scottahill

I had a chat yesterday with a visiting speaker at UT, who has recently written a textbook and has done work in Physics Education Research. As we talked, it became obvious just how different our teaching styles were. For one thing, he's written a giant physics textbook, presumably retailing in the usual $200 range, while if I were to write a textbook it would go online and be print-on-demand or some such; the cost of textbooks is pathetic. Besides that, though, he uses online homework systems, apparently with multiple-choice answers, and multiple-choice Scantron exams (generated randomly by a computer) with no partial credit. I appreciate the difficulty of grading homework for large classes, which is why I just don't grade homework (although I do give multiple-choice no partial-credit quizzes every week, perhaps a partial approchement.) On exams, I give partial credit for everything, even multiple-choice questions (if students want to explain their answer, and they make sense, I'll give them credit for it). He uses Powerpoint slides, I hate using Powerpoint in class; I prefer to create my "slides" in class as we go. He uses "clickers" in class so that students can vote on answers anonymously; I prefer letter cards so I can ask students to "defend" (or just explain) their answers.

Hopefully we're both successful in what we do. But I can't help seeing his approach as being rather impersonal. His style presumably works very well in those online classes which are "designed" by some expert and then proctored over and over again by glorified TAs. And if I wanted to be paranoid, I might suggest that he imagines a world where universities don't have to hire professors anymore, but sit 250 students into a lecture hall in front of a video screen showing his presentations (available at a reduced rate if you act now!)

He was a nice-enough guy, but still.

Jen and Miriam are up at a Baha'i retreat center this weekend, so I am on my own. Rather than mope about like I did last time they were out of town, I decided I'd look for a concert or something to go to (something I very very rarely do), and I was surprised to discover that New York Voices was going to be performing in Bowling Green tonight. (I was also surprised that the tickets were only $15, having paid almost that much just for lawn tickets at Ravinia last weekend.) New York Voices is a four-person vocal jazz group which I've been fond of since high school; I have several of their albums and they vie with Manhattan Transfer for my favorite vocal jazz ensemble. And so, hoping our old beat-up Taurus could handle the half-hour trip (it did), I headed down to Bowling Green.

And it was really a lot of fun. It turns out that this was the last night of a week-long vocal jazz camp for high school students: it's apparently an annual event, and while I don't know the details it seemed like NYV participated in it every year, and maybe it's at Bowling Green every year too, but I don't know. Lots of high school kids in the audience, and it was fun to stand there and drink in the excitement that only high schoolers at the end of a week-long intense activity have. The auditorium was wide but only 8 rows deep, with a stage flush against the floor (like Shawnee but maybe smaller, for those who get that reference), so even sitting in the back row I felt like I was right there with them. It's hard to convey the actual concert for you, but they were very very good: the close harmonies, the improvisation, the timing, and the ease with which they did it all was wonderful. As the final piece, the campers all went up front and sang this ethereal wordless piece of music written just for the occasion, with NYV providing solos; I might try to get a copy of the concert recording just for that piece.

So I'm very glad that Jen's retreat was this weekend, and I'm wondering if (a) this camp goes on every year, and (b) if they let old fogeys come too. :) Seeing them perform made me miss performing dreadfully, and I wish I knew how to get back into it again, while finding the strength to get through the boring parts of rehearsal without bursting. What I need are a group of people who are (a) just at my talent level, so that I'm not bored; and (b) are not terribly ambitious, so they don't take over my life. Where is this group? :)

I had my first panic attacks one summer in Williamstown, when Jen went out of town for a couple of weeks and I felt very isolated and alone. My second bout of panic attacks was as a post-doc, when I took a trip to North Carolina to meet with my advisor's collaborator: again I was on my own, and I had the added pressure of needing to get something done that week, as up to that point I was having a hard time understanding what my job was all about. I wrestled with them, saw a therapist in Boston, and learned how to deal with panic. I thought I could say I was panic-free.

