We didn't exactly have "credit hours", but I certainly spent much more than three times as much, um, time studying as I did in tutorials and writing essays. If I'd bothered to turn up to more than a handful of lectures, though, that ratio probably wouldn't have held up.
Speaking of idiotic school-related things, I have my stats midterm in an hour. Should be... well, it should be horrible, if we're being honest, here.
I vaguely remember the three-to-one ratio as what I was told was expected in college, but fifteen credit hours sounds like a heavy schedule. Not insanely heavy, but isn't twelve the norm, making for a forty-eight hour week?
I definitely cannot use my brain in a sustained way for 60 hours/week for a sustained length of time. I don't know how anyone does it. I worked really, really hard for the past month and just want to collapse completely.
Does homework count as studying? I remember math classes that I must have spent like twelve hours a week doing homework for. But they were the exception, not the rule.
Even 48 hours sounds grueling. Am I just especially weak?
Doing readings isn't "using your brain in a quality way".
I certainly didn't study that much, but I recall that being the standard. (And like most people here, I was always getting away with reading faster than the average, which cuts your necessary study time way back.)
5: That's what I remember -- that everything related to a class should take you the number of in-class hours times three.
You can't use your brain in a quality way for 60 hours a week.
I agree completely.
I trust you when you say that they appeared to believe what they were saying but a 3:1 ratio sounds to me like the calculation is, "we know that nobody will do everything that we ask. So we'll ask for more than what's reasonable in the hope that it will all average out."
Also, as a data point, when I was in college the ratio I heard quoted was 2:1. Even for that I felt like whether it was a reasonable goal depended on whether you were just counting work time, or time spent futzing around on the computer.
There were the classes that I never showed up for but did the homework, for which I had an infinite ratio of out-of-class to in-class hours.
I figured 3 hours studying (including doing assignments) for each hour of credit for every "real" class I had to take. The gut courses made it possible to do that and graduate in four years.
Man, I must have completely misspent my college years. I certainly did spend a fair bit of time doing homework in some classes, but how did I also work 20hrs/week?
College is hard. Life is harder.
I think in practice, and maybe theory, students get a variety of course in a semester, some of which, the major, take three hours of sweat, and the others, perhaps the majority, take three hours of half-attention.
History for math majors should not be a demanding course.
Thusly, students learn how to pace themselves, what to sweat and what to slack under conditions of phony all-out effort and earnestness. Like real life.
I worked really, really hard for the past month and just want to collapse completely.
Oh, my, yes. I'm really not looking forward to how I'm about to feel when the adrenaline finishes draining out of my system -- which should be sometime this week.
It's so depressing to go from, "I'm working hard, being productive, and doing work that I'm proud of" to "feeding myself seems like too much work" and "why did I just put the cereal box in the fridge?"
I could well imagine 48 hours being the norm of "how much time schoolwork would take if you did all the readings and all the homework very carefully." And 3:1 is often the rule-of-thumb maximum for which professors assign readings, I think. The point is that virtually nobody does this - I skimmed readings and was on the dean's list - so it falls back to maybe 1:1 in practice.
I get the same weird reaction when people talk about their kids having four hours of homework a night. (A) it sounds impossible, like it would either be making the kids' lives hell, or they just wouldn't do it; (B) people say things like that about my daughter's school, and she's doing just fine without doing anything like that much work. So, not sure where the disconnect is.
(And again, I certainly didn't work that hard in college, I just remember having heard that I was supposed to.)
three hours of studying, per week, per credit hour
Are you sure it wasn't per hour of class-room time? So it's more like 9 hours outside of class each week for every 3 hours of in-class time each week.
Austin Community College uses that as it's bench mark for assignments/reading load.
That's still a lot, for students taking 5 classes and working, on average, 20-30 hours a week for $.
i really didn't understand what was hurtful what i wrote in the other thread, i thought it was just an observation, that sexual harassment if the plight of attractive women
if one is plain than there is not that much hurt and offense happening i guessed, in general, sorry, alameda, if it hurt you, i thought it's better for you to think not that you are wrong in some mysterious way
It's hard for me to remember how many class hours I had as an undergraduate. Three courses per term, tutorials for each class weekly, plus three or four lectures a week for each class? Something like that. Maybe three to five hours a day, for four or five days a week. Fifteen to twenty hours a week in total, spent in class? Then a couple of hours a day in the library in between classes, and then a bit of reading in the evening, plus essay writing on top of that.
You'd get pretty close to 50 or 60 hours a week, without it even seeming like hard work, surely? I had a paid job at the time, too.*
* obligatory Four Yorkshireman skit taken as read.
Isn't credit hours the same as in-class hours?
Are you all just slackers or is there something intrinsically different about the US college system that I'm missing?
21: It wasn't just you; other people said things that hurt Alameida's feelings as well.
Eh, sorry, I misunderstood the math, so it works out the same. The does seem like a normal college workload.
Huh. I've always heard people use the ratio 2:1. That is the ratio I tell my students and use to calculate how much homework to assign.
"That"
Going to shut up and get caffeinated now. . .
If I had hewed to that ratio at university I would have been working 140 hours a week. That would have left me four hours a day to sleep, eat, and play table-tennis.
But I probably shouldn't count lab sessions in that, and they made up a lot of my "in-class" time. There's no way you need to do three hours' work for every hour of lab time. On the other hand, my cohorts who were studying subjects like history were doing about 4-6 hours of "classes" - lectures and tutorials - a week, and easily five to ten times that much work outside classes.
24: Or both? I could see that I was working harder than most of my peers, but I had no actual responsibilities other than studying. I put in forty hours a week on school and still wasted a tremendous amount of time.
22: The math you're doing doesn't sound like 50-60 hours to me; more like 40ish. Fifteen hours a week of class-time sounds right, or even a little on the high end; twenty sounds quite high. Then three or four hours a day or reading and writing, call it four times seven, gets you up to forty-three hours (and that forty to fifty range is one that's pretty sensitive; less than forty doesn't feel like much, more than fifty feels like a serious burden).
I think most of my college roommates spent about 8 hours a day playing video games or watching TV. Is that not the norm?
Yeah, at least in the UK, the ratios of class-to-study are very different in the sciences to the arts. And at Oxbridge at least, lectures are a much, much higher proportion of the class part for sciences than for, say, English or history.
15 credits/semester is standard if you have 3 credit courses, which is the older way of doing things. 120 hours to graduate, usually.
If you came in with a lot of credit, or went to a school with 4 or 5 hour classes, you can end up taking 4 classes a semester.
I always took 4 classes a semester, and am a bit boggled that our students all take 5/semester, but they do, and it seems to be the norm at many many schools.
Then three or four hours a day or reading and writing, call it four times seven, gets you up to forty-three hours (and that forty to fifty range is one that's pretty sensitive; less than forty doesn't feel like much, more than fifty feels like a serious burden).
Three or four hours a day reading and writing sounds low to me, though my course description was basically "read lots of books and write about them". I'd have one or two essays a week, which took something like three to four hours to write each. And on top of that I'd be reading pretty much the entire day until 7 or so.
I wonder how quarters versus semesters affects things. At the U of C you had to get special permission (and pay more money) to take more than 4 classes in a quarter.
Of course, a lot of that reading was done in the pub, so it wasn't exactly what I'd call burdensome.
I had an hour tutorial each week for each of maths and philosophy, for which I did much more than 3 hours work each. But I wasn't much of a one for lectures.
Also I didn't work very hard in college. Also our students don't put in 60 hours of week studying, nor do I expect them to. In my hardest, 400 level classes, I expect more than 3:1, though. I'm assigning probably 10-12 hours of work per week.
36: I had no possible way to come into college with any credits because of the size of my school. By default, the freshman advisors tried to sign you up for four classes. My dad did the math and had me sign up for another class pointing out that I didn't want to be there five years and that the intro classes were, excepting Calc, likely to be extremely easy. I took his advice and remain very grateful.
I never quite understood what a UK tutorial is. You spend an hour one on one with a professor? Grad student? Is this a multi-year relationship, where you work on all the classes you're attending lectures for, or is it a class with a specific subject matter itself? I feel like a dope not getting it, but it's just never quite come into focus for me.
44: When I was there, it was basically the same as a discussion section.
The fact that I took one term in an outlying U.K. university won't stop me from giving my opinion ahead of people that know much more.
re: 32
I did say 'essay writing on top of that', which would be a good chunk of time on top of that. I don't know how much time I spent on essays as an undergraduate, but it'd certainly be well into double figures in terms of hours per week, and could be a lot more in weeks when I had several essays due. And we had exams every term, so for a week or more before those, I'd be working solidly morning to night. I don't think I was an especially hard worker in terms of hours spent, as I read and write quickly but it'd certainly have been getting on for 60.
re: 44
It varies from institution to institution. At Glasgow they are small group seminar type classes. Somewhere between three and maybe twelve people, around a table discussing some piece of reading, or perhaps presenting a short paper. The graduate seminars I had at Oxford were similar to undergraduate tutorials at Glasgow.
At Oxford it's generally one-to-one, and your tutor will set you a list of reading for the following week, and an essay topic. You'll hand the essay in in advance and then spend the hour long class discussing it, and the topic/readings for the tutorial. Or, in some cases, the tutor may expect you to read the essay aloud in the tutorial. Actual class time can be low, but the work level quite high. Some people are writing three essays a week, and the reading for each can be substantial. How hard it is varies a lot by tutor. Some will basically monster you if your essays are shit or you haven't done the reading. Some are more nurturing.*
* I only had tutorials at Oxford as a graduate, although I taught quite a few to undergraduates.
So, you'd sign up for class, go to lecture, and then each lecture would have an associated tutorial? That makes sense.
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Can anyone help me come up with a third-grade science project for an almost nine year old? She seems drawn to projects that involve throwing things or dropping things, and bored by projects that involve growing things.
I was thinking of a project testing what kinds of Lego structures will break when dropped off our balcony. Like, a solid cube won't break, but a hallow one will. I'm not sure if I need to be testing a more detailed hypothesis than this, though.
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Can anyone help me come up with a third-grade science project for an almost nine year old? She seems drawn to projects that involve throwing things or dropping things, and bored by projects that involve growing things.
I was thinking of a project testing what kinds of Lego structures will break when dropped off our balcony. Like, a solid cube won't break, but a hallow one will. I'm not sure if I need to be testing a more detailed hypothesis than this, though.
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48 to 45. To 47, that seems like more writing than I had to do as an undergrad; if I don't count my normal tortured writing block as working time, I think I'd have been able to fit all the writing I had to do into four hours a day outside of class.
49: When I was about that age (but probably older by a year or two), I made two electromagnets by wrapping bolt with wire. Then I (or my dad) put the magnets on the end of two arms on pivots so that they'd hang freely a few inches apart when the magnets had no power. Depending on how you hooked the batteries, they'd attract or repel each other. This taught me about life.
49, 50: Rory did bridge-building at a math/science-y summer camp a couple of years ago with cardboard tubes and string. I imagine that your 9-year old won't have access to a university engineering program crushing machine to test the strength of her model out, but you could probably do cool stuff with popsicle sticks and how many books it will hold. And she can learn the different load bearing qualities of suspension and trusses an that triangles are a really big thing in the world of bridges.
re: 51
Oxford undergraduates doing writing-intensive courses [humanities, basically] will write a huge amount, and do really a LOT of reading.* Quite a few of them don't really bother to attend lectures, however. At Glasgow our writing burden was lower, but you really did have attend the lectures more often as they played a more central role in the teaching process. I think a conscientious Oxford student with tough tutors would probably have done more actual work, perhaps, although it's hard to compare directly.
* that's not atypical even at graduate level. I estimated I wrote something like 150-200,000 words in 18months for my B./ P#hil.
I tried to make a current by wrapping a coil of wire around a paper towel tube, putting a bar magnet inside, capping the ends, and shaking vigorously. IIRC, results were unsatisfying.
The classic "dropping things" experiment is the egg drop.
OK, not the classic classic, but still pretty classic.
Or grow lima beans in various substances. I would have enjoyed that kind of thing.
I did 2 days of hard studying/week in college, plus crash studying for finals/papers/midterms, and spent 100% of the remainder drunk or hungover or occasionally working. And did great, gradeswise. I'm pretty sure this only worked because I was in a cushy humanities major that valued bullshitting; it would not have flown in the Engineering School.
Paper mobius strip cut in half and in thirds.
Chemistry of shredded brillo pad doused in kerosene as a medium for permanently writing on concrete.
So, you'd sign up for class, go to lecture, and then each lecture would have an associated tutorial? That makes sense.
You don't really sign up for a class. There is a very small bit of optionality in a course, but for the most part the classes are determined when you apply to the college. The classes, ie tutorials, are based on the papers you'll be sitting in Mods and Finals.
In English, at Oxford, lectures are mostly only loosely correlated to tutorials and are purely informational. There'll be a series on some aspect of Shakespeare, say, which may be running while you're doing Shakespeare in tutorials, but it'll usually be a different lecturer and will probably have different secondary reading material. Particularly in the run up to finals, there's a tighter fit to the coursework.
