Monthly Archives: December 2013

Road Trip Games: I Kill Your Cows!

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It’s good to play social games on long car rides—it helps teach observation, support language and quick processing, and minimize the amount of “screen time” children spend on digital devices during travel. There are lots of good road trip games out there; I learned this one from an old friend. It’s called “I Kill Your Cows!”

“I see 15 of my cows!” (image from Fir0002/Flagstaffotos)

I Kill Your Cows!

I Kill Your Cows, or IKYC, is an observation, strategy, and visual estimation game. You’re trying to become a successful farmer by collecting various forms of livestock; the player with the most livestock wins. Here’s how it goes.

Getting livestock

When driving along in rural territory, you’ll often pass farms with animals. To claim them, you estimate their number and say, e.g., “I see [12] of my cows!”. Whoever speaks first claims the animals, adding them to their personal livestock tallies.

Other players can contest the claim by actually counting the animals and reporting the actual number, e.g., “Actually, those are [15] of my cows!”. If the first player overestimated, they get no new animals and the player contesting the claim gets to keep all the animals instead. Similarly, if there are more animals than the initial estimate, the second player gets to keep them—unless someone contests the new estimate…

You can play with any available living creatures (cows, sheep, goats, horses, dogs, cats, frogs, llamas, whatever) or you can restrict the game to certain species. This depends on house (car?) rules.

Some people play with a rule where you lose all your [species in question] if you contest an estimate and the estimate was accurate.

First comes love, then comes marriage…

If you pass a church/synagogue/municipal office or other location associated with marriage ceremonies, a player may say “I marry my [cows]!”. Each church may only be used once: one church, one player, one species married.

When you marry your [cows], they reproduce, doubling their number. So if Player B has 15 cows, sees a church, and marries the cows, Player B ends with 30 cows.

Interspecies marriage is forbidden in this game. [Cows/horses/etc.] do not retain religious affilation once the marriage is complete; if the 15 [cows] were married at a Catholic church (becoming 30 [cows]), they could get married again (becoming 60 [cows]) at the Jewish synagogue down the street.

Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me…

Time stops for no [cow]. You can slow your competitors’ relentless rise to farming prosperity by killing off their livestock. This is done when you’re the first one to spot a graveyard/cemetery/mausoleum/columbarium/etc. By announcing “I kill your [cows] and put them in the graveyard”, you reset another person’s supply of that animal to zero. One graveyard, one player, one species killed.

House rules differ: some play that when I announce “I kill your [cows]”, I kill the [cows] belonging to all other players; other people play that you must announce your target with “I kill Hollis’s cows”.

You may not kill [cows] that are already dead; recent marriage provides no protection; you may not use church/graveyard proximity to argue that you are raising your [cows] from the dead and returning them to the fold as zombie cattle. No rules lawyering!

Away in a manger

To protect against loss, you can stash your animals safely inside any barns that you pass by saying “I put my [cows] into that barn!”. One barn, one player, one species protected.

Once inside the barn, animals cannot be killed by graveyards, but also cannot get married in any churches. So it’s a calculated risk that protects against loss while stifling growth.

You can remove your [cows] when you pass a second barn by saying “I take my [cows] out of the barn!”. All barns are connected via wormholes that allow instantaneous access to animals placed into previous barns. No rules lawyering! You cannot take animals out of barns until you see a second barn.

Endgame

The game ends when you reach your destination or the players get tired of the game. If you’re playing with multiple species, you need to figure out how you’re going to score the different animals: is a cow worth as much as a horse? Is a sheep worth as much as a llama?

The value of the game

Things taught by I Kill Your Cows:

  • Quick visual estimation of numbers
  • Whether someone’s estimate is sufficiently bad to be worth contesting
  • Careful observation of surroundings: cemeteries are often hard to see, and a careful observer can destroy competitors’ herds by spotting them first
  • Risk management: am I more likely to see a church or a graveyard next? Is it worth the graveyard risk to be able to (potentially) marry my animals and double their numbers?
  • Animal identification
  • Trash-talking: when you kill other people’s herds, some people find it important to utter taunting and/or jeering phrases

I hope you enjoy it! What are some of your favorite road trip games?

How to Survive an Ice Storm

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Northern NY is in the middle of a bad ice storm right now, and we’ve got a “state of emergency” declaration from local and state governments. People often get confused about what they need to do to stay safe during an ice storm, so here’s a quick reference.

