Is learning simply a way to make the world less terrifying, or can our motive for learning be a desire to serve others?
I would like to believe that everything can be measured. Personally I have difficulty measuring abstract things such as health. Is health just the degree to which one is not ill? That doesn't tell you much. What about people who have chronic health problems like diabetes, so are forced to be health-aware? I decided in the end (for an assignment) that health is the degree to which one desires to continue living. I don't think that's a measurable thing though, so I'm not satisfied.
The way to measure the effectiveness of a psychotherapist is to see what percentage of people he helps. But how much does he help, and is this change lasting? An exemplar psychotherapist would teach his client in a brief time how to effectively solve problems alone forever. I think the reason we look at the exemplar is because it is often the simplest case. But I don't think this helps us measure quality of achievement.
You know, I think that current academic achievement tests are really dumb. So, what is academic achievement? Isn't it the ability to apply knowledge? So why do these tests mostly measure plain knowledge, or knowledge applied in a way that is rarely useful in everyday life? The must be a better way. Not like I could do anything to change the way things are if I knew a better way.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Without
Have you ever wondered why they don't have a school of the prophets anymore? Or maybe they do, and I just don't know about it. Perhaps BYU is a type of school of the prophets... although it has a ways to go before it becomes as successful.
Losing our vertical relationship with God also damages our horizontal relationships with others.
2 Peter 1 gives instruction on how to have charity. It's a little discouraging to think that I have to have all these other things before I can have charity, but I suppose it makes sense. I've been trying hard to love others, and I feel like I don't hate or despise others, but I don't think I love them as God does. That's sad. It's probably because I'm a selfish person living my life for myself.
Losing our vertical relationship with God also damages our horizontal relationships with others.
2 Peter 1 gives instruction on how to have charity. It's a little discouraging to think that I have to have all these other things before I can have charity, but I suppose it makes sense. I've been trying hard to love others, and I feel like I don't hate or despise others, but I don't think I love them as God does. That's sad. It's probably because I'm a selfish person living my life for myself.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Transformation
Have you ever noticed that some people have the same personality for a long time, while other people seem to change a lot from day to day? In my studies of personality (however brief), I've often wondered why and how people's personalities change. It turns out that there's a pretty straightforward process of transformation:
1. Unfreezing of previous identity.
2. The acceptance of a comprehensive role expectation.
3. Participation in "ordinances."
4. Acceptance of a new name or identity.
5. Refreezing of the new identity.
To illustrate this, let's look at the process of changing from a Board reader to a Board writer. The first step in becoming a Board writer is to have the idea that perhaps one could be a writer. This is the melting of the reader identity. Perhaps you start making comments or researching your own questions. After being applying and being accepted as a writer, you have a new role to fulfill - a personality you make up and a new social circle to break into. Answering questions gives everyone common experiences, and one chooses his new names... or in this case pseudonyms. When others address you by this new name, it's kind of like the new identity is freezing, and this personality you made up for yourself becomes a part of you. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best example, but you get the idea. Other examples of such transformations include marriage, religious conversion, missionary work, brainwashing, and military service (you can see that transformation can be used for good and evil).
Other interesting thoughts:
If you can construe another person's processes (love him), you can predict his behavior.
There are three layers of looking at people: 1. Behaviorist (we're machines reacting to our environment) 2. Kelly (every man as a scientist) 3. Agentive (we choose our feelings and actions). No human behavior belongs exclusively to any layer - they are like different sets of lenses we can look through.
1. Unfreezing of previous identity.
2. The acceptance of a comprehensive role expectation.
3. Participation in "ordinances."
4. Acceptance of a new name or identity.
5. Refreezing of the new identity.
To illustrate this, let's look at the process of changing from a Board reader to a Board writer. The first step in becoming a Board writer is to have the idea that perhaps one could be a writer. This is the melting of the reader identity. Perhaps you start making comments or researching your own questions. After being applying and being accepted as a writer, you have a new role to fulfill - a personality you make up and a new social circle to break into. Answering questions gives everyone common experiences, and one chooses his new names... or in this case pseudonyms. When others address you by this new name, it's kind of like the new identity is freezing, and this personality you made up for yourself becomes a part of you. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best example, but you get the idea. Other examples of such transformations include marriage, religious conversion, missionary work, brainwashing, and military service (you can see that transformation can be used for good and evil).