In the science fair, I ran a brilliant experiment, but I had no hypothesis.
That's a fair criticism, but it's one which I'm not sure I've ever been able to overcome.
As a freshman, I visited a prof and complained that sometimes I had to do 4-5 hours a night outside the classroom to keep up with all my classes. He was like "Yeah? So?" I probably averaged about 25-30 hours of homework/studying per week outside class (5 courses/15 credits). That seemed like a lot at the time.
re: 61
At my college, too, there were usually little quasi-seminar type group tutorial/lecture sessions run as revision for finals. I taught them for philosophy a few times. Those sometimes, or so it seemed to me, served the function of making sure everyone had been exposed to at least a solid percentage of what might be on the exams, rather than whatever slightly idiosyncratic subset of it they'd had from their tutor.
Depending on your tolerance for mess she could always just drop eggs from various heights and measure the distance of the furthest bit of splattered egg from the point of impact. Given the stochastic nature of splatter you'd want to do a few trials at each height, at least three. I have no idea if the splatter radius increases with impact height, so if she does it be sure to report back. For science.
Hmm. My intuition is telling me that splatter radius should depend on the height, but also on whether the pointier end of the egg is facing down or up. Different kinematics as it impacts the ground.
I think you should hire essear to be C's science-project coach.
I'm put in mind of the Hardy Boys book where Frank temporarily became a college student to investigate a case: professor asking hard questions about a Shakespeare history play, all students eagerly competing to be called...
Also, of course, a hard-boiled egg is going to splatter very different from a raw one. Eggs dropped after being put in boiling water for varying amounts of time should somehow interpolate between these limits. Is it a gradual change, or is basically always in one limit or the other?
(I'm a particle physicist, so I think all questions -- including subtleties about the chemistry of a cooked egg -- should be answered by smashing things.)
50: A cousin of mine came up with a nice variation on egg-dropping: scientifically testing the extent to which different types of egg containers (cardboard, styrofoam, clear plastic) actually protect eggs in a fall.
Hmm. My intuition is telling me that splatter radius should depend on the height, but also on whether the pointier end of the egg is facing down or up.
Science fair question: does an egg dropped from a certain height tend to land pointy-side-down or flat-side-down or what? Get a bunch of eggs and a high-speed camera, and drop them from various heights.
Further research: suppose there is a height/side correlation. What about an egg affixed to a piece of buttered toast? Note that this is much more humane than strapping a piece of toast to a cat.
I liked that MIT's course credit system was explicit about this, with classroom, lab, and (expected) study/homework time called out. So a typical class would be 3-0-6, 4-0-8, or 5-0-7, depending on the amount of lecture and discussion sections; an engineering lab class would be more like 2-9-1 or 3-7-2.
What about an egg affixed to a piece of buttered toast?
"Affixed" how?
70: I'm just trying to get Help-chalk covered in goo. For science.
This is probably obvious, but you also need to control for (or, better, include as variable in your experiment) egg size and freshness.
Remember that in the Oxbridge system there's colleges and departments, my understanding is that lectures are done by the departments (that is, the English department will have a lecture series) whereas tutorials are attached to colleges. So they're administratively independent. (Although most lecturers and professors have both a department affiliation and a college affiliation.)
70: Encyclopedia Brown already covered some of that ground in "The Case of the Champion Egg Spinner".
Best science project ever: Go to Chili's and get swabs from various places. See if the toilet seat has more germs than the fork.
75: "For science" is the new "At the Mineshaft".
Eggs dropped after being put in boiling water for varying amounts of time should somehow interpolate between these limits
The chemistry of egg boiling is pretty complex, actually.
To really do this right you'll want to boil the egg at a set, relatively low temperature (which you couldn't really control on the stovetop without some special equipment) for varying amounts of time. If you do want to boil the egg just at boiling-water temperatures, though it will be more difficult to get a real range of cooked states in there, you should at least remember this: use a large pot with a lot of water, let it boil really thoroughly first, and don't let the egg touch the bottom of the pot. You could hang a basket in the water, and put the eggs in there, or you could put one bowl concave up in the bottom of the pot, then a smaller bowl concave down in the larger bowl, and let the eggs rest where the smaller bowl meets the larger.
You'll also want a defined procedure for cooling the eggs down again after you remove them from the hot water, natch.
Issue #1 of Lucky Peach had a nice little chart about egg boiling.
Our course evaluations ask the students to estimate the total number of hours spent on the course and the number of those hours they consider to be useful in their education. Those numbers vary from 2 to 3 hours per credit and usually 80-90% of those hours are considered useful to the students. The question is a little ambiguous because it doesn't clearly distinguish in-class from out-of-class hours (it just asks for the total), but assuming the students are including class time, it indicates that a 2:1 ratio of in-class to out-of-class time is more appropriate.
I think the difference between easy classes and hard classes is very important. Students need to figure out which kind of classes are which for them, and balance out their schedule. For me, easy classes took an hour or two per week outside of class, and hard classes took 10-20 hours per week outside of class.
I think in college I spent around 25 hours a week studying outside of class. But I certainly was more efficient/slackery than most people. Most of my friends had way less free time than I did.
Creamy egg yolks: When you heat a whole in-shell egg in water to 63°C (145°F), the yolk becomes creamy--not runny, not set. One degree lower is a runny yolk. One degree higher is a set yolk. The 63°C egg is a delight and completely impossible to make traditionally. More on eggs later.
78: Right! A lot of mechanical properties of an egg are going to change once it's cooked. So dropping and splattering them is one way to test. The tendency to orient itself in a certain way -- the buttered-toast problem -- will also depend on how much it's been cooked, possibly. Or just spinning time, as in that story. So I think it would be easy to cook up a lot of simple mechanical tests as a function of egg-cooking-amount, and see how they work.
nosflow gets it. I'll start writing the grant application.
This guy stood over his stove with a thermometer. Note the bowl-in-bowl technique.
77: Also, it's not particularly unusual, especially at small colleges, to have tutorials outside your college if your college doesn't have a specialist in a particular paper's subject. Although I was at Merton, I had tutorials with professors from Worcester, Keble, Balliol and St John's at various points.
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I am helpless with admiration for a French term for the past 30-plus years, les Trente Piteuses, analogous of course to the postwar Trente Glorieuses.
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|| Made an appointment! To see a real psychiatrist! Far too stigmatized to say that under my real fake name! But could stand a pat on the back and "go get 'em" just the same! |>
"I get the same weird reaction when people talk about their kids having four hours of homework a night. (A) it sounds impossible, like it would either be making the kids' lives hell, or they just wouldn't do it; (B) people say things like that about my daughter's school, and she's doing just fine without doing anything like that much work. So, not sure where the disconnect is."
A lot of this depends on the kid. I have kids of wildly differing academic ability. It takes one of them a crazy amount of time every night to do his homework. Another of my kids can just whip it out no problem.
Homework really pisses me off. The kids are in school 6 hours a day. There is no need for extensive amounts of homework. There is no proof that it makes any difference at all long term. And, it is pure torture for kids who have a hard time with it.
MTL, back officially patted.
I was reading an article about adult ADD,* and grew pretty convinced that I have this. Maybe I can get some sweet psychotropic medication to solve all my problems!
*The author, frex, claimed that college study habits similar to mine are ADD symptoms.
94: Go get em! I'm in one of those places where I kind of wish I could get organized to get into therapy myself; good for you getting the help you need.
97: I was reading an article about adult ADD,* and grew pretty convinced that I have this. Maybe I can get some sweet psychotropic medication to solve all my problems!
I thought this, and got some Ritalin of a friend to see if it helped. No perceptible effect at all, other than maybe a 'too much coffee' feeling.
Damnit, LB, at a minimum I want a fucking placebo effect. Although the truth is I'll probably get distracted and never ask for the medication.
97: You comment on Unfogged. You need more evidence?
Yay, MTL! Getting help when you need help is huge and shows you're doing a good job taking care of yourself, in case you doubt that.
Also, I can't believe that there's fucking homework after all-day kindergarten. Valerie really needs to be starting bedtime by 7:30 to get all the sleep she needs (a lot!) and so if I'm picking her up between 5 and 5:30, it's hard enough to just fit in dinner, a bit of playtime, and maybe a bath before it's time for pajamas and stories.
I sort of remember someone at some point suggesting the rule of thumb was 10 minutes of homework, max, per grade in school. So a 1st grader would have 10 minutes, a 6th grader an hour, and so on. Kindergarten homework is crazy. (Rory probably spends an hour a night on homework -- but if she did it with the TV off it would probably be 30 minutes homework, tops... )
102.2: That's absurd. What happens if she doesn't do it?
Kindergarten homework? Wtf?
My wife continues to find it hard to believe that on school nights through high school I basically always slept at least 8.5, usually more like 9 hours (which comes up from time to time because I fondly remember never, ever getting sick back then). "But didn't you have homework?" she asks. The answer is that if it was time to go to bed and the homework wasn't done, well, I'd do what I could the day it was due. This was a good decision, and definitely, definitely should be the priority structure for a 5 year old. Jesus.
Stories like 102 infuriate me. Is it possible to be held back for failing Kindergarten? Because if not, I'd be strongly included just to tell the teacher that due to other family priorities Valerie won't be doing the homework this year. Unless you think that would make the teacher treat Valerie poorly in class, which, on second thought, it probably would.
Kindergarten homework seems so self-evidently pointless that I wonder if there's any sane case to be made for it out there anyplace. I have a hard time believing there could be, but who knows.
107: Most puzzlingly presidential comment ever.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? hope it goes well for you.
I bet homework for kindergartners is seen by the powers that be as a way to rope in otherwise un-involved parents? Like, the thought process goes: "Lazy disengaged parents are creating these children who are falling behind, and so we need to create a structure to force them to behave like highly involved parents."
That's not my perspective, for the record. Just speculating.
I think (but am not defending) the idea for kindergarden (or preschool, even. For serious) homework is to get the kids used to the rhythm of bringing things home, working on them, and bringing them back. Not that the actual work is worth anything, but that the training and scheduling is.
Similarly, a lot of kindergarden teachers have to spend a lot of time training kids about sitting in desks, raising their hands, etc not because this is really necessary for a kindergarden class but because it's prep for later years and more advanced levels like first grade.
My niece and nephew got some "homework" in kindergarten, but it was just worksheets they could do or not do. I think the point was partly so parents could see what they were doing and partly because it made them feel like big kids.
They occasionally had an assignment they were really supposed to do, but it would be something like collect 4 different kinds of leaves and they'd have a week to do it.
113: If that's the theory, it's maddeningly stupid.
They gave one of my kids homework in kindergarten. Ask the teacher if they have to do it. My kid's teacher said that it was optional when we asked.
Ugh. Especially since "lazy, disengaged parents" is just as likely to be "parents working two part-time jobs and taking public transportation who would happily be more engaged if they could."
112: From what I hear talking to other parents, that seems to be right. At least the private schools and public schools with the greatest proportion of high SES families don't seem to have homework for the kindergarteners.
It is now required that the commentariat do this series of eggsperiments. And then write it up and submit to the annals of improbable research. It'll have a byline as long as an actual particle physics paper.
People who comment here are probably not the target audience of the homework training. But when I worked at an elementary school there were lots of students whose parents were from backgrounds where they cared less if there was homework or if it got completed. Training the whole family from kindergarden on to be used to the concept of homework was definitely the goal of starting it so early. Not as any sort of punitive measure though (at least at that school).
117: It is stupid, except from the point of view of school administrators who want to promoted or whatever.
I actually believe that worried upper middle class parents drive the homework train. Many see extensive homework as a sign of a good school.
124: Probably, except the UMC parents never seem to worry much about that kind of stuff when surrounded exclusively by other UMC families.
My ex and I moved our son to a private school this year in the hope that it would help improve his studies.
It has been terrible. He is failing almost every class. Very depressing.
Battles over homework and studying for tests are not fun.
Also, his mom's husband just left her over the weekend.
Poor kid.
Third grade science project:
My sister's third grade science project would totally have won if she hadn't told the judges that she did it because Dad told her to.
Hypothesis: Sluggo does attract snails.
Method:
Build a t-shaped maze.
Put Sluggo on one end of the T.
Put something inert on the other end of the T.
Run snails.
See whether they turn to the Sluggo more than chance would predict.
Take cute picture of kid watching snails.
Make cute posterboard.
My father was exceedingly proud of winning nearly all of his children's many science fairs. He never again made the mistake he made with my sister. The right answer was well coached after that. Not, "because my dad said to", but "because I wanted to know about [hypothesis]."
I wonder if that sort of 'training' is counterproductive. A family member with the sense God gave a goose, even if they're generally unfamiliar with homework expectations, can tell that kindergarten homework is useless busywork. Once they've spent a year (or more -- I don't see much use for homework in the early grades at all) learning that homework is useless busywork, it seems like it might be hard to unlearn that lesson when it gets more useful later on.
128 to 122.
to 126; Oy, sorry he's having a hard time.
