Month: May 2014

We stopped in Union Square to enjoy the sunshine. New York has treated us to London/Seattle like rain and fog. Today the eastern sun burned off the fog long before noon, providing opportunity for sight seeing. In New York the sights are the people. The tatooed black man with CP wearing the CCCP soccer shirt ambled along the fenceline watching his dog pace. Out of the corner of his eye he watches the small crowd gather to watch two beautiful women dressed in sports bras and leggings performing random acts of yoga in the park. From where I sit I can only catch the occasional glimpse of a naked foot or the twist of a shoulder. Men smile and some slow to snap a photo. Women slow to gawk and complain. A woman in leggings remarks, “Why can’t they do that on a weekday?”

I had the pleasure of sitting through a lecture about brain strengthening. I learned that a lot of what I held in certainty is wrong. As it turns out, multi tasking actually hurts the brain. Furthermore, the overthinking has the same effect–as does wrote mechanics. The way to innovate and grow the brain is to innovate and to critically think. The brain is naturally curious and wants to work. This is as important in the boardroom as it is in the classroom as it is in the bedroom.

I’ve always been the victim of lengthy meetings. Classical thinking says the team meeting is a place where people are supposed to get things out in the open, feeling free to think through their problems. What if this thinking is dead wrong? The speaker, Dr. Sandra Chapman (Make Your Brain Smarter), made the suggestion that we should liit meetings to 30 minutes. Tell each person who must speak that they need to limit comments to 5 sentences. In other words, come to the table having thought about and engaged the brain to consider the comments. This will limit time and empower the meeting goers greatly.

Dr. Chapman suggested, ‘The brain is quickly jaded by routine, but it thrives when facing challenges.’ We also know that learning and discovering meaning is a constructive process. When peole are engaged actively in the process then the process is more likely to yield results. So, what does this mean for the classroom? Incentivize transformative thinking: Reflect, Rework, Revisit, Reinvent — come up with something innovative and reward people for that.

I want to suggest Dr. Chapman’s website: Brainhealthdaily.com This is an excellent way to connect to the conversation about the brai and about learning. We discover more about the inner-workings of the brain everyday, which means it is important to learn about the brain constantly.

There is a fundamental difference between being an intelligent researcher, a skilled research writer, and a skilled presenter. The speaker who informed my understanding of the brain today was an intelligent researcher. There is no question today’s speaker was an intelligent man. I could see from his writing (which was displayed on the big screen as he read it) that he is skilled in research writing. At first, the presentation piece was not there. 

The first sign of trouble was when the 4 projection screens each popped up the lecture he was reading. The slides tracked his reading from one pagr to the next, chasing his voice down the page. Once the speaker introduced images, he started to read less and freesyle more. 

The speaker, Dr. Erik Kandel, took us on a historical tour of the idea of female sexuality and the relationships and influences of the psychology of such things on art. He talks about Frued (and his bottled up idea of sexuality) and he talked about Klimt and his open and oft agressive image of sexuality. Kandel spoke about art largely as an expression of ideas about sexuality. He supported his ideas thoroughly with story and with images. One set of images that stood out was the traditional female nudes, which Kandel pointed out are almost always representative of the female Gods, always facing the beholder (artist? viewer? who?) and covering their pubus with the left arm–leaving the reader to assume that this is either a reflection of modesty or a subtle suggestion of masturbation. Meanwhile, Klimt offered no such modesty. Klimt allowed his models to pose as they will. He suggested to them that they behave naturally and if they strike a pose or perform an action that catches his eye, he would paint them in that moment. 

As a result, many of the models would perform sexual acts of self-pleasure or otherwise. Klimt captured this in his art and captured the reality that these women were neighbors, every day figures that by the nature of themselves and their activiities juuxtaposed the female imagery that came before. 

