The Lazy Route to Success

I just encountered this interesting approach to organization. The basic idea is to achieve more by achieving less. Each day, you identify three and only three things that you'll accomplish the next day. You focus on only those three things, and you get more done than the people who try to do ten things. It sounds crazy, but it might just be crazy enough to work!

Multi-taskers Beware!

I read this article in The Atlantic recently. A comment from a student who is trying to make her way through my online Comp I course for a second time brought it back to my mind. When you're young and energetic, you think you can cram everything possible into the 24 hours a day you've been allotted. You think you can take 20 credit hours, work 30 hours a week, play 4 hours a day of Guitar Hero, and throw in a few other things as well. You think you can text people, eat burritos, and drive your car simultaneously, all the while listening to Dave Matthews and talking to the three other people in the car. I'm sorry to tell you, but you can't. You're not wired to multi-task.
The only way that you can do two things at one time is if you can put one of those things on autopilot. Yeah, you can breathe and play nose-flute at the same time. (Good thing, that!) But you really can't do two things that require your attention. When you attempt to do that, as this article makes clear, you'll either task-switch between the two or do a lousy job of both.
I can play the guitar pretty well. I can sing pretty well. I can't play the guitar and sing at the same time all that well. When I try to do that, one or both of those performances suffers.
So the moral of the story here is simple. As much as you might want to do so, try not to multitask. Focus on the important things of your life. Don't try to write your biology paper while driving to work. Don't try to read your history textbook while texting your Valentine. Otherwise, you'll end up referring to him/her as Teddy Roosevelt. And that won't turn out well.

Benjamin Franklin: Student

In the current issue of The New Yorker, Jill Lepore writes copiously about Benjamin Franklin, mostly focusing on the contradictions in the great man's life. It seems that nineteenth-century Americans took Franklin and tried to make a sort of Solomon out of him, holding up the proverbs and maxims that he placed into the mouth of his fictitious Poor Richard Saunders as an absolute guide for life. "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise"--that's one of the Poor Richard proverbs that Franklin dropped on us. And who among us, when wanting to sleep just a little bit longer, hasn't hated Franklin for those words.
While I commend the entire article to you, I'd like to make two quite separate points from these words.
First, Lepore points out the general complexity of the life of the mind. Whenever you think you have things all figured out--as apparently those nineteenth-century moralists thought they had Franklin all figured out--you're almost certainly oversimplifying. Life is complex. Any discipline worth studying is complex. When you can discourse on a significant topic, beginning with a phrase like, "It's really quite simple," then I'd suggest that you go back for another look. Life, like Benjamin Franklin's legacy, is rarely quite simple.
Second, and contrary to the thrust of Lepore's article, things don't have to be quite simple to be essentially true. Sure, Benjamin Franklin might have failed to live up to many of his own proverbs, but that does not put the lie to the proverbs or even to Franklin's belief in them. As I write these words, I should be going over to the gym to run a couple of miles. I should do it, but I'm not going to do it. Does that mean that I'm really a hypocrite and a liar when I speak of the importance of physical fitness? Not hardly. It means that I'm a human, frail and imperfect. I'll run on Wednesday.
Do these two points contradict each other? They do and they don't. (How's that for a contradiction about contradiction?) They only contradict each other as much as life always contradicts itself. A successful student will learn that life is not only not as simple as they'd like it to be but that life is not as complex as it might seem to be. The tendency to oversimplification makes us dull and pointless. The tendency to overcomplication leads us to surrender and despair. If you're to accomplish anything academically, you'll need to navigate a course between these two shoals. Easier said than done, but it can be both said and done.

Enhancing Your Performance

I stumbled onto this and couldn't resist sharing it with you. Hey, if this stuff is good enough for Congress, then why not for you?

You can see other cartoons by Bob Gorrell here.