I wonder if there's any sane case to be made for it out there
Being the parent of a kindergartner (who is thankfully not being burdened with homework), I just spent a while googling this, and it seems to be a distressingly common requirement. I can't say I've found anything that even approaches a "sane" case for it, but most of the cases seem to be roughly similar to this:
When Kindergarten homework is fun and meaningful, it lays the foundation for good work habits in later years. We believe that homework in Kindergarten also serves the purpose of communicating with parents what are the important skills and concepts we are learning in class. Furthermore, positive homework helps establish the home-school connection and involves parents as partners in the child's daily learning experiences....Homework helps establish healthy study habits, routine and responsibility. It also reinforces information learned in school. It's never too early to give your child these skills.
She does offer this bit of reassurance:
You probably won't need homework tutoring for your kindergartner.
Good to know!
(Most of the critiques of the practice seem to say it's mostly the fault of NCLB. I have no idea whether there's any truth to that.)
Val is going to a school district where she's in the norm as a kid who gets free lunch, FWIW. I've assumed that's also why, unlike in some of the tonier suburbs, the kids already go to school all day. Her homework is to trace and then copy her name four times and then usually between one and three other pages of homework that involves someone who knows how to read fighting with her about what the directions actually are, which is about as much fun as it sounds.
Nothing bad will happen to her grade-wise if she doesn't do the homework and I told the teacher that I won't fight with her about what the rules actually are or if she's writing an S instead of a 3. I'll tell her once, but if she doesn't want to listen, that's on her. I also said that my top priority is keeping her rested and secure and that this will take precedence over doing homework sometimes. Her teacher was very supportive of all this. But on the other hand, Val's pretty bad at writing her name and I'm sure extra practice would help. But what do they do all day in school if not practice things like that?
Anyway, she does homework while I cook and no longer has the hours-long weepfests she did when her grandmother made her do homework since I've made it clear that I don't care whether she cries and she learned that it doesn't actually take long if she just sits down and does it. She still whines, but that's true of everything.
Apparently a lot of parents think children are learning a huge amount in kindergarten and earlier? My mom has a lot of stories about other people being horrified that she didn't enroll me in pre-K and asking her how she was going to get me caught up with all the other students who would know so much more going into kindergarten.
Parenting is a humbling experience. No doubt about it.
Oh, I guess I should have previewed before posting 130.
I always assumed that kids were learning things in kindergarten. Otherwise, why is it called "school", instead of "day care"?
But on the other hand, Val's pretty bad at writing her name and I'm sure extra practice would help.
But on the third hand, while extra practice would not doubt help, why is it important that a kindergartner be good at writing her name?
Also, strong work, Ms. Lincoln.
LB, if you want to go get shrunk, I wish you could get past the barriers. It made things a whole lot better for me.
I guess I can see the "learning to bring stuff home and bring it back" logic. One day maybe Rory will learn that skill...
Otherwise, why is it called "school", instead of "day care"?
Because if we called it "day care", the state wouldn't pay for it. The nomenclature was designed to fool conservatives. This was one of the great victories of 20th-century American liberalism.
136: Heck if I know. I thought it was good that she could write the short form of her first name, especially given that she doesn't even recognize all the letters in the alphabet yet. And then at the parent-teacher conference her teacher wanted to know when I thought she'd be ready to add her last name (like, at the top of every sheet of busywork; she already copies it at least those four-ish times a day in homework and probably also at school) and whether we should switch to "Valerie" (or actually equivalent but longer and more complicated real name) and I was baffled since if she can't write "Val" consistently I don't see why we'd add more.
I'm in one of those places where I kind of wish I could get organized to get into therapy myself
Yeah, I think I might benefit a lot from therapy, but I honestly have no idea hod to go about getting connected to that sort of thing. Just opening up the yellow pages in the phone book doesn't seem like the right approach.
Both Joey and Caroline had kindergarten homework. I think it did help them a little to get acclimated to the idea that you have to do homework.
In general, though, kindergarten is the new first grade. This is basically mandated by No Child Left Behind/Race to the Top.
In all honesty, I'm doing less challenging the teacher for Valerie than I'd do for Mara because I think Val will be going home to her parents and I want the teacher to support that and support Val, so I'm trying to work the system and stay on the teacher's good side.
why is it important that a kindergartner be good at writing her name?
It isn't, and what I'm about to say is coming from someone who failed cursive in 6th grade and still has horrible cursive.
But. I watch my teenage brother and sister. My brother types fast, but hand writes painfully slowly and it is damn near illegible. He's 16. That's not going to change now.
I keep watching them, and I know that everyone always says the next generation is hopeless, but I'm fairly dismayed. It seems like there is the constant problem of inconsistent time preferences.
Is this the time to have a giant battle over handwriting? No. In kindergarden, it isn't necessary. In grade school, who wants to have a giant battle over handwriting when there are giant battles over doing the homework and the content to have? In middle school he already types. And now he's 16 and I'm not kidding when I say he can barely fucking handwrite. You would be shocked to see it. I was. So it is never the time to have that fight, but sometime in the past, someone should have.
I don't know when that was. I'll totally concede on kindergarden. But maybe it isn't ridiculous to make her trace her name out a few more times.
Thankfully, my son's school doesn't start homework until third grade, but he actually had it at his preschool, which is all kinds of insane.
Props to MTL.
Actually the whole thing happened because Thomas Friedman visited a Japanese third grade classroom and couldn't understand what the kids were writing. He then decided that it must be calculus and wrote a book saying that Asians were going to eat us all with their huge brains unless we start assigning homework in kindergarten.
135: Perhaps the fact that it's called "kindergarten" or, in English, Children's Garden, should be taken as indicating that it's supposed to be a relaxed, playful transition to school, rather than rigorously academic.
Post-stats midterm liveblogging: well, that certainly seemed pretty stupid. I hope I didn't fail.
Apparently a lot of parents think children are learning a huge amount in kindergarten and earlier?
They're too young for knowledge-transmission through a traditional organized curriculum at that age, but it seems to me like one of the few things you can learn are a set of basic behavioral skills related to school learning (like, showing up on time, you need to sit still for certain periods, keep trying at a problem to solve it, you need to get into a rhythm of doing a little bit of work at home each night) that are useful later and not at all innate or unlearnable.
And that lessons in these things may be most useful precisely for non-academically oriented families. In that sense a little bit of "homework," as long as it's not taken too seriously, doesn't strike me as insane, although of course it can be implemented in an insane way.
the phone book doesn't seem like the right approach.
Of course not -- all the good shrinks are on the internet, right?
Thanks for the back pats. I'm kind of excited, a little bit scared. Do I do homework in preparation? Aghhhh!
144: Cursive is no longer taught here. I don't think my 9th-grader has ever used it.
151 is so, so wrong. Next thing you know they'll stop teaching copperplate.
My brother essentially can't print either. I wasn't talking only about cursive (which I myself suck at). I mean that he can barely write by hand.
(Gets good grades, types everything. He's fine. But you would mistake anything he handwrote for a kindergardner's, which may be the last time he worked on it. )
I'm not 100% sure but I don't think Val went to preschool, or at least not for long. She hasn't learned things like how to sit still, how to stand in line, all that. I do think she's starting off at a slight disadvantage even to some of her peers in this school system because of that and because she doesn't know her alphabet, though Mara's speed there has biased me.
I do have her do her name copying most nights, though I'm not as big on making her color all the things that say "orange" orange. If we miss a night, it's no big deal, but I'm also not going on a crusade to avoid her homework. She does need to learn to buckle down and do work rather than try to whine her way out of it, and homework is good for that. But she also gets to go up to Mara's room and write on the chalkboard during quiet playtime, and surely that's helping her learn her letters too.
The teacher said she's seen a huge change in Val's responsiveness and personality in the three weeks she's been with us. She's paying more attention in class, which I think is because she gets enough sleep, and she's gotten more outgoing. She's remembering more and that helps her do better on her in-class work. Homework may be a small part of this, but stability seems more important.
And my larger point was the problem that it is always a bad time to do something rote and pointless, but doing rote and (seemingly) pointless exercises ("why can't I just type?!") has to happen sometime.
Nurtureshock has a description of a program, called I think "Tools for the Mind" that has run in a bunch of Head Start and other at-risk kid kindergartens and pre-schools, and which focuses on learning a bunch of self-control skills. At least according to that book, the results were extremely impressive and a lot of what we think of as innate self-control skills are teachable, and can be taught at a fairly young age.
Thorn, can I just say how incredibly impressed I am with you as a mother? Because I really, really am.
I think I'm more worried about people who can't type well than people who can't write by hand.
I was trying to help someone fix some buggy code recently and watching as he picked out one letter at a time on the keyboard nearly drove me insane.
I'm still waiting for Megan to explain what the actual problem is.
She hasn't learned things like how to sit still, how to stand in line, all that.
If it makes you feel any better, neither have my kids, who went to preschool.
On the post topic, I am relieved to find others who found the 3:1 ratio insane. In undergrad, I tended to blame myself for poor work habits, but when I went back for my second degree, I was older, wiser, and less likely to futz around, and I also had few-to-no "bird courses", plus additional personal and other obligations. 3:1 was completely unreasonable (this was in the humanities) and didn't account for the fact that the workload was every unevenly distributed throughout the semester. If the regular weekly workload was 9hrs/wk, the exams and midterm papers were a huge burden. If the workload was not regularly distributed, profs felt comfortable making periodic heavier demands (reasonable) which all lined up at the same time (unreasonable). Some people tried to do work ahead of time but of course it is all dependent on what is covered in lectures.
Whinewhinewhine. I survived, got my degree, yay.
I suspect most of the commentariat's response is skewed by intelligence and natural ability.
Also, homework in kindergarden is insane. Homework anytime before grade 4 or 5 is silly, frankly.
Di, that made me cry. Thank you.
I was in kindergarten 25 years ago and I don't even think we had desk. Maybe there were little tables, but not the rows of desks that are in Val's room. Both Mara and Alex are in daycare/preschool setups geared toward low-income kids that I do think focus on the kind of skills Halford is talking about, among other things.
Both Mara and Alex seem better at those sorts of things in many contexts than Val is, despite being eighteen months younger than she is. That could be personality or could be training, and it's hard for me to guess.
The actual problem is that he's missing an essential skill (writing by hand) and he's 16. He won't pick that up, and you might say that obviously he never has to handwrite anything, but if nothing else he'll have to handwrite pages and pages of math or physics problems in college (or be innumerate), and he can't even write horizontally on a page. It will matter.
It should have been drilled when he was more pliable, which is why I give some credence to the notion that kids should do stupid homework.
Megan's brother will pick it up quickly enough. He'll never have excellent handwriting, but he'll manage comprehensible handwriting as soon as he has to do it somewhat regularly.
The actual problem is that he's missing an essential skill (writing by hand)
Prob cannot dial a rotary phone either!
Here's an article on the Tools of the Mind curriculum. Which does seem promising for teaching self-control skills to kindergartners or younger kids. Most of the focus is on learning skill development through play, not on things like, say, rote-learning cursive.
He'll pick it up or he'll quit whatever requires it of him, limiting himself. He may not even realize that the underlying lack of skill/coordination was the barrier, rather than the physics problems themselves.
My brother is a professional writer. His handwriting, however -- both how he holds the pen and the resulting scrawl -- is that of a not-particularly-gifted 4-year-old.
Cursive is pointless and infuriating, but print handwriting on a blackboard is an important part of my job now and I wish I were better at it. It's unclear whether careful printing on paper transfers well to blackboards though.
My brother is a professional writer. His handwriting, however -- both how he holds the pen and the resulting scrawl -- is that of a not-particularly-gifted 4-year-old.
That's (sort of, most of what I do is write) true for me.
170: I'd be willing to bet it does. Ones handwriting tends to be similar under a wide variety of conditions.
but if nothing else he'll have to handwrite pages and pages of math or physics problems in college (or be innumerate)
It's never too early to start learning LaTeX.
My handwriting has been described as looking like "squished ants."
But I was a math major, so it didn't deter me in that.
Cursive is pointless and infuriating
It is vestigial, certainly. And yet, I find it really beautiful and a pleasure to read when done well.
My writing on unlined paper or a blackboard always tends to slope down and to the right, instead of straight across.
170, 172: Yeah, mine's always been ghastly, but it's recognizably the same ghastly on a chalkboard as it is on paper. That's definitely part of what I hated about teaching; my handwriting's bad enough that producing a comprehensible blackboard full of information for the kids to take notes from was hard.
I did a lot of pre-writing notes on butcher paper and taping them on the board during class to get around that.
So what's the right proportion of time spent out of class to in class for the teacher?
I was just running the numbers on this semester (two 100 person sections of the same Calculus class) and I think I'm pulling off: 5 h/wk in class, 2 h/wk prep, 3 h/wk dealing with students (office hours, email, etc.), plus four one-time 10-20 hour things (initial setup, two midterms, and a final) which prorates to 4 hours per week. So that's just less than 2:1, though if it were only one section it'd be close to 3:1.
Megan is right in 168.
Cursive is pointless and infuriating
Disagree; cursive is simply faster for writing than either printing or typing. But I know this has been argued on this blog before.
