The Importance of Qualitative Research

For five years I worked as a Quality Assurance Technician/Specialist for a major corporation, before I took time off to be a stay at home mom. Most of my work revolved around routine quantitative tests and research at the national QA lab. However, I had the opportunity to work on some investigative research during that time. One nice thing about doing internal research for a major corporation is that you don't really have the option to put a spin on your test results. There is always an external bottom line that you are accountable to. While in the academic and sales world, some researchers can talk circles around their results and still retain their positions, in the quality assurance world, if your research is faulty, it shows in the product and in the accounting. Faulty quality research costs a company money and can get you fired.

During my time in the QA field, I learned several things about research. First off, it's extremely easy to end up measuring the wrong thing. I cannot emphasis that point enough. During my first year, I was the technician for a new engineer, and he and I found this out firsthand. We even had a strong disagreement over one test on this matter. I noticed that there was something weird going on with my test results and brought it to his attention. He wanted to wave it away, because my results were confirming his hypothesis. If there is one thing I hate doing, it's fudging data. So I told him flat out that it may prove his hypothesis, but as a technician, I was not going to stand by the results. He finally told me that I could repeat the test. I'm sure he was expecting me to back down because he knew I hated doing that particular test, especially for the number of repetition he was asking for. Instead I agreed and then after clarifying that I would be doing the test the same way as I had the first time, I asked if I could switch the order of the samples. He agreed and the next set of results showed that I was right. To the engineer's credit, he then accepted that he was mistaken, listened to my observations, and figured out what actually was going on - and was able to confirm it. A few years later, he borrowed me back from the manager I was then working with, because he had a $5 million bizarre problem to solve and he wanted a technician who would tell him if things were looking screwy.

Between those times I worked for that one engineer, I worked for a manager who had been a university professor at an engineering school before working for the company. I was given the task to compare two types of color measuring machines. (Since, to the best of my knowledge, no one reading this blog is in the flexible packaging field, I'll dispense with the technical names.) The newer one was developed for the auto industry and we needed to see if it could meet our needs. Before I could even begin to compare the two machines, I had to do a search of the literature before I could even have an idea what I was actually testing. I also talked to our R&D packaging scientist and the manufacturer's representatives. I even resorted to going through my mother's old books on painting with color, which provided me with a lot more on the subject than I originally expected.

In short, under the direction of my manager, I did qualitative research before I started anything quantitative. That's because it's the qualitative research that shows you what you should be measuring. Most people don't understand that. When I took the research methods class for my masters, I really had to bite my tongue not to go into an impassioned rant over the necessity of qualitative research as a precursor of decent quantitative research. The R&D scientist I worked with for the color project was brillant and a good deal of his brillance came from the fact that he did his qualitative research before he launched his quantitative research. In the quality assurance world, measuring the wrong thing costs money and jobs. There's no time for weak research based on "well, this sounds like this might be the cause." You need to have solid reasons for your choices before you can even start your tests and in the corporate world, those choices are challenged more stringently than what I've seen so far in the academic world. Of course, this may not be the case on the doctorate level. I hope that is the case when I go back to school for my doctorate, because through my quality assurance training I have developed an obsession with doing thorough background research before I develop a test procedure. This is the reason my capstone is basically a literary review, because I would rather do a thorough literary review than a half-thought out series of qualitative tests.

Actually, I'm not sure I can even bring myself to do testing before doing a literary review. You see, my last job with this company was manufacturing defects coordinator. I was transferred to a plant to help them reduce their packaging defects. The plant management was convinced that the suppliers were sending them inferior flexible packaging. I spent the first few months testing roll stock to confirm that this plant was getting the same quality of packaging that all the others were. The plant manager didn't take that very well and I was told that I had six months to find out what the problem was or my job would be eliminated. For the first two or three months, management kept giving me things they wanted me to test for them as possible causes for their high defect rate. Out of pure preservation, I began to study other possible contributing factors. I used my connections with the national lab to talk to the engineers who trained the trainers who taught the packaging machine operators how to do their jobs. These were also the same guys who followed up on the quality of the machine maintenance people. They assured me that the trainers and the plant maintenance people where I was at were top notched. I talked with the trainers in the plant and made friends with the maintenance guys. It was obvious from their dedication and knowledge that they were, indeed doing their part. It was also obvious through the observed quality of their work, which they gladly let me examine.