Don’t panic

For most people, ice storms don’t present unavoidable safety risks as long as you follow the rules. The big hazards actually caused by ice storms usually come from traveling and from falling ice (or falling trees with ice on them), but the injuries tend to come from people making bad decisions in a hurry.

We had a huge ice storm in 1998 that left much of the North Country without power for 7-30 days. If I recall correctly, there were four deaths in the whole county: one out-of-town electrical worker who died in a bucket truck accident; one person who died accidentally by falling down stairs; and two people who died from unvented fumes from generators.

Few bad things that happen in ice storms pose genuine immediate emergencies—most of the ones that do involve fires in some way. If stuff isn’t on fire, stop and think before taking action. Bad decisions hurt way more people than ice does.

Stay off the roads!

If there’s a travel ban, that means it’s against the law to drive in non-emergency conditions.  Respect this—it’s there for a reason. In 1998, we had huge problems with people trying to drive and getting stuck or getting into accidents.

This is bad for two reasons: one, once you’re stuck or hurt, you now need scarce emergency services to help you; and two, emergency vehicles often can’t get past your damaged car to deal with things like fires.

In any case, you should stay off the roads because it’s the law. In a state of emergency that bans travel, you’re guilty of a class B misdemeanor if you’re found driving (N.Y. EXC. LAW § 24). That carries a sentence of up to three months of jail time. Stay off the road!

If you absolutely must travel because of an emergency, call 911 and ask for help. They may be able to send an emergency vehicle that will be safer and faster.

Beware of fumes and fuel from engines, heaters, candles, and generators

Two of the four deaths in our county in 1998’s storm happened because of people running generators that weren’t properly ventilated, whether running them indoors or inside closed garages. Generators go outdoors.

Many people rely on flames for heating (kerosene heaters), light (lanterns and candles), and cooking (camp stoves) during ice storms and power outages. That’s fine, but you need to ventilate to get rid of fumes. No ventilation? Don’t use them.

If you’re using things that burn liquid fuel (gasoline, kerosene, white gas, etc.), refuel outside.

Finally, if you’re using flame-based tools, keep them away from fabrics and things that can burn. Ceramic plates or aluminum pie plates make good bases for candles, but battery-powered lights are a far better choice.

Don’t use a generator unless you already know how

Every time there’s a major power outage that lasts a long time, people with generators decide to hook up the generators to their house electrical systems, and then electrical line workers get hurt because the power flows back out onto the grid.

The rule here is simple: if your generator is not already set up and wired into your home electrical system before the ice storm begins, don’t connect it. Plug appliances into it directly and don’t wire it into your house system.

Also, remember that you may not actually need electrical power as much as you think. Prioritize things like refrigerators and freezers, and use battery-powered lights.

Watch for power issues

Stay away from downed wires. If you see downed electrical wires, report them to your electrical provider or National Grid (800-867-5222). If you see someone being hurt by electrical wires, don’t touch them–call 911. Don’t touch wires, and don’t drive over them either—there are reports of people being shocked from driving over downed wires.

Be careful moving around your house. If the power’s out, move more slowly (if it’s dark) and just be a little more cautious than usual.

Rely on blankets and warm clothing for heat. Fireplaces aren’t very efficient, so you may be better off keeping the rooms cold and wearing warm clothes and blankets. Ice storms usually don’t happen during seriously cold weather, so the need for heat isn’t usually an immediate threat to life or property.

Put light sources where you can find them easily. Find light sources (flashlights, headlamps, lanterns, then candles—go for fireproof first) and set them out so that you don’t have to rummage for them. Bring any lit candles with you when you move from room to room.

Conserve water and avoid flushing toilets unnecessarily. If you’re not on municipal water, you may not have running water once the power goes out. Fill some bowls or bottles with clean water for drinking, and consider filling your bathtub with water for washing and flushing.

Food safety

Don’t open fridges and freezers unnecessarily. Keep the cold air inside as long as possible! If you have a fridge thermometer, check it whenever you open the fridge and consider throwing out food if the temperature rises above 50 degrees.

Set ice cubes in a bowl on top of the food in your freezer. Frozen food needs to stay cold to stay safe, but how do you know that it didn’t rise in temperature? Stick some ice cubes in bowl on top of the food. If the ice cubes still look like cubes when the power comes back on, you’re good. If they’ve melted, toss the food.

