You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'

Well, December 16th means that I am halfway through MoBloYoFoMo! And what better way to celebrate than with a clip episode? But, rather than highlight things that I have done, because that would be seriously self-promotional, I think I'll link some of my current favorite YouTube clips, because that sounds like a lot more fun for everyone involved!

I may have linked this one before, I certainly have on Facebook, but I love... er, thoroughly enjoy and derive great pleasure from, it dearly! In fact, I rather prefer this to the original version of the song. The acappella group is On The Rocks, a group from the "other" University in Oregon, but I can't even hold that against them, that is how good this song is:

As you can see, I am experimenting with embedding video, because I am just that fancy! Anyway, moving on we come to a pop mash-up which I found due to a link on Facebook from the eminently musical Tim Karplus of Sounds Like Japan semi-fame. I know I've said this before, but if you are interested in pop music, and enjoy hearing people who know what they are talking about do so in an amusing manner, then you should check out his blog. Regarding the video, I first heard it almost a year ago, and I was having kind of a tough time, I'm in grad school, you should not be particularly surprised. The upbeat energy and positive message put on repeat really helped me buoy my flagging spirits at times. Yes, I would lie on my office floor and listen to it on repeat. Considering it also contains some of my favorite pop music, some of which I didn't know was my favorite until after I listened to this, I think this is a real winner:

DJ Earworm, the guy who mashed, is that the right verb, this song also came and played a show at MSU last spring. I went for a while, but being by myself in a room of partying strangers has never been my native environment, and got to hear him play this before I left, definitely cool. In case you haven't guessed, I like reinterpretations of pop music. But, enough of that, now for something a little more folksy. This next song is from YouTube music sensation Hank Green, of Vlogbrothers fame. If you see me on Facebook you probably notice I quote and share John Green's videos rather more frequently than Hank's, but this is just because John tends to think about the type of things that interest me more often than Hank does, and has a more eloquent way with words perhaps. But, if you want a song, then Hank is definitely the brother to prefer, so here is one of my favorites from him. Warning, there is slight vulgarity:

Finally, here is a song which I just adore for the instrumentation, although I really like it as a whole. In fact, my only real complaint about this song is that it needs to be a minute or a minute and a half longer. I also wouldn't mind a bridge. I've heard covers that remedy these problems, but they lose the typewriter, and you can never have enough typewriter in a song. I also really enjoy the synthesized organ sound, I think it gives the whole thing a sharp, tightly fitting sound:

Well, I had fun giving myself an excuse to go back and listen to those again, as though I need one, and if you listened as well I hope you enjoyed them too!

It isn't exactly a YouTube clip, but there is a post over at Elf Army Writes that I really enjoy. In addition to containing a Hunger Games pun and being an enjoyable read, it also relates back to an old post about the importance of careful word choice. Ok, looks like I am going to be self-promotional anyway.

Some Fine Avocados!

I was curious how to store avocados, so I used the miracle of modern technology to ask all my Facebook friends, or at least the ones who bother to read my statuses. Of course, I knew that I could look the information up directly on the internet, so why did I ask people? To emphasize this point, as I was walking to school it occurred to me that I should figure out how to store the avocados, and I thought of asking FB, then I wondered why I wouldn't just look it up, and spent a few minutes wondering about that. So it was a thought out choice, even if I'm still not exactly sure why I did it.

One initial thought was that it helps one judge the reliability of the information. After all, how do I know if FoodFreaks dot net has any idea what should be done to store avocados? Note: I do not know what is at the url FoodFreaks dot net, so explore that at your own risk. On the other hand, people with whom I have interacted and will interact with again in the future develop some measure of trust, yes, even my sister.

On the other hand, I don't think that is entirely accurate. I actually have developed a relationship of trust with Google, through past associations and expectations of future interactions, much the same as another human. So if I were to get a site recommended by Google, I would feel fairly confident that the information was fairly accurate. The same could be said of Wikipedia, with which I have a fairly trusting relationship.

