Kindergarten Marketing

The kids started Kindergarten this year. The school has a number of seemingly reasonable ways to stay in contact with us. Each child has a "parent-teacher communication folder" and we've signed up for the school and district e-mail messaging system. More often than not, these tools are used for fundraising. The kids have been in school two months and already I have thrown out jewelery catalogs, gift wrap catalogs, spirit wear catalogs, market day catalogs, book fair catalogs, gift card order forms, gift catalogs, catalogs from companies who will make products of your child's artwork, and countless others. The kids participated in a walk-a-thon during school which we received a donation sheet for, without any indication what the charity was. It was the school. I guess that was supposed to be obvious. Every "backpack e-mail" from the district is a list of upcoming events. Most of them are " It is Suburban-School-District-101 night at X, X will donate $Y of your purchase to SSD 101!" or announcements about the catalogs being sent home. On top of that, the kids came home the other day singing the Fast Food Song.

Invalid Number

[Ring!]

Me: Hello?

Caller: Is this Twice?

Me: Yes. [Check Caller ID. It's my OB/GYN Office]

Caller: Hello Twice. This is Nellie at OB/GYN Office. We just got the payment you sent in. I need to verify the credit card number as I seem to be missing some of the numbers.

Me: O.K. But, let me call you back so I know who I'm giving the number to.

Caller: Oh, sure, I'm at extension XXXX

[Call OB/GYN office. Wait on hold five minutes. Explain I need to talk to billing. Wait to be transferred. Get disconnected. Call back. Etc. Eventually talk to Nellie.]

Me: Sorry it took a little while, the phones must be busy there.

Nellie: No problem.

Me: The number is 1234 5678 9101 1121

Nellie: That is the number I have here. It says it is invalid.

Me: What?

Nellie: I must be missing some numbers.

Me: Let's check them.

[Nellie reads them back to me]

Me: Yes, that is right.

Nellie: But that number comes back invalid.

Me: Is the expiration date wrong?

Nellie: No, I didn't even get that far, it just says invalid number when I entered it. So that is why I thought I must be missing some numbers.

Me: I don't know what to tell you, we've had this number for years. I do not have it wrong, and we used the card 20 minutes ago. Did you enter the type of card as Visa?

Nellie: No, we don't have to enter the type, the system figures it out and it just said invalid number when I entered it. And the number I tried before calling you is the same as the number you just gave me.

Me: Um...

Nellie: Well how about this. Would you like me to try to put it in again?

Some numbers from a weekend wedding

Number of days between finding out about Dr. H's brother's wedding and the wedding itself: 20

Number of times this wedding has been scheduled: 2

Number of times this wedding has been canceled: 1

Number of times we have purchased plane tickets for this wedding: 2

Hours spent this weekend engaged in air transit with two children under four: 16

Minutes children slept during this time (combined total): 6

Minutes required to check into hotel room at 2 a.m. Saturday morning: 35

Hours spent driving in rental car with two or more children under four: 5

Number of children of mine who are girls: 1

Number of children of mine who wore dresses to the wedding: 2

Hours spent away from home this weekend: 46

Number of suitcases arriving home with us: 0

Doing my part for the Democrats

My mother, a white, middle-class woman over 60, is about to move from McCain country to super-important swing state.

She is a registered Democrat. She voted for Clinton in the primary. So far no problem.

She has occasionally voted for Republicans, but doesn't seem to remember doing so, or consider it to be significant. In the last four national elections she voted for Clinton, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. I really thought W had put her right over the edge and squarely into the Democratic camp for good. And if Clinton wins the primary, we can count on one more democratic vote in that swing state.

But, there is a problem in an alternate scenario: She is scared of the angry black people.

That isn't what she said of course - what she said was: "I'm just so concerned."

I really wanted to ask my mother, "What do you think is going to happen?" This wasn't going to get us anywhere, however, because admitting this sort of thing to me when she knows how I feel indicates she wants to feel differently - better to focus on that.

Instead, I urged her to listen to Obama's entire speech. She is open enough that this might be sufficient. She was surprised to learn that Wright is an ex-Marine. Fortunately, this alone convinced her that she might not know the whole story. She was also receptive to the idea that the images and sound bites she is being plagued with are taken out of context and politically motivated, something the UCC's Response to this whole thing sums up nicely:

What's really going on here? First, it may state the obvious to point out that these television and radio shows have very little interest in Trinity Church or Jeremiah Wright. Those who sifted through hours of sermons searching for a few lurid phrases and those who have aired them repeatedly have only one intention. It is to wound a presidential candidate.