Remember to care for pets. If you’re responsible for feeding and taking care of animals, find a way to keep doing it during the ice storm.

Remove ice from exterior surfaces if you can do so safely

If it’s possible to do it safely, during daylight hours, consider working to remove some of the ice from trees and roofs. This can be dangerous, so I’m not going to talk much about how to go about doing it, but basic things:

  • Don’t stand where falling ice can hit you.
  • Seek firm and stable footing, and if it’s not available, stop.
  • Be aware that trees, once released from ice, can straighten up suddenly, hitting you.
  • Keep an eye out for downed power lines.

Check on neighbors

This is an important community piece, especially if you live near older folks or people with physical disabilities. Call your neighbors to check in and make sure people are doing okay. Once the power’s back on and things return to normal, check in again—a lot of people get sick from eating food that went bad during power outages, and they don’t necessarily notice.

If people need emergency shelter, call 911 and ask the dispatcher for the location of the closest open shelter. They’ll connect you with people who know the answer.

Remember, first and foremost: don’t panic!

(thanks to Steve and Karen Easter for helping me to prepare this list and reminding me of some things we learned during the Ice Storm of 1998)

Atomic Actions

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HollisPipingMaioloReceptionAtomic. adj. Unable to be split or made any smaller; said of an operation that is guaranteed to either complete fully or not at all.

Attention and focus are increasingly scarce commodities these days. We’ve all gotten used to functioning well even though we’re constantly distracted—by cell phones, by other conversations, by the Internet, by books, by the music in our headphones. We’re consuming more simultaneous streams of information than ever before, and we do it all the time. It’s rare to fully pay attention.

Sometimes, though, we need undivided attention. We have tasks where it’s critical to give our best performance. Whether because we’re doing something really difficult (where the cognitive needs are high) or because we’re doing something where failure is not acceptable (like building a rock climbing belay or performing a surgical incision), we can’t afford distraction.

Usually, it’s not that the the entire task needs our full attention—it’s that there are some small pieces where it’s desperately important not to get distracted while doing them. I call them atomic actions.

What’s an atomic action?

Atomic actions are ones during which you permit no distractions. At all.

Before you start an atomic action, you commit to avoiding distractions during the entire thing. You monitor your attention closely during the action, and if you find yourself getting distracted, you either refocus immediately or you stop the action entirely. But you never let yourself “go through the motions” while doing an atomic action.

Usually these critical actions are pretty short. They’re the moments with exposure to catastrophic risk or need for maximal effort. They need your full attention, so you actively remove distractions before starting.

I developed the idea as a relatively new bagpiper when I kept injuring my reeds while putting my pipes together. After a while, I realized that I was getting distracted at a few critical points where full attention would have prevented the problems. So I made a few spots in my routine atomic, and it cleared up.

Here’s what the bagpipe setup task looks like now:

  • Open pipe box (non-atomic)
  • Remove earplugs from case, open them, set them on table (non-atomic)
  • Assemble drones (non-atomic)
  • Remove cork from chanter stock (non-atomic)
  • Unscrew reed protector from top of chanter (non-atomic)
  • Remove reed protector from top of chanter (atomic)
  • Blow warm air through reed for 3-5 breaths (atomic)
  • Verify that chanter stock is free of obstructions (non-atomic)
  • Insert chanter into chanter stock (atomic)
  • Rotate chanter to correct position (non-atomic)
  • Insert earplugs (non-atomic)
  • Pick up bagpipes (non-atomic)
  • Begin playing (non-atomic)

The atomic tasks are the ones where the chanter reed is exposed. Reeds are fragile and easily damaged, so I make these tasks atomic. If I’m setting up near other people, I’ll probably be chatting with them during most of these tasks, but when I come to the atomic ones, I’ll say “Hang on a minute” or “Give me a moment”, and I’ll ignore everything but the atomic action until I finish it.

I often slow down a little bit when starting an atomic action, moving deliberately and carefully. There are cases where atomic actions need to be fast, but most of them end up slowed down a bit.

Other atomic tasks

There are lots of them—lots of little areas where my life works better now because I’ve committed to avoiding distraction for short periods of time. The “atomic action” is a mental cue that reminds me to pay attention and make sure I’m getting it right.

There’s no magic about it except that it’s a habit that I’ve built that serves me well. Thinking about tasks as atomic or non-atomic helps me to notice whether I’m comfortable with distraction for them, and that makes it easier to carve out the mental space for the ones that really need it.