Kandel suggests that this art leaves a certain amount of ambiguity that supports the need for a cognitive psychology of visual perception. In short, we rebuild the images we see inside our mind, which means the brain may alter or trick itself as to the nature of visual perception. He demonstrated this through illusory contours and similar visual tricks. He broke it down into 3 steps: The perception of the beholder, the psychological process, and the final phase which he called brain mechanisms. 

Kandel improved over time, finally giving himself room to be a creative and useful presentor. He relied on notes for the meat of the work, but when discussing the science he freestyled and showed that he was a knowledgeable man. It started slow, but it was clearly worth the journey.

Had occasion to enjoy a museum today. It’s funny. I spent k-6 getting off the bus in front of the. MET and never recognizing the beauty of what was at the top of those steps. I think youth is like that. We get so wrapped up in the immediacy of what is important to us that we can easily forget to open our hearts and minds to the beauty of possibility. 

Now I sit here flanked by a thousand years of culture and art and all I can think is that the little boy I was all those years ago is so very reminiscent of the students I encounter every day. If something doesn’t matter to them immediately or doesn’t conform to their often narrow worldview then that something is dismissed usually out of hand. We watch hours of television filled with catchy slogans like ‘Go anywhere. do Anything” (Jeep), but they never go anywhere unless it is the falsehood of vacation. They never do anything that is more than a contrived opportunity to forget what they did in the bliss of alcohol. Voices coalesce in classrooms like the droning of worker bees seeking their next assignment. Among the din rises a handful of voices curious and brave, wondering about the possibility of more and I strive to answer their charge–meet their questioning with a sense of purpose and the courage to tell them that experimentation is okay. Failure is okay. Learning is an experiment. Failure is an opportunity to see what is right for you and what is not.

None of this made sense to the little boy who only wanted to get to the playground fast enough to catch the last few moments of stoop ball. None of this makes sense to the hungry college kid slaving at a dead end job for 34 hours a week only to come home to 16 more hours of homework that reads like an alien tongue. Perhaps the student and the little boy were not ready. Perhaps there would’ve been a better time or situation for the exposure. 

But when? I still believe in creating opportunity out of the moments we have and reaching deep into the soul to find out what resides there. Art exposes that part of ourselves. Moreover, even when we aren’t really ready to experience it, art connects with that part of ourselves. It helps it form and watches it grow. 

When I came to the museum I knew exactly which direction to go. I followed many twists and turns knowing that at the end of the hall there would be a room lit by sunshine and in that room there would be a temple–an ancient place that helped introduced me to wonder. It is still there, and so is my wondering spirit.

Some Thoughts:
1. Just got network access back. Expect blogs to be back to the regular daily schedule. I’m dumping what I wrote over the last two days right now…

I’ll be the first to admit that 10 minutes is not sufficient time to plan and print a mock draft. NFL analysts dig around for months–NFL teams for years trying to predict and assess the behaviors of the 32 NFL teams in order to determine who to draft and when to do so. This is often referred to as a science. It is science. It is a mixture of social psychology and deep research. Teams are going to draft based on a handful of factors including team need, player talent (and ability to not act a fool, and depth of the draft class. I’ve watched enough film and analysis about this year’s draft to be able to, IMHO, predict what is about to happen with a fair degree of reliability. So, lets see how the 1st 10 play out:

1.  Texans: With the first pick in the 2014 draft the Texans select Khalil Mack. Everyone is high on the Clowney Sauce, but I think with a guy like JJ Watt on the front line, the Texans recognize they need to add a future all-star into the space just behind him. Mack is a primed to be a dominant LB for years to come.
2. Oakland (Traded up from St. Louis): Clowney goes #2 here. Oakland needs to make a statement. Given the way Bridewater has slipped in the polls, he appears to be a guy they can snatch early in the 2nd, thereby silencing what would otherwise be immediate calls for Schaub’s head had they grabbed a QB straight off.
3. Jaguars:  It is here we see the departure of Johnny Manziel. I have no faith in his career path, but Jags are rebuilding and this is the perfect time to pick a figurehead.
4. Cleveland: Another franchise sans QB, I suspect we see the departure of Blake Bortles here.
5. St. Louis (from Raiders):  With a bonus pick in hand, courtesy of the always dim Raiders, we will see the Rams start off the pick fest with Greg Robinson, an OT they can use as a cornerstone for their own line issues.
6. Atlanta: ATL has got to get a pass rush together, but they also have to find some success on the back end. Aaron Donald has the size and presence to make the Falcons D-line formidable. They can figure the rest out later in the draft (perhaps even by trading for Brandon Flowers).
7. Tampa Bay: The best OT, Jake Matthews leaves the board here.
8. Minnesota: Angered by the loss of Jake Matthews, this team in flux decides to get smart and snatch up a great LB in CJ Mosley.
9. Buffalo: Quaterbacks need weapons,which is why Buffalo is going to seize upon another one here with Sammy Watkins. SWAT gets a lot of buzz from the press, but more importantly he is someone who compliments an aging Bills receiving corps.
10. Detroit: There is no shortage of talented receivers in the draft, but grabbing a slot guy right now might be the smartest move Detroit can make. Bekham and Evans don’t fit the bill, but Marqise Lee lives for the short routes. Put him out there with Megatron and you might as well start calling him Starscream.

Some Thoughts:

1. Ran into one of the dudes I (used to?) play football with on weekends. It made me think about how far I’ve fallen atheletically. I’m supposed to be setting a positive example for my kids and here I am frankly sucking at being fit. That has to change.

Four years ago I started this blog. I was a different person then. I was an unfocused writer and a teacher at a turning point in his career. I was lost. I was satisfied with everything, so I didn’t fight for anything. It took a long time for me to get that way. The catalysts were success and, well, Arizona. I managed to accomplish a lot of the long term goals I’d worked out for myself. Couple that with living in a transient/retirement state where very little premium is placed on long term planning and you have a potent recipe for coasting.

I got fat. I put on 25 pound of not-muscle. I dove into video games. I published bad writing. I watched a lot of bad TV. I remembered why I started writing. I remembered why I kept going. I decided I wanted to be smart again. I looked for balance. I rediscovered happiness. I wrote.

Four years is an impossibly short segment of a human life, but for the person living, four years takes on the appearance of eternity. I made lists of possibilities and promises that sometimes came true or fell apart. I learned through all of this that existing–working–writing is meaningless to everyone but the person doing it. Sure, writers can connect with people through their words, and this is often what makes them popular, but if they didn’t connect the writing would still exist, which tells me that the words, the work, even existing is all about the journey an individual takes in order to discover who they are and what they want their purpose to be in life. In that way the 10 minute rule is about me learning about myself and perhaps through that revealing self-identification others can have the opportunity to take a long look at themselves.

Some Thoughts:

1. Life is very good.

Dear Andrew Garfield:

You are a beast. You took a role made famous by Stan Lee and infused into it a character who is at once everything Spidey is supposed to represent and so much more. I recognize that they don’t often hand out awards for superhero portrayals, but you, sir, nailed it. If I can take nothing else away from your film I can take away the knowledge that you get Spiderman fundamentally.

Sincerely,

A Talislegger

And that’s just one bit of acting! I had such low expectations for Spidey 2 that I’m left to wonder if I’m experiencing the Frozen effect: Enter expecting nothing and leave surprised and fulfilled. I’m not totally fulfilled by the film, but it was definitely beyond my expectations. Garfield kills it as Spidey and though it was exactly the movie I said it would be, the sharp dialogue and coolness factor provided enough for me to stay engaged.

Now if you are intuitive enough, you may guess how the film ends. Still, even the pivotal ending scenes provided enough shock, cool, and punch to leave you wanting a 3rd film right away. In fact, my kids asked when Spidey 3 was coming out. Then again, one of them walked into the theater in partial spidey costume, so I should’ve expected a desire for more going into it.