I think anti-racism activist Tim Wise is also on to something here when he touches on white discomfort with black anger:

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

I'm not sure this last thing is something my mother is ready to hear.

Besides referring my mother to Obama's speech and trying to contextualize this whole issue, I'm not really sure what else to do. My whole family is like this - and that is just the ones who are Democrats. For example my aunt (a democrat) is really mad at Oprah, for supporting Obama over Clinton. "Isn't she supposed to be for women?" she asks. What I want to ask her is "Are you really mad about that, or are you just mad that Oprah has reminded you that she is black?" This is unlikely to get me anywhere, but I feel ill-prepared to confront racism, especially in my own family. At some point in the conversation with my mother, I turned the phone over to Dr. H, who has some more perspective. He reminded my mother of his adopted brother's experience as an African-American child growing up in a white family in a very white rural suburb - and the very understandable anger that resulted from the bias, prejudice and abuse he encountered.

Perhaps we made some headway with my mother. Time will tell.

---

Bitch, Ph.D. has some things to say on this subject and the comments are also interesting.

This is not directly related, but Jerald Walker has another interesting piece up at the Chronicle about race and the academy.

Missed Exams

When I first started teaching, I was stunned to find out that students actually missed tests! They sometimes just don't show up! Who knew?

I quickly grew tired of feeling like (a) a failed lie detector (b) a pushover or (c) a resentful bitch instructor, so I searched for a better way.

In my lower level classes, I adopted the "retake" policy of one of my former colleagues: everyone gets to take one (modified) test over for any reason. That seems simple enough, but the policy does get more complicated: If you didn't take the test the first time, you must score at least X to have your test counted. If you did take the test the first time and you score higher, you get the higher score. Score lower, but within Y points of the first attempt, keep your higher score. Score more than Y points lower and your score is determined by this ultra-complicated formula: (2*HI+LO)/3.

This provides a negative incentives for skipping just because you can, as missing tests is not, in my experience, a good omen for success. There is a small risk of retaking so if you are not prepared, you won't waste my time, or yours. The, um, "ultra-complicated" formula seems to be a deterrent as well, simply because some students aren't sure what it means.

So does it work?

Yes! I love this system. I also love that the student who blows the first test (Whoa! college.... Science...) but gets organized and buckles down can re-take that first test (in a similar incarnation). My current record point increase is 54 on a 100 point test.

I don't do this in my upper level classes. Why? Because I've never really had much of a problem there. Then this happened. The short version: one student, called Jill here, missed an exam and had a "suspicious" excuse. Whatever. This is rare enough in this class, I let it go. Everyone in my upper level classes gets the benefit of the doubt the first time. Then Jill asked another student what was on the test. I believe she skipped the test to gain more study time, and the cheating attempt was a crime of opportunity, but either way, I was not happy.

So now, the "Jill Rule" joins all the other specific rules added to my syllabus because of the actions of one student. There is the "Bob Rule", the "Alexis rule" and even the "Crazy Paranoid Student Rule". What is the "Jill Rule"? An XX% penalty on exam retakes for unexcused reasons.

Guess who missed the first test this semester? I guess she didn't read the syllabus.

In Praise of Whiteboards

I love whiteboards. Judging by my department and a recent post at Learning Curves, I must be the only one.

In our department, we have maybe 6 classrooms we teach in frequently, and there are maybe 6 or 7 more classrooms in the building. There is a whiteboard in just one. The college wanted to put one in the building as a trial, I was the only one not adamantly opposed. It went into the room I use more frequently than anyone else. I love this board.

In my defense, it is a very new board which appears to be very high quality, no one has done anything unforgivable to it (yet) and the surface is really in great shape.

And I can make graphs in color! Color! I love color.

I do have some advice for dealing with whiteboards:

• Bring your own markers, always. Take them with you when you leave. (Easy for me - my office is 10 feet from the whiteboard.)
  
  
• Do not use low odor markers without testing first - some are impossible to erase and leave a horrible film. Others don't. Learn to love the solvent.
  
  
• Never leave stuff on the board when you leave. Something happens after stuff is on for longer than an hour and getting it off is not pretty.
  
  
• Only use the cleaner when you have dry erased what you can and there is ample time for the board to dry.
  
  
• Bullet tip yes, chisel tip no.
  

Yesterday, I said to Dr. H. "No one seems to like whiteboards except me. Everyone else hates them." Turns out he prefers whiteboards too.

