Thursday, May 31, 2007

Children can perform approximate math without arithmetic instruction %u2014 The Harvard University Gazette

Children can perform approximate math without arithmetic instruction %u2014 The Harvard University Gazette: "Children are able to solve approximate addition or subtraction problems involving large numbers even before they have been taught arithmetic, according to a study conducted at Harvard University by researchers from the University of Nottingham and Harvard."

This is a good thing to know about children's abilities..
Approximation is a useful skill and can be used all the time, but that is not mathematics.
My only fear is that they'll not leverage it but rather use it against our children to teach them more estimation and less actual math and hurt their innate abilities.

Monday, May 28, 2007

The Loss of Creatively In Children

In a recent newsletter from Brian Tracy he mentions a study he found,
"In one series of I.Q. tests given to children ages 2 - 4 years, 95% of the children were found to be highly creative with curious, questioning minds and an ability for abstract thinking.

When the same children were tested again at age 7, only 5% still demonstrated high levels of creativity. In the ensuing years, they had learned to conform; "If you want to get along, you had better go along," is what they had discovered.

They had learned to color between the lines, to sit in neat little rows, to do and say what the other kids did and said, and to do as they were told. Over time, they lost the wonderful fearless spontaneity of youth and learned to suppress ideas and insights that were unusual or different."

Now I could not find a reference to a study nor could I find anything like it after a quick search on the web. So I have to ask myself do I believe this?

I have a 4 year old right now and she can be very creative, she found a basket of clothes pins and proceeded to use them as building blocks for a fence and then a little building. She also asks lots of questions which we try to answer as best we can in a manner she can understand.

I've also noticed that she'll pick up what other children are doing. Children about this age also are eager to please often enough.

School at the very least teaches conformity. Change activities when the bells ring. Stop doing one thing no matter how interesting or fun and do something else no matter how dull or boring. That works for managing large groups of children but it hurts the most important asset we have and that is the creativity of our children.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Worry Reduces Brain Function

"The women start worrying about screwing up which uses up important short term or working memory which could otherwise be used performing the task," said Sian Beilock, assistant professor in psychology at the University of Chicago and lead investigator in the study. " http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=373189&ssid=204&sid=LIF

Typically you have about 5+/-2 active memory slots in your mind, this is your short-term memory and is filled with things like what you are doing now, what you plan on doing next, how you family is doing. Worry will take up one or more of those precious slots.

If you start worrying about how well you're doing something then you will do a worse at it. It doesn't really matter if it is math or sports or writing.

People are deathly afraid of speaking in public, and they do badly because they are afraid of making mistakes.

When you're writing how often do you do editing at the same time, all the time. When really you need to do writing and then come back separately for editing.

How to overcome the worry handicap
Once you are aware that worry can impair your mental function you can do things to overcome it. One of the best things you can do is be "in the moment", which sounds rather new-agey and zen, but is the right idea. Basically, all you're trying to do is put all your worries and concerns off on the side for a while.

A couple of brain hack techniques I have used are:
1) Write your mind clutter down. Get out a piece of paper or a word processing document and just brain dump everything cluttering your mind onto it.

2) Use a worry box. This is a little woo-woo but works for me. Actually when I first heard of a worry box it wasn't about a physical box at all, it was about how as this one person aged the less she worried about things and described it as her worry box getting smaller. I simply take a physical object and let that represent all the worries, concerns and directives I am currently worrying about and I put it to one side. For example, I need to focus on writing a blog post, but a lot of things in my mind are producing lots of mental static, I let my watch represent all the worries I have, and put it in my pocket. This clears my mind and lets me work more effectively. When I am done I put my watch back on and things are back to the way they were, more or less. Usually less since I got at least one thing off of my To Do list.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

How To Read Faster

zenhabits had a post today on speed reading but the interesting part were the comments. It was amazing to see how many people were citing studies and saying so many things to explain why they couldn't possibly learn to read faster. The funny thing is that it isn't impossible. I tested twice for reading and comprehension and scored at 1700 and 2000 wpm. and the 1700 score was when I was tired. I once when I went home for Christmas break I stopped by the bookstore to get some light reading, I finished a stack of 5 book (150-250 pages each) in about 8 hours. Am I doing the impossible? The Guinness Booke of Records has the fastest reader at 25,000wpm. I am less then 10% that.

Reading at a high rate of speed is possible. You can do it too. It won't be fast or easy. You won't expect to start a workout program and not experience aches and pains, even temporary weakness. The same will happen when you start trying to do something different with your mental muscles.

It takes 500-1000 hours of study to become expert in a new skill. At about 1 hour a day it will take a year or two of steady practice to get to a really high speed. That really isn't all that long.

Also you won't want to use speed reading techniques when learning something new or if you just want to enjoy something you are reading, like a poem.