Here are some examples of atomic tasks and atomic actions in my life:

Music

  • Taking instruments out of their cases and putting them away. It’s easy to damage the instruments with careless or hasty movements—scratching a guitar across the steel latches on the case, dumping my flute onto the floor by accident, etc.—so I don’t permit distractions when I’m getting them out or putting them away.
  • Walking up and down stairs, especially while playing. These are dangerous, and I’ve seen people fall. Full attention matters.
  • Scraping a reed. Tiny adjustments make a big difference, so they’re atomic.
  • Idiot-checking before leaving. I call the last-minute sweep for forgotten items “the idiot check”, and I don’t let myself talk or get distracted while doing it.

Cooking

  • Lighting burners. I’ve seen people walk away from unlit burners that were hissing gas because they weren’t paying attention.
  • Cutting things. This isn’t usually fully-atomic for me, because I’m fine with conversation, but if other people are moving in the kitchen near me, my knife isn’t cutting anything until they stop.
  • Using the oven. Putting things in and taking them out is atomic for me.

Driving

  • Backing out of my driveway. No distractions until I’m fully on the road.
  • Parallel parking. I’m not that comfortable with it anymore (almost never need to do it), so it’s atomic because it takes a lot of mental work for me.
  • Passing other cars. There are lots of Amish buggies, pedestrians, cyclists, and other folks using the roads in my area—if I’m passing, all my senses are needed for it.

Work

  • Suicide assessment. If suicide comes up in a hotline call, there are no distractions while I’m assessing it for immediate danger.
  • Power tools. When I’m in the workshop, all power tools get atomic status when they’re powered on.

Recreation

HollisSnowClimbingIroquois

  • Crossing steep or icy terrain. When I used to do a lot of winter climbing, there were lots of moments where a fall would have been disastrous. They got atomic attention.
  • Building a belay station or putting someone on belay. This is rock-climbing safety stuff where doing it wrong could kill someone.
  • Landing and taking off. I used to fly airplanes, and these are two (short) times where total focus is needed.

Summary

Atomic actions can help you stay focused. To be effective, atomic actions need to:

  • Be short. It’s hard to pay full attention for long.
  • Have clear beginnings and ends. You need to know when you’re finished so you can relax, since focus takes energy.
  • Have a reason for being made atomic. What are you preventing or promoting?
  • Be surrounded by non-atomic actions. If all your actions become atomic, “atomic” doesn’t mean anything. Constant hyperfocus is impossible.

What actions do you make atomic?

Please leave a comment or share this post on Facebook if you found it useful. Thanks!

The Problem

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Here’s the problem. For so many values of [something].

  1. Everyone agrees that [something] is a problem.
  2. Everyone agrees that something needs to be done to fix it.
  3. Everyone agrees that nothing “important” should be changed.
  4. Everything is important to someone.
  5. [Something] continues forever.

Often there’s a side loop where we try [a solution], but it doesn’t work immediately or it temporarily damages [something else], so people shoot it down.

But instead of proposing [alternative solutions], we talk about how badly awry [a solution] went that time when we tried it—remember that? it was bad.—and get so derailed that we never discuss [other solutions], leading inexorably toward step 5.

Lies My Teacher Told Me About Common Core

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Updated 2014 September 24.  Also check out Want Your Kids To Survive Common Core? Do These 6 Things.

Lots of people misunderstand what Common Core means

Common Core, sometimes also called the Common Core State Standards or CCSS, is a set of voluntary educational standards that are being adopted by many of the United States (as of 12/3/2013, 45 states have adopted CCSS). You can read about Common Core, including the entire set of standards, at the Common Core website.

Common Core, as I see it, has a number of hugely positive things going for it:

  • It’s based on a clear assessment of need from a group of stakeholders that included employers, colleges, and grad schools. It’s designed to re-shape education toward things employers and academic institutions need students to know.
  • It focuses on outcomes rather than instructional approaches, meaning that it lays out where our educational system needs to go while also leaving teachers freedom and flexibility in how to get there.
  • It actually increases opportunities for homeschooling and alternative schooling by setting out clear but broad standards by which educational systems are judged.
  • It helps kids who move from one school to another, particular those in different states, by helping to align curricula along broad lines.
  • It opens up major opportunities for professional collaboration across the country because of aligned curricular goals and standard terminology.

