Pedagogical Problem

So, I have a relatively important decision to make before I finalize my syllabus for my Calculus I classes, and, since my friends contain a statistically significantly higher proportion of educators than the general population, I thought I would solicit some outside opinions. Accordingly, please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts in the comments, if you have some to contribute, as this is the purpose of this post. I may not follow advice received, but I always consider it.

My problem is thus: the course grade contains a portion allotted to weekly work. Homework and quizzes are the two main options. Last time I taught this course I opted for the default of quizzes, because it was the recommended option and it was the first time that I taught the course. However, despite my emphasizing the importance of working through the, non-graded, homework problems, I do not believe much of my class did, and I think their grades suffered consequentially. I could continue with this method, since their grade is, ultimately, their responsibility, however I am tired of feeling like I am failing my students, and would like to take a less scorched earth approach this year.

One option, and this is the one which I am currently favoring, is to inform them that the quiz problems will be selected from the suggested homework problems. This seems like it might provide added incentive for students to work the homework problems, as well as assist them in knowing how to study for the quizzes. On the other hand, however, it means that the quizzes will not be as representative of the exam, which is what I normally like to do with them, as on the exam I try to ask questions that emphasize what I think is important from the material.

What I had decided to do prior to thinking about it during the course organizational meeting was to simply have them submit the homework problems then grade an unannounced subset. If I am mainly trying to get them to do the homework, why introduce the middle man in the form of quizzes was my train of thought. Since there are so many homework problems, it would be incredibly time consuming for me to grade all of them, thus the unannounced subset bit. However, it occurred to me that this might still be hard for me to do efficiently if homework was messy. Thus I would have to impose some organizational requirements, which, although salutary for my students as budding mathematicians, would likely require a lot of effort on their part to implement for all the homework questions. In the end this seemed likely to result in more work for my students than simply allowing them to do the homework in whatever form makes sense to them then having them take additional quizzes.

Finally, I considered doing a hybrid of homework and quizzes. Homework most of the time, as detailed above, but four quizzes on weeks prior to exams. Ostensibly to provide a review, my actual reason for wanting these quizzes was the aforementioned goal of providing them with an example of how I write questions before they see them on the test, since I sometimes consider book problems too insipid to simply mimic.

So, if you have any thoughts on this topic, feel free to leave them with me :)

Assuming neither decision seems more likely to hurt other people, is it better to do the right thing for the wrong reason, or to abstain from doing the right thing out of respect for its intended spirit? Discuss:

We're Planning a Party!

As post 100 continues to creep closer, I have been wondering what I want to do with these last few posts leading up to it and with my 100th post. In my next couple of posts I want to write up some ideas I have had for a while. While my blog idea list continues to expand more than it shrinks, I would like to put out the third and final (planned) post in my Kantian respect and in my philosophy of pop music series.

That will take me up to post one hundred. As for that post, while I have some ideas, I also would like to know if you have any thoughts. It is clear to me that the main reason I have stuck with it so long, albeit erratically, is the pleasure I get from reading your responses, especially those that present a new perspective from which to view the situation, or expand on a point I may have overlooked.

It is not often that someone as inherently flighty as I am puts this much effort into a personal hobby; there is an embarrassingly bad set of webcomics to attest to that, and even my math blog has been lacking in updates lately. That I made it this far is because this isn't just a personal hobby to me, this is a shared undertaking. So, it only makes sense that I at least invite you to help plan my 100th post, since you have already helped me get to a place that I can talk about writing it.

I check my pageview stats slightly obsessively, because it is nice to know that what I write is being read. However, in addition to corrupted data from reporting computerized accesses, by SpamBots and the like, pageviews cannot tell me how much people are thinking about a post. To gauge that I basically rely on comments. Nothing heartens me more than to see commenters engaging in discussions independent of my participation in the comment thread.