Other interesting thoughts:
If you can construe another person's processes (love him), you can predict his behavior.
There are three layers of looking at people: 1. Behaviorist (we're machines reacting to our environment) 2. Kelly (every man as a scientist) 3. Agentive (we choose our feelings and actions). No human behavior belongs exclusively to any layer - they are like different sets of lenses we can look through.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Evaluation and Connection
Evaluation is one method of enabling growth. When confronted with our weaknesses, we are often tempted to hide from them, deny them, ignore them, blame others for them, or rationalize them. These methods of dealing with weakness rarely result in growth. Usually they result in anxiety, anger, or some other equally distressing negative emotion. This includes sitting around feeling guilty for one's weaknesses, and feeling that one is no good. However, by evaluating our weaknesses, we can either understand them or improve upon them. Maybe this way we won't be so surprised when someone else gives us a final evaluation.
There is also more to living the Gospel than obedience. Obedience to God's laws has a purpose, and while it does enable us to live nice lives, the reason to obey God is so that the Holy Ghost can teach us continually.
Yesterday morning I was biking to school on the sidewalk. Sometimes I bike in the road, but today I felt like I should bike down the sidewalk. Yesterday evening I had a very sad flat tire on my bike from a thorn. I patched it up as soon as I got home, and as it was quite late, I was especially grateful to find that my roommate had left me some macaroni and cheese for my dinner. I was more than especially grateful, I was ecstatic, as the whole time I was walking home with the sad squelch of my tire accompanying my shuffling shoes, I was thinking "what am I going to have for dinner?"
Now, it may seem silly that I wrote about this. You are going to think this is rather strange, but go along with me instead of laughing at me. I think I may have been guided to get that flat tire so I could be all the more grateful to my roommate, as usually I take things like that for granted.
The question posed in class is: "Wouldn't it be great if we could evaluate ourselves every moment - to have that learning all the time?" I'm afraid I continue in my obviousness, as I asked, "Wouldn't that require an awful lot of concentration?" And the answer is, of course it does, if it were easy we would be translated by now (at least that's my understanding of it).
Discipline is the main problem in public schools these days. Maybe it's because the students don't have much of a purpose to their learning - many of them see school as a necessary evil, an opposition to free time that adults impose (I know, because not long ago I was a kid. I still think of myself as a kid, actually). I haven't tried this, but I'm told that if students have a clear role in their learning, their behavior improves.
I still have questions. We discussed how in teaching, it might be a good idea to start with validations (the examples of whatever you're teaching), and then pose the questions the examples support. However, method of teaching is irrelevant?? I have more questions, actually. In the lab of my Psych 304 class I mentioned how I believed that the greatest portion of the variance in learning can be determined by the learning. My teacher, a budding therapist, gave the example of a client of his who must work instead of thinking about schoolwork (high school) in order to support his family. I retorted that his desire to care for his family exceeded his desire to learn. My teacher was not convinced. He went on to say that dyslexic children would not learn as well in a traditional teaching setting.
I'm not sure if you understand how I learn, but when I'm learning something, I try to be as critical to the ideas presented as possible, but outside of the sphere where I am critical to the things I'm learning, I'm quite attached to them. This was one of those times when I felt like I had to be right, but I didn't know how. Now I think that I was probably wrong. I have the feeling that there's something BIG I'm missing, like there's something really important that other people are trying to tell me about, but I'm just not getting it. I also have the feeling that it's all connected somehow, but I just don't know enough to know how. I kind of feel like I've been walking around in a house my whole life and I've only now just realized that the trim on the living room matches the picture frame in the den, and I'm wondering what else I've been missing. For all I know, the wallpaper in the kitchen could have the same blue in it that the bathroom rug had in it. I'm afraid I'm not making sense, but neither are the things I'm trying to understand.
There is also more to living the Gospel than obedience. Obedience to God's laws has a purpose, and while it does enable us to live nice lives, the reason to obey God is so that the Holy Ghost can teach us continually.