But Common Core comes in for a lot of flack, particularly in the media. I hear people complaining constantly about the Common Core, saying that it mandates this, prohibits that, prevents this other thing, often with the undercurrent of “Common Core is everything that’s wrong with America”. This is a big problem.

I’m frustrated by that. It’s reductive and angry language, and a lot of it is demonstrably untrue. I’ve spent a bunch of time reading the Common Core standards, and I’d like to share what I learned.

“You won’t believe the Common Core worksheets they’re giving to 3rd graders!”

… because there aren’t any.

Common Core doesn’t require worksheets for anything.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen people complaining on Facebook about “Common Core worksheets”, often conflating them with other perceived governmental excesses like Obamacare. People share articles that show students being given stupid worksheets that are:

  • Obviously inappropriate from a developmental standard, or
  • Ethically or morally questionable, or
  • Riddled with errors, or
  • Totally incomprehensible and breathtakingly inane

Given these horrible worksheets, it’s easy to feel like Common Core must be a horrible political war in which we’re all collateral damage. A lot of these links track back to foxnews.com, which makes me think there’s a subtle political agenda going on.

Common Core does not require worksheets.

Common Core is not a curriculum

It’s not. Common Core is a set of standards, not a curriculum. Standards define what needs to be accomplished. Curriculum is how we get there.

If you’ll permit an analogy: there’s a national standard for new vehicles that requires driver-side airbags in passenger vehicles. As long as a vehicle has a driver-side airbag, it will be standards-compliant.

But the standard doesn’t say anything about where the manufacturer buys the airbag, what color the airbag is, whether there’s a car radio in the car as well, whether the airbag gets assembled before or after the rear wiper assembly, or whatever. Those things fall under the definition of curriculum: the stuff that we do in order to meet the standard.

Common Core is a set of standards: it defines things like this, for English Language Arts at Grade 8: “Analyze a case in which two or more texts provide conflicting information on the same topic and identify where the texts disagree on matters of fact or interpretation.” which is standard CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.9 . There’s nothing in it about what texts need to be taught, how they need to be taught, how they need to be assessed, or anything.

Common Core defines where we’re going, not how we get there.

It’s like saying that I’m going to go from Chicago to Boston. The standard would be “The route must reliably take the student from Chicago to Boston within a reasonable amount of time”, and any route that accomplished that would be standards-compliant.

But there are lots of routes that could work while being standards-compliant: you could fly, you could take a train, you could drive through Canada, you could drive through the US, you could take a boat… all of these (curricula in this analogy) are valid routes, and as long as they get you from Chicago to Boston, they count. The standard doesn’t specify how you achieve it.

When you hear someone saying “Common Core requires [a specific text, reading assignment, worksheet, etc.]”, ask them where that belief comes from. The Common Core standards are really clear that it is not their intention to mandate particular content at any place in the ELA curriculum, and they provide broad guidance rather than specific sequencing in the mathematical standards. The standards say what needs to be achieved, not how to do it.

“The standards are really vague”

Well, no. They’re broad. CCSS is very precise about the things a standard is designed to cover, but it leaves a lot of space for states, districts, and teachers to make their own choices about how to achieve the goals. CCSS says where we’re going, very specifically—but lets people adjust on their own how they choose to travel.

Ironically, many of the same people who complain about vagueness in CCSS also complain that CCSS is taking away teachers’ freedom and mandating a national curriculum that fits nobody. That’s arguing two opposing views (this is both too vague and too restrictive) with the same data, and that doesn’t make sense.

“Common Core is another Federal power grab”

Nope. Common Core State Standards are optional, voluntary standards developed by stakeholder groups in various states. The states then formed a consortium to share their work and develop a shared set of standards across the country.

Common Core is endorsed by the Feds, but they didn’t develop it and they aren’t in charge of it. Common Core is not part of NCLB (No Child Left Behind). What is true is that the federal government has awarded about $300 million in Race to the Top grants for states that implement Common Core. None of the sites I read say that that money was taken away from other sources—it looks like new money. Given that, I find it hard to interpret it as a power grab.

“Common Core was developed by politicians, not teachers”

Actually, Common Core did a really cool needs assessment that involved classroom teachers, school administrators, colleges, universities, employers, and more. They looked at the results of K-12 education and asked what colleges and employers were seeing. Overwhelmingly, the feedback was that students graduating from high school were under-prepared in key areas of academic and vocational practice.