And yet, I find it really beautiful and a pleasure to readincomprehensible when done well.
Did you all coast through your graduate/professional degrees, also? Because I dicked around a lot in college but I work 60 hours/week easy as a graduate student. Some of that is fairly mindless TA duties, but still.
Also, I would echo the back-patting for MTL -- it's difficult to change things (anything, really), and taking steps towards trying something new is good, and scary. So congratulations.
But I still want to know if this L. is the same L. as before!
My blackboard (well, usually whiteboard, cave people) handwriting has gotten more comprehensible by leaps and bounds. I still wouldn't pick me to be the one to write things up on the whiteboard, but in a pinch I can probably manange it without too much pain.
181: I coasted through law school, but I didn't do a journal or a clinic, which everyone should do. Without those, it was a couple of hours of reading a day, study for exams at the end of the semester, write one long and one short paper, and take a whole bunch of naps.
But law school isn't grad school.
183.: It is, she said before. I got all maudlin about how we've all been rambling on here for long enough for a highschool student to return as a grad student, which seems like an awfully long time when you put it like that.
Is Eggplant saying in 180 that he can't read cursive, even when it's well-done (as opposed to a scribble/scrawl)?
There are certainly styles of cursive that are hard to read even when neatly written.
I found grad school way harder than law school (excluding law school clinics, which, if you get really involved, is a lot like actually being a real lawyer, except you get to help poor people instead of working to destroy them).
Although much of the grad school time problem was just dealing with unstructured time, and also it's hard to get reading done while your mind is battling a general sense of impending doom and failure.
It should have been drilled when he was more pliable, which is why I give some credence to the notion that kids should do stupid homework.
I completely agree on the general point. I disagree with the specific case (Sifu's 165 seems more likely; people take up, e.g, fly-tieing late in life and become quite adept)
Really nice German cursive is both beautiful and illegible to me.
I did not work super hard in grad school (instead I spent 7 years in grad school). I find it basically impossible to work more than 4 hours or so between waking up and dinner time, and in grad school I had an active social life. So I'd guess under 30 hours a week.
I have worked very hard (by my own standards) as a postdoc though. That means the aforementioned 4 hours during the day, plus a second 3-4 hours at night (9pm-1am roughly), and working an average of one day on the weekend. So between 40 and 50 hours a week.
By the way, I don't really get 179; cursive certainly isn't faster than typing for me. Is the idea that the fastest cursive writer is faster than the fastest typer? Or that for the average person who knows both, cursive is faster? I would be surprised by both of those, but particularly the former.
195: It's faster than printing if what you've got is a pen and paper -- if you're not sitting at a computer. I'm sure it's slower than typing on a keyboard, but probably much faster than typing on any currently existing phone.
[B]ut probably much faster than typing on any currently existing phone.
You haven't put in the same kind of hours learning to type on a phone as you have learning cursive.
Yeah, typing is faster than anything else, if you're competent at it.
wait, why would cursive be faster than regular writing? My normal handwriting is not careful printing but it's not cursive, and trying to write in actual cursive would be way slower.
200: mostly because you don't have to lift the pen from paper between letters, I think.
Lots of people have put in much more time texting than they have handwriting; if with equal amounts of investment, typing on a phone is faster, that's knowable.
200: more discontinuous strokes, I guess. I write in a hybrid print/cursive, trying to maximize legibility and speed: it doesn't necessarily work.
When I was in grade school and high school we had 3 to 4 hours of homework a day. Sports were from 3:00-5:00, so most people finished around 10 or 11.
Grade school was more relaxed, but still more than what the public school kids had. Less required sports in grade school though.
Frankly, while I'm sure that cursive isn't useless, it's hard to think of a less-useful commonly taught skill.
I worked like a dog in grad school, largely because I was coming into an engineering masters from a different discipline. I was shocked by how much time the problem sets took me, and was certain that I hadn't had the maturity and resolve to do that an engineering degree in undergrad.
My cursive handwriting looks just as bad as my printing, but it's much faster, so I usually use that if taking large amounts of notes, since I'll have to type them up later to read them anyway.
201: Hm. But you still have to move the pen from the end of one letter to the start of the next, and the amount of lifting seems quite small to me. Like, a millimeter. Plus you gain speed because of not having the friction of pen tip on paper.
Seriously, the hours spent teaching cursive could be spent just as usefully teaching kids to whittle wooden ducks out of a pine log.
I wonder if I didn't take classes in grad school because I had become too lazy to, or if I became lazy because I wasn't taking classes.
208: possibly the difference is the coordination bit. Having to discretely lift and drop the instrument as opposed to just rolling on into the next one. I don't know, but it seems at least plausible to me.
209: Too high of a risk of stabbings.
From Halford's link: But in fact, very few truly pleasurable moments come from complete hedonism.
You're doing it wrong, education person.
To be clear, I'm not making the case for cursive. I'm saying that a near-adult essentially cannot write things on paper by hand.
I think that's a problem that should have been solved in the past, and it apparently never appeared to be important to do that in the past. Which is why I am now more willing to buy into assignments that appear to be rote and pointless. A fundamental skill has fallen through the cracks, and rote, pointless homework was one solution.
Parsimon, you can write 80 words per minute in cursive?
Having said, that my private grade school did not give out letter grades in English (and maybe history) until the 8th grade.
A friend of my Mom's is amazed at how much time parents are expected to put in on their kids homework. She's thoroughly UMC and pro education but also thinks that they should learn how to do things for themselves and not be spoonfed everything.
193 sounds like too many hours of teaching or teaching-related-activities to me. I'll make a terrible professor someday, because I wouldn't want to take that big a chunk out of my research blog-reading time. Universiteez.
it's hard to think of a less-useful commonly taught skill
We all were taught how to use a slide rule in the ninth grade, which seemed absurd even that far back in the mists of history. I suppose that could no longer be considered "commonly taught," though.
I don't remember my parents spending much time on my homework except for, like, that damn "build a ziggurat" project. God, that was awful.
I have no idea how much time we would have been expected to spend on homework in grade school because I never did any of it. High school I did a little of it, but it never took me very long, either because I worked fast or because I did a shitty job of it.
My parents never spent any time on any of my homework that I can remember. They spent a lot of time urging me to do my homework, but that didn't work, either.
Sometimes my mother typed up papers for me (on a clickety-clackety-DING! typewriter, even), but aside from that my homework was entirely my own responsibility. This probably speaks more to the complete lack of challenge in my education than anything else.
I don't recall my parents ever spending any time ever with me on homework. Ever. Possibly I have just blocked it out.
My parents never spent any time on any of my homework that I can remember.
True for me as well. Helping your kid do his/her homework feels a lot like cheating to me, though I'm sure I'll cheat along with the rest of the UMC herd once homework kicks in for my kid.
I guess my parents did help a bit with the "build a mission" project, but that's only because my mission looked SO fucking pathetic. I'm just going to order my kid a mission from EBay or something.
I nag mine to get them to do theirs, but don't do a lot of assistance. They like having me look things over occasionally, so I do, and I give them some edits where I notice stuff.
Ooh, I do remember my parents helping with a Science Fair project, though. Relatedly, my mother was cleaning out her garage last week and called me up to say that she'd come across a chest with books and trophies and would I come see if I wanted to keep any of them. I replied that surely none of those trophies were mine since, during all the many years of Little League baseball and soccer, I was never once on a team with a winning record. Indeed, every single trophy with a little golden athlete on top of it belonged to my brother. One trophy was mine: first prize in the 1977 Science Fair, Third Grade division.
226: That fourth grade mission thing cracks me up. I want to see the art project where a grownup artist collects thousands of fourth grade model missions, and makes some sculpture commenting on ill-treatment of Native Americans out of them.
197: I'm sure it's slower than typing on a keyboard
I'd really have to do an actual test, but I'm pretty sure I can write in cursive at least as fast as I type.
Hm. I just typed that pretty fast, so maybe not. Okay, I'll go for faster than printing, in any case. I'd hypothesize that it's only slower than printing if you don't know how to write cursive very well.
Um, for those who have trouble reading well-formed cursive writing, erm, uh, so if I sent you something in the mail, as members of the unfoggedtariat are wont to do from time to time, you wouldn't be able to read my accompanying (well-formed) handwritten cursive note? I'm kind of having trouble saying that this isn't a form of illiteracy. Um. Okay, I'll take that under advisement.
On preview: 208: Plus you gain speed because of not having the friction of pen tip on paper.
Not with a good pen. Pens are important!
229: build a map as big as the terrirtory.
I got yelled at to do my homework, but not a lot of help I can recall other than a diorama of a pyramid my Dad built in third grade. Not that I needed help; I can't recall ever having difficulty with homework beyond the difficulty of talking myself into actually doing it.
$80 4th grade mission project on EBay. Maybe I should buy it now before anti-cheating technology of the future allows my kid's fourth grade teacher to track online mission purchases.
I write in print, a kind of modified print-like cursive, and a full-on cursive. The thing about cursive letters is that a lot of them have been specifically developed to be faster versions of the print. These shorthands were standardized by training writers and readers.
I have actually found my familiarity with cursive to be useful in a couple of domains: 1) historical documents (as a student and assistant antiquarian), 2) the hand-written documents of my fossilized boss, 3) writing people's wedding invitations. This happened a couple of times, and the bride always plies me with food and drink, and so, hey.
232: Same here. Once I got to HS, and was doing some college coursework too, my mother would occasionally give my longer papers a quick read-through and suggest a few changes, but that was it. Other than that, it was nagging & procrastination all the way down.
She was describing what her kids were telling her about how much time they spent reviewing math with their kids.
I remember faking questions to my parents because I found homework so isolating and unpleasant.
234: The thing about cursive letters is that a lot of them have been specifically developed to be faster versions of the print
Whoever did that really fucked up on the lower-case "s", is all I've got to say.
I don't remember my parents ever nagging about homework, either. Maybe they didn't love me or something.
My Dad helped me with my science projects/ models some, mostly by taking me to buy supplies and suggesting that epoxy resin might work well for my cell etc.
I made my cell model for 9th grade biology out of various foodstuffs in a ziplock bag filled with liquid. It was pretty gross. Thankfully it did not explode in my backpack or anything.
There was a math teacher at my high school who was widely reputed to assign three to four hours of homework a night. Parents and other teachers were up in arms about it. I can only assume this meant most of the kids were staring at a blank page for three to four hours.
This is the first time I have ever heard of the "4th grade mission" and is now my new fact for the day. We had to make relief maps of North Carolina out of Play-Doh, with the coastal plains in green, the Piedmont in yellow, and the mountain west in red. Now that I'm thinking about it, I remember getting help with that as well because oh god do I suck at that sort of visual project.
Now true shorthand! There's a skill worth teaching.
Because more and more apps will allow stylus handwriting, there will be a generation that is most terrible at handwriting, which came of age between 2000 and 2015, (say), and on either side, generations will be better at handwriting.
243: It came up once in an old thread, and I was enthralled. NY doesn't have any charming state-wide educational weirdness like that.
The only thing I remember learning in kindergarten was that Mrs. Carney got really annoyed when little Gretchen called her Mittit Tarney. I can't remember if little Gretchen was being cute or if she actually had a speech impediment. Mittit Tarney: reasonable person or history's greatest monster?
244 neglects to take into account the End of Days arriving next year.
I have actually found my familiarity with cursive to be useful in a couple of domains: 1) historical documents (as a student and assistant antiquarian),
It didn't actually occur to me that anyone who never learns to write in cursive might not be able to read it, either, but that's obviously something to consider. That seems like more of a problem to me, although I can't honestly think of a very good reason why.
I didn't have to do a Mission model. However, my Play-Doh relief map of California was a wonder, a marvel, and a cross of Calvary for my poor mother.
$80 4th grade mission project on EBay.
This A+ project includes a short powerpoint presentation.
This depresses me.
That was 4th grade, at which point I was already annoying enough to point out that if getting the topography exact for all these places she cared about was so important, then she should do it herself, whine whine.
Looked great in the end, though.
250: I know. Slack kids can't even put together a decent length presentation these days?
With a few assumptions, This seems to indicate that the average time spent out of class isn't much more than one-to-one and definitely does not exceed 2 to 1 (and is probably substantially less than one-to-one for business majors).
Joey's first grade ant project.
Essear in 218 did you mean 178 (not 193)? 193 is total time working, of which teaching is not a huge proportion. That is, I spend 40-50 hours a week working, this semester (when I'm teaching two classes) that includes 14 hours per week of teaching, and next semester that includes no hours of teaching.
Though the 14 involves a lot of prorating of grading and writing exams. In reality, I spend 2 days a week on teaching, 4 days a week on research related activity, and then for 3 weeks out of the semester I don't do any research cause I'm dealing with an exam.
238: Whoever did that really fucked up on the lower-case "s"
I'll say. The cursive "s" was one of the first things I got rid of when I developed my modified cursive early in college. And lower-case "b" is pretty dumb.
247: So you are saying I don't need to bother cleaning up the house?
If anybody gives you a hard time about it, just tell them your Canadian ancient Mayan boyfriend said it's okay.
