All posts by Hollis Easter

The Protocol For Help

If you like this article, would you Like and follow my new Hollis Easter, Writer page on Facebook and tell me what you liked about it?

Not all those who wander are lost, and not all those who struggle want help. For example, productive struggle is important in learning, and people sometimes just want to get through things on their own. Sometimes the person doesn’t perceive the issue in question as a problem at all.

Offers of help, if carelessly phrased, can often seem judgmental or unfriendly, and they can perpetuate power dynamics or privilege structures in ways that are really uncomfortable for the person you’re talking to.

So when you see someone struggling, it’s useful to get answers to these questions before trying to help.

1. “Would you like some help?”

If they don’t want help, stay out of the way. Let people be in charge of how, when, and whether they get help.

When you’re struggling, it’s exhausting to have to constantly fend off well-intentioned but unhelpful offers of assistance. Starting by asking whether the person actually wants help is a good way to avoid adding to their burdens.

2. “… from me?”

Just because a person wants help doesn’t mean they want it from you. That’s okay, and it’s not necessarily a personal attack or affront to you. If you want to be respectful, sometimes that means accepting that a person doesn’t want your help.

You might also consider, before asking, whether you have any special knowledge or experience that might be applicable to the situation. If so, mention it briefly, saying something like “I went through something similar” or “I’ve dealt with that before” before asking whether they want help from you. If you don’t have special knowledge, be especially humble in your offer of help.

If they want help from someone else, ask whether they’d like your help making it happen.

3. “… what kind of help would you like?”

It’s appropriate to offer ideas, but ultimately it should rest with the person you’re helping to decide what kind of help they want.

If they make a request, consider whether it’s something you’re willing to offer. If yes, great! If not, talk about it and see if you can find some middle ground.

4. “Would you like it right now?”

Now may not be a good time. To be helpful, make it fit their timeframe, not just yours.

If they do want help but don’t want it immediately, ask when would be a better time. See whether you’re able to offer it then. If not, propose an alternative.

5. “Is this the kind of help you wanted?”

Assuming that they do want help, from you, and that you’re offering the right kind and at a convenient time, it’s good to check in periodically to see how you’re doing. Often people’s needs change, and if you want to be most helpful, you’ll adjust.

Adapted and developed, with permission, from ideas by Brandon Martin-Anderson and Gretchen Caverly.

Want Your Kids To Survive Common Core? Do These 6 Things

If you liked this article, would you Like and follow my Hollis Easter, Writer page on Facebook and tell me why?

(Also check out my page on misconceptions and fears about Common Core. There’s a lot of stuff out there that’s being called “Common Core” when it really isn’t. I’ve also written a shorter version of this post.)

A lot of folks hate the Common Core State Standards, especially when it comes to math class. There are many new curricula out there, some of them not that good, and they’re teaching new methods that are different from what we learned. If you’ve struggled to know what it means to “make a ten”, if you’re not sure what decomposing a problem means, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s normal to struggle with this.

It’s normal to feel frustrated and angry when your kids are struggling, to feel upset when you don’t know how to help them get through their homework, to feel like “dammit, there’s nothing wrong with the way I learned this… why do we need all this new stuff?!”.

It’s normal for parents to struggle with this. And it may be true that the curriculum modules your kids’ schools use are first drafts that aren’t that good and need to be changed. And it’s not like there are Common Core police going around and making sure all the commercial curricula even follow CCSS correctly.

But I’d like you to think about this question for a minute:

What are your children learning from how you respond to Common Core?

Kids watch their parents for social cues.

They watch their parents to see how to react to new situations, and they take guidance from the way their parents address things that are easy as well as those that are hard. In particular, they watch closely to learn how to handle situations that are frustrating or unpleasant.

In my class, we talk a lot about productive struggle. Productive struggle is what we call it when people are working hard toward a difficult goal that is within their reach.

I strongly believe that skill doesn’t come from innate talent; it comes from work. I teach that the best way to succeed is to learn how to keep working when you’re not succeeding yet, and we work hard on learning to see confusion, errors, omissions, and mistakes not as failures but as opportunities for growth.

It works really well. Students stop being so scared of making mistakes; they learn to identify them, correct them, and move on. They develop and hone a growth mindset.

The idea of productive struggle is so important—the concept that you keep wrestling with a problem when you don’t understand. Maybe you ask for help, maybe you try another way, but you keep working until you get it. It’s not about whether things are easy or not.

How does that relate to parents?

What does your kid learn when you say “This is stupid. I can’t figure this out. I never had to learn to make a ten. It’s not necessary”?

They learn that you, as their parent, don’t value productive struggle.

Kids watch how their parents respond to challenges. When they hear “I never had to learn this”, they’re going to hear “and I shouldn’t have to!” lingering in the background. When you say “this is way too complicated; the old way is better”, they’ll hear “it’s important only do to things that seem easy at first”.

By attacking the challenge’s validity rather than grappling with it, you’re giving them a model to follow when struggling with their own problems.

And, perhaps most important of all: if they see you giving up on understanding the new ways of doing math, they may learn that it’s better not to try something hard than to risk failing at it. 

That’s obviously not what we want.

I want to encourage you to support a growth mindset in your kids, and to strengthen them in their resolve to engage in productive struggle.

So what should you do?

1. Work on understanding a bit more each day

Nobody expects you to know how to do all this stuff right away. Teachers get it that they’re teaching your kids new content using new methods, and that that’s not going to make sense to everyone instantly.