If you have a thought regarding the 100th post, please feel free to leave it. And, as always, feel free to respond if you feel the urge! I'm sure I'll say it again in a couple of days, but it bears repeating, thank you for getting me this far!

Administrivia

A couple of quick notes. I remain firmly committed to keeping my updates to the at most one per day rule. Since I would like it if people read and thought about every one of them, it seems that one a day may actually be too fast a tempo. However, you may notice I make exceptions, this happens when I post something I don't particularly care if people think about, although I still like being read ;). These administrative posts are one example, nothing much deep happening here. Another was the poem yesterday, I like it and all, but, in my opinion, it really isn't deep thought provoking. So, that's just a heads up as to where I'm at in regards to update schedule.

Like I said, I like to believe that I am being read. The main way I achieve that is through your feed back. Sure, when I have time off I obsessively stalk the stats page, gazing longingly at the page view count, but since my cynical side assumes most of those are bots or other automatic processes sizing up my turf, I don't put a ton of stock in it. So, if you are not commenting out of some mistaken belief that what you have to say is not relevant or worthwhile, please feel free to comment, I love comments. If you don't want to take the time, please do not feel obligated too! But, if there is something you feel like saying but you aren't sure, as long as it is polite (and I don't mean you have to agree with me, in fact, I kind of prefer when people don't), go ahead and post it.

On a related note, I love feed back where ever it comes from, I especially like it when it is on the post itself. The reason for this is that, ideally, other people will respond not only to my post, but to the comments already on it, and we can get a discussion going, and discussions are some of my favorite things in the whole world; deep conversations and dancing, my two favorite activities. Of course, I understand that in the past there have been issues with posting comments for some reason, or maybe you just don't feel comfortable doing so, or just don't want to. This is, of course, fine. If you want to post a comment, but find yourself unable to, if you get it to me in another way and tell me that you want it posted, I will post it under your first name, or whatever moniker you prefer.

Finally, although I'm whittling down my backlog of blog topics, I still have a selection available. So, I was going to see if people have any preference which they see first. However, I will describe them in my own vague style, where a post about value, commercialization, and Monsanto is actually about a call to my Grandma. So, the choices you have are my third post on music videos about the song Dead and Gone, my third post on Kant's categorical imperative about homeless people, a post about football, or a post about public transit. I may do a post about Facebook next, because it is timely (I was going to do it tonight, but this is actually turning into a substantial post, so probably tomorrow), but, if people express a preference, it will be the first of the four options that I get to. That should be enough for today, have a good night!

Capcha

I am irritated every time I have to enter a Captcha code to comment on a blog. After all, I know that I am human! Also, I sometimes forget to do the Captcha then don't comment. This is why my blog, currently, does not require a Captcha.

However, I do get a fair amount of SpamBot generated commenting. This isn't something I mind much, Blogger is fairly good about recognizing it and quarantining it, so I don't even need to delete it. I am disappointed to see an E-mail about a comment, then realize there is nothing personal and interesting in the comment. Since I encourage people to subscribe to the comment thread for posts that they comment on, it occurs to me that you too might suffer disappointment when disingenious comments are made.

So, I am opening it up to your input, what do you think about Captcha requirements to post on the blog? If people make a good argument for them, I'll implement them. After all, it isn't as though I'd need to verify my own comments, I think...

Education Remuneration

A while back, as I opined against merit based pay for educators, Max commented as follows:

Kenny, I would like to hear your thoughts on the tenor of the debate surrounding teacher salaries and how to get rid of "bad teachers" and motivate "good teachers." I personally imagine that the character of the lazy tenured-teacher is a rarely realized as the myth of the welfare queen, driving around in her pink Cadillac fueled by government handouts and the tax dollars of true-blue hard-working citizens. Is this scapegoat a threat, Kenny, or a smokescreen?

Since I am a big fan of comments, I try to address requests made therein, either further along in the comment stream or in an... eventual... post of its own. This one seemed worthy of the latter.