256: I meant 178, yeah. Fourteen hours a week on teaching sounds like a lot of time to me, but I guess it's not so bad if it's some weeks more than others.
I was disturbed recently to find out that one very productive group of people I'm acquainted with includes three people who only sleep about 4 hours a night and basically do nothing but work. Suddenly their ability to produce so many long papers no longer seems so impressive and starts to seem almost sad.
I sleep only about 4 hours a night, but I basically do nothing.
I sleep 10-ish hours a night, because I have weird health issues. I sometimes feel jealous of all the extra hours people have, in a week, who sleep less. But mostly not, because I like sleeping.
141: urple, I'd offer to walk you through the process of finding a therapist, but when I tried to help you get a PCP, I caused all kinds of trouble.
Seriously, I'm not envious of the only-4-hours people, at all. I'd be basically dysfunctional without at least 7, at least after a stretch of days. 8 to 9 is preferred but not always possible.
Urple gets enough PCP during his CBT with the MSM.
I assume the only-4-hour people are pretty well-rested and functional, and I'm insanely jealous.
OT: Can somebody with better hearing than me (Heebie?) look at this and tell me what they did with the deaf people's voices? Are they voicing for themselves or is an interpreter voicing over or?
I don't sleep enough, and then I try to sleep on the weekend but it doesn't really work, and I'm just tired. I hate using my CPAP machine, but it does help some. Usually it annoys me after about 4 hours, and I pull it off. The pressure is too much or the tube is pissing me off.
I would love it if they could come up with less invasive sleep apnea/hypopnea treatments. When I used it a full 8 hours, it helped a lot. If I always used it through the night, I think I'd feel much better rested.
I try to pretend that wearing a mouthguard and not grinding my teeth keeps my airway open enough, but it's not true.
5-6 and really functional would be awesome and 90 minutes of exercise a day, and if I could cook healthy meals every day too. That would be great.
Are they voicing for themselves
Yes.
I guess I don't have the fastest hearing here after all.
Wait, not all of them. The first two guys were, it's a voiceover for the girl with the pierced lip, and that's as far as I've gotten so far.
A co-worker of mine who is always late for a weekly 9AM meeting claims that she needs 12 hours of sleep. I don't see how an adult can do that and still commute 45-50 minutes each way while working.
Thanks A.
I'm excited to watch all the "episodes" of this to see if I show up in the background. I totally saw cameras all over last spring but I just assumed it was classroom assignments or campus TV or something.
A co-worker of mine who is always late for a weekly 9AM meeting claims that she needs 12 hours of sleep.
When I smoke pot regularly, I'll sleep 12-13 hours a night (and will feel very tired if I don't get that much). This is one of several reasons I no longer smoke pot regularly.
The choice of students is kind of weird. It will be interesting to see if any political brouhahas occur.
I don't really have anything to say, but I felt like letting a single thread dominate the sidebar would be misguided.
I'm very sick, but for the first time ever* I don't have any responsibilities to feel guilty about not taking care of.
*Since my mysterious mitochondrial thing started happening.
And my mom is bringing me toast and applesauce and soup. It's way more pleasant to be sick in this situation than while couchsitting at a friend's or while trying to teach classes and write a dissertation, which is how I'd been doing it the last few times.
278: She might do that. She also takes pretty heavy duty meds. I believe her; I just think it sucks. There's some sort of chronotherapy that you can do for depression. I wonder whether it would work for an "excessive" need for sleep.
It's way more pleasant to be sick in this situation than while couchsitting at a friend's or while trying to teach classes and write a dissertation, which is how I'd been doing it the last few times.
Boy, I bet, and probably especially so because of that contrast. (That is, it's objectively less unpleasant, and then the experience of the difference probably adds a bonus pleasant feeling of WHEW.)
"couchsitting" is not a word. I meant couch surfing.
I think? Now I can't tell which things are real words and which ones I made up.
Staying at a friend's house, due to being in between more permanent domiciles.
284: But "couchsitting" is both more descriptively accurate and also could almost pass for something responsible and productive. It's clearly an improvement.
It's like "housesitting" for a friend, but only with respect to their couch.
It's true that I did spend much of my time sitting on the the couch. For some flexible understandings of "sitting".
I hope you get better soon, Messily.
||
Facebook has really gone to far in letting other people see your personal, embarrassing information. I just say this in the right hand feed: "[Your friend] listened to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Kenny G on Spotify."
|>
I spent a long time this morning helping Kid D write a song about the twelve labours of Hercules to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas. At one point she turned to me and said, "the great thing about this song is that you could sing it any time, not just at Christmas!"
I'm a bit surprised by all the hating on joined-up handwriting. I think I'm old enough [not 40 yet!] to still have been taught that little kids print, adults write properly. I type faster than I write, but I'm a fast typist. Cursive/joined-up writing is still massively faster than non-cursive hand-writing. 208 is crazy.
Funnily enough, though, I find my wife's handwriting hard to read. It's really neat, beautifully cursive 'European' writing, but something about the script phases me slightly. I had the same problem correcting a Belgian flatmates essays.
They only think they work well with 4 hours' sleep. Someone correlated bug reports and the commit times on the code they relate to in a large set of open-source software repositories.
Short answer: the hacker-up-at-3am ethos should be considered harmful, as you may churn it out, but you'll pay for it in the review and test phase.
208 was mostly joking. I think individuals probably write faster in whichever form they use most, and things like picking up the pen between letters, or friction, don't have an impact.
Uhhhh, yeah, "cursive is pointless and infuriating," what? We're still going to be writing with pens for a very long time, you know. Even those who are already doing absolutely everything by iPhone and laptop still have to deal with those who aren't, which is most of us. As long as that's the case, there's going to be cursive, since we'll need ways to write notes quickly by hand, which is why it exists.
Unless you're using a fountain pen, cursive isn't any faster than other types of letters. If you are using a fountain pen, you probably aren't in that big of a hurry.
(I think my writing is sort of halfway between cursive and not. I join some letters, haphazardly, but not all and not in the ways I was taught as a child)
When do you write and not type? For me I write by hand in two situations: solving crosswords and writing on blackboards. Cursive isn't appropriate for either. Otherwise I type (and now I even mostly solve crosswords typing).
Unless you're using a fountain pen, cursive isn't any faster than other types of letters.
Data or I will persist in believing this is nuts.
302: I'd believe that at any given level of neatness/legibility, cursive is faster. Once you're talking haphazard scrawl, connecting some letters is going to be faster than keeping everything separate, but there's nothing magic about any particular cursive style.
Well, I haven't done any studies. I'm not sure how you would do a study, because I think that an individual person will be fastest at whichever system they're used to. I guess if overall cursive writers were faster than overall printers, but you'd have to control for so many things. The speed you can move the pen at depends on the kind of ink, the size of the nib, the size of the writing, the type of paper, and your own manual dexterity. How often you have to lift the pen up doesn't seem to me like it would make enough difference that it would be at all noticeable, given all the other variables.
re: 300.1
I use a fountain pen, partly because it's faster. And also because I get less hand-cramp. Good gel pens are fine, too: not a fountain pen purist. But it's not true that using one is necessarily slower.
I think mine is somewhat haphazard, too. Random writing just for me, like lecture notes, can be a horrible scrawl. But I can write legible cursive writing reasonably quickly if I want to.
Not the best evidence, but evidence:
http://www.huffenglish.com/?p=85#comment-327
and, from the inevitable mefi thread:
The Comparative Legibility and Speed of Cursive Handwriting, a study from 1930
citation and abstract: The relationship between handwriting style and speed and legibility. Graham, Steve; Weintraub, Naomi; Berninger, Virginia W. Journal of Educational Research. Vol 91(5), May-Jun 1998, 290-296.
The relationship between handwriting style and handwriting speed and legibility was investigated. Three samples of writing (narrative, expository, and copying) were collected from 600 students in grades 4-9. The copying task provided a measure of handwriting speed, and all 3 writing samples were scored for handwriting style (manuscript, cursive, mixed-mostly manuscript, and mixed-mostly cursive) and legibility. The handwriting of students who used a mixed style was faster than the handwriting of the students who used either manuscript or cursive exclusively. In addition, papers written with mixed-mostly cursive letters generally received higher ratings for legibility than papers written with the other 3 styles did. There were no differences between manuscript and cursive in terms of legibility or speed.
(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)
Of course 300 is nuts, but I take it that Messily is doing some good-natured trolling.
301: Writing notes in meetings or classes, or taking notes while reading, or drafting extemporaneous notes in other contexts (if you're working out an outline or an approach to something), or doing rough drafts of short texts. Also, when writing letters by hand. (Some of us still do this not just on account of the old-timey charm, but because there are contexts where people expect -- and reasonably so -- the personal touch of a hand-written note.)
You guys are weirdly attached to your linked-up writing. Go for it! Keep writing all kinds of loops! Just, you know, don't fool yourself about how it's just because you want to be efficient.
Everyone in my office comes to all meetings with paper and pen. I always like when they use the state-issued, green bound record books. Some also come with fancier devices, but mostly, people use paper and pen.
308: But you know it's more efficient deep down. Don't you? I mean, the best you could do was a study from 1930? Come on. You know.
Heh. 308.1 is text-book troll 101.
You can do joined-up/cursive writing without writing in a given particular system! The D'Neal style taught in American schools (or at least it was when I was a girl) is particularly ugly, in my opinion.
It would've been better as "you folks and your cursive."
re: 309
Everywhere I go now people have laptops. I rarely present at work meetings, but I could easily get annoyed. Constant pitter-patter of keys. I'd guess maybe 20% people taking notes, 80% people doing something else entirely.
The connectedness of cursive is a factor, but I hypothesize it's mostly/wholly mitigated by the greater distance the pen has to travel to form cursive - i.e., with everything sticking up or down, your pen goes up or down and then has to make the return trip, doubling the pen-on-paper time for that letter-segment.
You show me your newer studies and then we'll talk. Otherwise I'm keeping my mixed system, it was the winner.
I can also write upside down and backwards, as I think I've mentioned before. But those ways are less quick.
God, yes, there's nothing worse than standing up to give a talk and realizing you're looking at a sea of Apple logos staring at you from the backs of Macbooks and everyone in the audience is busy typing something.
I can't read 1930's handwriting. But I did assume that back then they could!
I print for my kids if needed, and it's definitely slower than my joined-up writing. But my brother has really nice writing now, which isn't joined-up - all through school he got loads of grief about his terrible handwriting, my mum got her friend to help him practise it, etc. And then when he left school and could write however he wanted, this lovely flowy legible printing emerged.
re: 312
I tried googling styles a while ago to see which I used. Which I assume is something generic and British. It's not as squiggly/serif'd as many US models I've seen. I don't tend -- although it's not hard and fast -- to do lead-ins at the start of words, so it's quite close to:
http://www.cursivewriting.org/joined-precursive-fonts.html
You know what I've never understood? How to do a capital 'Z' in cursive. Something just does not compute. (Of course, I was sent to PT for remedial hand-eye coordination work to see if they could improve my handwriting. Nope.)
it's quite close to:
http://www.cursivewriting.org/joined-precursive-fonts.html
Mine is in this general vein, too. I fear that it's more pleasant to look at from a moderate distance (nice balance of light and dark, and so on) than it is strictly legible.
Let's everybody post a picture of our handwriting to see whose is most legible. And fastest.
Nice detailed discussion of the Palmer Method at the Dead Media Archive.
My Grandmother used to send nice handwritten letters using the Palmer Method.
I persist in my view that cursive is near-useless in 2011, or about as useless as learning to whittle wooden ducks out of a pine log.
I persist in my view that cursive is near-useless in 2011, or about as useless as learning to whittle wooden ducks out of a pine log.
But what about learning SOME kind of pleasant, legible handwriting to the point that writing things by hand is not an exercise in self-torment?
323: I have a font of my handwriting, from back when they made those for free. I was going to upload it for general use, but then I remembered that I included my signature in the font, which seems indiscreet. So here's a sample.
I've been taking notes by hand in class. I'm actually one of the few people who does. And, I mean, I sort of am, but I have this hilarious pen that records my penstrokes and class audio and then archives them both (with the notes, at least, searchable) on my computer. I have no idea how my pen's handwriting recognition works with cursive. I bet it's okay.
pleasant, legible handwriting to the point that writing things by hand is not an exercise in self-torment?
People should learn how to write, I guess. Are there folks who aren't doing that? Beyond that, I dunno what you mean, my handwriting sucks and is neither pleasant nor legible. I guess it sometimes torments others, but I can write just fine and with more than enough speed when I need to. AFAICT I have literally suffered absolutely no detriment, ever, from having bad handwriting.
Since handwriting will (at most) be used mainly for private notes in the future, and people who can print eventually end up writing well enough for their needs when they need to, it seems like putting a lot of effort into handwriting in general, and cursive in particular, is a big waste of time.
I always found certain German handwritten things to be completely illegible. Here is the perfectly written version Now imagine it distorted in normal poor handwriting.
Beyond that, I dunno what you mean,
See the story of Megan's brother! And it takes a fair amount of practice to learn to write fluidly and quickly and without lots of thought and annoyance.