Starting from that, they worked backward to develop a set of standards that would lead toward better competence in the things the modern workforce requires. I struggle to believe that anyone would argue against this, but I’ve read a lot of complaints about it. Most of them boil down to “I don’t agree that there’s a problem.”

“Common Core is enforcing a liberal bias!”

No. Not unless you consider literacy and mathematical reasoning to be liberally biased.

People advancing the “liberal bias” view often like to point to one of these links. They forward the same images of bad worksheets and horrible questions, and talk about how Common Core is going to turn us into a national of Godless idiots.

Remember how Common Core isn’t a curriculum? There are no worksheets in CCSS. There aren’t any example problems in CCSS. Common Core defines where we go, not how we get there.

“Teachers hate Common Core!”

Well, actually teachers wrote the Common Core standards. They were written by task forces of teachers, educational researchers, and other folks with classroom experience.

A lot of teachers are really excited about them, as evidenced by the huge participation in Common Core-oriented #edchats on Twitter, the Math Twitter Blogosphere (#MTBoS), teacher blogs, etc. As standards go, CCSS enjoys a pretty good reputation among teachers who’ve actually bothered to read them.

The use of Common Core-compliant curricula is hugely beneficial for teachers who want to develop professional learning networks: it means that there are thousands of professional peers available across the country, and thanks to CCSS, these teachers have a common terminology, shared set of goals, and aligned requirements for grade levels. A lot of teachers are thrilled to have access to so many new colleagues.

Also: a lot of kids have to move around the country, whether because of military families, parents who lose jobs and have to move, divorced parents and changing custody, or whatever. For these kids, the lack of aligned curricula from state to state is a huge problem. Common Core is a first step toward making sure these kids don’t fall through the cracks.

And if you still think teachers hate Common Core and can only use corporate curricula, check out these awesome crowdsourced resources from the Georgia Department of Education. The Math Twitter Blogosphere (#MTBoS on Twitter), hundreds of math teachers all across the country, is falling in love with that site, and it shows some of the power Common Core has in store.

“But my kids are getting these stupid worksheets!”

Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere.

Remember how I’ve been saying “Common Core defines where we go, not how we get there”? Your complaint is with how the material is being taught, not with the standard it’s supposed to meet.

There are lots of ways to meet the Common Core standards, and some school districts (and some states) have chosen to do it by purchasing commercial curriculum packages that do prescribe stupid worksheets, endless testing, and no meaningful freedom for teachers. I agree that these things are bad, but it’s crucial that we put the blame where it belongs. Common Core is not the problem; those curriculum packages are.

Common Core cares about outcome measures like reasoning, understanding, ability to use knowledge, and ability to communicate it clearly. I’ve spent a lot of time reading the CCSS and I haven’t found any reference that says schools are forbidden to develop their own curricula that align with the standards. I just think that a lot of educational institutions have decided that it would be easier and faster to buy a pre-fabricated commercial curriculum and teach it, and they chose curricula that rely on worksheets.

That’s not about Common Core.

There are plenty of reasons to be upset about these curriculum choices, but Common Core is not at fault. Teachers justifiably hate some of these commercial curricula, but to refer to them as Common Core is sloppy thinking. Many of the quotations from this article come from teachers, and I’m struggling to understand why they’re saying that Common Core mandates something that clearly is not in the standards and is contrary to the stated purpose of CCSS. Something doesn’t add up.

If you hate the worksheets, ask your school administrators why they’re using that curriculum and not one of the other commercial choices. If you hear people complaining about something that “Common Core requires”, ask them to point you toward the relevant standards on corestandards.org, since the whole thing is available for anyone to read. In my experience, most people haven’t read them.

A lot of the complaints about Common Core boil down to “this isn’t how I learned it, so my kids shouldn’t have to learn it this way”. But when I ask adults whether they enjoyed school, most of them say no; when I ask whether they felt they learned as much as they could have, they say no—because of things that Common Core explicitly tries to fix.

Mostly, people seem to argue against Common Core without proposing anything different. I’m not trying to say Common Core is perfect—I’m saying that the standards, as written, look pretty good. If the first commercial curricula to come out are lousy, let’s write some better ones. Don’t buy the trash; that’s how market solutions are supposed to work.