When those choices come from the actual Common Core standards, rather than from a curriculum package, there are solid, well-considered reasons for the choice. You can read about a lot of them at commoncore.org, although you don’t need to do that unless you’re curious.

The bigger thing is to model for your kids the idea that you keep working on a problem until you get it. So if you’re struggling with how Common Core math works, think of additional ways to approach it.

2. Model process (working) rather than product (knowing the right answer)

If your kids are struggling with a math problem, ask them to show your their process. If they can’t show you any process, ask them to talk through what they’ve been shown. Don’t worry so much about the answers.

We need to teach the emotional side of learning, too. So do your best to model a process where, when people get frustrated and angry, they sit with those emotions but then find ways to keep working. If your kid has a meltdown about a number line, listen supportively but then help them get back to putting some work into the process.

3. Value productive struggle, not just achievement

If kids are going to get it that we value productive struggle, we need to be careful what we compliment and what we reward. If you claim to value productive struggle but only give praise for getting the right answer, the kids are going to catch on pretty quickly.

I’ve written about how I prefer to avoid saying “you’re so talented!” and “you’re so smart!”, so let’s start with that.

Do your best to shift from complimenting results (“you got it right!”) and character attributes (“you’re so good at math!”) toward complimenting process (“you followed the method really well!”) and effort (“you’ve worked hard on that!”).

If you’re rewarding your kids for things like good grades, go talk to their teachers and ask for help figuring out how to reward process as well as final achievements.

And when you see your kid really fighting hard to understand something, name that struggle and honor it. Show that you value how they’re choosing to stay in the fight and keep wrestling. You might use words like “I’m really impressed by how hard you’re working to get this. I know it’s hard for you, and you’re doing great.”

4. Be careful how you show frustration and anger

It’s totally reasonable to feel upset about all the new stuff in CCSS-compliant curricula, and it’s hard to watch kids struggling. I hope we can learn to reframe struggle into a good thing, but it’s not going to be instantaneous. (in a sense, reframing struggle is, itself, a good example of a productive struggle.)

It’s okay to be frustrated, challenged, or angry about CCSS. I just hope you’ll target your frustration appropriately, and think about how your kids are affected by what you say. Remember that they’re modeling on you all the time.

5. Model asking for help when you don’t understand something

It is hard to ask for help, especially if you’ve been steeped in the fixed mindset that people are either smart/competent or weak/needing-help. But really, asking for appropriate help is a critical skill for dealing with the modern world. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know how to install new brakes on my car, run a natural gas line to the stove, set up life insurance, or select dosage for prescriptions. It’s totally uncontroversial to ask for help from experts when you don’t understand things.

So let’s bring that same model to education. When your kids ask you for help and you don’t know how to offer it, model how to make a plan for fixing it. Talk about the kind of help you want, and then discuss how you’ll both approach your kid’s teacher to ask for that help.

It’s worth spending some time in productive struggle before you ask for help, but if you do really need some assistance, model asking directly and unabashedly for it.

Teachers want to help kids learn, and they’re thrilled to find parents who want to help support productive struggle and model good strategies for seeking help.

6. Make your complaints to the school, not your kids

Not everything in the new curricula is good. I get that. I’ve left this point ’til the end because productive struggle is about sitting with something uncomfortable and trying to make it work.

But I get it that there are some genuine howlers in the new curricula out there. Some modules are genuinely awful, and they rightly deserve to be criticized and changed.

Complaining about them to your kids and your friends on Facebook isn’t going to help much, though. If you think back to the modeling question, what are you teaching your kids when you criticize Common Core in conversation with them?

For many kids, the message they hear is that you don’t trust the schools you’re sending them to.

Think about that for a minute. How would it sabotage your work if you knew that your role models thought your job was stupid and pointless? How would it affect your work ethic? Would it change your willingness to enter into productive struggle?

Productive struggle involves getting the answers wrong sometimes, on the way toward figuring things out and getting it right. It’s grounded in believing that mistakes are part of learning, and that with hard work, we’ll get there in the end.

Doesn’t it undermine the whole productive struggle thing if we scream that Common Core is horrible? If we say that it is stupid, that it is impossible to understand, that it is problematic, and insist that it be repealed?

By saying those things, by insisting that CCSS is a mistake too dangerous to be endured, aren’t we modeling the idea that mistakes are deadly? That kids should fear error because, when adults make mistakes, we castigate them and throw their work away, never letting them speak again? That, if you get something wrong, you are worthless and incompetent?

When there’s a bitter, angry fight—instead of a reasoned debate—over curriculum, kids are the real losers. If we damage their trust in education and their willingness to struggle, we sabotage them for years.

When people make absolute, fixed statements like “Common Core is killing our students” or “Common Core is the best thing to happen to American education”, there’s not much room for change or debate. That means we’re teaching kids to think about things in terms of absolutes instead of wrestling with possibilities and finding room for growth. That’s dangerous, and it’s kids—not school boards and administrators and Pearson—that take the brunt of it.

If you want to criticize Common Core, I hope you will! Frame your concerns and present them to the people in charge. Ask for change. Ask for evidence of process that grapples with and incorporates your concerns. Bring a growth mindset to the table, and think about the adoption of Common Core in terms of productive struggle. Suggest next steps for how we can change things.