But I've started to see a reoccurrence in the past month: first, a month ago when Jen and Miriam went away for the weekend, and then tonight when I am again on my own. It's not quite the same: my original panic attacks tended to be accompanied by a mortal fear, that I would pass out or die or something. My therapy taught me that this wasn't possible, and so while I feel the tightness, I know that it's "just" a panic attack. Still, the anxiety is distracting and disabling, making it hard to enjoy my time off or to do things I want to do. The fact that I haven't had panic attacks up to this point can be attributed to the fact that my freedom has been curtailed by a) Miriam, and b) a full-time teaching job. I can't deal with total freedom. I had wondered why I was so non-productive in the period before Miriam was born, when I was unemployed or only employed part-time: why wasn't I able to write multiple research papers? Now I remember: no structure. I remember something from my music theory classes: limiting oneself to a certain mode or scale or lyric can make it a lot easier to be creative.

The solution would be to impose my own structure: set a daily schedule and stick to it. But that has to come from within me, and I have great difficulty creating my own structure. I have an "external locus of control", depending on others to provide structure and affirmation. Any self-created structure seems fake and hollow, and I can't "lean" on it; I know how easy it would be for me to change.

Another aspect of the panic is just that I get lonely easily. That's probably why I like working in restaurants: there are all these people around, but with the added bonus that I can be free to ignore them. :) I like to think I'm an introvert, but in reality I'm somewhere in between: I like having people around, but I'm not so good at socializing, or setting up situations where people are around. Jen is a pure introvert so she has it easier, I think (in some ways): she's home by herself this week and I think she's probably enjoying the freedom: the ability to stay late at work, or to do stuff around the house, or whatever. She isn't so good at seeking out company, but she doesn't really need it either, so she can be a happy hermit. (That's an exaggeration of course; I know she misses the two of us.)

OK, well just wanted to get that down. I'm in a nice loud restaurant with no one within arm's length, and so I'm feeling better: time to do a little work in preparation for tomorrow.

I felt like writing this, but now that I'm done I'm not sure it's worth putting online-- oh, but what the hell. I'll throw it behind a cut so that it doesn't clutter up anyone's Friends page.

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Perhaps this is obvious, but I was listening to Wil Wheaton's podcast "Radio-Free Burrito" and he said something interesting. He said that he enjoys reading/watching/listening to things which require a certain level of effort to appreciate, partly because when he meets someone else who also enjoys that thing, it's "like a secret handshake". My take on this is that when you meet someone who also enjoys this challenging work (e.g. medieval poetry) then their appreciation tells you something about that person, about their tastes and their intellectual capacities as well, which is a hint that you and they might get along well. This might not be such a big deal for extroverts, for people who enjoy meeting new people and experiencing a wide variety of personalities. But I'm not such a "people person", and so figuring out which of the 50 people in the room I will enjoy spending time with is challenging, particularly when a wrong choice might snag you in a conversation or even a relationship which is more tedious than enjoyable.

It also occurred to me that this partially explains why popular music and television shows are so annoying to me (and maybe other people, too): if something is too popular, then it doesn't tell you anything about the other person: it's not a "secret handshake" which helps you size up the other person. For example, if you meet someone who enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies, that doesn't say a lot about that person because a lot of people watched those movies and obviously enjoyed them. It might be enjoyable to talk about the movies with the other person, but it doesn't serve the sizing-up process which is an important part of casual conversations among people who have just met. It's rarer to meet someone who has read the books, and so that means something; one is thus tempted to mention how the movies are different from the books, to see if the other person has read the books too. (And if they know who Feanor or Ungoliant are: boom! That's a real indicator!) But once the movies came out, the names "Gandalf" and "Frodo" were no longer useful "secret handshakes" because everyone had heard them, and you have to dig a little deeper; thus the popularity of the movies made socializing a little harder, and a little more annoying.

When I go with Miriam to play at the Montessori school, or at her daycare, I find myself paying extra attention to the little boys in the room. Part of the reason is that I've heard people insist that gender differences exist from this age, that boys are more this or girls are more that; as a feminist I'm somewhat doubtful of these claims, attributing most of the differences to the way the children are raised, and so I'm watching these little boys to see if they are fundamentally different from Miriam, thinking, "Miriam gets loud like that too, Miriam runs around, whatever." (Frankly, I haven't noticed any real difference.) A problem with this is that it starts to feel like I'm measuring Miriam up against the boys, which is a rather UNfeminist thing to do.