Yesterday morning I was biking to school on the sidewalk. Sometimes I bike in the road, but today I felt like I should bike down the sidewalk. Yesterday evening I had a very sad flat tire on my bike from a thorn. I patched it up as soon as I got home, and as it was quite late, I was especially grateful to find that my roommate had left me some macaroni and cheese for my dinner. I was more than especially grateful, I was ecstatic, as the whole time I was walking home with the sad squelch of my tire accompanying my shuffling shoes, I was thinking "what am I going to have for dinner?"
Now, it may seem silly that I wrote about this. You are going to think this is rather strange, but go along with me instead of laughing at me. I think I may have been guided to get that flat tire so I could be all the more grateful to my roommate, as usually I take things like that for granted.
The question posed in class is: "Wouldn't it be great if we could evaluate ourselves every moment - to have that learning all the time?" I'm afraid I continue in my obviousness, as I asked, "Wouldn't that require an awful lot of concentration?" And the answer is, of course it does, if it were easy we would be translated by now (at least that's my understanding of it).
Discipline is the main problem in public schools these days. Maybe it's because the students don't have much of a purpose to their learning - many of them see school as a necessary evil, an opposition to free time that adults impose (I know, because not long ago I was a kid. I still think of myself as a kid, actually). I haven't tried this, but I'm told that if students have a clear role in their learning, their behavior improves.
I still have questions. We discussed how in teaching, it might be a good idea to start with validations (the examples of whatever you're teaching), and then pose the questions the examples support. However, method of teaching is irrelevant?? I have more questions, actually. In the lab of my Psych 304 class I mentioned how I believed that the greatest portion of the variance in learning can be determined by the learning. My teacher, a budding therapist, gave the example of a client of his who must work instead of thinking about schoolwork (high school) in order to support his family. I retorted that his desire to care for his family exceeded his desire to learn. My teacher was not convinced. He went on to say that dyslexic children would not learn as well in a traditional teaching setting.
I'm not sure if you understand how I learn, but when I'm learning something, I try to be as critical to the ideas presented as possible, but outside of the sphere where I am critical to the things I'm learning, I'm quite attached to them. This was one of those times when I felt like I had to be right, but I didn't know how. Now I think that I was probably wrong. I have the feeling that there's something BIG I'm missing, like there's something really important that other people are trying to tell me about, but I'm just not getting it. I also have the feeling that it's all connected somehow, but I just don't know enough to know how. I kind of feel like I've been walking around in a house my whole life and I've only now just realized that the trim on the living room matches the picture frame in the den, and I'm wondering what else I've been missing. For all I know, the wallpaper in the kitchen could have the same blue in it that the bathroom rug had in it. I'm afraid I'm not making sense, but neither are the things I'm trying to understand.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Shrinking the Boundaries of Ignorance
Thursday's class was on expansion. We discussed how most motivations are out of fear or love, and what it means to be mature. It's interesting because in my personality class we had about a bazillion different attributes of a mature person (responsible, helps others, financially stable, etc.), but the real, defining attribute of a mature person is loving others. I mean, all those other things are nice (having an area of expertise, influence, etc.), but no one's going to give a darn unless you like them.
We also discussed how there are two different ways of knowing something. The example in class we used was water. So, you can know that water is made up of H2O and that it has polar molecules and is a solvent, etc., etc. But you don't really KNOW water until you drink it. It's like that story where the 2 guys die and they're asked what they know about Jesus. One says all the facts about the life of Jesus, and the other recognizes that the interviewer is, in fact, Jesus. The same thing happens to me with people sometimes. I'll know their name, major, horrible secret, but I won't really KNOW the person (learning a person from the inside out instead of vice versa). Hmm... sad.
Okay, so this was a class on expansion. So we practiced using the Internet. I love the Internet. It was a lot like finding the answer to a Board question. I think that's a reason I like writing for the Board - I get to learn and expand on things that I wouldn't normal think about. For instance, this morning I just answered a question about "The Last Unicorn." It reminded me about how in my childhood, I desperately believed that I was a unicorn, just like in this book/movie. It also reminded me of this book I bought online when I was a kid called Are You a Unicorn? The Mission and Meaning of Life. This was a skinny book(let) that analyzed the characters in The Last Unicorn, as well as comparing unicorns to the tribe of Ephraim and drawing some connections between unicorns and Jesus. It also mentioned how the lion is a symbol of Judah. But the part that really drew me to this book was the Unicorn as a personality type. It suggested that some people are unicorns who long for peace, love children, are really naive, etc. As a kid (I don't remember how old I was... too young to be going around on the Internet buying things), I really bought into this. I still like the idea, actually. Most people like feeling special somehow.