No, I think the biggest reason that I ask humans rather than internet sites is that, while we may have a relationship, there can be no sense of sociality with an internet site. When you ask a human they share information, which is fundamentally different than when you ask a computer and they simply present information. I am actually tempted hypothesize that we are not yet adapted to the sheer volume of information available online and we actually prefer it to come in by dribs and drabs from personal sources. This seems like it would be the start of a very interesting conversation with an evolutionary biologist or psychologist, or maybe a sociologist. But, more importantly, if I ever ask you something that I could definitely look up myself, it is probably because I want some human interaction with you. And, on a related note, I don't ever remember being irked when looking up information online to answer someone else's question.

Addendum About Standardized Testing

I am a bit tired today to want to fully flesh out a thought enough to make a blog post that I'd find satisfactory, so instead I'm going to talk a bit more about yesterday's topic, standardized tests, and leave it at that. As part of my preparation for yesterdays post, I read this Washington Post, which had been popping up repeatedly on my Facebook feed. While I liked the anti-standardized test message, I was a bit disturbed at the questions that were labelled too hard.

Of course, who can question that this upstanding administrator could be less than qualified to evaluate what an appropriate math exam might be, despite the fact that "[T]he math section had 60 questions [and he] knew the answers to none of them" After all, "[b]y any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities." I'm not sure if the mathematician in me is more outraged by the questions this administrator cannot answer or the philosopher by the limited methods for measuring success.

I do have to agree with the assessment of the reading test. Often it is not clear which answer is, "best." However, this related article is much more in line with my opinions from yesterday, in fact echoing some of them. Plus, the author is old! That means he must know that about which he is talking, right? Hmm, another reason I may have chosen to omit it yesterday is it seems to bring out the snarky side in me. Oh well.

One Size Fits All!

If you are like me, you feel skeptical any time you see "One size fits all," on an article of clothing. If we question it when it comes to a piece of fabric we intend to drape over ourselves occasionally, why would we accept it when it comes to our education? Yet, is this not what we are doing when we advocate for standardized test and uniform classes?

It is getting to the point where it is difficult for me to talk about education here, simply because I have so many posts on the subject. While I don't wish to assume that you have read all my previous posts, although I egotistically wish that you had, I also don't wish to rehash old thoughts at length. So, in an attempt to compromise between competing necessities, I shall give an overview of a thought when I introduce it, sufficient to get through this post, then link to a more comprehensive post for your further investigation should you so choose.

Of course the idea of "standardizing" tests and making classes "uniform" appeals to our sense of fairness. Casual logic, it seems, supports the idea that if we make everybody do the same thing then we must be treating them fairly. Unfortunately, this seems erroneous. Setting aside more heady problems, like the exact nature of fairness, one might simply note that some people test better than others. Simply picking an arbitrary method of evaluation and then applying that rubric to everyone in no way guarantees fairness. If fairness is not the ultimate goal of standardization, what is then?

I would argue that it is interchangeability. I have previously introduced the idea that education is being industrialized, and just as identical, interchangeable parts make it easy to keep the literal machines of industry running, interchangeable workers make it easier to keep the metaphorical machines of industry running. If position P requires knowledge K to perform correctly and degree D signifies that the degree holder possesses knowledge K, then if the worker holding position P becomes inoperable, replacing them is as simple as finding candidates with degree D. If this all sounds cold, inhuman, and mathematical to you, then welcome to the Enlightenment.

Of course, arguing that something makes the economy run more smoothly does not a justified criticism make, even I will acknowledge that. Even arguing that it causes the devaluation of skilled labor because skilled workers are easier to replace only seems like a first world problem. However, I would argue that it is simply a bad way to educate people.

Consider what forms of thought lend themselves to standardization. Facts are quite standard; no matter who you are, the names and dates of historical figures remain the same, the main character of the Odyssey is unchanged, and the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter will be pi, local legislation notwithstanding. Procedures too remain unchanged; the quadratic formula will give you the roots of a second degree polynomial, one can construct a haiku if they know what a syllable is and have seven fingers, and soda will erupt in a bubbly gyser if a bunch of pills are dumped into it. What is lost is understanding. What a haiku means, what the message of the Odyssey is, even what the significance of the roots of a polynomial is will change from person to person.