Let me first note that I may be guilty of the same arrogance in success of the ex-smoker scoffing at how addicting cigarettes are, but no matter how personally invested in their classes my teachers seemed, they seemed uniformly willing to encourage my exploration if I showed an interest in the material. As my sister recently reminded me, I had a class where I would turn in an entire semester's worth of work two weeks before the end of the semester, because it was accepted late up until that point, but in that same class I would enjoy the discussions, ask questions, and learn quite a bit. This, perhaps, colors my view of merit based pay and apathetic tenured-teachers.

I think that it is much more important to motivate students to learn, something a teacher has limited control over, rather than to motivate teachers to teach. However, I would like to change some aspects of the teaching profession. Most fundamentally, I would make teaching qualifications much more demanding than they apparently are. Requiring mastery in a subject before one is permitted to teach it would serve the purpose of giving teachers greater ability to explain to their students in a coherent and well informed manner and, as with any increase in standards, serve to weed out those who view teaching as an easy, fall back, career.

Along similar lines, I think making salary decisions based on demonstrated mastery of their subject, rather than highest level degree achieved in general, would be beneficial. My impression thus far, having spent the better part of 20 years in scholarly settings, is that the only people who don't consider Education classes a joke are people who teach Education classes. Encouraging deeper knowledge in a applicable field seems more useful and likely to further weed out roustabouts. Replacing pedantic Education classes with some manner of apprentice/mentor relationship seems like a worthwhile consideration as well.

Of course, considering that we experience teacher shortages as it is, one might ask how is it even possible to continue raising the bar? And here the issue of salaries come in. If we want to attract more people with a good educational standing into the teaching field, we need to better compete with the opportunities that they have in other fields. Granted, the calling to be a teacher may, in some measure, balance against the money one can make in other endeavors, but being able to support one's family is pleasant.

There you go Max, I hope you feel better soon!

Consciousness Step 2: Chinese Rooms, Zombies, and the End of all that is Good

In this second entry to the series I reference several concepts introduced in my first post on consciousness. For the interested newcomer confused at what I mean, I recommend reading the creatively named Consciousness Step 1.

I believe that I mentioned the reason I wandered back into philosophy of consciousness is my twitter name, ChineseRoom, so it seems only fitting that I explain what the Chinese Room is. Last entry I noted that the field of artificial intelligence is significantly related to the study of consciousness. One of the proposed methods for attaining artificial intelligence is to create a program with a complicated enough command structure that it would be able to respond to input as though it were actually thinking for itself. While this might create the appearance of intelligence, the Chinese Room is a thought experiment originated by John Searle that attempts to show why this would not be actual intelligence.

Imagine, if you will, a closed room, containing a person who speaks only the English language, a massive rulebook, a file system, and a slot. Through the slot cards containing Chinese characters are dropped into the room, and the person follows appropriate rules from the rulebook to choose cards from the filing system and push them out the slot in a specified order. The rulebook is so advanced that, to a Chinese speaker outside the room, it appear as though they are carrying on a conversation in Chinese with someone within the room, however Searle asserts that the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese in any sense. The metaphor is that, even if we can give a computer appropriate commands to appear intelligent, it does not necessarily gain intelligence.

While there is much of interest to be said about the Chinese Room, and many arguments and counter arguments about its validity, I think we should move on, because the next topic is the always interesting one of zombies. However, to a philosopher a zombie often means something slightly different than the usual shambling brain eater. If you remember back to our last discussion of consciousness I characterized it as experiencing things, which we called qualia. The zombie appears to be exactly the same as you and I, responding to the world just as you would expect a human to, except the zombie lacks consciousness and experiences nothing.

The Chinese Room is a good analogue of a zombie. Although the Chinese speaker gets responses as though the room were actually carrying on a conversation in Chinese, the room is not holding a conversation, but rather acting out a complex system of preset rules. So while a zombie might stand staring at the glory of a sunset, they do so because that is a reasonable human response to the situation, not because the beauty of the fading sunlight, because beauty requires someone to experience it, and the zombie is incapable of such a role.