Being active in one's education requires more than doing homework, but unfortunately that's what our classes train us to do. I think I ranted on that before somewhere. Oh no, someone else did. See here.
[I just used spellcheck and I didn't mispell anything! I'm so proud of myself! :-D]
[Wow I just misspelled misspell... this is sad...]
We also discussed how there are two different ways of knowing something. The example in class we used was water. So, you can know that water is made up of H2O and that it has polar molecules and is a solvent, etc., etc. But you don't really KNOW water until you drink it. It's like that story where the 2 guys die and they're asked what they know about Jesus. One says all the facts about the life of Jesus, and the other recognizes that the interviewer is, in fact, Jesus. The same thing happens to me with people sometimes. I'll know their name, major, horrible secret, but I won't really KNOW the person (learning a person from the inside out instead of vice versa). Hmm... sad.
Okay, so this was a class on expansion. So we practiced using the Internet. I love the Internet. It was a lot like finding the answer to a Board question. I think that's a reason I like writing for the Board - I get to learn and expand on things that I wouldn't normal think about. For instance, this morning I just answered a question about "The Last Unicorn." It reminded me about how in my childhood, I desperately believed that I was a unicorn, just like in this book/movie. It also reminded me of this book I bought online when I was a kid called Are You a Unicorn? The Mission and Meaning of Life. This was a skinny book(let) that analyzed the characters in The Last Unicorn, as well as comparing unicorns to the tribe of Ephraim and drawing some connections between unicorns and Jesus. It also mentioned how the lion is a symbol of Judah. But the part that really drew me to this book was the Unicorn as a personality type. It suggested that some people are unicorns who long for peace, love children, are really naive, etc. As a kid (I don't remember how old I was... too young to be going around on the Internet buying things), I really bought into this. I still like the idea, actually. Most people like feeling special somehow.
Being active in one's education requires more than doing homework, but unfortunately that's what our classes train us to do. I think I ranted on that before somewhere. Oh no, someone else did. See here.
[I just used spellcheck and I didn't mispell anything! I'm so proud of myself! :-D]
[Wow I just misspelled misspell... this is sad...]
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Capturing Capture... Setting traps for knowledge
We examined capture in today's class. We did some exercises in capture, including learning about how the galaxies form patterns of soap bubbles (so once again, everything is connected!). We also watched the first few minutes of the first session of conference when Gordon B. Hinckley spoke. This interested me a lot, because when I watched it on Saturday I didn't even take notes on it. I thought, "Oh, he's just going to tell us some great statistics about how the church is growing and doing well." Was I kidding myself? Prophets, when acting as such, are always teaching. In this particular brief speech, President Hinckley conveyed how the circumstances of our church may change, but the gospel is the same. He gave examples of this and the general feeling was that our circumstances are improving, as the Church has been richly blessed. I got so much more out of the speech when I tried to figure out what the central message of it was.
I really wish I could capture more often, but every time I try it in class I seem to fail to organize the lecture into Questions, Central Messages, Examples, and Applications. For example, today in my Abnormal Psychology class we were learning about Anxiety disorders - Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I suppose the questions would be "What are the symptoms and causes of GAD? What treatments for GAD are most effective? Who is most likely to suffer from GAD?" Then the answers to these questions would be the central messages, the studies they come from would be the examples/validations (although we never talk about studies in class - a pity), and what we do with this information would be the applications (although we rarely talk about that either). So it seems that lecture is just full of central messages, so that would make it difficult to organize it in the fourfold framework.
