Month: January 2011

Protesters’ uniform

Part of an Egyptian pamphlet created as a guide to protesters. Image links to the original, Arabic version.

This guide for the modern protester was created, in Arabic, as part of a guide for the for the protesters in Egypt. It’s amazing just how much it tells, not just about the protesters, but about the people and equipment, as well as their goals. I particularly like that, next to the scarf to protect from tear gas, and the pot lid to defend against rubber bullets and battons, there is also a rose:

A rose so we can show that we can do as we ought to and join together in the most peaceful way possible.http://montessorimuddle.org/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=3932&type=image&TB_iframe=1&width=640&height=578
— Unknown author (2011). Translated from the Egyptian protest pamphlet

The Guardian also has another picture from the pamphlet in an article that really tells a lot about the authors’ objectives.

Potential protesters from Egyptian leaflet.

(Via the Daily Dish)

Notes on Daniel Pink’s Drive

Introduction

Introduces the idea of intrinsic motivation.

  • Describes Harlow and Deci‘s original studies that came up with the idea of intrinsic motivation. Note: Maslow (of Hierarchy of Needs fame) was Harlow’s student.
  • Three basic types of motivation (drives):
    • Motivation 1.0: Biological (need for food, drink, sex)
    • Motivation 2.0: Extrinsic (e.g. getting paid)
    • Motivation 3.0: Intrinsic

Chapter 1: Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Motivation

1. Wikipedia: a success almost entirely because contributors are willing to invest their time and energy for no reward; the very definition of intrinsic motivation.

  • Note: Despite my own challenges with students using Wikipedia as a reliable source, we use our own classroom Wiki extensively. Giving students projects with a clear goal in mind, but great freedom in execution (like the choose your own adventure stories), seems to tap into the same spirit that motivates the Wikipedia contributors.

2. Social operating systems: the basic, often invisible, assumption on which society runs.

  • Note: Good metaphor, but he explains it as if the development of our understanding of motivation paralleled human evolution/development. Pre-social humans were driven primarily by the biological imperative, like large animals still are, he claims. I am very uneasy about this sort of lazy extrapolation given how much we’re learning that differences between humans and animals are no where near where we thought they’d be, particularly given the social organization of many animals. He also ignores cross-cultural differences: different societies value self-actualization and other intrinsic motivation characteristics much differently than the WIERD one he seems to be describing.

3. Introduces behavioral economics (mentions Ariely): Humans are not anywhere near to being ideal, rational economic agents.

4. During the industrial revolution, work was mostly algorithmic (a worker could follow a clearly defined set of steps to get their job done), while now it’s mostly heuristic (workers have to come up with new things).

  • algorithmic work is being replaced by software and outsourced really fast (that’s globalization for you)
  • p. 30 – U.S. job growth – 30% algorithmic, 70% heuristic.
  • Note: Pink claims that heuristic work can’t be outsourced “generally”. He apparently wrote a book about it: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. I may have to get that one, because, while I can see automation eliminating most algorithmic work, I don’t know why heuristic work is so difficult to outsource. Certainly there are local, cultural issues that would make things like advertising campaigns difficult for outsiders (and teaching would probably be hard to outsource too because most people don’t want to send their kids overseas for school), but a lot of other stuff is not that difficult for some creative person somewhere else to do; the world is, after all, Flat. Heuristic jobs are still going to be more abundant than algorithmic, but going heuristic no magic bullet: global competition is still going to be a major factor in the future.

Chapter 2

Baseline rewards: the basics people need in a job that earns them a living. Salary, a few perks, some benefits etc.

  • Below baseline rewards there is little motivation.
  • Above baseline rewards extrinsic rewards can be counterproductive.

Work vs. Play: Mark Twain: “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

When rewards don’t work:

  • When they are expected (see also post on Praise and Rewards) (called contingent rewards). If you do this, you’ll get this, does not work.
  • Deci et al., 1999: “tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation.”

(to be continued)

Cognitive diversity in the classroom

Since different student learn better in different ways, would it make sense to separate schools and classes by different learning styles? A countervailing argument, and the one upon which my Montessori middle school program (which is based on the Coe model) is predicated, is that students need to learn about different ways of learning and be able to interact with peers with different learning styles because creative endevours, especially in the future, will rely heavily on making connections between diverse fields and groups. The importance of having students interact in a diverse environment is particularly important if we can observe that students will, eventually, self-select in different fields based on their native talents, which are related to their learning styles. Students with a mathematical aptitude may tend to become engineers, more so than their peers.

So intellectual and cognitive diversity is important, yet the program also requires some uniformity. I’ve heard that, in general, students without experiences in Montessori-like environments can have a hard time adapting to the Montessori Middle School because we expect an awful lot of independence and time management that students are often not exposed to in traditional schools.