One of the disturbing things about philosophical zombies is that it is entirely possible that they exist and walk amongst us unnoticed. Since they are programmed to behave completely as though they were conscious, we could not pick them out from conscious humans by observing their actions. This is what is known as the problem of other minds. Assuming for the moment that you are conscious, you know that because you are aware of your own experiences, but you have no way of verifying that the rest of us are experiencing things, or merely responding as though we had experienced something. The famed computer scientist Alan Turing noted that, since we are conscious, we tend to politely assume that those who act as though they also are conscious actually are, but this is by no means a guarantee.

To wrap up, I would like to leave you with a scenario of my own. Suppose at some point in the near future we believe we solve the problem of uploading human minds into artificial hardware, that is into computers. However, upon uploading the mind we do not actually create a conscious mind, but rather a zombie or Chinese Room, something that acts entirely as though it was still experiencing, but instead was just recording facts, or quanta, and responding appropriately. Since it acts as though it was still conscious, we would have no way of knowing that the program in fact had no experiences, and we might well go through with uploading the human race, in order that we might live forever as machines. In doing so we would destroy all experience of beauty or goodness, leaving only cold computational algorithms mimicking the actions of one who could experience such things.

The questions for further thought that I can come up with are as follows. Many opponents of Searle's argument assert that, while the man inside the room does not understand Chinese, the system actually does understand Chinese, what do you think they might mean by that? Do you think that philosophical zombies are currently walking the world? Finally, if we were to destroy all experience and leave only computation, what, if anything, would be lost? As always I hope this was thought provoking and you are welcome to leave your responses or further questions in the comments below.

Feedback Appreciated

Well, today is the last day of August, and as things end other things begin. When things begin, I often wonder how they should go. So, today I thought the question should be, how do you want this blog to go? I have some specifics that I have been considering, so I thought that I would run them by you.

The current format is a post with content I find interesting on Fridays (Philosophical Friday), and questions on Tuesdays (Response Tuesday). How is that working for you? I have trimmed out my more frequent updates in hopes of not giving readers content shock, but there are some things I have been considering adding. If I do add some stuff, I could add it here, and you could read it at your own discretion, or I could create a separate blog to segregate posts by topic.

Some of the topics I have considered giving voice are my daily life and religion. Also, I enjoyed having a theme in July, but when August's theme flopped *nasty glare at people who didn't suggest topics* I found I had fun making a post on a topic of my choice, like Find Your Song. So, I have considered putting one day in for topical thought provoking posts and one for a post of my whimsy.

So, if I did all of these and did them on my Blog my schedule might look something like the following. My Life Monday, Topical Tuesday, Response Wednesday, Theological Thursday, Free Choice Friday. Of course, that might be a lot of content to churn out, especially during the school year, but I could adjust things so I wrote on MWF one week and TTh the next.

So, my question to you is twofold. First, what content sounds interesting? Secondly, should I add it to this blog, or segregate it by topic?

Oh, if you happen to be stuck in a training meeting all day, here's a more open ended question to chew on. This occurred to me while driving past a log-truck filled with lumber. Specifically, are dead trees still trees? More generally, consider the boundaries of nouns, how do you tell when one "leaves" the category a noun describes? Are cats still "cats" after they die, are lions "cats", are stuffed animal cats "cats"?

An Important Question

Well, since I took an algebra qual yesterday, I was going to be a jerk and ask some strange algebra question, to get back at all the people who ask, "Math, what do you study in math anyway?" But they probably don't read this anyway. If you are interested, feel free to find the Galois group of x^4-5 over the rationals.

Anyway, then I had a friend ask for a question. I doubt he wants to spend his afternoon researching abstract algebra to the point that he can answer this question, so I must provide a better question.