I knew we were all missing something, but I couldn't figure out what it was while doing all the tests to make management feel better. So, I took a stand and reminded them that they brought me there because I was a specialist and if they were going to make me accountable for this, then they needed to let me do the job I was brought in for. Again, the plant manager was not impressed, but I figured I was doomed anyway with the way things were going, so I stood my ground. He said he wanted me to do line audits. In the past, I had been doing warehouse audits because no one wanted me to interrupt their production flow. I told him that I would do it on the grounds that I created my own audit criteria. To make everyone happy, I put in every common packing flaw that could be seen by a non-destructive inspection. However, well aware that I still had no idea what the real problem was, I made sure I made a space on my audit forms for comments - just in case I stumbled across a clue or two.

Then I started my line inspections. I hadn't even finished my first bag inspection, when the packaging machine operator came up to me and asked in a surly voice if he was going to see my results right away or was he going to have to wait until his manager yelled at him about them. Dumbfounded, I said, "You don't get my reports?" After he confirmed that was the case, I asked him if he wanted me to make him a copy and bring it back to the line as soon as I finished with everyone. He agreed. During this time, a light went off in my head, as I reviewed the stories I knew about how my dad and maternal grandfather managed their employees. The packaging machine operators weren't getting enough feedback. And if they weren't getting enough feedback, then chances were, based on the first guy's comments, they weren't getting any positive feedback at all. So, in my "comment box" I mentioned specifically what was right about the bags I auditted.

I asked every machine operator if they wanted my reports directly from me. All of them said yes. I instituted what I called my positive feedback program. Sometimes, before I even started checking for flaws, I would write down what looked good on the bag. After a week of this, the machince operators started looking forward to my audits and asked for my opinion on some of their issues. During the third week, I came across a perfect bag. I asked the machine operator if I could display it in the lunchroom with his name attached to it. That bag was followed by others from other machine operators. Three months from the start of my audits and positive feedback, the manufacturing defects numbers had dropped 70%.

It wasn't the quantitative studies that found the issue. It was the qualitative investigation that did the job. The quantitative studies only backed it up. International Organization for Standardization has proceedures it dictates for those companies wishing to be ISO certified. I've actually taken classes on ISO certification a few years back and I can assure you that their quality standards take into account the qualitative aspects of processes too. I'm tempted to pull out my books and give examples, but I think I'll save that discussion for another post.

Reasons why kids are sometimes better at technology

After finishing my masters, I decided I wanted a break before going on to a doctorate program. So at the moment I'm employed doing technical troubleshooting over the phone. While in training, the truism about children being better at technology was brought up. Our trainer confirmed that children were indeed easier to troubleshoot with - because they were better at following directions and did exactly what you told them and nothing more. As a parent, this sounded rather counter to my experience; however as a technician, I've found out that she was right. More often than not, the children I've talked to (after getting the parent's permission) weren't really all that more knowledgeable than Mom and Dad. Of course, as we're often reminded, the customer who actually know what they're doing are usually the last ones to call for technical support, but still there is a pattern between the two populations.

1. Children have less preconceived ideas on how something is supposed to work. It never fails to amaze me the expectations people have of electronic equipment. Despite the fact that they have to replace light bulbs in their homes, flashlights, and cars, there are people in this day and age who still think that electronics should last forever. The fact it comes with a time-limited warantee is completely lost on them. But even more frustrating is the customer who thinks they know how a piece of equipment works and tries to jump ahead of the technician. Children don't do this. They let you tell them what the next step is - even the teenagers.

2. Children focus more on the task and less on the embarrassment. When troubleshooting with a child, there hardly ever any self-esteem problems to deal with. They feel valued just by the fact that an expert is willing to work with them.

3. Children are literal. When you ask a child what is showing on a screen, they will tell you exactly what is on there. If you ask a child if the screen says something specific, they will tell you just that and nothing more. If you ask a child what a cable looks like, they never say it's just a cable.

4. Children are open to being taught. This one is sort of a combination of the others, but I've worked with adults who showed the other traits and still failed in this one. The last thing most technicians want is a customer to keep calling back with the same problem when it is something easily fixed. Also, an educated customer is less likely to panic the next time something goes weird. Panicked customers are always difficult to troubleshoot with.