Worse still, since we seem to understand that understanding is important, we attempt to brutalize it until it shapes up, gets in line, and conforms. When asked what the main message Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening is the young might say it is about dying, the old that it is about living, and the naturalist about the enduring importance of nature. You cannot standardize understanding because it is as unique as the person doing the understanding, and people are not interchangeable, nor should we be.

So then, if one accepts my hypothesis that standardization is inherently bad and cannot be redeemed by making the tests easier or more relevant, what is to be done? I think a promising beginning would be to alter the nature of evaluation. When I simply talk with my students about mathematics I get a highly subjective idea as to their level of proficiency, which nonetheless is occasionally more accurate than the results I get from exam scores. I also like the idea of group examinations, where classmates are able to teach each other so the exam becomes both an evaluation tool and a learning tool. One could question students individually afterwards on the content of their answers to make sure all group members understood the groups method for solving the problem.

Even the traditional method of individual test taking could use serious reform. I wrote a rather lengthy post focusing on the fairness issues of giving timed exams. Left to my own devices I would prefer to give students whatever length of time they required on an exam. Personally, I don't feel that extra time is all that helpful, as one will generally know what one is doing or not, but if it would be helpful to the student, why not allow it? Even more radically, why not allow the student to attempt the exam as many times as they need? Of course, not the exact same exam, but one over the same concepts, this is how online tutoring programs such as the Khan Academy pace their students. A dismal exam grade should reflect a dismal understanding of the material, and why would one accept that a student has a dismal understanding of a subject and just move on? The only reason that I can see to move on would be if one had a predetermined goal which all students were supposed to meet by a common deadline, in short, standardization.

Of course, reforms such as these would require great bravery. We would have to trust that educators know what is important and how to determine whether their students have learned it. I think that even the first is problematic, but I can hardly fault them for that, as they themselves are products of a rote education more focused on memorization than understanding. I do believe that our educators are intelligent people capable of actually learning their subjects if given the chance, and I believe the same about their students!

I got the MoBloYoFoMo Blues

The problem with vowing to update a blog every day for a month, aside from the obvious one of forgetfulness, is that you are supposed to update even on days when you are dead tired from grading nearly all day. In fact, if I were one of those normal people who worked 8 hours each day (hmmm, ask fact checker if those people still exist), I would have spent more than a days work just grading exams today. There was a lot of grading, I am still haunted by the trauma llama from all the grading. Anyway, as you may have already guessed, due to these unfortunate circumstances, we shall not be saying anything of note here today. I was going to post some more thoughts about the standardization of education, but having spent the entire day grading uniform finals, I can't. I think that may be ironic, and not the Alanis Morissette kind.

The good thing with vowing to update a blog every day for a month is that you are supposed to even when it is three in the morning and you really should be going to sleep, because sometimes gritting ones teeth and writing a blog post into the wee hours of the morning produces something worth thinking about, but not today.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage

I feel that it is a good rule of thumb for me to take a couple of days to think about my post when I am going to write about gay marriage. Not so much because the subject warrants deep consideration, although it does, I have been known to dash off posts on other topics that also warrant deep consideration. In this case the enforced days of mulling give me not only time to collect my thoughts, but also time to mellow out.

I need such time, because I am angry about the nature of the discussion of gay marriage in our nation! While appeals to emotion, also called pathos, may be an effective argumentative strategy, I don't believe that they are the most ethical method of discourse (an interesting post from a friend I met through dancing on this subject, if you are interested). Furthermore, when discussing something as polarizing as gay marriage, I feel the vitriol that passion can bring out only impedes parties from coming to such common understandings as can be found. In fact, I have already begged off of posting about gay marriage once, on the grounds that I didn't wish to embitter my readers. I actually did post about Proposition 8 elsewhere, and my initial thoughts on the subject and what I actually wrote a day later were quite different in tone. That said, on to the post about gay marriage.

What I wish to address specifically is the religious objections to legalizing gay marriage. Or, even more specifically, how I can think of absolutely no reasonable grounds for a religious objection to legalizing same sex marriages... yes, I am staying calm. This is mostly directed at Christians, both because I hear the most objections from them and because I am most familiar with the content of their objections. If you have objections from a different religious tradition that do not conform to these generalizations I would be most interested in hearing them.