Weird, I thought. Is it a tech/engineering school thing? Is is that we both teach in rooms with good boards and everyone else has boards that someone has dragged sandpaper across? Are we the only ones who bring our own markers?

Then I realized: we both have super dry skin. When I teach in rooms with chalkboards, I spend about 5 months in the winter with borderline chapped hands. Dr. H.'s get so bad his skin splits.

As an added bonus, Google gives me 13K references for rhinitis and chalk dust. For whatever reason, the markers don't bother my nose nearly as much as the chalk dust.

Another Note to My Students

Just a quick hint:

Suppose you are asked to "Calculate [blah] using the equation below from [reference] and comment on how these compare to [blah] calculated by [the usual fashion]"

An appropriate comment is not:

"It makes no sense to me but whatever."

p.s. In fact, if it really makes no sense, maybe, just maybe, your calculation is incorrect.

Some Comments for My Students

Student A: Why is it only week two and I am already annoyed with you? Why do you always come to class 25 minutes late? Why have you done this in every biophysimistry course you have taken in our department? If it really is just because of parking, why haven't you figured out in the course of the last three years that you need to leave earlier? Also, you speak and interact with a slight air of arrogance and entitlement. It is slight enough that you could get away with it - if you were really competent. You aren't. So instead, it is incredibly annoying.

Student B: Why must you always respond to everything as if it is about you? The class just asked if you all could, as is my usual "grace period upon request", turn in the homework by 5pm. I said "Yes". You said, "That doesn't help me. I have lab." (A) Not my problem and (B) So does everyone else in the class and (C) You are finished with the homework anyway.

Student C: Okay, let me get this straight. You signed up for this course that has a component which requires you to meet with me for three weeks in a small group and discuss assigned readings. This is the only assignment for these three weeks. I have agreed with your demands to only schedule the group meeting between 4:30 and 6 on T or 3 and 6 on Th, because you live all the way in [different suburb] and it is "too hard" for you to come to campus for just one class the other days, and the rest of T and Th are already filled with other activities, a few of which are classes. I have done this, because the other students can meet then, and because it is only three weeks. Now, you would like to skip the second meeting and meet with me privately because you signed up for some other activity, but you will understand if I say no? Good. No. And by the way [different suburb] is 10 minutes from campus.

When Geeks Marry Hippies II

Last summer, we visited my father-in-law and assorted members of Dr. H's family. This included his sister (SIL), a self-described hippie, her husband (BIL), a geek with hippieish tendencies acquired by marriage, and their two children. Dr. H. is a full-time geek and part-time hippie. Dalton and Curie were both super fussy before bedtime. SIL and her husband inquired as to what the problem might be, hoping to help.

"It's teething" I announce sadly.

"We have homeopathic teething tablets!" SIL says cheerfully.

Uh Oh. Dr. H. looks at me, presumably willing me not to speak.

Shockingly, I can't help myself.

"We don't do homeopathy. As a physchembio-ist, I can't possibly." I say.

"What do you mean?" SIL asks.

"Look, I really don't want to get into this. I understand that some have proposed theories that get around the Avogadro's Number problem, but I don't find any of them credible." I say. "I gave them acetaminophen."

This statement turns out to be problematic, because I've assumed SIL and BIL know about the Avogadro's Number problem, a fundamental flaw of Homeopathy. Instead of discussing the Avogadro problem, I have jumped ahead and begun criticizing the alternative theories developed by homeopaths to get around Avogadro. At this point, I am assuming that SIL and BIL have heard of these also. It turns out that SIL and BIL do not know about the Avogadro's Number problem, just as most other people have not. In fact, most people have not heard of the assumptions that underlie homeopathy in the first place. SIL and BIL are aware of these assumptions, just not the Avogadro problem.

Unfortunately, I do not yet realize this, so I begin to explain why one of the Avogadro problem work-arounds doesn't hold water. One mention of vibrations of water molecules and I've convinced them I know nothing about the topic at hand.

"That's not what homeopathy is." SIL says, patiently.

At this point a few sentences of clarification are exchanged. However, things are still messy because I jumped into the argument in the wrong place, and everyone is talking at once. Fortunately, BIL is quite good at negotiating such conversations and getting everyone onto the same point. "As I understand it" says BIL, "the idea is that you choose some ingredient that may have negative effects similar to those you are experiencing. Next, you dilute it heavily. At the high dilution, it no longer has the harmful effects, but your body still recognizes its presence, and reacts to it."

"I understand that, but what I'm saying is that most remedies are diluted so heavily there are no molecules/ions of the original substance left. Or more correctly, only a very, very small chance your particular dilution has one."