I could probably tack on that children tend to be more trusting of the technician, but that isn't necessarily why they are better at new technology. And for the record, I've dealt with senior citizens who show these traits and several of them have actually taught themselves to be technically savvy at ages that most people would not thought possible. Elderly women in particular seem good at this. I suspect it is because they don't have the preconceived idea that they have to be experts at it. So you can teach an old dog new tricks, but that can't beat old dogs who can teach themselves.

Visually thinking and different types of minds

Temple Grandin talks about thinking in pictures. I am so grateful that she has been able to find a way to verbalize how she visually processes things. There is no way I could possibly match her explanations. I straddle verbal and visual processing, but that doesn't mean that I totally understand a visual mind that doesn't has the access to the verbal skills I have. I know that I use visual processing. I also know that there I have not fully developed my visual processing ability. Verbally and mathematically, I had the training. I've been writing poetry since I was seven years old, thanks to my second grade teacher, who introduced poetry writing as part of an English/spelling lesson.

In this world of internet videos, I hope that more people like Temple Gardin are able to show us how to visually think - not only for those like me who intuit its power extends further than we see, but for everyone's benefit.

Visual Processing

I am a very visual person. I was raised by an artist and a computer programmer. This gave me access to artistic and flow-charting techniques. My dad used give my siblings and I flow chart templates to make art when we were young. When I became older, he explained what some of the shapes meant and then made a game for me. He'd give me a simple task and I would diagram the steps to do it, using those shapes properly.

As a family, we made almost weekly trips to the public library, bringing home art and music in addition to a multitude of books. Our home library sometimes had better references than my school's library. Arguments between myself and the sister just younger than me were usually solved by encyclopedias at ten paces. My mother made sure we had art classes. My dad made sure we had science lab kits. As a family, we made candles, leather and other crafts. Dad would also print out wall-size mazes which we kids and my mother would solved together. When I learned how to process information, it was not only through the verbal and mathematical means, but also visual and kinetic means.

I'm right handed, left eyed, and I have no dominant foot preference. I have taken math courses up to and including partial differential equations and I have about the same amount of credit hours in studio art as I do math. It probably follows without saying that my favorite math class was analytical geometry. I feel that this makes me qualified to make the follow statement:

Calculations can be done visually as well as mathematically.

Anecdotal evidence: When I was in high school, my mother took one of my classmates and I to an UIL science competition. Between the tests, the contestant schools could work on brain teasers. One of them was a word problem about how much material a sculptor would need if they made a bust twice as large in every dimension. While my extremely intelligent classmate began to do the mathematical calculations, my mother read the problem and immediately gave the correct answer. After verifying it with math, my shocked classmate asked my mother how she did the calculation. She used pictures and hand gestures to explain her thought process. He was totally lost by her explanation, so I gave him an interpretation he could understand. For the rest of the problems, my classmate and mother answered them with their own methods, while I translated between the two of them. In every case, both methods gave the same answers.

Historical evidence: All those wonderful geometry and trignometry relationships started out as a function of the relationships between visual elements such as lines, points, angles, planes and solids. M. C. Escher discovered several crystallography relationships years before the mathematical models, through purely graphical means. While many mathematicians hold Escher in the highest regard and consider him to have had an exceptional mathematical mind, he actually did very poorly with math in school and struggled to understand the mathematical treatises sent to him when he was older.

So, having made put that pet peeve to rest, I will share with you a diagram I made a few months ago showing visual processing as part of the problem solving process. While I do not detail how to do math visually (perhaps I will do that in another post), the diagram does show some of the ways visual processing has brought about solutions -> http://cosmicsiren.blogspot.com/p/diagram-of-visual-processing.html



O’Connor, J. J. & Robertson, E. F. (2000). Maurits Cornelius Escher. MacTutor History of Mathematicians. Retrieved February 28, 2010, from http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Printonly/Escher.html

Research on Learning Styles

There have been a major paper on learning styles in the months since I finished my capstone paper. Neurologically, the empirical research is not good for those who ascribe to them. I refer you to the following sources that pretty much shred the idea that learning styles have an actual brain structure foundation:

Springer, S. P. & Deutsch, G. (1998). Left brain, right brain: perspectives from cognitive neuroscience. 5th ed. New York : W. H. Freeman and Company.
Smeets, G., & Merckelbach, H. (1997, November). Panic disorder and right-hemisphere reliance. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 10(3), 245. Retrieved December 1, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.
Zalewski, L., Sink, C., & Yachimowicz, D. (1992, January). Using cerebral dominance for education programs. The Journal Of General Psychology, 119(1), 45-57. Retrieved December 2, 2008, from MEDLINE database.


