Learning with E's

People who do well in school are not necessarily the brightest or the best. They are not always the ones who will go on to change the world or be big successes. Sometimes they are. Sometimes, our most successful students are the ones who have learned to play the game of school. 

The game of school has rules: do your homework, be compliant, memorize everything, make friends with (and compliment) the teacher, count your points, and don’t make waves. 

Learning is not on that list. Many a school player will report that learning wasn’t necessarily a product of the game of school. It should be. It must be. 

I made a list of the behaviors that successful students employ to do well in school and gave to students. These are “good student” behaviors and most kids would benefit from adopting some of them. But there is a larger picture. 

When I was working on creating a new course a few years ago, I found that I was reworking and reevaluating almost everything. As I prepared a list of the skills I want students to master, I realized that there were three overarching components to authentic learning and success in school. 

For learning to be meaningful and lasting, students and teachers need effort, engagement, and expertise: the 3 E’s. 

Effort is the easiest to define: Learning takes hard work. Teaching is not a profession for the lazy. No athlete gets better without practice and working out. Practice and rehearsal are what performing artists spend most of their time doing: the performances are only possible because much more effort has been spent preparing for them! 

Expertise is all about skill and knowledge. For teachers, this is employing best practices, tailoring education for the students in the room, staying up to date, as well as being reflective and thoughtful. For students, this is all about practicing and mastering the skills and content.

Engagement is the most difficult of these three to define: Engagement is about making learning meaningful and lasting. It fits the content to the kids. It is about making connections and commitments, and then responding to kids creatively. It is about passion and focus. It is the difference between a 
compliant student and one who is sincerely motivated. 

I suppose you could say this framework is learning with E’s. In a post-COVID educational world, where the censors are pounding on the door, the budget is always being cut, and the number of kids each educator must work with grows almost daily. Designing and implementing curriculum lives in a political and social context. Effort, expertise, and engagement are only the beginning. Education is not easy.  

You’re Not So Sure of Yourself, Are You? Good! Skill of Thought , Part 3

It seems like people value confidence and correctness. We hate to admit we are wrong. We trust people who convince us that they really know what they are talking about. When someone wavers, we see it as a lack of expertise. We wonder if we should believe their opinion. 

That’s unfortunate because doubt is the sign of both wisdom and knowledge. 

Each year, I would ask my comparative religion students to tell me something on which they thought everyone could agree. They struggled. Often, we came down to something like 2 + 2 = 4, although George Orwell might disagree. 

There is a reason why we can’t agree on much and there is nothing wrong with that. It is because questioning, doubt, skepticism, and thinking from multiple perspectives are crucial to strong thinking. 

This does not mean that everything is unknowable. Quite the reverse, one way that we do know things is because we doubt them, test them, rethink them, and apply them. This way we discover what is true and then test it when new questions arise. 

When someone says they hold something as true and have no doubts, I hope the real statement is that they have no doubts right now. They had some once and resolved them. They know that it is likely that they will have doubts again. They are in between doubts. They are checking out doubts about other things and this particular thing will have to wait its turn. 

There is a proverb that says that a fool has no doubts and a wise person has too many. Doubt can be crippling. It can prevent us from taking important action. However, the lack of doubts can make us rush in where even fools fear to tread. When we have no doubts, we may be overconfident and impulsive. A person who has no doubts probably doesn’t know enough – or is denying their doubts. 

Sometimes, we have doubts, but we wish we didn’t. We want something to be true. We need it to be true. We wish it were true – really, really badly. We swallow and silence our doubts because listening to them erodes our fragile beliefs. We know that what we think cannot stand up to scrutiny and we wish it could. That’s a sign that our thinking needs strengthening. That’s just wishful thinking. 

When people change their minds, our politicians “flip” their views, or scientists update or alter what they consider fact, we should celebrate! Wrong is a fact of life. Change is the nature of the universe. Growth is the opposite of death. It is good to doubt and question these and all other ideas. 