But please, be careful to do it in a way that preserves your child’s trust in schools and willingness to strive. Talk about what’s happened with Common Core as a first draft that strongly needs revision—additional process—rather than a crime against humanity. Cultivate a growth mindset.

Choose what you’re modeling.

I wrote a condensed version of this article, also published today, since not everyone is likely to read longer articles. Would you share it (or this one) with your friends and colleagues today? 

I’d also like to hear your thoughts in the comments—when you think about what I’ve said, do you agree or disagree? Are you unsure? Leave a comment and we’ll talk!

Want Your Kids To Survive Common Core? (short version)

If you like this article, would you Like and follow my new Hollis Easter, Writer page on Facebook and tell me what you liked about it?

(This is a shortened version of Want Your Kids To Survive Common Core? Do These 6 Things. Also check out my page on misconceptions and fears about Common Core.)

People are frustrated about Common Core. There have been a lot of issues with how it was rolled out. That said, CCSS is here to stay in a lot of states.

So the important question is this:

What are your children learning from how you respond to Common Core?

Kids watch their parents for social cues.

They watch their parents to see how to react to new situations, and they take guidance from the way their parents address things that are easy as well as those that are hard. In particular, they watch closely to learn how to handle situations that are frustrating or unpleasant.

In my class, we talk a lot about productive struggle. Productive struggle is what we call it when people are working hard toward a difficult goal that is within their reach.

I strongly believe that skill doesn’t come from innate talent; it comes from work. I teach that the best way to succeed is to learn how to keep working when you’re not succeeding yet, and we work hard on learning to see confusion, errors, omissions, and mistakes not as failures but as opportunities for growth.

It works really well. Students stop being so scared of making mistakes; they learn to identify them, correct them, and move on. They develop and hone a growth mindset.

The idea of productive struggle is so important—the concept that you keep wrestling with a problem when you don’t understand. Maybe you ask for help, maybe you try another way, but you keep working until you get it.

How does that relate to parents?

When you say “This is stupid. I can’t figure this out. I never had to learn to make a ten. It’s not necessary”, kids learn that you, as their parent, don’t value productive struggle.

By attacking the challenge’s validity rather than grappling with it, you’re giving them a model to follow when struggling with their own problems. And, perhaps most important of all: if they see you giving up on understanding the new ways of doing math, they learn that it’s better not to try something hard than to risk failing at it. 

So what should you do?

1. Work on understanding a bit more each day

Nobody expects you to know how to do all this stuff right away. The bigger thing is to model for your kids the idea that you keep working on a problem until you get it. So if you’re struggling with how Common Core math works, think of additional ways to approach it.

2. Model process (working) rather than product (knowing the right answer)

If your kids are struggling with a math problem, ask them to show your their process. Don’t worry so much about the answers.

They may cry or get mad. So do your best to model a process where, when people get frustrated and angry, they sit with those emotions but then find ways to keep working. If your kid has a meltdown about a number line, listen supportively but then help them get back to putting effort into the process.

3. Value productive struggle, not just achievement

If we value productive struggle, we need to be careful what we compliment and what we reward. I’ve written about how I prefer to avoid saying “you’re so talented!” and “you’re so smart!”, so let’s start with that.

When you see your kid really fighting hard to understand something, name that struggle and honor it. Show that you value how they’re choosing to stay in the fight and keep wrestling. You might use words like “I’m really impressed by how hard you’re working to get this. I know it’s hard for you, and you’re doing great.”

4. Be careful how you show frustration and anger

It’s hard to watch kids struggling with the new curricula. I hope we can learn to reframe struggle into a good thing, but it’s not going to be instantaneous. (in a sense, reframing struggle is, itself, a good example of a productive struggle.)

It’s okay to be frustrated, challenged, or angry about CCSS. I just hope you’ll target your frustration appropriately—toward schools and government—and think about how your kids are affected by what you say. Remember that they’re modeling on you all the time.

5. Model asking for help when you don’t understand something

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know how to install new brakes on my car, run a natural gas line to the stove, set up life insurance, or select dosage for prescriptions. It’s totally uncontroversial to ask for help from experts when you don’t understand things.

So let’s bring that same model to education. It’s worth spending some time in productive struggle before you ask for help, but if you do really need assistance, model asking directly and unabashedly for it. Ask the teachers to explain things to you. Work on learning them.

6. Make your complaints to the school, not your kids

I get it that some of the new modules are genuinely awful, and they rightly deserve to be criticized and changed.

Complaining about them to your kids and your friends on Facebook isn’t going to help much, though. If you think back to the modeling question, what are you teaching your kids when you criticize Common Core in conversation with them?

For many kids, the message they hear is that you don’t trust the schools you’re sending them to.

Think about that for a minute. How would it sabotage your work if you knew that your role models thought your job was stupid and pointless? How would it affect your work ethic? Would it change your willingness to enter into productive struggle?

Productive struggle involves getting the answers wrong sometimes, on the way toward figuring things out and getting it right. It’s grounded in believing that mistakes are part of learning, and that with hard work, we’ll get there in the end.

By insisting that CCSS is a mistake too dangerous to be endured, aren’t we modeling the idea that mistakes are deadly? That kids should fear error because, when adults make mistakes, we castigate them and throw their work away, never letting them speak again? That, if you get something wrong, you are worthless and incompetent?

When there’s a bitter, angry fight—instead of a reasoned debate—over curriculum, kids are the real losers. If we damage their trust in education and their willingness to struggle, we sabotage them for years.