If you are not careful you may end up not enjoying authors who are not prolific as they don't take the time to develop their stories and worlds very well. You'll end up having to read authors with greater then triolgy series like Clancy, Jordan, Eddings, Card, McCaffery.

The greatest benefit of speed reading is that it allows you to leverage that most precious resource: time. Time is your one resource that cannot be replenshed, but can be leveraged. What to learn something? Many people have written books after spending years--decades, even--learning how to do something well. You can gain that experience in a matter of hours just by reading. Take the Bible for example. After compiling hundreds of peoples and thousands of years of experince we can read it in a matter of days. Reading is a shortcut we won't live long enough to think all the thoughts that have been thought before. We can spring board off of their thinking to expand our own.

How to read faster

First you'll want to set up a reading training area. A comfortable seat in a quiet place with a good light and something to read and a timer.
A comfortable place to sit is important because if you are not comfortable then you'll be distracted by the pains in your body.
A quiet place, again you are trying to minimize distrations, eventually you'll be able to speed read anywhere but you are just starting out now, so make it easier on yourself.
Good lighting is primary, your eyes are photon receptors--the more photons they get the better. There are even special reading bulbs that put out 150+ Watts of light that are really very helpful.
A book, this doesn't need to be anything special, but don't use something important to read by tomorrow, you could use a book you've read before that you liked. that way you can tell if you missed something.
Record your starting page. Set the timer for 20 minutes. And start reading as fast as you can stand without skipping.

One of the first things you'll notice is that you're sounding out the words even if you aren't moving your lips. That is called subvocalization and tends to slow you down. Put a pencil or something between your teeth and that should help stop that. This is be the biggest boost to your reading speed.

Another thing that you'll find happening is that your eyes skip back to reread something from time to time. Rereading something you just read is not very efficient so you can use a finger or pointer of some kind to force you eyes to follow the page. Another thing that can help is a magnifying rod that magnifies one line at a time, this also helps make the words bigger and easier to read.

After twenty minutes you'll want to take a rest. Record what age you stopped on. Your eyes may be feeling a little strained you are using muscles in differenet ways. You may also have the beginnings of a headache as you have also been processing information more quickly then usual.

Stand up and stretch, and be sure to look at something far away to give those eyes a rest. Do something else and do it again tomorrow. After a week increase the time by 5 minutes. Once you get to an hour keep it there as by this time your body will have adjusted to this new work you're giving it to do.

It takes 500-1000 hours of study to become expert in a new skill. At about 1 hour a day it will take a year or two of steady practice to get to a really high speed. That really isn't all that long.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Strengths and weeknesses

There are a couple of ways with dealing with strengths and weaknesses. You can go to work on your weaknesses and make them strong. You can also outsource your weaknesses and have someone who is strong in that area do it for you.
You can't outsource dealing with an addiction but you can outsource things like bookkeeping and janitorial services. Once you figure out what you are trying to do you can decide what you personally need to do and what can and should be given to someone else to do. Not everything needs to be done by you, it just needs to ge done. Taking out the trash is a great example. taking out the trash is not rocket science and having a rocket scientist taking out his own trash is wasteful of his time, energy and money. If you want to run a business knowing bookkeeping/accounting is a good thing. but is being your own accountant a good thing? Not usually an entrepreneur should be creating new products and selling things. hire a bookkeeper to do the accounting, which leaves you more time to do more financially valuable things.
I see the economy moving towards more of an enterpreneurial condition, large companies have no disire to have large permanent staffs anymore. more and more people are becoming contracts whether they want to or not and that is a skill set that is not taught in school.
Microsoft did not become what it is because Bill Gates could do all the jobs, but because he hired the best people to do the jobs he couldn't do. Google is the same way. Thomas Edison did the same with at Menlow Park. He gathered the best and brightest he could find and pointed them in the direction he needed them to go, and let them find the best way there.

Getting to know yourself.

Know thyself has been one of the best pieces of advice out there. Finding what there is within you is vitally important to your happiness.

What things are you good at?
Cooking
Sports
Persuading others
Music
Puzzles
Art
Building things
Intense curiosity

Everyone has a talent of some kind. Finding it can be a challenge sometimes if it is not obvious. It isn't enough to just know what your talent is but to take the time to hone it and perfect it. Far too many people who have a talent don't develop it as much as someone who isn't as good but has more desire to get better at it. Those people who take the time to perfect themselves, do the best and that makes all the difference.

How you deal with your strengths and weaknesses is an important factor in how well you do in life. By strengthening your strengths and understanding your weakness you can get far more done.