SIL says, "I agree that would be a problem."

I breathe a sigh of relief that we agree on this last point. We leave it more or less at this point. SIL believes there must be more to this story, and thinks, perhaps I am getting something mixed up.

Several weeks later, I politely send them the article by Bob Park linked above.

They use other remedies for teething now.

Last fall, my Physchembio for Poets class and I went through the calculations for a 30X homeopathic dilution. They looked at the numbers. I said nothing. They looked at each other. I looked at them. One of them finally said "So, it's just water?" This is exactly why I like teaching general education classes.


---
By way of explanation: I had to wait for 15 minutes to pick up a prescription yesterday and was trapped near the homeopathy aisle, thus provoking this rant.

When Geeks Marry Geeks

I had an epiphany yesterday: When our daycare providers try to give us advice, my husband (Dr. H) and I react in very different ways. He listens. I get defensive. He enjoys asking other people for advice about such subjects. I prefer books. Or blogs. Or magazines. Basically, I like asynchronicity.

I'm just as prone to parental anxieties as the next person about most things. However, right now I'm a little annoyed that our main daycare provider has just totally stressed out my husband.

Dalton hasn't been eating very well there recently. He has also been sort of zoned out at times - especially the last week or so. Our daycare provider has previously shared her concern that Dalton sometimes doesn't join in with the group and just goes off and does his own thing. She's now apparently concerned about his nutrition level and that this somehow is affecting his behavior. She was clever enough to share this with Dr. H. instead of me.

The reasons I'm annoyed are many, but the first thing is that Dalton has had a cold for the last 1.5 weeks or so. I had it first. The main symptom? Lethargy and lack of appetite.

I'm also more than a little annoyed at her having such a problem with my son's behavior. I want to scream at her "Have you noticed that his parents are TOTAL GEEKS?" and "Do you think that this only shows up in adulthood?" Call me crazy, but I think (a) having two parents who went to engineering undergraduate schools, (b) specialized in the most math-based areas of their chosen fields in grad school and who (c) love video games might just be relevant here.

The truth is, Dalton is very social and interactive when he wants to be. He has empathy and he also understands how to piss his twin sister off when he wants to. He often talks about wanting to see his relatives and knows who they are on site (grandma, grandpa and nana, cousins, etc) even when he hasn't seen them in a long time. This is not a kid with social issues. This is just a kid who prefers figuring out a door mechanism to circle time on occasion.

My conversation with Dr. H. went something like this:

Dr. H: I'm just worried about him

Me: He's fine!

Dr. H: Well what if his behavior is something we're...

Me: We just spent the weekend at your sister's house. She's a child psychologist, remember? If there was anything to be concerned about don't you think she'd tell us?

Dr. H: Well, I guess so.

Me: She would. I've asked her like 20 times if she would tell us if she was concerned and she promises she would.

Dr. H: Yeah, okay, but...

Me: He's fine!

and so on...

In any case, I don't think I succeeded in completely allaying his fears, but I hope he has relaxed a little. Our daycare provider is otherwise great, by the way. In principle, I agree she should share her concerns of this sort with us. I just don't like hearing them.

Anyway, what should be more surprising is how on earth Dr. H. and I were able to produce a child as socially aware as Curie.

Unambiguous Birthday

I read Elizabeth Weil's article about when to start kindergarten in the New York Times with great interest. Apparently, Kindergarten has changed. It is now so academically rigorous, many states have moved the birthday cutoff from Fall to Summer. Also, many affluent parents are "Red-shirting" their kids - having them start kindergarten a year later to reap the advantages of being more academically and physically mature than their peers, and therefore more confident.

Two things I found interesting about this: (1) this "red-shirting" disproportionately helps children of more affluent parents and (2) is this starting an academic "arms race" of a sort? There is much more about (1) in the article, which I recommend reading, and only a little about (2). Aren't both of these the sort of thing we're facing with college admissions now? It doesn't seem like a good thing.

I'm relieved that Dalton and Curie's early summer birthday means we will not have to confront the birthday cutoff question directly. Unless our school district moves the cutoff three months earlier than it is now, they will start Kindergarten two years from this fall at the age of 5. I haven't sensed a big push in our area to hold kids back, but maybe I'm just not plugged into that discussion.

One thing that annoyed me a little about the article was this passage:

(The parents of the redshirted boy in Andersen’s class declined to be interviewed for this article but may very well have held him back because he’s small — even though he’s now one of the oldest, he’s still one of the shortest.)

and this one:

Midmorning, however, a little boy who will not turn 5 until this summer arrived. His little feet dangled off the kindergarten chair, as his legs were not long enough to reach the floor.