A while ago I was reading a book, called Looking For Alaska, wherein the characters were asked to write an essay for their religious class. The subject of the essay, as best I can recall as it was a library book I have since returned, was for them to give what they think is the most important question about our human experience and how the religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam attempt to answer this question.

In thinking about this topic, I decided that the most important question I could come up with is, "What is important?" We are allotted limited time upon this earth and knowing what is important is essential to prioritizing that time and avoiding regrets. I have a fairly good idea how Christianity and Islam answer this question, so I am more interested in how you would answer the question.

For those of us who may be stuck in teacher training, I'm making this Tuesday a real time-killing doozy, multiple hard questions for your consideration. Listed starting with the ones I'm most interested in hearing your answers. What do you think is important to prioritize in life? What are important questions about our existence for us to consider, and why? If you come up with another question, how do religions attempt to answer it? How do religions attempt to answer what is important (emphasis on Buddhism, since I have no idea how they would answer it, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on Christianity and Islam if you want to share them? And finally, if G is a p-group, why does G necessarily have a non-trivial, abelian, factor group?

Ha, ok, I couldn't help myself. That last one is a question from the qual I couldn't answer, so if you can please explain. Spell checker not knowing abelian is a word loses Chrome some of my respect. If you think about these questions I would be interested in hearing your thoughts!

Question Time

I need to sleep, but I owe you a question. Compromise, I shall ask a question but not answer it. This isn't just in the name of unconsciousness, I also don't really have a good answer right now. Anyway, my question to you is two-fold. First, are truth and fact the same thing? And secondly, if not, why?

What is Altruism?

I just realized that it was Tuesday, so I should have put up a question. This one might actually deserve a Friday, but I need something about which to write, so here it goes. The question at hand comes from Frank, and asks, paraphrased, if it is possible to be completely altruistic?

I used to think the answer was no, and that everything we did is done for self serving reasons. My reasoning was that even the most self sacrificing saint does what they believe is right, and thus gains personal satisfaction from that. However, when called on to examine the question again, I realized that I might need a more complex understanding of what altruism is.

Previously I had considered it to be doing something for little or no personal benefit, and thus complete altruism was impossible because everything we do benefits us in some manner. Instead, here I shall amend the definition to something along the lines of how altruistic an act is depends on the degree to which the needs of others inform how we form our desires. That is, an act that we derive enjoyment from can still be altruistic if our enjoyment is derived by attempting to meet the needs of others, rather than focusing on our own needs.

In this case, I do believe that highly altruistic actions do exist. Indeed, most good parents will be completely altruistic to their babies. Of course, problems can still arise when the perfect altruist misconceives the needs of others, but I do believe in perfect altruism in principle.

What do other people think, both about my definition, and whether perfect altruism exists? When answering, feel free to use my definition of altruism or another that you specify.

Motivation

First off, you should be motivated to go back to last Tuesday and answer the question, after answering this question. Today's question is, are your motivations, professionally and for hobbies, are intrinsic of instrumental?

I talked with Max, trying to nail down what he meant by internal or external, and could not get it to my satisfaction, so I have changed the question slightly. To a philosopher, something with intrinsic value is done for its own sake, while something with instrumental value is done to accomplish another task. Thus someone who volunteers at a soup kitchen to help the homeless is probably finding intrinsic value, the act is of itself worthwhile. One who volunteers to impress a lovely young lady is getting instrumental value out of the action. A concert pianist might get both from playing, assuming they enjoy it there is intrinsic value, but they can also make a living, which is instrumental.

Ok, that's the question, you should answer it, or at least just think about it, because it is an interesting question. My own answer, starting with professional. Most of what I do professionally is instrumentally motivated, which, for those in the know, is probably a big factor with how unsatisfied I have been feeling with what I'm doing. My actual work, teaching, is almost completely instrumental, for the living I get, and out of a sense of obligation to the students (I'm not a monster ;)). Once my classes get rolling, my motivation is mostly instrumental, for grades and such, but I keep taking the maximum course load, and not out of any need to get credits or the like, so there is a measure of intrinsic motivation there (that is, there is empirical evidence that on some level I still am interested in math).