Roe IQ

It's possible that some of you might have wanted to write a paper on abortion at some point in your academic career. I can confess that, as a college freshman, many, many years ago--like almost 30--I wrote a paper on that topic.
Despite trying to discourage people from writing on that topic, I get those papers pretty much every semester, and they're almost always dreadful. Now it's certainly possible to write a good paper either for or against abortion, but people almost always bungle the task. Why? They typically don't have a clue what they're talking about, simply parroting the propaganda that they've gotten from either the American Life League or Planned Parenthood or somesuch organization. Get these writers a little bit off script and their ignorance is exposed. In other words, these writers aren't sharing their own ideas. They're sharing somebody else's ideas through their words. Boring!
Today I stumbled onto this little tool for exposing ignorance on the topic of abortion. It's the Roe IQ Test. The average score is pretty dreadful. Mine was even more dreadful. I'm glad I wasn't taking that test for a grade!

Death Data

How many people died in automotive accidents in Kansas in 2004? 500.
How many of them were female? 180.
How many of those were Black women? 8.
Why should you care? I guess unless you knew some of those people, you probably don't care, but I use these numbers to illustrate a website that you might find valuable while writing about a host of different topics. It's called WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports, 1999 - 2004, a product of the Centers for Disease Control. I'm not sure if they keep the data updating as the years go by, but you can certainly find some recent material that will be useful. Want to know how many male dog bite victims were hospitalized in 2006? (1,642) You can find that in the non-fatal side of the site. In both databases, plug in the type of injury, the state (or whole nation), ages, gender, or any of several other parameters, and you'll get a set of results that can take a so-so paper and make it look like you have access to all sorts of great information. Why? Because you do have access to all sorts of great information. So use it!
Check out WISQARS.

First Day of School

I've been doing the same old boring thing on the first day of class for years. This time, in my Comp I class, I "improved" it a little bit. I used to play the theme song to the old TV show Get Smart as I passed out the syllabus. This time around, I showed a YouTube video of the show's opening. I fully expect my students to point to this as a significant improvement in their educational experience. In the end, though, I wonder if my schtick is not getting schtale. Perhaps I need a new approach.
The following ideas, not original to me I must confess, might give you an idea for some interesting classroom hijinks.

50 Fun Things to Do on the First Day of Class
Smoke a pipe and respond to each point the professor makes by waving it and saying, "Quite right, old bean!"
Wear X-Ray Specs. Every few minutes, ask the professor to focus the overhead projector.
Sit in the front row and spend the lecture filing your teeth into sharp points.
Sit in the front and color in your textbook.
When the professor calls your name in roll, respond "that's my name, don't wear it out!"
Introduce yourself to the class as the "master of the pan flute".
Give the professor a copy of The Watchtower. Ask him where his soul would go if he died tomorrow.
Wear earmuffs. Every few minutes, ask the professor to speak louder.
Leave permanent markers by the dry-erase board.
Squint thoughtfully while giving the professor strange looks. In the middle of lecture, tell him he looks familiar and ask whether he was ever in an episode of Starsky and Hutch.
Ask whether the first chapter will be on the test. If the professor says no, rip the pages out of your textbook.
Become entranced with your first physics lecture, and declare your intention to pursue a career in measurements and units.
Sing your questions.
Speak only in rhymes and hum the Underdog theme.
When the professor calls roll, after each name scream "THAT'S MEEEEE! Oh, no, sorry."
Insist in a Southern drawl that your name really is Wuchen Li. If you actually are Chinese, insist that your name is Vladimir Fernandez O'Reilly.
Page through the textbook scratching each picture and sniffing it.
Wear your pajamas. Pretend not to notice that you've done so.
Hold up a piece of paper that says in large letters "CHECK YOUR FLY".
Inform the class that you are Belgian royalty, and have a friend bang cymbals together whenever your name is spoken.
Stare continually at the professor's crotch. Occasionally lick your lips.
Address the professor as "your excellency".
Sit in the front, sniff suspiciously, and ask the professor if he's been drinking.
Shout "WOW!" after every sentence of the lecture.
Bring a mirror and spend the lecture writing Bible verses on your face.
Ask whether you have to come to class.
Present the professor with a large fruit basket.
Bring a "seeing eye rooster" to class.
Feign an unintelligible accent and repeatedly ask, "Vet ozzle haffen dee henvay?" Become agitated when the professor can't understand you.
Relive your Junior High days by leaving chalk stuffed in the chalkboard erasers.
Watch the professor through binoculars.
Start a "wave" in a large lecture hall.
Ask to introduce your "invisible friend" in the empty seat beside you, and ask for one extra copy of each handout.
When the professor turns on his laser pointer, scream "AAAGH! MY EYES!"
Correct the professor at least ten times on the pronunciation of your name, even it's Smith. Claim that the i is silent.
Sit in the front row reading the professor's graduate thesis and snickering.
As soon as the first bell rings, volunteer to put a problem on the board. Ignore the professor's reply and proceed to do so anyway.
Claim that you wrote the class text book.
Claim to be the teaching assistant. If the real one objects, jump up and scream "IMPOSTOR!"
Spend the lecture blowing kisses to other students.
Every few minutes, take a sheet of notebook paper, write "Signup Sheet #5" at the top, and start passing it around the room.
Stand to ask questions. Bow deeply before taking your seat after the professor answers.
Wear a cape with a big S on it. Inform classmates that the S stands for "stud".
Interrupt every few minutes to ask the professor, "Can you spell that?"
Disassemble your pen. "Accidentally" propel pieces across the room while playing with the spring. Go on furtive expeditions to retrieve the pieces. Repeat.
Wink at the professor every few minutes.
In the middle of lecture, ask your professor whether he believes in ghosts.
Laugh heartily at everything the professor says. Snort when you laugh.
Wear a black hooded cloak to class and ring a bell.
Ask your math professor to pull the roll chart above the blackboard of ancient Greek trade routes down farther because you can't see Macedonia.