The paper referenced in the article, "Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students", has caused quite a stir with many educators. However, from what I've read of it (being that I am too poor to go around and subscribing to all these journals to see the full paper), it is quite correct about the lack of solid research and validity on the matter. Based on my own research into the subject, the styles don't really map onto the cognitive functions in a clear and concise manner.

The crux of the matter is that the theory of learning styles does have some usefulness in practical application, just not necessarily to the degree many people want it to have. The main author of the paper is quite right to compare it to the Myer-Briggs stuff - the two theories are very similiar in many ways. They work well in clear cut and dry situations, but most humans are not like that. If you try applying them religiously, you will start having to make exceptions to the point that you have something that resembles the rules for spelling English words.

For me, I see the Myer-Briggs Temperment Indicator (and to some extent learning styles) the same way I see the Lewis Dot]Electron Dot diagrams in chemistry. They can only describe things on the simplest level. Get into more complex personalities (which doesn't mean "unhealthy" ones, many healthy personalities can actually be quite complex and some of the simplest personalities can be very unhealthy) and everything starts falling apart, like working with transition metals. Which makes complete sense to me, because healthy individuals actually change in personality traits over time, due to maturation, mental and emotional stresses, illness/health and other developmental process affecting agents. Some MBTI experts do take this into consideration and adjust for it. It is also possible for chemists using metals to use electron dot diagrams with metals, by keeping a reference of possible electron charges near them. However, there is a great danger on relying on any of these methods for more than a cursory beginning. They only briefly describe the surface situtation. Their premises for the deeper levels have no validity on the scientific level.

It's sort of like knowing that tornados in the middle of the United States usually come from the southwest and go to the northeast. You know that is what normally happens by looking at the destruction afterwards, however, that never stops a tornado from going the opposite direction for a little while, before going back to the normal track. Nor can you really know what path it will travel. And when it comes to personality, learning and cognition, there is no such thing as a straight line between points A and B.

Gallagher on Education and Language

Was he a man before his time? Or have we just not been listening to those who talk about the limitations of schools in training the creative mind?

Will we ever listen?

Education

© Universal Press Syndicate

In his TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson talks about how current education "stripmines" the minds of our youth. While I wholeheartedly agree with him about the need to change this, I also think we need to find ways to reclaim those older minds who have gone through this system and are now stuck in a changing world, in dire need of those skills that were not developed earlier. For both scenarios, I recommend the following:


Teaching for the Two-sided Mind by Linda Verlee Williams

It's an excellent book for the teacher and the adult learner. Instead of trying to divide people into left and right brain thinkers (which really doesn't have much validity according to neurological studies), Williams comes from the angle that we are ALL left and right brain thinkers. Not only can this book help you refine how you learn information and analyze problems, it also invites you to try other ways of learning. You will be surprised at how much you actually do use both sides of your brain.

The Basis of Knowledge

David Deutsch starts out shaky in the talk, but stick with him. He hits his stride half-way through and then he is amazing.



Bad explanation: easy to vary

Good explanation: Hard to vary assertions, details have functional uses

Explanationless theories - bad science

Art as a means of true social change

I've decided to talk a short break from sharing my favorite TED talks to share something that hit me while studying for an art history test 3 years ago. I have it posted it elsewhere, but I think it's time to share it here.




Take a look at this picture. Do you know why it is so important?

If you're an art student, you would probably answer with something like this:

One of the most admired frescos from the Arena Chapel done by Giotto, known as the "Father of Picturial Painting". It shows real emotion and human suffering. Uses focal points instead of symmetry, overlapping figures and shading. Done in Italo-Byzantine style, it breaks from the stylistic other-worldness of the Byzantine style of the Dark Ages, with its introduction of naturalism.


However, if you take into the account of the cultural and religious significance of this piece, it becomes so much more than the epitome of a style of painting.

To appreciate Giotto's work, you need to understand that in the Dark Ages, artists painted figures to look other-worldly to reflect the supernatural and unfathomableness of Christ and the saints. These were not persons who could be related to in a normal fashion. These were impersonal beings, who only interacted with we unworthy and insignificant humans out of supernatural mercy.

To this end, the populace were treated to paintings like the one to the left here. Faces that showed no emotions. Images that showed not connection to the things of this world. During the Dark Ages, God was not Love, but Power.