If you want to criticize Common Core, I hope you will! Frame your concerns and present them to the people in charge. Ask for change. Ask for evidence of process that grapples with and incorporates your concerns. Bring a growth mindset to the table, and think about the adoption of Common Core in terms of productive struggle. Suggest next steps for how we can change things.

But please, be careful to do it in a way that preserves your child’s trust in schools and willingness to strive. Talk about what’s happened with Common Core as a first draft that strongly needs revision—additional process—rather than a crime against humanity. Cultivate a growth mindset.

Choose what you’re modeling.

(This is a condensed version of Want Your Kids To Survive Common Core? Do These 6 Things, also published today. I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments—when you think about what I’ve said, do you agree or disagree? Are you unsure? Leave a comment and we’ll talk!)

Checking In On Student Understanding With Thumbs

I’m teaching crisis hotline students all weekend, which means I should really be in bed. I’m teaching again six-and-a-half hours from now. But I wanted to share this quick tool I’m using a lot.

Whenever I’m teaching groups of students, I want feedback on how they’re doing. Are they getting the material? Are they tired, bored, hungry, confused, excited, or what? If I’m to shape the best environment to help them learn, I need be checking in with them frequently.

But I teach adults. They’re very conscious of the other people in the room, and nobody wants the social cost of seeming “less smart” than others. It’s expensive for them to ask for help. So it’s often hard to get accurate information. (I work with them on cultivating a growth mindset, too, but that takes time to germinate and flourish.)

Lately I’ve found a great way for quick check-ins throughout my classes. They go like this.

Let’s suppose I want to ask if people feel ready to move on from the current topic:

  1. Thumbs Up!“Okay, I want a check-in. Close your eyes, please.” They do, since I explained the purpose—confidential communication—early on in the training class.
  2. “If you’re feeling good about this and are ready to move on, give me a thumbs-up. If you’re not quite sure, give me a thumb-sideways. If you want more help first, give me a thumbs-down.” They do, putting out their thumbs and continuing to hold them out. I look around the room, gauging how many students are in each category.
  3. “Okay, please put your hands down.” They do. Once I see their hands down, I call:
  4. “Okay, open your eyes.” And then we do whatever I’ve decided based on their feedback.

(Thumb-sideways means pointing your thumb parallel to the floor rather than up or down.)

The confidentiality seems to be really valuable to them; several students commented tonight that they really liked this approach because it made them feel free to say how they actually felt.

I also find the three-position thumb (up, side, down) much more useful for feedback than just a thumbs-up or thumbs-down: it allows a third option that can mean ambivalence, uncertainty, or some other kind of option. It opens a lot of new doors for me when I’m checking in.

The whole check-in takes about 20 seconds once the class has learned how to do it. It works beautifully, requires no technology, and gives me a sense of which students want more help and which ones don’t. I’m going to keep playing with it.

Here are some other examples:

  • Thumbs-up: You’re ready to keep learning for a while longer.
    Thumb-sideways: You’d like a break in the next 10 minutes.
    Thumbs-down: You need a break right now.
  • Thumbs-up: You agree with the point I just made.
    Thumb-sideways: You’re unsure.
    Thumbs-down: You disagree with the point I just made.
  • Thumbs-up:  You’d like to do a roleplay with your partner right now.
    Thumb-sideways: You’d like to talk more about the Connection Builders we just identified.
    Thumbs-down: You’d like to see a demonstration roleplay first.
  • Thumbs-up: You think this caller primarily wants a referral to counseling.
    Thumb-sideways: You think she primarily wants a chance to talk.
    Thumbs-down: You think she primarily wants a referral for emergency housing.
  • Thumbs-up: You think this caller meets the criteria for being involuntarily hospitalized for suicidal thoughts.
    Thumb-sideways: You aren’t sure.
    Thumbs-down: You think this caller doesn’t meet the criteria.

‘If’ Doesn’t Belong In Apologies

You apologize because you hurt someone. That’s why you do it.

Within that, there are three basic reasons to apologize:

  • You did something wrong and it hurt people.
  • You did something right, but
    •  it hurt people unnecessarily.
    • even though it was necessary to hurt people, you still empathize with them.

In each case, the apology is about taking responsibility for the fact that you hurt people.

For apologies to work, you have to own your role in the hurt, acknowledge it, and apologize for it. And then you work to avoid doing it again.

The non-apology apology

People and organizations often offer non-apology apologies. They sound sort of like this:

These ‘apologies’ fail because they aren’t taking responsibility for the fact that people actually were offended. They don’t own their role in causing hurt. They certainly don’t give you reason to trust that these groups will change their behavior. They are not really apologies.

There’s no role for if in an apology. “I’m sorry if I offended you”? If you aren’t sure whether you offended me, why are you apologizing at all?

You can make it a lot better by swapping in that for if. “I’m sorry that I offended you” takes ownership by ditching the if.

I think a lot of apologies are given not out of a sincere desire to atone for causing hurt but out of a legalistic desire to mitigate liability and control risk of litigation. It’s the corporate equivalent of a mom grabbing her wayward child by the earlobe and saying “now TELL THEM YOU’RE SORRY and go to your room!”. That’s not good enough for grown-ups.

If you’re apologizing but not taking responsibility for the hurt you caused, you aren’t apologizing.

You’re doing a PR campaign.

“Just a Flesh Wound”: Moving Past Stupid Arguments

How many times have you seen a TV segment or newspaper discussion about some hotly-contested issue in which a person with experience, education, training, and professional background is presented next to a person with none of the above?