When you've tried them all, perhaps it's time to graduate.

The One-Ton Rodent

There's an old cliche about people ignoring the "elephant in the room." Today, I find my mind thinking about people ignoring the one-ton rodent in the room. It seems that paleontologists have discovered the remains of such a one-ton beast in Ecuador. I'm sure that the two Uruguayan scientists who uncovered this critter, to which they gave the easily memorable Latin name Josephoartigasia monesi, are quite excited about their find, but I'm left wondering about a professional career that peaks with the discovery of a 2,000 pound gerbil. Is this, perhaps, taking specialization a bit far? Would you want to be introduced at parties as the person who discovered the world's biggest rodent?
But then I'm not a scientist. I spend hours of my time studying the intricacies of poets long dead and mostly forgotten, writers about whom most people don't care a bit.
Education, you see, tends to make specialists out of us. The literature types can't talk very effectively with the chemists who can't deal well with the psychologists who don't fathom the economists at all.
I'd like to suggest that undergraduates resist this inexorable tug of specialization. It will happen eventually. Eventually, you'll be forced to declare a major and start to think and talk in the specialized jargon of that discipline. Before long, you'll sound like Dilbert's boss or some other ridiculous creature. It'll happen, but you don't have to like it. I'd suggest that you fight the specialization impulse as long and as hard as you can. Enjoy a broad swath of what the world offers, from Byzantine art through atonal music to 2,000-pound rodents. It's a wonderful world; why shouldn't we enjoy as much of it as possible?

An Eye on Completion

I've been haunted by that Einstein ring image from my last posting. It's scary to me--like a giant eye somewhere out in the cosmos, watching me as I go through my day. Frankly, it makes the CBS eye look like small potatoes.
Right now, with classes starting at various schools around the country, and at JCCC this Wednesday, the eye could well be peering at you. If it helps, imagine that it's the eye of Chuck Norris. As I recall, the theme song from Walker, Texas Ranger includes the words, "the eyes of the ranger are upon you."
So what is Chuck looking for? It's not whether you'll be voting for Mike Huckabee. That's your business altogether. No, what Chuck's watching is how you fare in this new semester. Every new semester brings with it a bundle of potential and possibility. Hope rises again, like dandelions in my front yard. Everybody intends to earn a 4.0 when the new semester begins. It's only as the semester burns in that those hopes wither away, like the bluegrass in my front yard.
You might ask why those hopes fade for many students. Go ahead, ask.
Various studies, like this one, demonstrate that in recent years, students have been taking longer to complete college degrees and the number who are taking forever--that is, not finishing at all--is rising. We're not talking horrific, scary increases, but it is true that over half of the people who start college, aiming to get a four-year degree, don't have that degree in hand after six years.
Why? That's a question for a different posting, but I'd like to think about you and your success this semester. Over the years, I have noticed several factors that get in the way of student success. Allow me to share my list with you. I'll probably go into more depth on them at a later time.
Students who perform poorly tend to:
Miss a lot of class. This is kind of a no-brainer, but it's true. If you're a sporadic attendee, even if you get all the assignments done, you'll probably lose a letter grade just because you don't pick up important stuff along the way.
Ignore the directions. Good teachers--this one included--take care to give clear directions. Failing to pay attention to those directions won't win you any popularity points.
Rush their assignments. Is it the same thing to spend 6 hours on a paper the night before it's due or to spend 1 hour on each of 6 days? No! Students who cram, do worse than those who spread their work out.
Don't get to know the professor. It's much easier for me to fail a student who is just a name on the grade list. I agonize over the students I know. Get to know the teacher!
Don't get to know other students. It's amazing to me how often students don't know anybody else in their class. You don't have to know everybody. I've seen some of those people in your class, and I wouldn't get to know them if they weren't paying me. But get to know at least a few people. Study with them; talk with them. It'll pay off.
Perhaps these hints will translate into a bit more success this year. By the way, when Chuck Norris took my fiction class, he never missed a point on any of the quizzes. Any time he didn't know the answer, he made the story change to fit his answer.