Look again at the Byzantine representation of Christ. Is the image a welcoming one? Does this look like someone who emanates love? Someone who had a personal interest in your salvation?

It doesn't to me.

On the other hand, look again at Giotto's Christ. Is there any doubt that the man lying there had a connection to those around him on a personal level? That they felt his love for them in their life?

To the best of my knowledge, Giotto was the first person to paint Christ in a personal way. Perhaps herding sheep as a child made Giotto feel a special kinship with Jesus Christ. Perhaps being chosen by the master painter Cimabue as a humble lad from the country, Giotto saw more of God's love in the world around him, instead of the power plays of rulers and religious leaders.

Whatever the reason, so moving and innovated was Giotto's works, that he was in high demand and other artists began to follow suit. Soon, many who could not read, much less have access to the Holy Scriptures, had a different insight into the nature of Christ - where they actually meant something to the universe and their Creator.


A description of Giotto from http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/giotto/

Giotto was short and homely, and he was a great wit and practical joker. He was married and left six children at his death. Unlike many of his fellow artists, he saved his money and was accounted a rich man. He was on familiar terms with the pope, and King Robert of Naples called him a good friend.



Rereading what I wrote, I realized that I need to explain that the rediscovery of humanism started at the same time that Giotto began his work. And, frankly, I think that his work was a main factor for its re-emergence.

Creativity and play

The 30 circle test reminds me a little of when I did figures in my Drawing I class in college. We first did several drawings of our instructor with only 30 seconds per pose. Then we did a few drawing with a minute per pose. The last two poses for 5 and 10 minutes, respectively. What the exercise did was force us to just draw what we saw, without pausing to edit. Obviously, we only got basic forms at first. But this carried on to the longer drawings and I have to admit that I did much better drawing of human than I had in any other art class before. So, getting past the self-critiques (and external critiques) for a period of time does more than increase creativity, it also improves skills. Creative writing works much better if you wait to edit until after you've written the story. Starting to edit in the midst of creating will deaden the creativity and stunt the work. Editting happens after the creative period, no matter what you are working on. Or in Tim Brown's terms, the convergence period happens after the divergence period.

This next talk is also by a Brown - Stuart Brown:



It amazes me how much we have weeded out adult playfulness in the past couple of centuries. My son did a report of historical children's games last year and we were both surprised to find old books full of adult-too games. In fact, it was hard to find written resources of children-only games before the 1900s. A side-effect of the Industrial Revolution, I suspect.

Both videos underscore the need for kinistetic activity in problem solving. Though I didn't use it in my capstone, I did find a study on how swinging one's arms helps one to solve problems with a swinging element, while researching how the right and left brain function cognitively.

Back to the talk - while the meeting suits are fun, I can imagine all sort of sexual harrassment potential. But I can't deny that it is creative.

Cultivating the creative mind

Elizabeth Gilbert suggests a different way to look at creative genius in the following video:



In some ways, I should probably post this video after discussing the research on the creative mind and the creative process. However, I think it fits in well with the posts of perception I have recently posted. If a perception helps someone use their talents and relate to their genius in a healthy way, can we truly label it as false?

Most of my life, my rule of thumb has been if it works, then that is the bottom line. As such, can I deny the perception of another, which allows them to create beauty and makes the world better for others? Perhaps it is not my truth, but what right do I have to say it is false for a person who it works for?

Among most counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, there is a belief that as long as a behavior or belief does not interfer with functioning in life, it's not something to worry about. For no one really has the right to impose their idea of truth onto another human being. Nor do they have the right to ridicule it.

That's not to say that they can't debate their ideas and search for data. I am a research addict, myself. However, I have found that it is always good to step back for a moment and ask myself how much the data actually proves, versus what it suggests. I believe many people make the mistake of treating the concepts suggested by a body of data as if they are carved in stone facts. Obviously, many people can do this, make it part of their identity and still function in their daily lives. I can't. I have to live with my own truths, which means that I have to accept that I might be wrong at times. (Though I must point out that I have a habit of making declarative statements, which give the impression that I am more firm on a matter than I really am.) Luckily for me, research has shown that being willing to be wrong is one of the key element of being creative. Sir Ken Robinson has a wonderful talk on this very subject:



You can't create something new, if all your concepts are in stone. Still, even a creative person needs a stone foundation in their life. Sometimes, you just have to be willing to rebuild it, after it cracks, into something stronger.