Since I started complaining about kindergarten homework, I should brag that Valerie finished all of hers tonight, including accurately doing some addition by counting items. She is slower to respond to praise than her brother but has finally decided to believe me that her brain will get stronger every day if she exercises it, so she was all excited about giving it a workout. So there's that, and it only took 10 or 15 minutes while the other two finished eating dinner.
Exams are the only time I have ever worried about the quality of my handwriting. (I can write in a variety of ways ranging from atrocious to very very overly fussy, mostly depending on how much time I have.) This suggests to me that good fast handwriting ought be considered an exam technique skill, like apportioning time properly and learning how to write an essay with only three dates, two names and no ideas, and valued about as much.
OWS puts out an all-hands-on-deck notice asking for help controlling the drummers. So sad, sad, and hilarious, and sad.
We need to take this seriously, and be clear that if we can't deal with conflict and self-organizing then we are facing eviction very soon (this week), and the allies that helped turn out mass numbers at the last one will not be around this time, nor will the press be supportive. Additionally, Bloomberg released a statement a few days ago that said that he/the City plans to crack down on any violations as of this week. Once we lose community and ally support at Tuesday's vote, the door is wide open for an eviction. What to do? We need an all hands-on-deck clean-up and everyone sharing responsibility for the Good Neighbor Policy, including enforcement of 12-2 PM and 4-6 PM drumming hours. (While recognizing that the community board has been firm that they can only support 2 hrs/day of drumming).
You know, that wouldn't even be missing the pause-play buttons if I'd put it in the other thread.
318: Huh. That looks mostly like printing to me, but with joined-up letters occasionally.
I print if it's essential that someone else be able to read what's written (say if I'm writing down a shipping address at the shop), but my printing is always upper case -- roughly like k-sky's in 325. Printing lower case seems very weird to me.
re: 335
It's largely joined-up, with no lead-in to words. It's not printing, in the way that I understand printing. The letters are connected. That's a very clean, font version, obviously. In practice, it's less print-like. However, it's true that I don't generally join 'b' to a following letter, I would join more than the top line of letters in all blue does. The third from bottom, but with a break on the 'b' would be closest.
As I said above, US models look fussy and serif-laden to me.
337 just to say that we tend to prefer what we are familiar with.
My handwriting has evolved into a fairly streamlined cursive-print hybrid.
338: Of course. The only thing I actively disprefer is a mixed upper and lower case printing. I am looking at a recently received mailing from a relative, and it shows this in the address:
mArylAND
Some people print like that. It looks to me, unfortunately, like someone who never really learned how to write. In any event, I would not write in cursive to that person.
And yeah, my cursive handwriting would probably look serif-laden to you. I wouldn't go so far as fussy, because that sounds as though it took time to produce, which it doesn't.
Another stray thought I had about this: don't most people develop a signature in/from cursive? Or do people have printed signatures these days?
I'm trying to figure out just how old I am.
My signature looks like a squiggle. Or, sometimes, a different squiggle.
341: Perhaps it's time for us to tack back toward having seals. I could get behind that.
When I was in 6th grade I thought my signature needed a gimmick, and I tried out a half-dozen, and finally settled on dramatically crossing the t in my first name, and underlining my last name to balance the t. Every now and then I still do it out of loyalty, but I forget a lot, too.
My signature looks like a blot upon a scratch, sir an elegant, gentlemanly flourish.
OT: I remember Jonathan Richman's theme song to There's Something About Mary being funny, not vexingly accurate (mutatis mutandis).
Oh I definitely have a gimmick. I drop all the letters but the first, fourth, second-to-last and last, and then I render the remaining ones illegibly -- and then I connect them all, with a line! It's neat, and much faster than just typing my name.
I occasionally use a seal when I send letters.
347: do you put them in ziploc bags or write them on waterproof paper?
I occasionally use a seal when I need to go 'Arf arf' while clapping my hands.
How does that work for non-coastal destinations?
It's true they're harder to find.
Another triple! That's two in two days! Tomorrow's gonna be nuts.
My fine motor skills aren't great, so my cursive isn't fabulous. I've gotten lazy with my print, but I always wrote very neat small letters fairly slowly. I wonder whether the angle of the wrist when writing cursive on can make the writing process faster.
You can type the bar exam in CA. I heard someone say that this is good, because what you write is legible. This is also bad, because what you write is legible.
My exam essays were always too short (other than in econ or evolutionary biology), because I couldn't write fast enough.
My signature looks like a squiggle. Or, sometimes, a different squiggle.
Dude. My squiggle looks exactly the same, every time. For the most part. No you cannot determine my name from it but so what and do you have a problem with that I should hope not now does anyone need me to prove that this is me signing my signature because I can sign it over and over again just like that so okay then.
I'm not down with the seal proposal, Castock. Your new pseud is going to your head.
I thought that I might have learned the Palmer method, but the capital 'Q' is different. The capital 'L' in the Spencerian writing in the wikipedia article is weird.
355: Your new pseud is going to your head.
It's distinctly possible. Wouldn't have to be a wax seal, though. It's possible to get custom-made stamps relatively cheap. I plan mine to be a couple of random heiroglyphs flanking a random Chinese character.
Recently I signed something at a bank and the very skeptical teller made me sign it again. Turned out she was comparing with a signature on my credit card or something which I had written more carefully than usual. People actually pay attention to that?
358: Usually, no, they don't. That's heartening, actually.
342: We have one guardian we deal with who signs things with a squiggle. It looks sort of like a check or a spread out ampersand. It's so ridiculously lazy and would be so easy to forge. It's about as meaningful as signing 'X,' because there are no letters. I don't really understand how it counts as a legal signature.
I'm reading your pseud as Lord Castle Rock, fyi.
357: Hasn't Prince already tried that, and eventually thrown up his hands in dismay? The ink stains on his fingers, if nothing else.
Anyway, I will not call you Lord.
To 358, yeah, hence my run-on sentence in 355.
361: 'Lord Catsock" would be funnier.
My exam essays were always too short
I've mentioned before, I imagine, the bar exam essay question which I answered simply (and accurately!) "I don't know."
319: I had third grade (cursive year) with an old fossil who apparently got her teaching certificate from Territorial Normal School some time in the Chester A. Arthur administration. So of course, we learned the capital 'Q' that looked exactly like a numeral '2'. For some reason, it was impossible for her to simply say "Draw it like a big '2', because it's supposed to look like a regular big 'Q' with a little bit taken out." Which would have made the whole thing SO MUCH clearer.
340: If I ever write you a letter, parsimon, I will address it to "Maryl&"
362.1: I don't think he was really dedicated to it.
362.2: I wouldn't dream of it!
Oh, thank god; I finally figured out the anagram.
I don't trust signatures, and so my signature is purposely easy to forge. (Basically, it is a swooshy kind of thing and almost never the same.) This is perhaps crazy.
I forged a signature on my dissertation.
I will address it to "Maryl&"
This just reminded me of those puzzle envelopes at the back of Games magazine. Good old postal workers, figuring out weird rebuses and making proper deliveries!
Wow, 366 brings it back. I'd completely forgotten what a formal cursive capital "Q" was supposed to look like, and therefore how to draw it. It is elegant yet silly. Nonetheless, people should be able to recognize and read it. What are we, illiterates, unable to read handwritten script?* I'm still a little freaked out by Eggplant's 180, to be honest.
*All right, it's true, I doubt the capital "Q" appearing as a large, stylized number 2 shows up very often among living persons any more.
What are we, illiterates, unable to read handwritten script?
It's true that our ability to whittle little wooden ducks out of pine logs is no longer what it was. What have we become?
The external member on my committee was difficult. He was accompanying his wife on some field work in the middle of some remote place, and he had access to email and a scanner but no post office, or something like that.
The same piece of paper had to be signed by all members of the committee, and another one was in Chicago, and had signed the sheet when he'd been in town for the defense, and then other people had gone out of town. So I had a sheet with lots of signatures but no way to get it to the first guy.
So I told him that the official people said a scanned signature would be okay, which was a lie, and I told him he'd be the first signature. So he signed a blank form, scanned it in and emailed me. Then I copied his signature onto the sheet with the rest.
371 and 375 are, unless I'm wrong, kind of the best presidential pseud.
So, other than possible aggravations in exam writing by hand (unlikely to be much of a problem in 10 years when our current 3rd graders are in college) can anyone point to any real world sense in which bad handwriting has in any significant way been a life problem? Honestly, hours wasted in school on this could be better spent teaching people how to fold laundry.
I guess Megan's brother should probably learn how to put letters in a straight line, but it seems likely to me that he'll figure this out.
Hi, writing on a whiteboard? It's like I'm not even here not with Megan who isn't here.
Oh wait except I think Megan is wrong. I forgot.
"It is not Palmer Method if the lines are tremulous."
All you need for a whiteboard is capital letters and the ability to draw bullshitty graphs.
374: Halford, are you able to make a distinction between the ability to write cursive and the ability to read it?
The last time I had to read cursive, I was researching in an archive from the 19th century and couldn't read the script anyway. I believe we can still teach palaeography to grad students and the literally hundreds of people who will need to do so as an important part of their lives, and let the rest of the third grade learn about something else.
Also this shows there are some things that will drive me to go presidential!
384: Restaurant sign a few miles from your house.
I always found certain German handwritten things to be completely illegible.
That thing you linked in 329 is Sütterlin, which is a very stylized form of old German script. I find it much harder to read than other old German script, because it has so little flow. You do sometimes still see it
used for old-timey efect, especially for evoking early 20th century.
Paleography, as a specific generally available course, seems to be on its way at the few places where it's been taught. But individuals who need it can still get training from people who know it. As far as I know, paleography as a course of study is more focused on particular hands and scripts, like "clerk hand" and so on; I don't think anyone teaches you about the general variety and craziness of 19th century literacy.
I've sat in an archive writing cursive myself on scratch paper - and I have terrible cursive - so that it would help me as a reference sheet.
Rest easy, parsimon. If absolutely necessary, I can work it like a cryptogram.
388: Plus, I get lost every time I try to find it.
342 et passim, read OMB Director Peter Lew's signature and weep.
385: I just encountered some the other day, reading the deed chain backwards for my property. Awful stuff to read, despite it being graceful.
My dad's farm deed was wonderfully simple. Napoleon to Jefferson. Lincoln to the Union Pacific. Union Pacific to grandpa.
The last time I had to read cursive was probably in elementary school. Or maybe those duck-whittlin' instructions.
Have we had the blackboard/whiteboard argument here before? We have, right? Because whiteboards have no soul. Even if chalk does turn my hands into cracked and bleeding messes half the time.
398: Some of you young folk are going to be really special as old folk.
393: that was one messed-up-ass link you sent. I have no idea what it was intended to convey.
Yeah, stop sending messed-up ass-links.
398: I've taken classes in classrooms which have half whiteboards and half blackboards, because of this argument. Actually, come to think of it, the conference room in my lab is half whiteboards and half blackboards, because of this argument. I have a half-whiteboard/half-blackboard at my desk because of this argument. To which I can only say: have you seen the glass office walls that people can write on in that one building? That shit is awesome.
That "everyone must sign the same piece of paper" system is batshit insane, and the grad division should be first against the wall when the revolution comes for not changing this rule to something sane and electronic. All the transoceanic fedexing is ridiculous.
One of my friends had his middle name wrong (that is, his official name with the university did not have his middle name, but his signature paper did (or vice-versa)) and couldn't make the deadline with a new set of signatures. He wouldn't have graduated except that one of the administrators in the dept. used to work in grad division and managed to talk some people into fixing the situation retroactively. I had another friend who had a minor margin issue on the signature page (you don't have to number the signature page, but if you do number it then the number can't be too close to the margin) that resulted in some crazy last minute express mail to France and back.
everyone must sign the same piece of paper
And the paper must have the right watermark and be the right weight and god knows what else. It's probably all blessed with holy water or something.
I think the one time cursive writing has made a material difference in my extracurricular life was when my older sister used it to write messages I couldn't read even though I had just learned to read English. So I'll have no truck with this ivory-tower writing.
The basic problem with whiteboards is that they're aesthetically displeasing, so half-whiteboard half-blackboard only makes it worse. A room with a blackboard can look warm and inviting. A room with a whiteboard looks sterile and businesslike.
And no, I haven't seen the glass office walls.
400: Are you calling me a curmudgeon? I am totally becoming curmudgeonly lately.
It's hard to find good pictures. Like these rooms? (Scroll down.) Those are rooms that are pleasant to work in. Replace those nice black wall-sized chalkboards with whiteboards? Ew, no.
A room with a blackboard can look warm and inviting. A room with a whiteboard looks sterile and businesslike.
I would agree with this, but I love being able to draw pictures in many different colors.
385: I believe we can still teach palaeography to grad students and the literally hundreds of people who will need to do so as an important part of their lives, and let the rest of the third grade learn about something else.
My last comments on this, as it does freak me out.
First, it doesn't take goddamned hundreds of hours to learn how to write cursive, any more than it takes countless hours away from other things to learn how to type. People don't need to learn how to write cursive, but the notion that it's a horrible burden to do so is ridiculous.