Silencing the nagging voice in our head that asks, “What about…?” does only one thing: it marries us to our current way of thinking. Sometimes that works. Sometimes, it is inaccurate, out of date, or just plain wrong. If nothing else, our own humility should compel us to ask ourselves, “How might I be wrong? What is the downside here? What is an alternative way of thinking?” 

Doubt is the seed of learning and growth. Questioning is the road to truth. It is more comfortable to ignore complexity and ambiguity in favor of consistency and simplicity. Yet, our growth as a society comes directly because great minds have challenged current conventions and beliefs and moved us all from darkness into the light. 

If you doubt the truth of this: good! Ask the questions, seek the answers, and keep learning – forever! 

“Logic is a Wreath of Pretty Flowers Which Smell Bad:” Skills of Thought, Part 2

In my first year teaching high school, I was required to include a logic unit in my public speaking class. The idea was that, when students wrote and delivered persuasive speeches, they had to actively demonstrate that their reasoning was logical. 

Explaining logic to fifteen-year-olds was challenging. However, it turns out that learning it myself was just more difficult. The first time I taught syllogisms, I got things mixed up and had to reteach it the next day. I vividly remember a student who regularly came in for help, arriving by gleefully saying, “Mr. Hirsch, today NOBODY understood what was going on!” He was right. 

Logic is difficult. Logic can be manipulated. Some forms of logic are particularly prone to misinterpretation. Here is a very simple explanation: 

In deductive logic (like that which made Sherlock Holmes famous), a syllogism has two premises. One of these states a general rule, the major premise: All cats have whiskers. It makes a broad factual statement about a group of things or ideas. The second or minor premise makes a claim that is more specific and focused: Harold is a cat. We can use our Venn diagram to reveal that if the group of cats all have whiskers and Harold exists inside the circle of cats, Harold has whiskers. Simple enough! Well…not exactly. 

Of course, we have to be sure that both of these claims are factual. Are there cats that don’t have whiskers? Do we know that Harold is not a dog or a man who has a beard? Things can get muddy when the Venn diagram is related, but not overlapping. 

Try this one: All cats die. JFK is dead. Does that mean that JFK was a cat? This is a silly example and I am sure you were a step ahead of the very young speech teacher and his students. JFK is never shown to be a cat. We cannot reach a conclusion just because two things share a characteristic - and you can’t create a general rule from one example. 

This is where we often go wrong in our political discourse. We hear from many people that a single example proves a general rule. That is where inductive logic comes in; we draw a general rule by drawing conclusions from patterns we observe. This is the scientific method. 

In class, I used a simple example: I looked at the students’ footwear. I would point out that the boys in the front row were all wearing athletic footwear. Then I would note that the boys in the second row also had athletic footwear on. From these fifteen or so examples, I would conclude that all male students in the high school wear athletic footwear. 

Of course, I would be wrong. There would be a student out there in sandals (we were in Illinois, of course, and some kids would be in sandals and shorts well into the winter). I could make the statement (and be correct) that a majority of boys in school were wearing athletic footwear. Of course, many (usually most) of the women in the room were also wearing athletic footwear. 

That is why it is so challenging to create new generalizations inductively. It is why scientists doing research have a very high burden of proof and why their studies are so carefully scrutinized. 

Too often, in our public conversations, we think we have a general rule and are using deductive logic (although we may not use those labels) when we are in fact using specific examples that may or may not be enough to prove a generalization. 

Just because some people cheat on their taxes, does it mean that everyone does that? Just because some people who came from another country got in trouble with the law, does it mean that every immigrant is going to cause problems? Of course not! 

But politicians and advertisers will try to persuade people with powerful anecdotes and examples. They don’t explicitly say that their story represents EVERYONE or applies ALL THE TIME, but they want their listeners to make that logical leap – incorrectly. One testimonial doesn’t mean much. Ten testimonials are more powerful, but still may not be enough. 