The other reason I pay attention is due to my theories about little boys, in that they are more constrained than little girls: constrained in what they wear, what they play with, who they can imitate. (As one person put it, a little girl in a Batman costume is cute; a little boy in a Wonder Woman costume is alarming.) That, combined with the fact that boys are supposed to be a little bit behind girls developmentally at this age, makes me see them as more fragile, somehow.

And so I look on these little male children almost as alien creatures, rather ironic given that I used to be one. (Ah, but I don't remember being 2 years old.)

It's a little disturbing to be so obsessed about gender in this case, when I'd much rather see young children raised in as gender-blind a manner as possible. Heck, I'm not even sure Miriam knows the difference between "boy" and "girl" yet (though she does know the words), and I've avoided the terms when it comes to adults; I'm not a "boy" but a man and Jen isn't a "girl" but a woman, and I normally refer to us and other adults as "big people": "there's a big person". I'm not insistent about it, I don't tell other people what to say, and she'll figure it all out in due time, but I'm hoping that I can delay gender awareness a little bit so that it isn't so ingrained in her thought processes. Maybe it's futile, I dunno. I think there are small biological differences which cannot (and should not?) be erased, but that doesn't mean they have to be enhanced via socialization.

There must be a word for when parents get carried away in imagining how their child is a prodigy, or a genius, or whatever. Whatever it's called, I've had a bit of that, since her teachers at daycare called her "very bright". I mean, *I* think she's smart because she's my daughter, but they're professionals with a lot of two-year-olds to compare her to, right? :)

Miriam's imagination has really come to bloom in the past few months. She stages imaginary conversations between her toys (or anything; I have a ring and a medal on my necklace, and she had one tell the other, "I'm going to work now", and move along the chain to the back of my neck). She will suddenly launch into a long story about what she did that day or maybe a week ago. (She even introduced me to her daycare class: "That's Miriam's Daddy. With a green coat.") She knows a large number of songs, and has taken to making up words to them, sometimes nonsense syllables (which can be hard to tell), sometimes talking about herself in song. And she is incredibly cute when she's being a "big dinosaur" (low-pitched "ROAR" sound) or a "little dinosaur" (quiet squeaky "roar").

Her biggest challenge these days has been daycare. She doesn't mind staying home with her babysitter, and she was okay at daycare during the first three months, but after Thanksgiving she became very upset when we'd leave her there. Right after Thanksgiving, she would cry the whole time she was there. She doesn't do that so much now, but when I mention school to her in the morning, she gets very teary and overwrought, though trying to keep a brave face: "Miriam go to school, and Miriam have fun" she says, lip trembling. At school, she plays and has fun, with occasional random outbursts of crying, and then when I come to pick her up you can see the pent-up energy burst. It may just be a burst of separation anxiety, of course. I wonder what I should do in the meanwhile, though, how I should address the issue. She'll tell me all about it, later, saying "Miriam cried at school, said 'Daddy daddy! Mummy mummy!'" or "Miriam was sad at school." (I tried asking her why, but she's not quite that verbal.) Lately I've tried a little cognitive therapy, telling her "You were only sad a little bit at school. You were happy at school too, you had fun." Try to break the connection in her mind between school and crying. They're going to move her into another classroom for older kids in a couple of weeks, and maybe that will be helpful for her: more of a challenge, and a new room with new teachers to break old associations.

Now she wants to go look at the big clock with me, and watch the hands move, so time to go. :)

One thing which makes it difficult for me to find community is that I have spent so many years seeing myself as a misfit (in the literal sense: a "poor fit"), that this is an important part of my self-image. I find it very hard to latch onto commonalities between me and other people; to the contrary, I am very quick to notice how I differ from the rest of the group, and I'm sure that other people see me the same way. It's not about superiority; it's about uniqueness I think. I know that my self is very important to me: the thought of personal annihilation after death is extremely terrifying to me. I am suspicious of crowd thinking, and whenever someone expresses an opinion my immediate reaction is to take up the other side of the argument: it's not out of malice (though it can appear to be), and I like to think that this comes from a drive to be open-minded and fair, but maybe it comes from a fear of agreeing with people, that if I don't have a different opinion then this other person, then what's the point of me being around?