Usually there’s something about providing a “fair and balanced” look at the issues, an implicit tug of the forelock to the moral relativism of all things. That’s valuable when we’re talking about stuff like religion and morality. Less so when we’re talking about the climate, about health care, about so many other issues where facts come into play.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but an opinion is not the same as evidence. You shouldn’t be able to fight facts with opinion.

Yet we blunder on, letting people present these false equivalencies. We wearily accept this manufactured equality of value between people who’ve delved in the mines of research and have quarried scientific gold and those who merely sprayed gilt paint onto their beliefs. Both look good, but only one of them is useful. Only one holds up when you try to build something with it.

We need to start reminding ourselves, and getting comfortable saying, that people are equal in value but ideas are not. People have inalienable rights; ideas should have to fight to be considered and believed. If your idea can’t hack it, too bad.

My friend Ted Letcher, who’s an atmospheric scientist, came up with a great mental framework for this today. He’s graciously allowed me to reprint his comment here:

“As someone who studies climate and climate change for a living, I was dismayed (though not particularly surprised) to recently see the same old climate denier chestnuts paraded about the internet and news media as legitimate arguments, despite having been thoroughly debunked again and again. Then I got to thinking about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I have come to the conclusion that the Climate Change “debate” is very similar to the scene with the Black Knight.

Now if you are unfamiliar with this scene, first, let me extend my sincerest apologies that the trajectory of your life has thus far kept you from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, second; here is a link to the scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjEcj8KpuJw. (scroll down this page to watch)

Both in the climate change debate and scene with the black knight, we start with two sides that appear evenly matched. Overtime however, it becomes more and more apparent that one side has lost all real credibility, and is no longer in any position to be taken seriously.

Now as much as I like to imagine, lets say Rush Limbaugh as a freshly minted quadruple amputee, wobbling around on his torso threatening to bite my legs off (though really anyone who openly accuses myself, my friends, my colleagues, and my mentors of being money hungry frauds, with no real proof is good to imagine here), I believe it’s time, past time, to sheathe the metaphorical sword and move onward in the quest to understand and fix global warming. It’s time to leave the climate deniers (note how I say deniers, and not skeptics … there is a difference) behind for good, as they shout their fears and hatred into the unlistening void.”

Ted’s right. It’s time to “sheathe the metaphorical sword and move onward”. And it’s time to leave the people who present these false equivalencies—who insist on debating science based not on facts but on beliefs—behind in the dust.

We need to find ways to stop arguing with them, and just leave them behind. Unless the rules of the debate involve using actual facts, there’s not much point to trying. We need to learn to keep moving.

If we rebut all their points and they’re still claiming it’s just a flesh wound, we need to stop giving them airtime and mindshare. To say, as Andrew Shepherd does in The American President, “This is a time for serious people, and your fifteen minutes are up.”

People are equal in value, but ideas are not.

I’m going to work on recognizing when a person is shouting a “Black Knight argument” at me, where their rhetorical arms are lying on the ground, there’s no evidence, and they’re just yelling at me.

When I’m in those situations, I’m going to imagine the Black Knight down in the dirt, still saying “right… we’ll call it a draw” even after he’s lost four limbs and (obviously) the fight. I’m going to remember that his argument isn’t based on facts and doesn’t deserve further consideration…

… and I’m going to walk on by. Let’s keep moving.

Adjust Your Bike Brakes the Easy Way

I like my bike brakes to be nice and grippy—I want to be able to stop quickly when I need to, even if I’m going fast. I want the braking to start almost as soon as I touch the brake lever, but most bike brakes are set way too “soft” for me. My local bike shop charges $15 to adjust both brakes… Here’s how to fix them yourself, the easy way.

Here’s the video first; the pictures and description follow.

bike introductory photo

Bike parts

There are lots of names for bike parts, but most bikes have pretty much the same assortment. Here’s what I’ll use in this article:

Bike part labels

 

  • Pull lever. What your hand goes on. Pull to operate the brake.
  • Cable (hidden) and cable housing. Connects the pull lever to the brake calipers.
  • Brake calipers. These clamp together to squeeze brake pads (pieces of rubber, not shown) onto the wheel’s rim to stop the bike.
  • Adjusting knob. This allows you to adjust the length of the cable housing.
  • Lock nut. Locks the position of the adjusting knob so it doesn’t go out of whack.
  • Cable length setting. This is a screw or bolt that physically attaches the brake cable to the calipers. It can also be used to shorten or lengthen the cable, though that’s usually not necessary.

Things to check before you start

I’m writing about standard caliper brakes, as used on most of the bikes I’ve seen in the last decade. If your bike’s brakes are different, this will probably still work, but your mileage might vary.

Check to make sure that there’s still plenty of rubber on the brake pads, and that they’re aligned with the rims (they usually will be). If you need new brake pads, your local shop has them, or you can get them here. Also make sure the bolt on the cable length setting is fully tightened (it usually will be).

One caveat: we’re going to mess with your brakes. Once you’re done, make sure that you test them carefully by spinning the wheels in the air and squeezing the pulls, to make sure they’re functioning properly. Do this before you get on the bike. Seriously.

Adjusting the brakes

For reference, here’s my bike with the pull lever in resting position:

2014-09-27 17.58.24 edited

And here’s where I want the lever to be when the brakes are fully engaged:

2014-09-27 17.58.28 edited

 

For me, that’s a good compromise that gives me plenty of braking power and speed while still making sure the brakes don’t engage when I’m just riding along.