Human beings want things quickly. We have learned, sometimes, that a few examples are all we need. I ate pizza two or three times and had terrible stomach aches afterward. So, I stopped eating pizza for years! Eventually, I had pizza again and found it was delicious and I had no ill effects. What a shame that I missed out on all those pizzas! 

We come to incorrect conclusions when we fail to think logically – and plenty of folks benefit by leading us down this illogical path. Fear and anger can make us less likely to think things through methodically. Lack of time can rush us into drawing poor conclusions. If we are invested in the conclusion or have high hopes that something is true, we may change our thinking to reach conclusions that please us. There are many logical fallacies (which we can discuss later) that can trip up our reasoning. 

In times when people debate what is and is not factual, we must slow down and use the tools that thinkers centuries ago developed. We must be like Mr. Spock and use logic to come to reasonable conclusions – and not be suckered into accepting seductive falsehoods that often benefit those who have a vested interest in fooling us!  

Heavy Thinking: Skills of Thought, Part 1

One Thanksgiving, a child observed her father making the turkey. The child noted that Dad cut off a big chunk of the back end of the turkey before putting it in the oven. When asked why he did this, the child’s father said, “That’s the way your grandmother always did it!” So, the child approached grandma and asked, “Dad just cut off part of the turkey before cooking. He said it is because that is the way you did it. Why did you do that?” 

Grandma replied, “Because my pan was too small.” 

The flaw in the father’s thinking was that he simply repeated what his mother did without considering why she did it. It was rote repetition without reflection or evaluation. There was a flaw in this thinking that caused him to not only waste a part of the turkey but focus on a meaningless detail perhaps to the detriment of more important parts of the process.

What we think is important. How we think is equally so. In my decades teaching thousands of students and many subjects, I believed that the kids could be successful in school by mastering a specific set of behaviors: turn your work in on time, use an assignment notebook, take notes, go in for extra help, etc. I even made a list of these moves that helped you win the game of school.  

However, sometimes, students who did these things still did not excel. Sometimes, kids who did these things turned in work that was underdeveloped and poorly thought-out. The behaviors were a surface symptom of an underlying process: their thinking! 

I came to understand that the skill of thinking had to be taught alongside the content. How we mentally worked out mattered just as much or more as the intellectual weights we were lifting. It isn’t a matter of just doing something, it is the way we think about what we are doing and why we are doing it.

As a teacher, I understood Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking: When I first began to teach it, I put it on a poster in my classroom which looked like this: 

I flipped evaluation and synthesis steps because I thought creativity and connection were more sophisticated than criticism. However, as I came to think about the taxonomy, I also realized that none of these parts were “higher” than the others. They were simply different tools for different jobs. There are times when simple memorization is the right choice. Often, a simple list works far better than an elaborate critique. 

But Bloom’s taxonomy was not enough. I watched students be able to note the processes without deeply understanding the differences between them. Bloom’s labels were just another form of content. There was something else needed. 

The something else, I realized later in my teaching career than I’d like to admit, is a set of thinking skills that take the same kind of regular exercise practice that one uses for physical fitness. Understanding them, labeling them, or being able to use them simply is not enough. So here is a beginning list. I will write more about this in future posts: 

Students must be able to think metacognitively: reflect about their own thinking. 

They must learn to be intellectually flexible and be able to select the right thinking tool for the job. 

They must come to terms with their fear of failure and error and embrace making mistakes – and this skill has huge implications for grading. 

Students must understand the double-edged sword of habit: habit can automate things and it can also freeze things and make change difficult. Practice makes permanent, not necessarily perfect. 

They must be able to take feedback and listen to coaches and helpers. Students must have the humility to always ask themselves, “What if I am in error? Is there another way I could approach this?” 

Students must be their own critics, but not their own punching bags. Their self-evaluations must be focused on improvement as well as acknowledging their goals and gains - not self-flagellation (or false humility). 