Second. I am afraid that people are saying that if they came across the handwritten words of, oh, Martin Luther King (important) or Herman Melville (important) or James Joyce or William Gibson or whomever, they'd toss this aside as though it were a foreign language. Gibberish, cannot read at all. I find that disturbing. The ability to read handwriting is not and should not be the province of paleographers, for christ's sake. What is wrong with you?
This "the case for cursive" article is one of the least compelling cases I've read for anything.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but until just now I thought they were called "wipe boards". Because the marker just wipes off.
Parsi, have you ever spent any time actually trying to read very old handwriting, in English? It's basically jibberish anyway, at least without fairly specialized training.
412.last: A person only has a capacity for so much paleo, if they use it up in food they have none left over for writing.
I was clever and had my out of town signer also sign a blank piece of the right kind of paper at the right spot so that in an emergency I could print the page on the signature rather than vice-versa.
411: What's wrong with colored chalk?
I bet most people couldn't read Martin Luther's handwriting.
Indeed, Melville's own handwriting appears to have been particularly poor and illegible (though I'm only seeing secondhand reports of this on Google).
419: It's always weird. Either it doesn't erase, or it doesn't show up boldly enough. It doesn't write smoothly like nice chalk. It's brittle and gives me the willies.
Found something. I'd like to ask the cursive readers to translate this, without any other interpretive aid.
Melville handwriting, with bonus home-schooler support for the importance of cursive.
Ah. That appears to have been his youthful script, but if you want to get into the manuscripts, you're looking at something like 423.
any real world sense in which bad handwriting has in any significant way been a life problem?
Math and physics problem sets are hand written, as are chemistry labs, and I honestly cannot imagine deriving problems in type. Sketching the problem is also by hand. That's closer to drafting than writing, but also a hand-eye coordination skill.
Being slow at the very writing part of the problem set would be a substantial barrier, and one that shouldn't happen.
Also, field notes in field books and surveying. You can be all "he'll get along just fine at his cube typing without being able to write on paper", but that is already conceding away some interesting fields of work. Like, all of engineering.
Good colored chalk is expensive and rare, but it exists. Even white chalk comes in varying levels of quality. Japan has some really nice chalk.
427: Most racist comment ... ever.
I admit that the case against all handwriting training is weaker than the case against cursive specifically. I guess that people should be taught how to write on paper, but I wouldn't push it much beyond that.
I once went through a lot of microfilmed State Department dispatches from the 1850's and '60's. They were legible without external aid, but then the cursive was usually very formal.
We have crap giant chalk in our conference room. I hate it. On the other hand, people are always stealing whiteboard markers. Very complicated!
Oh, here are some nice pictures of another space I really like that would be ruined by whiteboards. But it's also an annoying webpage that won't let me link directly to the photos in any obvious way. See #s 1 and 2.
423: Dude, a manuscript? That is, someone's work-in-progress? That's not a particularly compelling argument against cursive.
Hey read, how about we make a deal where you just talk as much shit about me as you can and leave everybody else alone?
Seriously?!? It's not my deal to make, but sure, if somebody else agrees it's a plan. But, just to make it fair, if you do insult other people, they can ban you, yeah?
Putting a Sharpie in with the dry erase markers is fun.
423: Straining to read that scan hurts my eyes. I could probably get somewhere with better resolution. Not far, but somewhere. The difficult part is the structure and cross-outs; there's worse handwriting out there mumble *cough*collis*cough* p hunti/ngton*cough*.
I wanted different colors for a certain class session and found some that was clearly from ~1960 in the back of the department's supply closet. It did not work as well as I had imagined--not legible more than a few rows back.
440: So esteemed sifu approves?
441: well, come on, I'm offering you the opportunity to speak your mind perfectly freely, as long as I'm the only target. I'm sure if everybody understands that is the deal, they won't interfere.
424 I can totally read. 423 made me laugh -- what Blume says -- though you don't need an 'interpretive aid' so much as to become familiar with his henscratching, for that is what it is. You don't really think that printed henscratching would be much better, do you?
I'm actually working on a transcription project right now. The handwriting is pretty consistent, the scans are much better than the one in 423, and the subject matter is sometimes interesting.
Have people already made a distinction between handwriting and cursive?* It would be horrible if people lost the ability to write by hand, at least under current conditions when it sometimes is the best way to write something. But there's no reason that has to be in cursive.
*I started reading this thread at about 380.
442: You could borrow the signs from Sea World except replace "will be splashed" with "have a full view of my multi-colored notes."
Aren't there secondary benefits to learning how to write well, like developing fine motor coordination? IASoNANeuroscientist, but it doesn't seem implausible to me that the kind of adaptation, attention to detail, etc. necessary to follow a fixed set of traditional rules in writing would pay off in other areas of neurological development.
For fuck's sake, can we have a thread without read's disruption for once these days?
I was sorely tempted to put that in all caps.
449: that's a hard question to answer, scientifically, one would think. It's certainly plausible, but who knows, right?
I wonder why calligraphy is, or at least can be, fun while the standard elementary school handwriting drills are boring death. I guess because it is in service of making something aesthetically pleasing. It would certainly have been more enjoyable to have units on calligraphy and/or comics lettering than trudging through those horrible handwriting workbooks. Plus it could be tied in with history/literature/art content lessons! It would be great!
Time for me to start my charter school.
I'm not against learning to write, or even learning to write clearly and legibly. It's the mandatory teaching of cursive that I'm against.
446: Cool! Do you use any of those newfangled interfaces that some people have designed for crowdsourcing* transcription, or any sort of special software for that? I have literally thousands of images that I want/need to transcribe for my research
*I continue to dislike the word, but that's what they use.
Just countering Parsi's argument that we all need to learn cursive or else the wonder of reading Melville in manuscript form will be lost. It's already pretty much lost. But I guess cursive reading trains you on official records from the 19th century (nonprinted division) so our third graders can continue to have the joyous experience of reading bureaucratic records of the past.
453: oh, yes, I'll do my best. I really can't stand you (I mean, I don't know shit about you, but I think you're terrible for unfogged), and should this deal be consummated, I'll do my level best to make clear early and often that I think you're a (semi-accidental) troll and an asshole.
455: that seems like a violation of the deal.
430: I'm just guessing, but I suspect official dispatches would have been written by a trained copyist or if not that, the person writing them is likely to have been trained in a particular kind of handwriting.
The crazy stuff I've seen tends to come from people like random self-educated engineer, doesn't write many letters, has something important and unsolicited to say.
I don't mind teaching kids to read and write, but now that we have computers, it seems a horrible waste to teach them how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers with two or more digits.
You know what's tough to read in the archives? Shorthand. Especially since there are a bunch of different styles and modifications. I don't know any of them, but I've got some photos of that stuff. I'm not sure what I'll do with it; in a few cases it seems to have been a deliberate choice to deter casual readers.
You know what's tough to read in the archives? Shorthand.
I know that's why I don't read the fucking things.
I have never heard of any of those special interfaces! I have just been downloading the scans, and then I type my transcription into a text editor, preserving the line breaks so that the two people doing the translating and editing can more easily figure out what words are what.
I continue to dislike the word, but that's what they use.
Last year at a party I met the guy who is commonly credited with having invented that word.
451: I was worried you'd say that. I guess I'm just speaking up for the position that there are lots of things we do without a whole hell of a lot of pragmatic value--learning to juggle, carving ducks out of pine logs, whatever--that may well have other beneficial effects on the way our brains function. (You're right, though, to point out that intuition may not get me very far on this one.)
I once met the guy who invented a bolt that made a certain type of prefabricated metal buildings possible. He was very down to earth.
I heard that the last court reporter to do transcription by handwritten shorthand retired last year.
466: seriously, if this goes through, you can call me an asshole with every comment. I won't like it, and I'll probably call you an asshole back, but fair is fair.
My daughter had some WWI-era German letters* to transcribe (family genealogy) and "crowsourced" them through a Starcraft site with a lot of German gamers.
*Not too many. And they were boring despit (or because) they were written from a POW camp in Italy.
457: Halford, if your grandmother writes you a birthday card in cursive, can you read it, or do you have to throw it away? This is really what I was wondering. I don't see why you think that cursive is the province of the 19th century.
I'm kind of assuming you've been trolling for a while now. God knows accusations of trolling are flying fast and thick now, though, and I find it pretty exhausting.
*Not too many. And they were boring despit (or because) they were written from a POW camp in Italy.
From what my wife says, they're all boring. Nonetheless, they're tricky to translate.
461: That's wrong, we should still teach people *how* to add and multiply multiple digit numbers. It's one of the first non-trivial algorithms that people learn, and hence all the more important in the computer age.
Perhaps you meant we shouldn't make people do it themselves many times?
We should give kids a computer with no high-level routines built in and make them program it if they want to use it in class. Don't want to do 20 long additions by hand? Fine, code it up from scratch.
478: I was joking, rather transparently I thought, in an attempt to argue that some traditional skills are still important.
Sorry, I thought you were making the valid point that other subjects also haven't caught up to the computer age, but with a poor example. I don't understand why we spend much of a semester on techniques of integration when integrals.com exists.
From what my wife says, they're all boring.
Well, I've never translated letters from a POW camp before. But the ones people tend to have in this country are from Germany to the relatives who went to America: How are you. How come you never write. Did you get the money we sent.
Zizek told a prisoner/exile blue ink/red ink story at OWS. I'm guessing apocryphal, but a good story to make a point.
That thing you linked in 329 is Sütterlin, which is a very stylized form of old German script. I find it much harder to read than other old German script, because it has so little flow. You do sometimes still see it
used for old-timey efect, especially for evoking early 20th century
Or if you're reading stuff written back then. I eventually decided to just give up on all documents I saw written in that form. Fortunately there were very few. Half the letters bear no resemblance to any version of handwritten latin script I know and when actually used as cursive writing they all meld together. It makes cursive cyrillic look like a model for easily distinguished characters (For those who haven't seen that, the majority of the letters are some variant on a US cursive u or m) There's actually a two week intensive course offered in the summer by some college in PA that teaches prospective researchers how to read the stuff.
My Russian cursive is better than my English cursive. I suspect this is the result of 1) not having an alternative in Russian classes and 2) learning as an adult.
But we teach people how to do integrals because knowing how to do integrals is intrinsically important, right? But there is nothing intrinsically important about cursive writing.
There may be valuable skills taught through learning cursive, but you could teach them other ways. And in fact cursive is not a very good tool for teaching people actually important things about letterforms, that will actually come in useful during their life. (Think: who here can talk about the differences between Gill Sans and Helvetica, or Times New Roman and Garamond, sensibly? But that is a way more important letterform thing in most people's lives than cursive handwriting.)
I didn't have to do a Mission model.
Maybe it's not as widespread in Nor Cal? I did one. I remember sugar cubes were a popular medium. I did San Rafael Arcangel out of wood with a macaroni roof.
Cursive is pointless, but having some sort of handwriting that's at least legible to yourself is handy in those situations where you can't record through your mobile. But other than shopping lists, birthday cards and the occasional letter to a hidebound bureaucracy, adults outside the university campus do not need to bother with it.
Apart from that, what I've learned from this thread is that the American school system is insane and likes to prioritise pointless busywork over actually teaching. Kindergarten homework? Hours of homework in primary school? When I were a lad, the only homework we got before we went to secondary school was a bit of maths homework in the last grade.
re: 489.last
I think we had a little homework all the way through primary school, but it was small. First year we had a little tin with words in it, and each day we'd bring a word or two home to learn. After that it was a page of reading, or a couple of maths problems. It was literally minutes of work.
Even at high school (not including revision for exams and the occasional essay) we didn't have much. Half an hour, an hour a day, maybe? Not a lot, anyway.
re: 489.1
Funnily enough, I handwrite quite a bit. I spent yesterday at an academic computing event [with a bunch of Dutch people, funnily enough], and scribbled notes throughout. At work I still often work through problems by sitting with a piece of paper and scribbling notes to myself, or hand-annotating code.
I read a fair bit of old writing at work, too. I don't really have to, but since I'm often working with the images anyway, I tend to try to read them. Some 19th century stuff is difficult as I think they reached a point of stupid ornamentation but generally it's not too bad.
I prepared these images for an exhibition:
http://bit.ly/tFwVQ9
Check the preface on leaf-2, or the little comment at the left of leaf-6. That's mid-17th century, but perfectly legible.
I can almost read it all - I beg the readers pardon for [something] this preface into a Storie: and wish him as much pleasure in the reading them as I had in the seeing [something something].
I got told, by a maths teacher, that no one should ever now be adding 5 digit numbers by hand, one should always use a calculator.
re: 492
Yeah, the word before 'this preface' is tricky for me, too. The final words are 'seeing them, vale' with 'vale' from the Latin farewell. But most of the rest of the text throughout, even the fairly scrawly stuff, e.g on leaf-15 when he's describing Stonehenge, isn't too bad.
'I am now come to Stone-Henge, one of our English Wonders, that hath been the subject of much Discourse. The prospect whereof I give in Plate VI, etc.'
re: 492.last
Fucksake.