And let’s remember that if new ways of teaching are going to work, we need help from parents. That means two-way conversations.

“What about high-stakes testing?”

It’s not part of Common Core.

Learning is a messy process, and I feel pretty strongly that high-stakes testing is dangerous if it means that teachers are punished because their students aren’t performing well, especially if the granularity level is too fine. It takes time to change people, and students are no different. Teachers can’t afford to do great, visionary, change-oriented work if they’re constantly afraid for their jobs.

It’s important to assess how students are doing, and to make sure teachers are supporting their learning effectively. High-stakes testing doesn’t seem to achieve either of these goals.

But it’s still not part of Common Core. It’s often been rolled out side-by-side with the CCSS, and the public has yoked the two in tandem, but they’re different. We can phase out high-stakes testing while keeping the good things CCSS brings to the table.

“Corporations spent a ton of dirty money influencing the development and adoption of Common Core!”

I’ve addressed the “dirty money” idea in its own post, which I hope you’ll read. 

It’s high time that we had meaningful discussions about education in this country, and people are muddying the water by blaming Common Core for bad local/regional curriculum and testing choices. Don’t fall for it.

Want to discuss this? Leave a comment here or talk to me on my Facebook writer’s page. Also check out Want Your Kids To Survive Common Core? Do These 6 Things.

Hollis Easter Creations handmade jewelry — holiday sale

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I make and sell jewelry, most of it from reclaimed hardwoods that would otherwise be burned or thrown away. I love working to find the beauty and spirit hidden inside chunks of wood. With bandsaw, scroll saw, sanders, drills, polishes, and more, I make wearable art with a natural beauty.

My workspace got flooded in the spring, so I haven’t produced much new work in a while. I want to sell off my back-stock of jewelry so I’ll have room to make more! If you’re looking for something one-of-a-kind for Christmas, here it is.

I particularly love wood that has a story behind it. Many of these pieces started as scraps from luthiers or heirloom cabinetmakers: hunks of wood that were too small for them to use, destined for a burn barrel. Others, like the Montpelier maple ones near the bottom, have a history of use: those are made from reclaimed floorboards from the Montpelier, VT Capitol City Grange, where generations of contra dancers pounded the floor for 53 years before the floor was replaced in 2012.

Allergy information: most of these earrings are made with silver-plated brass earwires, and I’ve had good reports from people with metal allergies. That said, everyone’s allergies are different. I can also supply sterling silver, surgical steel, or niobium earwires for a small additional fee. I can also convert most of these earrings to steel clips or sterling silver adjustable earscrews. If you have questions, please ask!

I will update this page as items get sold. More detailed information on each pair (including materials, size, weight, metals used, and interesting factoids) is available at Hollis Easter Creations on Facebook.

2013-12-03 02.43.36Top row, left to right

  • Coral/magnesite dangles: $38
  • West African limba trapezoids: $28
  • Potsdam applewood dangles: $18
  • Pure copper spirals: $22

Bottom row, left to right

  • African mahogany discs: $22
  • Golden hickory teardrops: $28
  • Poplar discs: $22
  • Dalbergia granadillo (cocobolo) sapwood/heartwood teardrops: SOLD (was $38)

2013-12-03 03.10.41

Top row, left to right

  • Golden hickory trapezoids: $28
  • Narra feathers: $40
  • Maple/rosewood shields (post-mounted): $34
  • Tiger maple bars: $32

Bottom row, left to right

  • New Zealand pine diamonds: $24
  • Brass treble clefs: $22
  • Cocobolo feathers with copper beeskep windings: $40
  • Copper/magnesite dangles: $43

 

2013-12-03 03.20.35Left to right

  • Montpelier maple dangles (reclaimed dance floor from the Capitol City Grange) with gold ribbon: $35
  • Potsdam sandstone pendant with copper wire wrapping: $29
  • Montpelier maple dangles (reclaimed dance floor from the Capitol City Grange) with gold ribbon: $35
  • Golden hickory dangles with royal blue ribbon: $35

How to buy

I take PayPal, checks, and cash. If you see some jewelry you’d like, you can reach me in two ways:

  • Go to Hollis Easter Creations on Facebook, Like the page, and send me a message saying which earrings you’d like.
  • Send me an email (firstname lastname at gmail.com) saying which earrings you’d like.