Once Upon a School

Okay, this is a long video (25 minutes), but I promise you will enjoy this--especially if you are interested in education:



Dave Eggers' brilliant idea of mixing writers and students needing tutoring is only exceeded by the genius of its implimentation. A tutoring center behind a pirate supply store, with a publishing company in the back. Its success is a wonderful example of creativity begetting creativity and learning. And the spin-offs of a super hero supply store in NYC, the time-traveler's convenience store in LA, and others, show the repeatability of this model.

After watching it, I had to ask myself what would work in OKC. I think we would have to avoid the cowboys and indians bit; it wouldn't be whimsical enough for this region that has deep cultural roots with those groups. Possible ideas I've had:

THE INTERGALACTIC BARREL: something like a Cracker Barrel for space travelers. Filled with lots of travel games, gifts, and other touristy stuff for aliens visiting Earth. And instead of a restaurant, a vending wall or two of dehydrated fruits and meals in a tube, aka "astronaut" food, with a dining room. Could use "Diner" to avoid upsetting Cracker Barrel - or perhaps could talk Cracker Barrel into being a sponser.

THE CAVEMAN FASHION OUTLET: Select the finest in (faux) fur and leather loin clothes, tunics, vests and capes. Not to mention bone and rock jewelry, footwear, and blinged out clubs. Everything for the sophisticated caveman.

And slightly related, THE DINOSAUR FEED STORE: Everything for feeding and caring for your prehistoric animals. Could alternatively be a mythical creature feed store.

Anyway, I encourage you to visit http://www.onceuponschool.org and see what others have done.

Geeks can be cute too

The following videos are not being put up for their content - even though that was why I watched them - but for the reaction I got from my daughter when I insisted on watching the latest one.

Several weeks ago, I saw that Brain Cox had done a talk on what went wrong with the Large Hadron Collider. I wanted to watch it, because I hadn't bothered to read the news posts on it when it happened (doing graduate work sort of saps up your time). So, I downloaded it to my laptop and decided to watch it in the evening, before I turned in. However, my 17 year old daughter was bored and wanted us to do something together. We watched a few old TED talks and then I insisted on watching this one. She rolled her eyes and sighed an "okay".



Less than a minute into the talk, I hear a delighted squeal of "he's cute!" behind me. Not used to such talk coming from my child, I asked her to repeat it. She admitted that she thought Brian Cox was really cute. She ended up watching the video several more times, so she could draw a portrait of him.

Taking advantage of her enthusiasm, I showed her his first talk on the Large Hadron Collider:



Then I looked for him on Wikipedia, where we found out that he used to be part of a band and was only four years younger than me. It gave her mixed feelings, but who knows - maybe she actually knows something about the Large Hadron Collider now?

Okay, maybe not. But it did make me, geek mother that I am, happy to see my daughter having a crush on a physicist. I tried to get her to watch Brian Greene's talk on string theory, but she informed me that he was more my type than hers.



Well, at least I learned stuff from the talks. And my daughter doesn't have a problem with geeks and nerds.

An Opera about the Atomic Bomb

Dr. Atomic

July 1945. The war is in its final, terrible phase. Germany has surrendered but Japan will fight to the bitter end, costing possibly a half million casualties. In the New Mexico desert a group of young physicists, hand-picked and led by the brilliant, complex J. Robert Oppenheimer, have labored furiously in a race against Hitler to develop the world's first atomic bomb. Now, in the hours before the first test explosion, they are confronted with the moral crisis of its inevitable use on Japanese citizens.

Sounds. The hallmarks of John Adams's musical imagination-soaring vocal lines, richly colored orchestra and pulsating rhythms-are fueled by a subject of vast human drama.

Sights. Against a backdrop of desert solitude and scorched landscapes, the stage becomes both a laboratory of apocalyptic science and ground zero for a new millennium in human history.

Stories. No one knows whether the bomb will work, and if it does, whether it might ignite the entire earth's atmosphere. In the unbearable tension of the final hours, only the women, forbidden from the test area, seem to realize the magnitude of its consequences.

Another Essay for Class

Revolution in Family Structure Forces One Teacher
to Add to Her Teaching Methods

". . . After 1960 the proportion living in one-parent families with their mother also increased. The rise in the proportion of children living in dual-earner families or one-parent families was extremely rapid, since the increase from 15-20 percent to 50 percent required only 30 years . . . to take place." (Hernandez, 2003, pp 266)

In the 1970s, Stephanie Herzog was starting her career as an elementary school teacher. Much to her frustration, the greatest challenge she had was trying to keep enough discipline in her classes to allow effective instruction. She searched, studied and tried many methods to bring order to her classroom, with only lukewarm success. As the years passed, she saw a constant increase in troublesome students (Herzog, 1982, pp 1).

