techniques. He is the one I'm getting this info about stagnating and how to keep growing, from. And he's the one I'm going to refer to, to make sure I don't stagnate, and do eventually attain expertise in my field, or even just make sure I'm not stagnating, and growing at a good rate.
Well, I've talked about, like, one of the several things I want to cover. Lets see if I can just bullet point the rest:
-addendum to habit formation: you don't have to be super duper regular forever, just long enough to set the habit (which can be a while) once that's done, it's a bit like an addiction: an alcoholic can never go back to drinking like other people do. Even after 30 years, there are still remnants of those grooves in the brain, and it's much easier to re-start the addiction than someone who's never been an alcoholic. Addictions are very closely related to habits, and habits work similarly: once you've established a habit strongly, even if you get out of it, it's easier to get back into it, even if something made you slip out for long enough that it's not an active habit any more.
-My solution for the too much work need to rush but hate rushing dilemma is: find ways to be efficient without rushing. rather than trying to do a lot quickly, try and do a manageably small amount, well. Another older friend of mind told me this story when I was bemoaning how messed up I was feeling because of all the work and rushing and rushing-rage: The busiest man he knew was a kind of monk, and when my friend was with the monk, he felt like he was the only person in the world, the monk gave him his full attention, and the monk said, when asked, that was how he dealt with all is work: "when you're in front of me, your the only thing in the world. as you as you leave, I forget all about you." I think something like that is a good approach to take. extreme focus on the one thing in front of me, and then let it go when the next thing comes up.
The key for me, I think, that I need to work on, is setting the parameters of that deep dive, before I actually begin work, because once I'm in it, it's really hard to come out partway through. I need to set the goal properly small, before-hand, rather than try and crunch a giant amount of work into a small space. Work isn't really that flexible, you don't get that much more done, by rushing, you just get a bunch of lower quality work. At least, that's my experience.
OK, done, send to the presses.
One of my fellow students and I had the following exchange:
Me: this insanely heavy workload, it's just, wearing, on me
Them: I find it sharpens me.
This person had grown up going to a Montessori school, so part of me was a little angry and wanted to be mad at them because they already had all the training to be disciplined organized and use their time well, right from the beginning, they didn't have to painfully, slowly unlearn bad habits and force themselves to learn good ones, like I had, struggling for years. against the flow. They had just gotten it and absorbed it, when it was easy to form habits.
But then I thought, being angry/jealous is dumb and hurtful, so I decided to feel happy for them and appreciate their strengths instead, feeling gratitude for my own gifts. Much better strategy if you want to be happy and successful yourself. I almost immediately then realized it was a wise perspective, and decided to apply it to myself:
Having a heavy workload is a stretch, a challenge, that is not easy for me, and the only way we can grow sometimes, especially when we hit a plateau, is to stretch ourselves outside of our comfort zone. This is why many doctors (It depends the field) are not any better after 30 years of practice, than new doctors. They are not doing deliberate practice: effortful, focused work to improve specific things, that is actively measured and reflected upon.
This is my greatest nightmare as a teacher: not that I will fail some particular kid, of course I will make mistakes, but that I will fall into a rut and not get noticeably better, year by year, or the progress will be minuscule. It is a very real possibility, it happens all the time, and I refuse to be a part of it.
Within the book, "Moonwalking with Einstein" about memory training, there was a section about... ah, what's his name...Anders Ericsson, who is a leading researcher on what makes experts, experts, and how they get that way. He is the one popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule" (which Anders points out is a gross over simplification and not really true. Just made for a good read. Tut-tut Gladwell) And his wisdom is perhaps of greater utility than the memory techniques. He is the one I'm getting this info about stagnating and how to keep growing, from. And he's the one I'm going to refer to, to make sure I don't stagnate, and do eventually attain expertise in my field, or even just make sure I'm not stagnating, and growing at a good rate.
Well, I've talked about, like, one of the several things I want to cover. Lets see if I can just bullet point the rest:
-addendum to habit formation: you don't have to be super duper regular forever, just long enough to set the habit (which can be a while) once that's done, it's a bit like an addiction: an alcoholic can never go back to drinking like other people do. Even after 30 years, there are still remnants of those grooves in the brain, and it's much easier to re-start the addiction than someone who's never been an alcoholic. Addictions are very closely related to habits, and habits work similarly: once you've established a habit strongly, even if you get out of it, it's easier to get back into it, even if something made you slip out for long enough that it's not an active habit any more.
-My solution for the too much work need to rush but hate rushing dilemma is: find ways to be efficient without rushing. rather than trying to do a lot quickly, try and do a manageably small amount, well. Another older friend of mind told me this story when I was bemoaning how messed up I was feeling because of all the work and rushing and rushing-rage: The busiest man he knew was a kind of monk, and when my friend was with the monk, he felt like he was the only person in the world, the monk gave him his full attention, and the monk said, when asked, that was how he dealt with all is work: "when you're in front of me, your the only thing in the world. as you as you leave, I forget all about you." I think something like that is a good approach to take. extreme focus on the one thing in front of me, and then let it go when the next thing comes up.
The key for me, I think, that I need to work on, is setting the parameters of that deep dive, before I actually begin work, because once I'm in it, it's really hard to come out partway through. I need to set the goal properly small, before-hand, rather than try and crunch a giant amount of work into a small space. Work isn't really that flexible, you don't get that much more done, by rushing, you just get a bunch of lower quality work. At least, that's my experience.
OK, done, send to the presses.
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