While it's difficult for me to capture lectures, I'm intrigued by the idea that one can capture a person. This is the kind of thing that happens when you love someone and you really learn about what it is like to BE that person (as George Kelly mentioned, love is the ability to construe the processes of another person). In order to want to know what it is like to be someone else, it makes sense that selfishness must decrease or be overcome somehow. So, to love others, one must be selfless. I am a very selfish person, and I have difficulty loving others sometimes. Sure, I'll listen to what they tell me, but I learn from others purely for my own benefit. I want to change this about myself but I'm too into myself sometimes. The funny thing about selfishness is that brooding about it just makes it worse. I mean, think about it, I just want to be less selfish for selfish reasons, to enjoy loving others. How silly is that?
I've been trying to capture my grandma. There are a lot of things about her that frustrate me and that I don't understand. She is a staunch believer in personology. Personology is the study of making inferences about a person's personality based on his person, or physical body. The idea behind it is nice - that our spirits are connected to our bodies, so our bodies should reflect the personality of the spirit - but I don't believe it. I don't even like it. It has not been supported by any scientific studies, and theories like that just shouldn't pretend to be scientific. I would like it a lot more if it didn't seem like such a lie, because I mean, sure, we judge people by their looks all the time. If I see a guy who's tanned and muscular, I would assume that he likes playing outdoor sports. But I don't think that having a ring finger longer than your index finger indicates that you're a risk-taker, I just don't.
I was going to read this book on the introduction to semiotics for part of my expansion exercise, but I just ended up talking about Peircian semiotics with a friend for an hour. Peircian semiotics are way awesome (for an explanation see this Board question, and this one). However, there is a problem here too. Peircian semiotics can be used to classify people's personalities into colors. It sounds great, but then again so do most lame personality measures at first. The problem is, I don't think there have been any studies done of Peircian personality types - so I can't say empirically if it has an validity or not (and anecdotal testimonial is just not enough evidence). However, I also know that science doesn't know everything, and that there are some things out there it is misguided about. So basically, I don't know whether or not to believe in Peircian personality types. The Color Code was bad enough... at least the Peircian model doesn't pretend to be empirically validated.
I really wish I could capture more often, but every time I try it in class I seem to fail to organize the lecture into Questions, Central Messages, Examples, and Applications. For example, today in my Abnormal Psychology class we were learning about Anxiety disorders - Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I suppose the questions would be "What are the symptoms and causes of GAD? What treatments for GAD are most effective? Who is most likely to suffer from GAD?" Then the answers to these questions would be the central messages, the studies they come from would be the examples/validations (although we never talk about studies in class - a pity), and what we do with this information would be the applications (although we rarely talk about that either). So it seems that lecture is just full of central messages, so that would make it difficult to organize it in the fourfold framework.
While it's difficult for me to capture lectures, I'm intrigued by the idea that one can capture a person. This is the kind of thing that happens when you love someone and you really learn about what it is like to BE that person (as George Kelly mentioned, love is the ability to construe the processes of another person). In order to want to know what it is like to be someone else, it makes sense that selfishness must decrease or be overcome somehow. So, to love others, one must be selfless. I am a very selfish person, and I have difficulty loving others sometimes. Sure, I'll listen to what they tell me, but I learn from others purely for my own benefit. I want to change this about myself but I'm too into myself sometimes. The funny thing about selfishness is that brooding about it just makes it worse. I mean, think about it, I just want to be less selfish for selfish reasons, to enjoy loving others. How silly is that?
I've been trying to capture my grandma. There are a lot of things about her that frustrate me and that I don't understand. She is a staunch believer in personology. Personology is the study of making inferences about a person's personality based on his person, or physical body. The idea behind it is nice - that our spirits are connected to our bodies, so our bodies should reflect the personality of the spirit - but I don't believe it. I don't even like it. It has not been supported by any scientific studies, and theories like that just shouldn't pretend to be scientific. I would like it a lot more if it didn't seem like such a lie, because I mean, sure, we judge people by their looks all the time. If I see a guy who's tanned and muscular, I would assume that he likes playing outdoor sports. But I don't think that having a ring finger longer than your index finger indicates that you're a risk-taker, I just don't.