I’ll reply and let you know whether they’re still available. If you live in NY, I have to charge sales tax. Shipping and handling is $5 for US First Class Parcel with tracking (3-5 days), and I’m happy to combine shipping for multiple orders.

Once we talk and confirm that your jewelry is still available, I’ll send you a PayPal invoice or give you my address and ask you to mail me a check. I’ll ship as soon as I receive confirmation of payment, and I’ll email you the tracking number for your shipment.

Due to a backlog in the queue, I’m not taking new custom orders at this time.

Thanks so much!

Monthly Roundup – November 2013

Posts

Here’s the quick monthly roundup for what I’ve written this month, organized by subject. I’ve provided links to make it easier to read the articles.

General

  • Fear and Gratitude: Giving Thanks 2013 November 28
    Nobody told me that Lyme disease comes with constant fear attached. Antibiotics help with the physical symptoms; here’s how I’m working on the mental ones.
  • Try The Honey Badger Diet! 2013 November 10
    This… is the honey badger (diet)! You may be surprised to learn that honey badgers do care about some things. They’re actually very sensitive to the size bias and body loathing that are rampant among Mellivora capensis. Honey badgers receive a lot of negative messaging encouraging them to hate their bodies and feel stupid about their eating …
  • Why You SHOULD Get Chills From That “Homeless Veteran Timelapse Transformation” Video 2013 November 08
    Man, we loves us some transformations. Makeovers, interventions, whatever you want to call ‘em. We love the idea of saviors, too: people who come in and do the transforming/making over/intervening. This is enshrined on a pretty deep level of our culture, from religious transformers to Home Makeover shows to boot camps to alcoholism interventions to Teach …
  • Site Policies 2013 November 08
    Privacy policy, ad policy, comment policy, etc.
  • Honey Badger Empathy Survey 2013 November 07
    Survey conducted using Standard Empathy Instrument (Quantitative) version 2.5, n = 577. In light of the perhaps-surprising results of the initial survey, we attempted to repeat the survey to investigate whether the initial results were anomalous. Regrettably, nearly all the honey badgers had engaged themselves in other activities (seeking honey and larvae, hunting and eating cobras, …
  • Of Mice and Mindsets 2013 November 05
    What can we learn about growth mindsets from a video of a Russian mouse trying to steal a cookie? Quite a lot, actually.

Crisis hotlines

  • Compassion and the Little Prince 2013 November 19
    What can we learn about crisis work from the Little Prince and a retired counselor from Mississippi? We can learn how compassion and love connect in crisis.
  • Pathologizing Language 2013 November 06
    Most of you have seen the video about the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger, with narration by Randall, somewhere in your travels around the internet. I delight in using the honey badgers to teach about crisis hotlines; we’re using the honey badger in our initial training to talk about inappropriate sexual callers, frequent callers, the …

Music

  • Frankenstein’s Musical Laboratory 2013 November 17
    Dr. Frankenstein cooks up a new musical instrument in his lab, combining the beauty of a violin with the speed of a typewriter.

Math

  • The Sheriff’s Star: Playing Math! 2013 November 26
    How can you make a regular 7-pointed badge for the Sheriff of El Dorado County without a protractor? Does it work with any number of points? We’re playing math!
  • Triangles and Pyramids: Playing Math! 2013 November 10
    Triangles and Pyramids Playing math! I like playing with math. These days, I don’t need that much math for my daily life–enough to calculate whether I’ve got enough gas to get from A to B, to balance my checkbook, to budget for the training class I’m starting, to figure out expenses on Frost and Fire‘s new album… …

Money

  • How Much Does Grad School Cost? 2013 November 14
    Grad school is expensive in lots of ways, but people often forget opportunity cost. In this post, we look at how much more money you have to make after graduate school to make up for the lost earnings and growth you missed during school, and we reach some conclusions about how much you need to …
  • How Much Does Grad School Cost — Followup 2013 November 16
    This post follows up on some things people have raised in the lively discussion about my earlier post, How Much Does Grad School Cost? Please start with that post if you’re just joining the discussion now. Thanks!
  • What’s Wrong With Your Savings Account? 2013 November 01
    People use savings accounts for the wrong thing. Savings accounts aren’t for making your money grow; they’re more like insurance policies. Here’s why.

Cooking and herbalism

  • Finishing the dandelion tincture 2013 November 15
    Straining and bottling a homemade dandelion tincture (whole herb), with lots of photos. Part two of a series.

Technology and fun

Words