Method

We’re not actually going to adjust the brake cable’s length. We’re going to adjust the housing’s length, which ends up having the same effect: make the housing longer, the cable becomes (relatively) shorter.

You can do this with a bunch of complicated steps. I find it helpful to think of it as just two steps, though:

  1. Make the brakes as tight as they can go, so that they’re fully engaged when the lever is in resting position.
  2. Back off from that position until you hit a comfortable balance where the brake is normally off but still quick and grippy to use.

The advantage of this approach is that you only make the adjustment once, and then you’re done. Other ways I’ve been taught to adjust brakes involve doing a lot of “make a small change, then test it. Now make another small change, then test it.” That eats time.

I’m going to demonstrate on my bike’s front brakes, but the principle is the same for the back brakes.

Release the lock nut

2014-09-27 17.57.40 edited

The lock nut is the one closer to the lever pull, and all it does is hold the adjustment knob in place.

Unscrew the lock nut as far as it can go. On my bike, that’s what you see above.

Clamp the calipers with your hand

Grasp both calipers near the pads:

2014-09-27 17.56.46 edited

And squeeze inward so that the calipers close and the brake pads come to rest on the wheel rims.

2014-09-27 17.56.55 edited

 

If you have a friend to help hold the calipers closed, that makes it a little easier, but you can do it by yourself with no problems.

Unscrew the adjustment knob as far as it will go

Turn the adjustment knob counter-clockwise until its threads are just about to disengage from the brake pull assembly. This puts the cable housing in its longest-available position.

Now try the brake pull. Do the brakes engage where you like? If so, great!

If the brakes engage too soon, keep gentle pressure on the brake lever as you screw the adjustment knob back in. Stop once the brake lever is in the spot you want.

If the brakes still don’t engage soon enough, your brake cable is probably either too long or is damaged in some way. If you’re comfortable, you can unscrew the cable length setting screw slightly, pull a bit more cable through to shorten it, and then repeat the process. Alternatively, visit your local bike shop and ask for help! (If you want to buy your own replacement brake cable, you can get some here.)

Here’s the cable length setting screw:

2014-09-27 17.59.04 edited

If you do adjust that screw, test it rigorously before riding: if the cable slips, you don’t have any brakes.

Screw the lock nut into place

Once you’ve got the lever working the way you want, screw the lock nut down (clockwise) to lock the assembly into position.

2014-09-27 17.56.29 edited

Final check

Make sure that the brakes engage when you pull the levers. The fork assembly should look similar to when you started:

2014-09-27 17.55.57 edited

Lift the bike so the front wheel is off the ground, then give it a good spin. Listen and look to make sure that the brake pads aren’t hitting the rim. If they are, you need to redo the process and screw the adjustment knob in a little more.

Give the wheel another spin and pull the brake lever. The wheel should stop quickly.

Assuming it does, give it a riding test. If it’s not working, use the other brake to stop, then go back through the process and make adjustments.

 

Was this helpful?

If this was useful to you, I’d be grateful if you’d send me a buck or two (via PayPal) to help keep this site available for everyone. My local bike shop charges $15 to adjust both brakes, and you can now do it for yourself, for free, forever.

Donation is quick, easy, and secure–just use the button below. Thanks so much for your generosity, and have fun riding!

Corporate Funding and Common Core

If you like this article, would you Like and follow my new Hollis Easter, Writer page on Facebook and tell me what you liked about it?

This article builds on my earlier piece, Lies My Teacher Told Me About Common Core. If you haven’t read it yet, please start there.

I’ve had a lot of fun talking and writing with people about the Common Core State Standards in the months since I wrote that piece. Nine months later, there’s still a ton of misinformation out there. Repealing Common Core has become a major issue in a bunch of the electoral races around the country this fall.

It makes me sad, because I think the standards are good. A lot of my teacher and professor friends agree.

One of the consistent things that comes up about Common Core is the specter of dirty money: the idea that corporations have bought and sold our future and controlled the destiny of America by shoving Common Core down everyone’s throats. It’s an appealing image, and it resonates for a lot of us—hardly surprising given that we’ve been forced to bail out banks and auto companies, insurance companies and more. We don’t trust corporations.

Questions about Corporate Money

I received an interesting comment on the other post, and I wanted to address it in greater detail, so I’m writing this post. The comment came from Meagan:

“Thank you for this. I am frustrated with the misinformation and confusion, too.

Other concerns I’ve heard, but haven’t fully researched on my own, are the CCSS connections to certain corporations and sources of funding that some folks have beef with, or assume directly influenced the standards. Of all the anti-CC arguments I’ve heard, that’s the only one I might agree with. Otherwise, I think the standards are strong, and as a college writing teacher, think that if they’re taught well (not with canned curriculum and testing-based teaching) they’ll definitely better prepare students for college and life.

If you amend this, would you consider addressing the concerns about the funding behind the push for CCSS?”

My response

Hi Meagan! Thanks so much for writing in—it’s always lovely to interact with readers.

I’ve heard the same things about the corporations and funding issues behind CCSS, but I haven’t been able to find anything conclusive either way. I’m choosing to hold that concern in abeyance until there’s more information available. If there’s a shadowy conspiracy out there, they’re hiding it well. (Readers, if you have actual, sourced information about money and influence peddling in CCSS, please post links in the comments.)

