Goals: Round 1

Not much progress towards all-encompassing life goals, but I will pursue a few goals from Goals 0.0.  I want a Health goal because it's important, a Communication goal because that frustrates me so much, and a Nerdness goal because ... well, it's fun.  Today's winners are:

Health: Slam dunk a basketball successfully on 5 consecutive tries.

Nerdness: Memorize the major bodies of water in the world.  I've got it narrowed down to 211.*

Communication: Keep up this blog.  I've written a post for each of the last 30 days, but I want to hit 100 before adding another goal, so we'll revisit this on November 10.

I'll further elaborate the first two goals and my approaches in later posts, but for now, let the games begin!


*I found my spreadsheet for memorizing all 50 U.S. states and capitals, and have them down again.  Feel free to quiz me on this in any way at any point in time - gotta stay on my toes.

In Praise of Excellence

I've watched as much as possible of Team USA's preparation and entry into the 2010 FIBA World Championships.  (fyi it's basketball)  Many fans aren't interested because most of our opponents are severely overmatched, making those games blowouts.  I love blowouts!  We need close games every so often to keep the tension alive, but a blowout allows players to show the limits of what they can push themselves to - Durant tapping a steal around his man and taking it all the way down the court for a 2-handed slam, Iguodala stealing the ball before the ballhandler knows he's there.  When winning's out of the equation, they can focus on their basketball art and give us the elemental thrill that first made us love the game.  The losing team gets to do the same as their best players take more initiative and wow us.  In a true blowout, even the backups strut their stuff.

I'd never want a season without close games - any champion needs to be tested to earn the title - but a few blowouts make for relaxed enjoyment as well, and a reminder of what makes the best players so excellent.

Challenge Accepted

A Facebook comment on my Goals 0.0 post suggested I should tackle memorizing the major bodies of water in the world first.  I figure why not - it's as good a direction as any.  But now what list do I use?  I can find a list of 31, 147, or over 700 (more than half of these are rivers).  147 feels like a solid compromise, but I'm open to suggestions.

Keeping Score, Take 2

My cousin Eric, a psychiatrist, posted the following comment on yesterday's blog post about teacher evaluations, and it's worth discussing for another day.

Charles, this is an issue that we struggle with in medicine too. There is a strong push to rate doctors, but there is huge disagreement as to how to do it fairly. Every doctor, when faced with being ranked on their outcomes, claims that their patients are sicker than their colleagues', and so any comparison would be apples to oranges. This is of course true of some of them, but can't be true of all of them, logically. So we need a way of ranking just how sick the patients are to begin with (or, for teachers, just how much "potential" each student might have?). Another thorny problem is the fact that teachers and doctors and other professionals deal with human beings (as opposed to, say, widgets), and that humans have a way of doing what they want to do regardless of what their teachers or doctors try to persuade or "make" them do. We just don't have the same control over our "product" as many other workers do. Thirdly, the measurement process cannot be more burdensome than the job itself, however to really do it in ways that capture all the qualities you want in a teacher or doctor or whatever, it seems like it might have to be. Test scores are easy to measure, but don't tell the whole story, just as blood glucose levels or cholesterol levels or scores on a depression questionnaire are easy to measure but don't tell the whole story about what makes a good doctor. But the data is easy to get, so this is what is measured. It's like the old joke about the drunk guy looking for his keys under the streetlight, when he lost them 50 feet away. When asked why he was looking there, he replied "because that's where the light is."

I agree with you that teachers, and doctors, should be evaluated to encourage improvement in quality. The measurement problem, however, is formidable. 

Excellent points on the measurement problem, but our products might not be that different.  There was a "good ole days" (and might still be some good ole employers) when a computer system made up the entire product.  However, we now deliver the ability for our customers to achieve their goals.  We can't just provide an Inventory Report - we validate the inventory data, allow users to modify incorrect numbers, and lock a final version.  Only then can the client confidently use the Inventory Report for budgeting and planning.  I had clients who gave us terrible data files, made a mishmash of modifying it in every way possible, and blamed us for their decisions based on their own data (fortunately, we don't have any of these at S3).  Protecting clients against themselves takes far more time than building the reports, our official output.  People are messy.


I'm not minimizing the added difficulty of dealing with patients/students - my doctor's a saint for putting up with me, and teachers are the most patient people I know.  At some point, though, the outcome is all that matters, regardless of the subject or circumstance.  We may not have enough metadata about education to achieve that level of measurement rigor*, but teachers need to define and enforce their own evaluation, or others will arbitrarily impose easy-to-get metrics like the value-add score.


I know teachers who evaluate their own efforts and work to improve their evaluation, but I've never seen a group/union/department adopt outcome-based standards with any accountability.  I'm sure exceptions exist, but this needs to be a broad trend in education to improve teachers' public image, and, most importantly, students' educations.


*Not that I'm an education expert, but I know so much less about medical practice that I have no idea how much this applies to your field.