Say you want to start a business and you are good at making chairs. Making chairs tends to make a lot of sawdust. Now it is fairly important to get the sawdust out of the way from time to time. It can interfere with the tools and become a fire hazard. But if you are not good with a broom, then hiring someone to clean up the dust from time to time can free you up to make more chairs more quickly.

If, on the other hand you have weakness that is interfering with your life, an addiction or something that someone else can't do for you, it is important to for you to grow by confronting it and overcoming it making it a strength.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Teamwork

Despite all the talk of socialization, few children actually learn teamwork in school.

Oh, its not that they don't work in groups, but their work doesn't really allow for real teamwork. A team brings people with different capabilities together to accomplish a certain goal. This happens only with sports teams and the band/orchestra but most other teams have pretty much faded away to make more time for getting ready for the test.

In most group learning situations the person who knows the answer hands the answer out to everyone else. When I was in school this was called cheating and hurt the cheater more then the cheatee, mainly because they got the grade but not the knowledge. In some cases the person that knows understands that giving the answers away is not fair, but between a grading system that gives the whole group the same grade and peer pressure they see no other choice. They could try teaching the others but the other students don't believe that the knowledge is all that important or the teacher would actually make them learn it. The fair thing to do is to split all the problems evenly between the student and they each do them. But that is just individual learning, and back where we started and then we still test them as individuals.

I am not sure how this happened but a lot of good teaching ideas just seem to end up reinforcing the idea that knowledge is worthless.

To learn team work you need to have a team, people with different abilities working together toward a common goal.
A sports team is obvious but there are plenty of others.
A band or orchestra, even a garage rock band is a team if they are going to sound good.
A theatre troupe.
Many clubs have goals, in a rocketry club they could build a rocket that is fastest to height or carries the heaviest payload or something. A birdwatching club can do a species survey.
Join a volunteer group or even start a business.

It is differences working together toward a common goal that makes a group a team.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Learning New Skills

Becoming an expert a new skill often takes 500-1000 hours of study and effort. That's 4-6 months of regular office time. My second boss a great old guy said most people can learn a new skill in 90 days. I wasn't sure I believed him at first but he reminded me of how long a semester of school was.

Can you learn a new skill faster? Sure you can.
• A mentor, someone who has learned it before can help guide you past some of the pit falls and it can cut your learning time in half.
• If you are passionate about learning something, and the material is presented in an interesting way then you can learn something at 30 times the normal rate.

Most schools take a couple of years to teach algebra, presented in the most brutally boring way imaginable. The fundamentals of algebra don't actually have to take up that much time. For those interested in it, it only takes about 20 hours to learn.

There are two ways to learn to remember something, keep repeating it to yourself until you brain cries, "Uncle." and remembers it for you or you can make it interesting, not entertaining but interesting, and it will remember it right off.

Learning New Skills

Becoming an expert a new skill often takes 500-1000 hours of study and effort. That's 4-6 months of regular office time. My second boss a great old guy said most people can learn a new skill in 90 days. I wasn't sure I believed him at first but he reminded me of how long a semester of school was.

Can you learn a new skill faster? Sure you can.
• A mentor, someone who has learned it before can help guide you past some of the pit falls and it can cut your learning time in half.
• If you are passionate about learning something, and the material is presented in an interesting way then you can learn something at 30 times the normal rate.

Most schools take a couple of years to teach algebra, presented in the most brutally boring way imaginable. The fundamentals of algebra don't actually have to take up that much time. For those interested in it, it only takes about 20 hours to learn.

There are two ways to learn to remember something, keep repeating it to yourself until you brain cries, "Uncle." and remembers it for you or you can make it interesting, not entertaining but interesting, and it will remember it right off.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Getting to know yourself.

Know thyself has been one of the best pieces of advice out there. Finding what there is within you is vitally important to your happiness.

What things are you good at?
Cooking
Sports
Persuading others
Music
Puzzles
Art
Building things
Intense curiosity

Everyone has a talent of some kind. Finding it can be a challenge sometimes if it is not obvious. It isn't enough to just know what your talent is but to take the time to hone it and perfect it. Far too many people who have a talent don't develop it as much as someone who isn't as good but has more desire to get better at it. Those people who take the time to perfect themselves, do the best and that makes all the difference.

How you deal with your strengths and weaknesses is an important factor in how well you do in life. By strengthening your strengths and understanding your weakness you can get far more done.

Say you want to start a business and you are good at making chairs. Making chairs tends to make a lot of sawdust. Now it is fairly important to get the sawdust out of the way from time to time. It can interfere with the tools and become a fire hazard. But if you are not good with a broom, then hiring someone to clean up the dust from time to time can free you up to make more chairs more quickly.

If, on the other hand you have weakness that is interfering with your life, an addiction or something that someone else can't do for you, it is important to for you to grow by confronting it and overcoming it making it a strength.