My hobbies, on the other hand, are mostly intrinsically motivated. Reading is probably entirely intrinsically motivated, although there are some neat results that you get from reading, they aren't why I do it. Writing here is a mix. I do it even when I get no feedback, which indicates a measure of intrinsic value, and one of my goals with my writing inspire your own thoughts and edification, regardless of whether I hear about it, so more intrinsic. However, writing is more rewarding when I receive feedback or you share the thoughts you have about my topic, extrinsic. On the other hand, one of my goals from the feedback is to better create posts that you want to think about, intrinsic.

There's my answer, and I would like to hear yours for a variety of reasons. Been busy, so haven't posted much outside my scheduled Tuesdays and Fridays, don't know if that will continue. First post of Response August sometime Friday or Saturday, I have evening plans, so if I don't get it up early it will either go up late or sometime Saturday. I am still looking for more post suggestions, but lacking that I will redo my Atheists are Immoral Animals post. Considering the disagreement I got, I think a restatement could be safely considered something you have requested.

What Now?

Since my posts this month have not generated much dissent, I shall assume that most people agree that women face some societally created hurdles which men, for the most part, do not have to leap. Making yet another assumption, that you would like to see this changed, the question of how to progress toward a more equitable future seems quite relevant.

So, I ask you, how can each of us, as an individual, contribute to a more equitable future for women?

"What," you may be wondering, "is he doing asking us a question, this isn't Tuesday?" But rest assured, I am asking because I think the answer is important, and important to get from many people to obtain a variety of viewpoints. I also ask because I do not consider my own answer to be sufficient.

My personal answer is to contribute to a more equitable future by doing my best not to be inequitable personally. There are two components to this, one is to seek information about women's perspectives and priorities. Note that this is not a monolithic subject, one does not have a simple, cardboard-cutout worldview and opinion solely because one is a woman, nor should one, which is a main point of my post about women in politics. Once you are aware of the practices that many women view as dis-empowering, do your best no avoid them, the practices not the women.

Some common examples that come up repeatedly include, not assuming that because you know someone is a woman, that you know their opinion on abortion or whether they voted for Hillary Clinton in 2008. As noted above, women are capable of coming to their own conclusions, which may not parrot popular perception of women's priorities. Of course, men suffer, perhaps less frequently or pronouncedly, a similar fate. As I noted when discussing the importance of feminism, both genders benefit when we take the time to consider others as complex individuals rather than copies of a prototype. That said, we should not assume it is a panacea to treat women like men. Women are acculturated much differently than men (please assume when I make sweeping statements like these I mean, "in general" or "on average") so treating women exactly like men would lead to inequitable results. For example, men tend to be more assertive in their communication style, which can lead to women being left out of intergender conversations, unless the woman has overcome her acculturation to be supportive and agreeable, or the men make an effort to provide an environment where the women feel comfortable sharing their views. In short, try to respect people equally, treat people equally, but don't assume that means treating them the same.

Now, I think that if everyone held this point of view, simply doing this would be sufficient. However, since there are institutions that resist the shift toward equitability, it seems desirable that we should, in addition to trying to live in an equitable manner, make attempts to reform these institutions. How we might do this is where my ability to answer runs out, so I must ask you for your opinion on how one might go about reforming these institutions.

Thank you for a good Feminist July, as always, comments make my heart smile.

Why Am I Here?

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Californian, the first person to answer my question, "about what would you like to see me write?" by suggesting, "Kenny, I'd like to know how you got from 'here' to there. You know, middle school in Newport all the way to Michigan and a doctorate program." I have decided to procrastinate housekeeping at least one more post, because I believe that feedback should be encouraged, since I want it.

This is a hard question to answer, since life is an incredibly complicated thing and many factors play into each decision, so I acknowledge that my answer is less an answer to your question and more my opinion on why I am here, which is my best attempt to answer the question.