I’m not that concerned about the allegations of corporate money in CCSS for a couple of reasons, if you’ll permit a digression or two:

Preamble. I’ve read the Common Core standards, and I think they’re good. It sounds as though you’ve done the same. I don’t see evidence for most of the criticisms people make against CCSS; I think they’re complaining against bad curricula and bad testing practices. The complaints against CCSS itself don’t hold water.

In any case, we’ve both agreed that CCSS is, mostly, good. It has solid standards, a good framework for thinking, and a way of prioritizing and demanding critical thinking skills that have not previously been required. The standards are good.

The argument you cite really has two prongs:

  1. The identity of the specific corporations/groups funding the development of CCSS taints Common Core by association.
  2. These corporations influenced the development and adoption of CCSS, which is therefore bad.

Let’s address them in order.

Corporations taint Common Core by association

Let’s suppose that corporations really did throw a ton of money at this (which they probably did; it’s hard to find an area of American life that’s unsullied by corporate cash). That leaves us with this:

Corporations spent a ton of money to force us to develop Common Core, and it reflects their agendas.

If the argument is that these corporations have irrevocably stained Common Core through their sponsorship, then we’d need to see evidence of the problem in the finished product. If there is no stain, this problem becomes a philosophical debate.

So where’s the stain? We’ve already looked at the finished product—the Common Core State Standards—and found it good. We like it. We think it leads toward good things. So I’m going to go ahead and say that, whether or not corporations influenced the CCSS development, if we can’t find evidence of it in the final standards, it doesn’t matter.

Corporations influenced the development and adoption of Common Core

This is almost certainly true. So what?

Is that such a bad thing? Let’s suppose the rebuttal goes “yeah, because the curricula suck!”. That’s true, but we allegedly live in a free market society, and eventually someone will make a better curriculum package. The ones available now are really just first drafts; we should expect them to be imperfect. Once someone builds a better package, schools will buy it, and the other companies will innovate, etc.

It’s bound to happen, because that’s how capitalism works. If there’s a niche that’s not being served well, someone will invent a way to serve it. Build a better mousetrap, and the world beats a pathway to your door.  So even if the curricula are bad now, they’ll get better—and probably pretty quickly.

(Let me point out that we’ve neatly slipped away from talking about the Common Core standards now and have begun talking about curriculum packages and testing. This form of sleight-of-hand is part and parcel to the narrative of most of the #StopCommonCore crowd, and it’s good to call it what it is: legerdemain.)

To argue against that, you really have to believe both of these things:

  1. All the textbook companies are in cahoots with each other to collaborate in making bad products. They further agree to never improve them so they can all retain exactly the same market share they have today. All these corporations are satisfied with their current market share, and they will never try to jockey for position or undercut each other.
  2. Nobody else will ever develop a curriculum that is CCSS-compliant, so there will never be new entries into the market; the current offerings are all we get, forever.

I find it pretty hard to believe in an invisible non-competition agreement so widespread and effective that this could actually happen, and last, while blocking out all disruptive competition, forever.

Getting back to the earlier point, we’re saying:

Corporations spent a ton of money to develop and force us to adopt Common Core, and that makes Common Core bad.

This argument is kind of subsumed in the first, but again, let’s assume that corporations really did spend a boatload of money trying to influence the direction and content of the Common Core standards, and that they did all the disgusting power-brokering we suspect them of.

The thing is, we’ve seen the result—the Common Core State Standards—and we like it. So we end up saying:

Corporations spent a ton of money to develop and force us to adopt Common Core, but we ended up liking it. We’ve looked at it carefully, and it looks great.

Again, I don’t see a huge problem.

So, who knows whether corporations spent a ton of money rigging this thing. Even if they did, the standards are good. The curriculum packages will follow. Tons of smart people are working on it. The high-stakes testing is bad, but that’s not really related to Common Core, and we’ll get rid of it.

Common Core remains a good thing.

Make Time for Short Practice Sessions

I encourage music students to practice as often as possible, rather than focusing on practicing as long as possible.

Once your attention starts to fade or waver, practice sessions become less useful. You start cementing bad habits instead of strengthening good ones. That’s why I advocate multiple shorter practices instead of one longer one.

They’re also more fault-tolerant: if you plan on having 15 short practice sessions a week (a couple every day, for a few minutes), you’ll probably actually do at least 10 of them. If they’re 10 minutes each, that still nets you 100 minutes of practice a week.

But if you plan on practicing seven times a week (once a day, for 30-40 minutes), you’re more likely to miss several sessions. Something comes up, you’re tired after work, and suddenly you’ve only practiced twice this week. That’s 60 minutes, losing handily to the 100 minutes from the short practices.

Getting the most from short practice sessions

Set specific goals. You can’t plan on omnibus sessions when you’re only working for five minutes. So pick something small to focus on. You might choose:

  • A specific piece of finger technique in isolation
  • Body posture or hand position
  • Working one passage at multiple tempos/volume levels
  • Making a position change more fluid
  • Improving your intonation on a specific note transition everywhere it appears
  • Memorizing a short passage

Use a timer. Set a timer for the amount of time you intend to work, and then focus exclusively on practicing until the timer goes off. Assiduously guard your attention while you’re playing.

Keep your instrument easily accessible. If you’re doing short practice sessions, you can’t afford a lot of time spent on retrieving your instrument. I believe strongly in storing instruments in their cases when you’re not playing, but you can still keep them nearby and easy to reach. With practice, most instruments can be ready to play within a minute or so.