Maybe I'm being picky here, but I sense a bit of a short=bad/weak vibe going on here. I know being larger helps you become a soccer star, but does it really help you learn to read? Should an article like this be placing a value judgement on size?

My kids are likely to be smaller than their classmates - the average height of women in their family hovers around 5'1". Perhaps we will get them into Jujitsu before then so that they are physically confident despite being smaller.

One other thing that puzzled me: I started kindergarten at the age of four and a half. I could swear we learned to read and did some beginning math that year, but perhaps I'm misremembering.

Hungry for Equality - Two Debates about Single-Sex Events

A debate from last week:

Each year, we hold a women's research symposium on our campus. This event has been going on for some time and has been quite successful. There has been a call to open the event up to males - with a suggestion that the event is a type of reverse discrimination. We have no similar event for males or for the entire faculty. The nominal leader of the group of women running the event asked the women faculty listserv (you are signed up when the ink on your contract is dry) what we all thought of this.

The correct answer was not, apparently, what I said. I tried to open a structured dialogue. I asked some questions. One question in particular that everyone ignored was "Are there goals of the symposium which would not be met by opening up the symposium to men?" Several e-mails came back. At least a few were angry. One even used ALL CAPS for some points. Can I just say how fond I am of people YELLING AT ME via e-mail? In the end, my attempts to bring a discussion together failed miserably.

I have participated in many female-only events that encourage female participation in math and science. I've done this because it is the case that significant inequalities persist that result in discouraging girls to pursue SEM fields. In other cases, I gravitate towards moving single-sex events to all-inclusive events, such as Dr. H and I did with our co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party. I thought perhaps a discussion on the listserv would help suss out our views on the subject. Turns out, everyone had already made up their mind. I could summarize it as follows: One group (humanists) said not understanding the need for this event was like putting one's head in the sand and and denying the need for affirmative action. The other group (social scientists) said "We're scientists, not women scientists." I was the only natural scientist naive enough to enter the discussion.


A debate from many years ago:

I received my Ph.D. at an R1 with a large and vibrant Expanding Your Horizons program for middle school girls. This program encourages girls to continue to take math and science in high school. Over 300 girls participated each year. Dozens and dozens of postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates worked hard to pull this event together each year - from coordinating promotional materials and sponsors to developing science workshops to shuttling groups of girls around campus. The number of women-hours put into this was huge. Every year, the question about inviting boys came up - because the women who want to help girls succeed in science are the same women who are concerned about equality and fairness. These same women all saw the value of a single-sex event. My favorite quote: "Girls need to see that women who look like women they know do science."

Finally, after much debate one year, a woman said something like this: "Look, this comes up every year. The truth is female postdocs and grad students on this campus put in countless hours of planning and preparation for this event. Some have the support of their advisors, some don't. The take time aways from their research to do this because this issue is very important to them. They have experienced sexism. They have withstood attempts to discouraged them from pursuing science. So, I say if the male grad students and post docs want to run a workshop for boys, let them. We'll even help." In my recollection, there was no further discussion that year, or the next.


Technorati: scientiae-carnival

Just a piece of advice for daycare providers....

When you wish to give a parent advice about how to handle their child's tantrum, do not start the conversation with "Have you seen Nanny 911?"

Hey, focus on your own family. Thanks.

The House has passed a hate crimes bill. I'd be excited if it weren't for the lack of a veto proof majority (212 is a long way from 290). The Time's one line summary:

The bill, extending “hate crime” protections to include sexuality, is likely to face a veto from President Bush.

The usual suspects are up in arms. You know, people who focus on other people's families and women who are concerned about other's peoples sex lives.

In any case, this makes me want to share two completely unrelated thoughts:

1. A great book for kids discussing all kinds of families is Todd Parr's The Family Book. Actually, I like quite a bit of his stuff including The Peace Book, The Mommy Book and The Daddy Book. Some time ago, I introduced my much-more-hippie-than-me sister-in-law to his books. Unfortunately, this resulted in us both buying The Peace Book for the daughter of a second cousin. But I digress. These are great books for encouraging tolerance.

2. On a totally different subject, it's Leather Pride Week in Sydney! Blogthings knows this, apparently:

You Belong in Australia

Ace! Sunny, upbeat, and cute You make the perfect surf bum Now stop hogging the vegemite!

What English Speaking Country Are You?