I was going to read this book on the introduction to semiotics for part of my expansion exercise, but I just ended up talking about Peircian semiotics with a friend for an hour. Peircian semiotics are way awesome (for an explanation see this Board question, and this one). However, there is a problem here too. Peircian semiotics can be used to classify people's personalities into colors. It sounds great, but then again so do most lame personality measures at first. The problem is, I don't think there have been any studies done of Peircian personality types - so I can't say empirically if it has an validity or not (and anecdotal testimonial is just not enough evidence). However, I also know that science doesn't know everything, and that there are some things out there it is misguided about. So basically, I don't know whether or not to believe in Peircian personality types. The Color Code was bad enough... at least the Peircian model doesn't pretend to be empirically validated.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Perfect yet not?
Today we had an interesting exercise where we tried focusing on the glory of God for a few minutes. I had difficulty concentrating, but I figured imagining living things could work, because the glory of God is in all (or at least most) living things. I wish I could have this perspective more often, because often I get frustrated or bored with people, classes, books, etc.
We also talked about a two dichotomies - obedience vs. autism and loving vs. putting others second. It's interesting how we move through the different hemispheres in the learning process - capture (lecture learning) is obedience, a trust in the teacher and an opening of the mind to what s/he has to offer. Expansion is more autistic, in the sense that it is done independently, without having to obey a teacher to learn. The problem with assigned homework is that it makes the process of expansion a factor of obedience as well as autism/independence. Teaching requires love, and evaluation... would you say that evaluation requires some sort of egocentricity? Evaluation itself requires some criticism, but some would say that someone who really loves you will discipline you (various verses in Proverbs, don't know them off the top of my head). This is also called the "Medicine Wheel" in Cheyenne tradition.
The idea that really stood out to me about this lecture though, was our professor talking about his son. We'll call the son Nate. Nate was the successful perfectionist in high school - taking 10 AP classes one year and graduating with a 4.0, remaining wildly successful and popular throughout his years (I imagine). But our professor worried that he was "too good" - that, having so much success, he would be unable to empathize with those who weren't as fortunate, that "a person that has failed a few times in life is a lot richer than one who has not." This struck me, because while I'm not quite that successful, I do face the danger of being hard-hearted to those who don't deserve contempt.
Another idea was that sin comes from the Greek "hamartia," which means "to miss the mark." Therefore, repenting of a sin is to get back on the mark - to turn back to the light (this goes against the idea that sin is like a scar that sticks around forever). I like this idea. Also amusing was, "Many people in our culture think it's a sin to have a sin." I think it's meant to be funny, and to help us/me realize that we all sin, and that by sinning/making mistakes, we learn and grow. Yeah, sounds trite, but that's the message.
We also talked about a two dichotomies - obedience vs. autism and loving vs. putting others second. It's interesting how we move through the different hemispheres in the learning process - capture (lecture learning) is obedience, a trust in the teacher and an opening of the mind to what s/he has to offer. Expansion is more autistic, in the sense that it is done independently, without having to obey a teacher to learn. The problem with assigned homework is that it makes the process of expansion a factor of obedience as well as autism/independence. Teaching requires love, and evaluation... would you say that evaluation requires some sort of egocentricity? Evaluation itself requires some criticism, but some would say that someone who really loves you will discipline you (various verses in Proverbs, don't know them off the top of my head). This is also called the "Medicine Wheel" in Cheyenne tradition.
The idea that really stood out to me about this lecture though, was our professor talking about his son. We'll call the son Nate. Nate was the successful perfectionist in high school - taking 10 AP classes one year and graduating with a 4.0, remaining wildly successful and popular throughout his years (I imagine). But our professor worried that he was "too good" - that, having so much success, he would be unable to empathize with those who weren't as fortunate, that "a person that has failed a few times in life is a lot richer than one who has not." This struck me, because while I'm not quite that successful, I do face the danger of being hard-hearted to those who don't deserve contempt.
Another idea was that sin comes from the Greek "hamartia," which means "to miss the mark." Therefore, repenting of a sin is to get back on the mark - to turn back to the light (this goes against the idea that sin is like a scar that sticks around forever). I like this idea. Also amusing was, "Many people in our culture think it's a sin to have a sin." I think it's meant to be funny, and to help us/me realize that we all sin, and that by sinning/making mistakes, we learn and grow. Yeah, sounds trite, but that's the message.
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About Me
- Rachel Helps
- Indie videogame writer and Wikipedian-in-Residence at the BYU Library. You are probably wrong about something, and so am I.