At any rate, accounting for learning-style diversity is essential, and sometimes I wonder if today, with so many more opportunities and temptations available for early specialization, if we’re not seeing further diversification in the cognitive continuum. What precisely is the point where students should begin to specialize. Matt Might model (pictured below) has specialization of education beginning at college, but it really starts earlier, at least in high school, but I wonder where the is the most appropriate initiation actually is. Historically, at least, kids were apprenticed at a very early age.

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D. by Matt Might.

Islands of peace in a revolution

From the Guardian’s live feed of the uprising in Egypt:

A protester approaches the police to organize a cease-fire for the evening prayer. (Screengrab from Al Jezeera via The Guardian)
Prayer as protest (via The Daily Dish)

And who are the police? Who’s side are they on?

An Egyptian anti-government activist kisses a riot police officer following clashes in Cairo. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP (via The Guardian live updates)

It reminds me of this picture from the protests last November in London over university tuition increases:

Schoolgirls join hands to peacefully stop attacks on a police van during student protests in London. Photograph: Demotix/Peter Marshall (via The Guardian)

So some questions:

  • What would it take for you to go out and protest (have you done it before)?
  • What would you do under these circumstances?

“The only time anyone fails is when they are scared to try”

“[My father] used to say it was better to fail through lack of ability than lack of effort,” he says. “He also said fear of failure was something you had to go through because the only time anyone fails is when they are scared to try.”
— Ian Holloway in The Guardian

One of the things I really like about European (and other) soccer leagues is the relegation and promotion system. It encourages competition, and the dream that one day your small town side can make it up the the big leagues. Or as in Blackpool’s case, return to the top after thirty years in the lower divisions.

When they barely qualified for the top English division last year, it was widely expected that they would set records for most goals conceded, and be the first team to be relegated. But they’ve done well enough. They’re well out of the relegation zone at the moment and have impressed, even though they’re still playing in the smallest stadium and have the cheapest team. So their coach, Ian Holloway, knows something about facing potential embarrassment, and the fear of failure.

Keeping with our theme of graphing for this cycle, here is a graph showing the position of Blackpool in the English football leagues. Each league has about 20 teams so the graph shows a range of about four divisions. (From Wikipedia user Dudesleeper).

Moral Development in the Brain

If someone takes something of yours from your locker, does it matter if they intended to steal, or if they grabbed it by mistake because they thought it was their locker? We see there is a moral difference here, because people’s intentions and beliefs matter. An inadvertent mistake is one thing, but intentionally stealing is another.

We can see the difference, but typically, children under six do not. They see both things as just as bad, because they do not consider intentions.

The temporoparetial junctions. Image by the Database Center for Life Science, via Wikimedia Commons.

A recent study (Young et al., 2010) found the part of the brain that seems to be responsible for the consideration of intentions in moral judgment. This part of the brain, the right temporoparietal junction, develops between the ages of six and eleven.

I find this work fascinating because it implies that adolescents may still be developing the ability for deeper moral judgment when they get to middle school. It would help explain why they will sometimes make the argument that if the outcome did no harm then any transgression does not matter; taking something from someone’s locker is not that important if they get caught at it and have to return it.

Just like adolescents have to exercise our abstract thinking skills in order to fully develop and hone them, students probably need to practice and think about what morality means.

I think I’m going to have to figure out a framework for talking about morality for next cycle’s Personal World.

Note: Another interesting article on the role of the temporoparietal junction in meta-cognition.

Uprising in Egypt

(via The Daily Dish)

What protests look like:

See also:

  • Summary of the last two days’ protests.
  • The United States’ support for Egypt.
  • What happens when you’re arrested by the state security service. (warning: contains one quote with vulgar language)

UPDATE: We just watched the video over lunch, and it actually resulted in a very good discussion. Our morning novel discussions have been useful here, in helping us see the multiple perspectives of the actors in the street protests: the protesters and the police. After all, the police have families too.

I gave a little spiel at the beginning, to set the stage and to point out the potentially historical nature of these protests. Democracy spreading through the middle east has huge implications for a country fighting two wars in the region; not to mention the blowback from these conflicts.

The truth of the anger of the protesters in the video seemed to resonate, making poignant what could have appeared farcical. The music and the Kennedy quote also helped my students identify with these events in such a far off place.

We also touched on the role of the U.S. in supporting the Mubarak government, and the potential of the uprising to lead to an anti-US, muslim fundamentalist government (via the Muslim Brotherhood). We still need to talk about what the US should and can do to support democracy in this situation, which is so full of conflicting imperatives.