Putting a Sharpie in with the dry erase markers is fun.
NO IT ISNT someone did that once and I was the mug who spent 30 minutes scrubbing it off with elephant paper and acetone, leaving me in a more seriously altered mental state than at any previous point in my life outside hospital.
473: I thought you'd used "crowsourced" on purpose and was delighted. Really, I still am.
Read-
Please stop commenting. I, as well as the other posters, have banned several of your IP addresses and been deleting your comments; it's not just Apo. I'm going to go back and delete the comments you left last night now. If you want to leave some kind of final statement of your feelings, go ahead. I'll leave one comment like that up, but everything else will be deleted.
I apologize for the times in the past when people here have treated you badly without provocation, but your behavior this week makes it impossible for us to let you keep commenting. You are banned.
My Russian cursive is better than my English cursive. I suspect this is the result of 1) not having an alternative in Russian classes and 2) learning as an adult.
True for me as well. I suspect for me it has to do with more consciously forming the letters rather than it being fully automatic. If I write English slowly and deliberately enough I can get it to look not abysmal.
489: Math homework only is, I think, a good compromise; after all, unlike other homeworks, there's evidence that math HW actually helps kids learn.
There's actually a two week intensive course offered in the summer by some college in PA
I went to that! Moravian College, in Bethlehem.
Anyway though, my point about Sütterlin is that even among documents you would be reading from back then - most of which would be hard, if not impossible, to read without knowing the old script - Sütterlin would be somewhat unusual and more annoying hand to read.
seriously, if this goes through, you can call me an asshole with every comment.
i accept this as sifu's apology i said in my last comment and let it be up then, LB
So, a bunch of people are feeling pretty foolish right now, amirite?
Also:
I apologize for the times in the past when people here have treated you badly without provocation,
WTF, LB?
494: That completely did not make me laugh.
504: If you mean my socks, they aren't mismatched. One just faded more than the other.
So, a bunch of people are feeling pretty foolish right now, amirite?
WTF, DK?
WTF, DK?
See, the idea was that maybe the people who defended read's declared-day-of-destroying-DK as if, well, "poor damn read" might now regret having done so. Maybe not. Whatever. Guess I'm still kind of pissed.
506: my friends the talking sycamore trees will get you for that, Hick.
maybe the people who defended read's declared-day-of-destroying-DK
Do you think I defended read's attacks on you on that day? I do think she was shamefully bullied earlier on that day, and earlier in her history on the site, and that bad behavior doesn't net out -- the way she was treated doesn't excuse the way she treated you, but the way she treated you doesn't retroactively excuse any abuse she got. My endorsement of and participation in the decision to ban her should not be understood as a belief that everyone who treated her badly in the past was right.
We've banned her now, which I think makes an excellent time to stop talking about her.
I disagree with your assessment, but I doubt my saying so will change your mind.
That's okay. Maybe someone else here can retroactively apologize to me for you.
I couldn't even play a tiny violin because my hands were nailed to a cross, you whiny fuckers.
At least you've seen a violin.
At least you've seen a violin.
Your turn, E. Messily.
I died in the first century A.Me, and spent most of my life in the backwoods of Israel. I'm lucky if I saw a freaking lyre, let alone a violin.
So you're saying you haven't been paying attention since then?
I died in the first century A.Me
You're so vain, you probably think this world is about you, don't you.
Why do all these deaf lepers keep pouring sugar on me?
485, 499: Same here, also partly a result of my HS Russian teacher freaking the fuck out on one of my classmates (who had been to Russia on some private exchange program in Jr. High) writing something in Russian printing.
Your turn, E. Messily.
I've seen so many violins.
494 etc - if you accidentally write on a whiteboard with a permanent marker, scribbling over it with a whiteboard pen will let you wipe it off. I was very relieved to be told this one day when I thought I had ruined a whiteboard, so I like to pass it on.
retroactively apologize
What the hell does that even mean? "I'd like to offer you an apology, effective as of July 15, 2009."
Hey, Urple? This is not a necessary argument to have, and I'd rather we didn't. Could we let this one lay?
530 is true and awesome, and everyone should know it. Also works for old crusty regular whiteboard marker which won't erase directly.
Um, okay. I wasn't trying to argue with anyone, just figure how a retroactive apology would differ from a standard apology. I don't get it. But I can drop it.
So, the new whiteboard marker ink has some super ink-solvent in it, that dissolves the old ink? I wonder what it is, and why they don't sell it bottled separately as whiteboard cleaner.
530 is useful, but spoils my joke.
The whiteboard marker retroactively unwrites the permanent marker.
(Although you have to admit it's humorous that our re-direction posting has resulted in further acrimony. Possibly we now need re-re-direction posting.)
Too many re-re-directions in quick succession can lead to the blog flying up its own asshole. Of course, there are those who would argue that this has already happened, years ago.
the blog flying up its own asshole
If the women of Unfogged all fight and get hurt feelings, nothing will be left but middle aged fat straight guys posting pictures of shoes.
494: leaving me in a more seriously altered mental state than at any previous point in my life outside hospital
About 20 years ago, I was in a small all-day planning session at an offsite facility that featured an amazing array of scented whiteboard markers (like 8-10 different colors/"flavors", first I'd ever encountered them). Some of us could just not seem to stop sniffing them--not that that was not an inappropriate mental state for the task at hand, and easier than ramming a hatpin up your nose.
I think the retroactive apology is the standard apology. As opposed to the prospective apology or "apology in advance".
530: asilon, where were you three years ago before I decided to start turning my brain into a puddle of goo with organic solvents?
543: what kind of flavours are we talking about?
Baking bread? Fresh ground coffee?
Chanel? (mmm, Vichylicious! funny that there have been two Coco Chanel biopics in the last four years and they both stop short of the "shagging Nazis in occupied Paris and profiteering off the Holocaust" bit...)
Cinnamon, Sandalwood, Tabasco, Reek O' Powder, and Bilge?
531: See, e.g., 498.2. And the move along. Nothing to see here. Etc.
The Moving Marker writes (in cursive); and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
In other words, IME Asilon's solution only works for certain brands of permanent marker. Carry on being afraid.
Yuck 549 was me. Didn't deliberately post blank. Saying so lest it appear, I don't even fucking know. Sick today, no groceries in the house, and trying to figure out if I can make it safely to the orange juice store andd back.
Baking bread? Fresh ground coffee?
I am feeling exceedingly smug, as my breakfast consists of homemade apple-oatmeal muffins and a homemade cappuccino. My day is going great and my soul is at ease. Mr. Wendal. Ooo ooo oo oo oo.
Methanol works better than acetone, IME.
551: When you're sick, ordering in Chinese food with hot soups sometimes works.
Methamphetamine works even better though. scrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrubscrub
Methamphetamines and hot sour soup? Thanks guys! I'll give it a shot.
553 to 547. I typically use ethyl alcohol when I'm looking to turn my brain into a puddle of goo.
My day is going great and my soul is at ease. Mr. Wendal. Ooo ooo oo oo oo.
The acetone is clearly just starting to kick in for Megan too.
548: Nothing that exotic--esters representing different fruit-y flavors for the most part, but I wish I could recall what brown and black were. Ah, they still make them or something like them. Set includes black (chocolate mint), blue (blueberry), red (cherry), green (apple), purple (grape) and orange (orange). (And I think I've posted and linked this here before; I'd like to retroactively apologize for that and any future re-postings.)
556: Predisone works too. I've seen a few 48 hour cleaning and baking binges on it. Hot and sour soup helps supply the energy and hydration needed to survive those.
I agree with 511. Banning read now makes a ton of sense. read treated Di quite badly. Before that there were times when read was abused. That does not excuse her behavior, but we should not feel that it was ok.
560: Hmmm. Have my annual endocrine tune-up this afternoon. Maybe he'll be willing to consider prednisone.
562: Prednisone works by supressing the immune system and if you are regular infected sick, you do want to mention that to the doctor*.
*I'm not a doctor in two different ways.
Prednisone also has some unpleasant side effects. Stick to the anabolic steroids, Di.
563: Barring a major rally, the sick thing will be obvious.
566: Just to be clear, I was kidding about the prednisone. it's not primarily for a quick energy boost, that's just one of it's very rare nice side-effects.
Re B12 tablets: Yes, definitely, if the doc can't come up with a good reason why not. I started taking it about three or four weeks ago and I feel more like "me" (in a good way) than I have since several flavors of shit started hitting the fans here in 2007.
Gah! "its". I will eat something from the back of the fridge in penance. Or maybe not.
I will eat something from the back of the fridge in penance.
Hopefully that will get the several flavors of shit out of your mouth.
567: It is great stuff. Got rid of my poison oak like nothing.
570: Yes, my wife is quite sensitive to poison ivy and gets it form time-to-time for that and reports that she feels quite energetic when she is on it.
I always assumed the energy came from not itching. Not that I'd ever taken it in the kind of doses you'd see for somebody with an autoimmune disorder.
Fighting poison ivy with poison oak? Brilliant!
572: The high energy thing seems to be a side effect of lots of the steroids. If I remember correctly, the Luftwaffe experimented with early versions during WW2 to see if they could enhance the performance of pilots. It works for a while, and then bad things start to happen.
572: The high energy thing seems to be a side effect of lots of the steroids. If I remember correctly, the Luftwaffe experimented with early versions during WW2 to see if they could enhance the performance of pilots. It works for a while, and then bad things start to happen.
{sigh} I blame caffeine for the doubles. Or Steve Jobs for specifying too sensitive switches for this mouse. Anyone but me.
574
If I remember correctly, the _____ experimented with early versions during WW2 to see if they could enhance the performance of _____. It works for a while, and then bad things start to happen.
It's funny how many things could accurately fill in those blanks.
567.1: Oh, I understood, no worries. Various of the auto-immune issues for which the stuff is sometimes prescribed have floated around the back end of the endocrinologist differential (whenever I am under the whether, Leo helpfully reminds me that "it's never lupus") for years because (a) I do have autoimmune thyroid disease and (b) I'm otherwise a weirdo. Mostly, I think my primary is right that my problem is too little balance and too much running ragged. But there's no pill for that...
Being under the whether sounds like a lot of uncertainty.
579: Could it be conjunctionitis?
550 - bugger. Still, at least I don't have to retroactively apologise to ajay.
579: Wow. That's a freudian typo if I've ever seen one!
the Luftwaffe experimented with early versions during WW2 to see if they could enhance the performance of pilots. It works for a while, and then bad things start to happen.
SOME OF US THINK THAT ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF LUFTWAFFE PILOTS IS ALREADY QUITE BAD ENOUGH.
Few historians are familiar with the Germans' syruptitious plans to make Luftwaffles more delicious.
This followed on the earlier work of the German American Bund Cake.
578: yeah, my wife used to get prednisone to help with auto immune issues until recently. Horrible side effects, as exposure to UV light results in what look like awful bruises on and just under your skin, which slowly move to the surface and pop. Don't hurt so much but look ghastly, especially if you're a redhead and already thin skinned...
So, apparently the internet is *not* a good way yo find a psychiatrist. The office I talked to Monday was going to call back to confirm date/time and which doc. It's now Wednesday and still nothing. Back to square one.
Dropping the matter entirely on encountering this kind of setback is the kind of thing I am likely to do when particularly depressed. If you're similarly inclined, please keep trying.
Yes. That you need extra persistence when you are ill is a general weakness of the health care system.
trying to send good and compassionate thoughts to ML and to Martin Wisse!
589: That, and I really have no idea where else to look. Do I really want to call *this* one back? Ugh.
593: If it's that or nothing and you're in need of help, yeah, call him back. Later in therapy you can let him have it. That's one of the fun things about therapy: what you'd be doing would be a perfectly valid part of the work. It's not the best way to start, but again, if it's that or nothing...
I would tell you more about where to look but it probably is not a conversation that works well with imaginary people on the internet. I'll link my email address on this comment just in case.
Biohazard, what form of B-12 do you take? I've read (from dubious sources, i.e. fancy vitamin manufacturers) that methylcobalamin is more easily absorbed than cyanocobalamin. I'd also be curious to know whether sublingual dose would work.
(You can tell that I really just want to get a B-12 shot, right?)
You can tell that I really just want to get a B-12 shot, right?
Do that, if it isn't too expensive. Mrs y has B12 shots every couple of months and swears by them.
I swear by the computer mostly. Sometimes by the tv or couch.
595: I think that I'd need an actual diagnosis of anemia to get that. Stuff like that is always expensive, because it's all negotiated through insurance. The only shot that's at all reasonable if you have to pay cash is the flu shot at $35. (My insurance covers that, but when I got it at my PCP hospital office, they billed over $80.) That doesn't require a prescription.
Shortly after I posted 587, they finally called back. Aside from now being paranoid that the shrink reads Unfogged... all good.
Aside from now being paranoid that the shrink reads Unfogged... all good.
Nah, it would give you something neutral to talk about. Break the ice.
I just found out that there's a B-12 nasal spray that is supposed to give shots a run for their money, but it's Rx only.