The film leaves you wanting more and more of Garfield’s spider, and the supporting cast does enough to elevate the character to someone you’ll want to cheer for from your seats.

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a lot of ideas running through my head for the post, but it all kept swirling back to Spiderman. I didn’t even get to touch of the philosophical ideas embedded in the film, but alas that is to be saved for another day and another 10 minutes.
2. Silence is preferable to negativity is preferable to rage in the mind of the abused but even silence has its price and its own. Just something I’ve been mulling over. Maybe I’ll write that story one day too.

Today’s 4-5 soccer game got a little out of control. I recognize the seriousness of competition at all levels but I struggle with translating that idea to something that is constructive for kids level-to-level and then balancing that against the desire of parents to see their kids win. I’ll say this: Games go really well when my kids are winning. We win gracefully. We don’t run up the score or load the field with our best players at the end. Yet both of those things went down this week in the 4-5 game and it has me once again reevaluating whether I should coach.

I think now that I should be a part of the coaching staff (if not the HC in certain situations). I believe this now because of what I’ve seen. I took watching overly aggressive coaching from an opponent and two complete FAILs from my own 8-9 players to get it. See, coaching at this level is not about wins and losses but about creating the motivation and confidence that young players need in order to keep going in the face of failure and bad coaching. I’ve seen players want to quit at all levels. I’ve seen players want to sit out of the game and never go back in, and I’m learning how to deal with that. When a kid blows a game he needs a coach who is going to pick him up and show him how to do better next time and to make him appreciate the fact that he can. That is what I see missing in today’s youth game. Winning is about how good you’ve done. Losing is about shaking it off, laughing and saying it doesn’t matter. It does matter. Losing is opportunity to come face to face with your shortcomings and to learn from that experience to be better.

Some Thoughts:

1. Followed a liveblog for the first time tonight. It made me think about the immediacy of news. I was watching the Mayweather fight blog and following round by round. This is something where immediacy makes sense. You are reporting on acts in progress that require little analysis. It doesn’t work for news that requires critical thinking, but it clearly is used in that fashion more often than not.

Imagine for a moment that you are writing a story. Your protagonist has the option to do anything in the universe that s/he wants. Imagine that the protagonist makes choices and those choices mean he can still do anything in the universe. Not much of a story, eh? That is because story is about the narrowing of options. Story comes from the consequences of the choices that a character must make. The more choices you allow a character to make, the deeper your story becomes. I mention this as I prepare to teach a summer fiction workshop. Usually the workshop writers are obsessed with the idea that story is ‘what happens’ and how cool the happening is. Moreover there is an inordinate amount of attention placed on how visual those ‘what happens’ scenes are–how well the reader can absorb the word picture and make that a part of the fabric of their story understanding.

When a character makes choices they close the door on what could have happened if they chose something else. Every story situation is made up of these doors. It is the writer’s job to present them to the character and step back and allow the character to choose which to close. When all the doors are closed, you’ll have your story.

Some Thoughts:

1. The Place Beyond the Pines is the kind of film you need to be in the right mood to fall into. Turns out I wasn’t in the right mood.

For a moment there Vince Vaughn was starting to look like a legitimate comedian. Once Old School hit I was all about the Vince Vaughn team dynamic. It was funny, raunchy, and married the worlds of youth with my (slightly more ‘seasoned’) generation. The basic premise there was the aged bringing wisdom to the youth of a new generation. Fast forward 10 years (and several bad movies along the way) Vaughn appears in the 2013 flop The Internship. Few found value in the film. I did find some value in the film. Actually, I found some value in the film’s depiction of Google. I haven’t researched Google to the level I need to in order to make this theory work, but here is what I think: There is academic value to the Google workplace approach.

Part of what makes Google work is the environment it creates. From the ground up Google is geared towards a youth market. In short, Google recognizes the audience of not only the consumer but the worker and creates an environment that satisfies both. Given the eccentricities common to the academic fold this might be a hard task to accomplish on a budget, but it is doable.