Keeping Score

The Los Angeles Times will publish evaluations of over 6,000 elementary teachers on its website (story here), which reflect their students' improvement on test scores.  The union, predictably, rages against the injustice of it all, and attacks the administration, the evaluations' statistical process, and the media.  What the union does not do is suggest how to properly evaluate teachers.

Education is difficult to quantify, especially with so little agreement on educational goals.  Teachers have a justifiable fear of both individual principals' reviews, which can reflect political and personal issues, and calculated scores which cannot capture a teacher's full impact.  What does?  Probably some combination, much like other professions.  I get scores and commentary on my reviews - we don't calculate our numbers, but some companies do.

I can't put into words how much I respect teachers (and am frustrated that I lack the skills to be one), but we need a way to eliminate the bad, reward the good, and spread best practices to help the rest.  Educators should lead the charge with effective accountability that parents and taxpayers can understand. The current system obstructs this kind of effort, but if teachers don't find a solution, they'll have to live with the system's.

Monster

DISCLAIMER #1: I won't give details or names on this incident, but don't worry - the other people are not family, coworkers, or common friends that you might hang out with.  And they're definitely not you.

I got angry at a couple of people last night, and rediscovered one of my biggest fears.  Me.  When I get upset, I huff and puff and my words emotionally stomp around the room.  As long as I'm talking about me or my problem, it's roid-rage Tom Bombadil.  That's where I was while with other people last night.

While fuming afterwards, I crossed the line into quiet anger, which focused on the other people.  My anger doesn't build on the bluster of upset, like an avalanche surging relentlessly.  This monster calmly, arrogantly uses words like Dexter's scalpel, slashing quickly but deeply and precisely for maximum pain.  He's cool, aloof, focused on harm, and never wavers.

He scares the crap out of me because he's good.  I can't remember letting the monster out of my head since middle school, back when my semantic blades did more to inspire bullies than to deter them.  He only plays inside my head, reveling in his plans.  Last night I wanted to give him free rein, and let whatever might happen, happen.  The idea still intrigues me, but the responsibility for his effects on anyone ... my mind revolts at even conceptualizing it.  I notice the anticipatory reveling stops when the assault is delivered - I/he avoid thinking about anything after that.

Dunno how to close this entry.  I don't know what to do with the monster, besides avoidance.  Just needed to express it - maybe this will help.

DISCLAIMER #2: This is a rare occurrence.  I frequently get quiet or upset without anything like this internal turmoil.  Just wanted to reassure you that this doesn't apply to our regular interactions.

Goals 0.0

A while back I listed goals I had while growing up.  I'm still trying to determine goals, and thought the next step would be listing out everything I've considered wanting to do/be in recent memory.  Consider this a preliminary brainstorming session - could add more to any category or even more categories - in no particular order.  Your feedback is highly encouraged.

• Languages (I'm terrible at speaking/listening, but reading/writing)
• Sign
• Spanish
• Chinese
• Japanese
• French (resurrected from high school/college)
• German
• Arabic
• Mastery of a Topic
• Nations (culture/history/mythology/politics/economy
• Turkey
• India
• Scandinavia
• Scotland
• People
• Albert Einstein
• Aristotle
• Augustine of Hippo
• Thomas Aquinas
• people whose names don't start with A - I promise, I'm interested
• History
• early Chistian church
• Rennaissance
• Enlightenment
• democratic revolutions through history
• Persian history
• Religion
• Islam
• Current Issues
• healthcare
• campaign finance
• environment
• Constitutional/political processes
• Trivia to keep the mind flexible and win pub games
• US states/capitals
• Canadian provinces/capitals
• Mexican states/capitals
• Countries/capitals
• Major bodies of water
• Presidents/Vice-Presidents
• Greek letters
• Write
• Blog (well I'm accomplishing something on this list!)
• Published stories
• Published/referenced essays
• Read
• Bible in parallel with several different versions (database to store and analyze?)
• Qur'an
• Other religions' texts
• complete Isaac Asimov series
• all Hugo/Nebula award winners
• Brittanica Great Books selections
• Programming
• Earn Oracle certification of some kind
• Learn non-SQL language to actually build a usable tool
• Put my finances-tracking spreadsheet into a database/app
• Use data to "solve" Farkle
• List management application for help with memorization (see Trivia)
• Places
• Live in other states/countries long enough to get a feel for them (although I have no doubt Austin, TX, will remain my favorite)
• Summit mountains - not adventure/rock-climbing, just hikes up the Rockies, etc.
• There's no place I couldn't find something to enjoy
• Apply that last bullet point to Central Texas
• Physical Activity/Health
• Dunk a basketball
• Be able to flick a racquetball from anywhere on the court to the back wall
• Play 1-2 hours of decent basketball
• Play hard for a full racquetball game
• Swim
• Stop needing pills
• Wear an XL size
• Impact on the World
• Improve public education
• Improve access to facts/objective expertise

Th-th-th-that's all, folks.  Until I think about it some more.