She had a system of discipline that gave some results when she attended a teachers conference and heard Deborah Rozman talk about teaching children how to meditate to help them concentrate better. Herzog was so entranced by the lecture that she decided to introduce it to her second graders - only to avoid the religious connotations of the word "meditation", she called it "centering" instead (pp 2, 53). Thinking only of the benefit of increase concentration, it never occurred to Herzog that this practice would produce a calmer classroom and less behavior problems. However, to the delight of her substitutes, the effects were still in place even when she wasn't (pp 7 -10).

The positive effects of using "centering" were widespread and contagious. Some of Herzog's students taught it to their families and improved the atmosphere at home (pp 29, 58-59). Some parents were so impressed by their child's improvement that they asked to sit in occasionally on these exercises (pp 55-57). Not everyone benefited from the exercises right away. Some students took several months to train themselves to sit still and just concentrate. Others needed clarification of what was actually expected and accepted of them. Many needed encouragement to pretend or imagine during the exercise. Surprisingly, having them imagine their mothers hugging them usually opened the gates and brought great progress (pp 47). Disruptive students whose families were in turmoil seemed to take to meditation right from the start (pp 74). In fact, Herzog found that many of her students spent many hours at home alone because their parents had to work (pp 77). Lacking parental guidance, the centering exercises help these children to be more productive and less helpless. The practice helped Herzog personally as well. She was able to teach with more confidence and enjoy herself in her work (pp 62).

As promised by the original lecture, meditation did increase the students ability to concentrate and helped several below performing students improve their skills. One student seemed unteachable for the first two months Herzog had him. He seemed to retain nothing that was presented to him. When he finally managed to keep his eyes closed and body still during the centering exercises, a great change came over him. "It was as if he had heard and learned everything during all the previous lessons had taught him, but could not concentrate long enough to show me what he knew."(pp 26)

Bibliography

• Hernandez, D. & Myers, D. E. (2003). Revolutions in Children's Lives. In Skolnick, A. S. & Skolnick, J. H., (Eds.), Family in Transition (pp 263 - 272). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Herzog, S., (1982). Joy in the Classroom, Boulder Creek: University of the Trees Press

Adult Intelligence

I'll need to look into this more, because in my last class we did have some required reading that did show that intelligence could be improved in later years through effort. Not just knowledge, but the ability to manipulate it. I do know that physiologically myelination does not stop until about the 70s.

From Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldman, R. D. (2004). "Physical and Cognitive Development in Late Adulthood." Human Development - Ninth Edition (pp. 459). New York: McGraw-Hill.

"Does intelligence diminish in late adulthood? The answer depends on what abilities are being measured, and how. Some abilities, such as speed of mental processes and abstract reasoning *may* decline in later years, but aspects of practical and integrative thinking tends to improve throughout most of adult life (Sternbreg, Grigorenko, & Oh,2001). And although changes in processing abilities may reflect neurological deterioration, there is much individual variation, suggesting that declines in functioning are not inevitable and may be preventable."

"Measuring older adults' intelligence is complicated. A number of physical and and psychological factors may lower their test scores and lead to an underestimation of their intelligence." - as measured by the WAIS. The next few paragraphs explain why the WAIS does not give accurate results for older adults. One of the reasons being a lack of interest and motivation. Others are higher amount of test anxiety, poor vision, high blood pressure, etc.

Apparently many gerontologist are now using the dual-process model of intelligence. They break processes down into crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. Fluid Intelligence is the ability to solve novel problems that require little or no previous knowledge. Example: seeing a pattern in asequence of numbers. Crystallized Intelligence is the ability to remember and use information acquired over a lifetime. Example: finding a synonym for a word.

You might say that the first one is intelligence and the second is knowledge, but you would be inaccurate in your definitions. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use and integrate the knowledge one already has. One can study and add to it, but if they don't know how to use it, it does not raise their crystallized intelligence.

The fluid does decline for most, but the crystallized continues to improve. The Seattle Longitudinal Study does show that some fluid abilities last until late middle age. Unfortunately, I will have to find the study to see which ones, because my text didn't list them.