A very important and early influence upon my path is the importance my parents placed on academics and learning. The fact that they were often employed at the school I attended led to an inevitable involvement by them in my education. So much so that, by the time I got to Middle School, where your question begins, they were much more hands off, having instilled the value of education early they were able to nudge me along the track, rather than metaphorically hold my hand anymore. Much of the credit belongs to them, thank you.

Reinforcing my parents were the wonderful teachers that I was exposed to along the way. There is a reason that through most of middle and high school my planned job was teaching, I was shown wonderful examples of what effect educators could have on my life. Although I did run into teachers who seemed less enthusiastic about their jobs, I cannot think of a single teacher who failed to meet my interest with corresponding suggestions about their subject. My advice to people who are in classes of some sort, and I also advise you to be in classes of some sort, is to express your interest in the subject in some fairly obvious way to your instructor. I can vouch, both from experiences as a student and as an educator, that if your instructor seems like they are phoning it in, finding a pupil that is genuinely interested is a wonderful and nigh irresistible call to satisfy that pupil's curiosity. In summary, great educators inspire students by being themselves, but even a mediocre educator will be inspired by inquiring students.

Finally, although their contribution was less personal than that of my parents and teachers, I would not be here without the generosity of many people who I will never meet. The people who endow scholarships or give math departments money to hire people definitely deserve mention. I don't know exactly who these people are in my specific case, but if you participate in such activities you make it possible for many students, myself and most of my college friends included in this group, to realize their goal of a college level education, thank you very much.

Speaking of friends, their support and commiseration has been invaluable in getting through rough patches and making the goal seem worthwhile, and the journey, as a whole, palatable. These are the people who I credit with where I am today, but there are some factors in my own life I think also affected me getting to here.

I really do enjoy learning, this may be the result of my parents and teachers but it deserves its own mention because I think it had a lot to do with my decision to continue to grad school. The choice between finding a "real" job in a depressed, and depressing, economy and continuing on to a job which required me to continue to engorge my brain, the preferred choice was obvious. I also had a rigorous academic work ethic, instilled by my parents to be sure, which grad school blew into a thousand tiny pieces.

My ineptitude socially has also been an academic asset I would say. This is not to say that one cannot be both popular and academically successful, I know people who are, but my feelings of unpopularity contributed to my academic success. Not in the obvious way of leaving me more time to devote to my studies, I have never had trouble finding something else to do with my spare time. Rather, I had something to prove to my peers. I wasn't trying to get them to notice me, or shame them for excluding me, which I don't think they did intentionally, now or at the time,. I was just trying to find my place, if I wasn't going to be well-liked I needed something to tack my self-worth to, and since I did well academically that seemed a logical candidate. Not particularly healthy, perhaps, but I believe effective.

Also, the fact that I am a social klutz helped me go to grad school. While I feel a bit more socially gratified than I did as a child, I have a Blog, so you can disagree with that if you desire, moving across the country to attend grad school is not as complicated as it would be, say, for someone in a serious relationship with another person. Not that leaving my friend circle behind hasn't been a sacrifice, hence the Blog, and I should note that a few of my colleagues are married, one even had a baby this summer(!), and a couple others are in ostensibly healthy relationships, but being single made this decision at least half as challenging as it would otherwise have been.

So there you have it, I am here because I had great support as a child and because I am a bit messed up, which is OK. In your question you go on to say that my story is anomalous, and I am unsure how true that is. From my class in Newport we sent someone to MIT, and another to Harvard, and I'm sure a bunch of other students to well qualified but less celebrified schools. I know of at least one other student from my class of WHS who is getting a doctorate of some flavor, at least one master's student, though I think there are more, and many who attended some university or another. So, don't sell short the education that we received, I think that we are doing just fine. Thanks again for the question, hope the answer wasn't to enormous, now I'm going to go for a walk.