I really do not care what your religious stance on the righteousness of gay marriage happens to be, that is between you, your conscience, your deity, and your religious leaders, or some subset thereof. I don't want to try to argue whether homosexuality is a sin with you, I do not need to! Unless your religion is different than the vast majority of religions, it probably teaches that following another religion is less righteous, in some sense. I think this can even be said to be true of the Quakers and Baha'is, despite both being paragons of tolerance. As such, I think it is likely that you support immoral things being legal, because most Americans appreciate the freedom of religion, even though it allows those immoral "others" to indulge in their less righteous beliefs.

One might argue that it is a harmful lifestyle, both to those who practice it, although as freedom loving Americans this argument does not hold much weight, and to their children, a more compelling argument. While there have been many emotional counterarguments to this point, again, I do not need to refute you. Presumably you believe that being raised without a personal relationship with a loving Savior is also harmful, or a firm indoctrination into the Church's dogmas if one happens to be Catholic, or whatever the analogous benefit is to whatever religious tradition you prefer. Yet we do not try to legislate that Hindi couples, or Jewish couples, or Muslim couples, and so on, not marry and raise children.

You might object that marriage is a sacred religious rite and it cannot be performed on homosexual couples due to its very nature, whatever the laws in place may be. Here I will have to both agree and disagree with you. Yes, marriage is a sacred religious rite, and yes it is reasonable for you to believe that it cannot be performed for same sex couples, although I disagree with that. But no, that is not all that it is. Marriage is also a purely legal and entirely separate secular condition, which must be kept entirely separate if we are to maintain the separation of church and state that is one of the great institutions of our nation. And it is this second, secular form of marriage that I, and most advocates for same sex marriage, am calling for same sex couples to have equal access to.

Ah, and here you think you might find some traction for your slipping arguments against some sex marriage, but won't advocates for same sex marriage take permission to engage in secular marriage and use it to try to legally force churches to marry them in religious ceremonies? Sadly, I think that some will, and I do not think that to do so is right, by the same freedom of religion that I supported above. However, just because someone might take a warranted right and attempt to do something unwarranted with it does not justify withholding the warranted right. And, let me be perfectly clear here, I believe that churches should not be forced to marry gay couples, but I also believe that they should not be forced to accommodate inter-racial marriages, despite the fact that I feel their refusal to do so is morally disgusting, and I feel the same way about a refusal to acknowledge same sex marriages.

Furthermore, the right to refuse service for religious reasons should be restricted to religious institutions, in my opinion. A business has no more right to refuse a gay couple service for their identity than it would to deny a person service for their racial, or political, or gender etc. identity. And, since I cannot think of any more common objections to same sex marriages, I shall end the discussion there for now.

However, on a related note, apparently Lowe's is pulling an ad from a show because objections have been raised to the show focusing on Muslims in the United States. This is yet another example of the market not being guided inherently by a conscience, or anything else with moral relevance, but rather by what people want, or, more accurately, what will affect the bottom line. In response to this villainy some feel the need to legislate morality, forcing Lowe's to put run the ad using some form of anti-discrimination legislation. Again, while I agree with anti-discrimination laws, I do not believe their proper use is to force businesses to run ads on specific shows. However, despite the fact that some people will use said laws in a manner with which I do not agree, I am not advocating that we get rid of said laws altogether. But, if you happen to do business with Lowe's, I would advocate that you consider shopping elsewhere until they repudiate their cowardly and, ultimately, bigoted action and reinstate the ad!

Free Stuff!

Hmmm... I want people to read my blog. People read things they like. People like free stuff. I should give away free stuff! But I don't want to give away free stuff... I should tell you how to GET free stuff!

Somewhat more seriously, I am not feeling up to writing a long post today, so I just thought I'd let people in the Corvallis area know that you might be able to get a free massage by commenting on my sister's blog post. I guess I let people not in the Corvallis area know that as well, but you aren't likely to be able to get the massage, sorry! As a consolation prize, consider wandering around my sister's other blog posts, she says some interesting stuff sometimes, no matter what you find interesting.