Use some of your practice sessions for “fun” playing. Playing music should be fun. If you’re doing multiple short sessions, make sure some of them are just playing for enjoyment rather than working. Jeff Kaufman makes this point well.

Keep a log. Write down a few words about what you practiced, and list the date. If you want to write more, that’s great, but start with just documenting the basic facts, like this: “Practiced mandolin, worked on hand relaxation and picking—9/22/14”.

Focus on incremental improvement. If you keep stacking up 5-10 minute sessions, the results will impress you—but the effect of any one session is going to be pretty small. As long as you’re bringing full attention to your practice, you can trust that it will improve your playing, so be kind to yourself.

Look for opportunities to tuck in an extra practice session. Got ten minutes between appointments? Run through one of your pieces in your head. Play a few scales while your dinner finishes cooking. Work on your hand positions while you’re waiting on hold. There are lots of little time slots you can find once you start looking.

An example of a short practice session

Today, I practiced mandolin for 12 minutes on the ferry across Lake Champlain (Grand Isle to Cumberland Head):

Mandolin practice on the ferry
Mandolin practice on the ferry—pick held jauntily in mouth while taking selfie photo

It was about 45 degrees on the boat, and very windy. Frankly, it was really cold! Still, I have a tradition of practicing while I’m on the boat, and I want to keep it going as long as I can. So today, I worked on:

  • Playing with clean technique even when my fingers started going numb. I often play for outdoor events, and developing resilient technique that can cope with bad weather is important for me. I found that my hands kept trying to cramp, so I focused on loosening my fingers and relaxing them whenever possible (since tense muscles impede blood flow and cause cold hands).
  • Steady picking. When my hands started getting cold, it became hard to feel the mandolin pick in my right hand. This made it more challenging to play with steady, even rhythm, so I spent a few minutes noticing my picking and working to make it more even.

That’s it! It was a short practice session, but I think it was valuable. Good experiential learning on playing in adverse circumstances, with some focused work on playing with even rhythm.

Caveat musicus: be careful of temperature extremes. I don’t plan on playing my wooden instruments outdoors for much longer, since it’s getting pretty cold. Also, if you’re playing in the cold, focus on your hand technique: avoid tension, since cold muscles get hurt more easily. Also be aware that if you’re weird enough to play mandolin on a ferry in the cold, lots of tourists will take your picture.)

The People’s Climate March

In preparation for tomorrow’s worldwide People’s Climate March, Jasmine and I attended a small rally in Burlington at the University of Vermont’s campus.People's Climate March Pre-Rally 2014-09-20 13.34.40

We heard impassioned speakers, some young, some old, talking about how we desperately need to work together, not merely as Vermonters or as Americans but as citizens of the world, to make sure that we have a livable planet to bequeath to our grandchildren.

There’s reason for hope. Eight years ago, the largest climate rally in the world happened in downtown Burlington: 1,000 people attended. Not that many people were talking about climate change back then. Tomorrow, between 100,000 and 200,000 people are expected in Manhattan at the People’s Climate March, with thousands more in similar mobilizations around the globe. People are starting to pay attention.

In eight years, talking about carbon sequestration and footprints has gone from nutjob territory to a familiar topic at dinner tables and in classrooms across the world. Sustainability is gaining leverage in economic terms as well as moral ones. Last week, my friend Jay O’Hara‘s trial (for blockading a coal port with a lobster boat) was essentially dismissed, setting precedent for direct actions around the country.

It’s going to take work to fix the climate. Some of the options are already off the table because we’ve delayed too long, and the longer we wait, the more doorways get closed.

So let’s start today.

One of the speakers this afternoon pointed out that Americans tend to mistrust expert opinions and place their faith in the hands of people they know—friends and family members. As a society, our opinions are shaped by those closest to us. They asked us to commit to talking to at least one other person, today, about climate change and the need for action.

So I am talking to you. I believe the evidence I’ve seen about climate change. I believe that without significant changes in the way we live, work, eat, travel, and build, our grandchildren are going to inherit a world that’s actively hostile to life the way we know it. I don’t want that stain on my soul.

The way I see it, we’re going to need a lot of people talking and working, together, if we’re going to fix this problem. It’s already happening, but we need more. For that to happen, silent moderates need to participate in the discussion. It’s okay to say you’re not sure how big the problem is, and it’s okay to say you don’t know what to do about it—but stand up and take part in the conversation. We need more voices.

If you can get to NYC tomorrow (Sunday, September 21st, 2014), please consider attending the People’s Climate March. There’s more information here. With luck, the world leaders attending the United Nations climate summit (a few blocks away from the March route) will pay attention to the voices of the people assembled there. We speak the loudest when we speak together.

Finally, I’d like to ask you to talk about this article with someone, and to do it today. You don’t have to agree. You can call me an alarmist moron if you want. But talk about it.

Talk about the climate. Talk about what rising sea levels mean for island nations, and what it’ll do when Boston and NYC and Miami lose 50% of their land area to the sea. Talk about what a world without maple syrup will taste like once maple trees die off due to climate change. Talk about how we’ll respond to hurricanes like Irene and Rita when we don’t have any gasoline left to power emergency vehicles and generators. Talk about drought and superstorms and the connections between the two.

And most importantly, let’s talk about what we’ll do about it all.