Ringer!

I played horseshoes a few months back, the first time I've tossed hunks of metal that will never see the bottom of a horse's hoof in many, many years. In the span of a long game--neither of us were very good--I had a grand total of one ringer, and I think that was a matter of dumb luck. I'm reminded of that as I read about the discovery by the Hubble Telescope of a "double Einstein ring." I must admit that I didn't know what an Einstein ring, single or double, was until I read this posting on the topic. In short, it involves two (or three) galaxies being perfectly aligned to our eyes so that the gravitation within the nearer one(s) bend the light of the farther one(s). The result is something like we see in this photo.

What are the odds of something like this being out there? I don't know, but they're probably about as long as me being able to successfully run both ends of a basketball alley oop. One of the report's readers notes the improbability of it all:

"The light left the first galaxy, 11 billion years ago, 5 billions years later it went past the next galaxy, 3 billion years later it swung past the next one (by that point the first two probably had moved and were not aligned with the third), and then 3 billion years later, this twice bent light hits the Hubble, by which point no three (much less all four counting us) of the galaxies are actually in the same line. "

Now what does all of this have to do with your success as a student? Let me be completely clear that you should never take physics instruction from this old English professor. I took physics (for the first and only time) as a senior in high school and wasn't certain that I had passed until I received my diploma at graduation.

What I can tell you, however, is that good academic results do not happen by random chance. I got a lousy grade in physics after I left that class largely to chance, hoping that the galaxies would align and all would be well. That didn't work out very well. It probably won't work out well either.

Good results, rather like an Einstein ring, can come about by accident, but you don't want to bank your future on it.

The Fonts of Fame and Fortune

Gotta get off this alliteration kick.
Do you think that fonts don't matter? I'm here to tell you that they do matter very much. A couple of years back, I sat on a committee looking to hire a new faculty member. One candidate looked quite competent and attractive--academically speaking, of course--but there was this one little problem. An essay in her application was printed in some weird, scripty font. Several of us had significant problems with that. That choice suggested somebody who just didn't make the best choices.
I mention this because I ran onto this study on fonts on student papers. Read it and you'll know what to do in some detail, but the basic idea is that using traditional fonts is a good idea. I don't know that it's fair that Times Roman gets a better grade than Bauhaus Light, but that really doesn't matter, does it? You could, I suppose, become the champion of font fairness. You could expose all of the typeface bigotry and san serif prejudice in this world. You could, but why? Is this really a fight worth fighting, a hill worth dying on? If you decide that it is, then by all means, man the barricades. For most of us, however, the right choice is to simply laugh at the silliness of it all and use the fonts that get the result we want.

Professor Plug-In

Do you know how many p-words I went through in order to come up with a title for this crazy blog? But then what's in a title? (Not much, apparently.)
My goal in this space is to post ideas of use to students, helping them to plug in to their education and their lives more effectively. There, that actually made some sense. It's a good thing I didn't settle on Professor Porridge, isn't it?