This came to mind this morning as I was bicycling to work; towards the end of the ride, another bicyclist ended up behind me, and followed me all the way to the physics building, and indeed even into the physics building (where most people would leave their bikes outside). Some people might see this coincidence as a nice way to connect with someone who works in the same building and the same department; I, on the other hand, was extremely annoyed that he had "followed" me. This happens to me a LOT (though I was maybe a little touchier about it this morning than usual). In fact, someone just decided to sit at the table next to mine in the restaurant, when the rest of the section is empty, and I caught myself glaring at him: "what the hell? Go sit in one of the 20 other tables!"
You can imagine how this played out in Chicago, where there was always bound to be someone following you anywhere you went.

Even in the communities where I've felt the most welcome, I still carried the misfit label in my mind. My first year in Bethans, I was "the freshman" (the only one that year), a label I was always ready to embrace as an excuse for not knowing things. Sophomore year, I kvetched about everything, to the point where, when Colin and Zach pulled me aside and asked me to direct the next year, I thought they were going to chew me out for being so annoying in rehearsal. :) Being a director sets one apart as well, of course, which is maybe why I was more comfortable in Bethans than I've been in any choir since (being one tenor among a whole section is too anonymizing for me). And looking back, I kick myself for the times I turned down invitations to coffee or board games, or sat alone in my room instead of seeking out company, because I didn't feel like I belonged, felt like I might be a nuisance without being aware of it. During senior year, I fought with Heath tooth and nail because I saw him as more "popular" than I was, putting me in an underdog position. About halfway through the year, though, I was surprised to realize and discover that in fact I was greatly respected (not to oversell this here), and that rather than being the underdog, I was in fact the senior director trying too hard to impose my will when I didn't need to try nearly so hard. I like to think that this discovery allowed me to back off, and brought our directorial relationship into a more cordial state.

I think everyone must wrestle with the twin desires of belonging and being unique. I think one can have both. But I probably have to find some way to sacrifice a little bit of self, and try to develop a self-image that includes my belonging to a group (which is something I really desire).

I woke up with the idea of a story in my head, and I spent the last hour on a first draft. Thought some of you might be interested in reading it (particularly the professional authors in the audience, *cough cough*). Just a first draft, of course; I may want to play around with the names and dates.

( RIPPLES )
Edit: I mixed up Rachel and Yvonne in the last letter; fixes in bold.

I really hate conflict, but you would have a hard time telling that from my behavior, because I have a stupid compulsion for expressing my opinion whenever I disagree with someone. Or worse, to play the Moderate or the Devil's Advocate, to challenge every generalization with a skeptical cock of the eyebrow. Online, it gets me into heated conversations which I loathe, until I finally am disgusted enough to close the tab on my browser or, more dramatically, avoid that website altogether. (I also end up posting drive-by opinions on comment sections which I will never visit again: this seems silly but it's probably better for my psyche.) I'm not a flamer, but I can be annoying when I latch onto some small element of a comment and respond to that, rather than respond to the post as a whole, and of course I'm not always the target audience anyway.

It's not just online, though. I've gotten myself into hours-long debates with people in which I can't concede defeat, and yet suffer through every minute. Some people confuse my propensity for debating with a love for debating; meanwhile I which I could just shut up. :) Even if I hold them in, though, opinions can ruin things for me: part of the reason I got so exasperated with the Catholic Church is because I couldn't go to Mass without critiquing the liturgy, the music, and of course any political message which might happen to slip into the sermon.

Isaac Asimov wrote that while he was in the army, he came to the realization that it was not his job to educate everyone he met, if he overheard someone making a comment which was wrong. Maybe all of his books were his way to direct his drive for explanation to a willing audience. Me, I'm more like the XKCD cartoon: "I can't go to bed yet; someone is wrong on the Internet!"

Sigh. Probably why I like math so much: for the most part, if you come up with something new to say, you can prove that it's true, and not have to "agree to disagree".