They must be able to think quickly and slowly, have good intellectual reflexes, and know when to wait and percolate instead. 

They must be able to see and make connections as Bloom describes – but this also means they have to be willing to take thoughtful risks. They can’t be content to always think it safe. Again, students will not do this if their teacher grades them down for it! 

Students must be curious! They must ask questions and be willing to both find answers and sometimes live in the uncomfortable place of conflicting points of view – or answers that are not satisfying. 

The list is far from complete, and I intend to write more about this. Thinking flexibility and fitness are as important as any content. Without it, the behaviors are robotic repetitions that will not help our children thrive in a world that is changing at warp speed. AI is getting smarter by the day: our children must have the thinking and reasoning skills to keep up! 

Humanities’ Calculator: ChatGPT Can Complete Most Class Assignments

OpenAI’s latest invention, ChatGPT, has teachers and professors in a panic, especially English and social studies teachers. If you are unfamiliar with ChatGPT, I assume you have been off-world, in stasis, or locked in a Klingon prison colony. However, since many of my readers fall into those categories, I’ll explain:

ChatGPT or GPT-3 is an artificial intelligence chatbot that is much more sophisticated than any other similar chatbots. ChatGPT can write essays – with citations. It can complete math homework and explain the steps. It can generate fiction, journals, and personal narratives. It can write cover letters, recipes, business plans, programming code, and much more. In short, it can complete many of the assignments that teachers and professors use to evaluate their students’ thinking and analysis skills. 

How should educators adapt? Do they make changes to their assignments? Do they move all homework into the class? Do they forbid the use of computers? Is that possible or reasonable? On TikTok, Twitter, and other forms of social media, teachers are discussing how to respond to the challenges of teaching in a world where a machine can do your homework in seconds. What should they do? 

I asked ChatGPT, “How should English teachers and other teachers who rely on essays to test students' thinking skills adapt their assignments and teaching given that ChatGPT can now do much of the writing (and thinking) for students?”

Here is what it said,” As an AI language model, ChatGPT is not capable of doing the thinking or writing for students. While it can generate text based on a given prompt, it is not capable of understanding or analyzing the content of that text in the same way that a human can. Therefore, English teachers and other teachers who rely on essays to test students' thinking skills should continue to assign and grade essays as they have in the past.

However, it is important for teachers to be aware of the potential for students to use AI tools like ChatGPT to help them with their writing assignments. In such cases, it may be necessary for teachers to put in place additional measures to ensure that students are not simply copying or paraphrasing text generated by these tools. This could include requiring students to submit rough drafts of their essays for review or implementing more rigorous plagiarism detection methods.

Additionally, teachers may want to consider incorporating lessons on the ethical use of technology into their curriculum, to help students understand the importance of original thinking and the potential consequences of using AI tools to cheat on assignments. Overall, while ChatGPT and other AI tools may present some challenges for educators, they should not fundamentally change the way that teachers assess their students' thinking skills through writing assignments.”

While I think all teachers should teach about, “the ethical use of technology” as well as a frank and detailed discussion of what constitutes cheating and the consequences of academic dishonesty, I disagree with ChatGPT’s thesis. I asked it the same question several times and got variations on this same argument. ChatGPT says that the existence of AI tools like GPT-3 should not change teaching practice. I strongly disagree. 

Instead of forbidding the use of technological tools, branding them plagiarism or dishonest, or returning to handwriting in bluebooks, I contend that Humanities teachers must embrace this technology and use it further their foundational goals: critical thinking, argumentation, and communication. 

I was in middle school when calculators became small and cheap enough to be added to the school supply list. And while I knew the steps to divide large numbers, letting the machine handle that work allowed my teacher to not only enlarge the curriculum but to delve further into mathematical concepts and processes – and class became a whole lot more fun. ChatGPT may be Humanities’ calculator. 

Our students can already go online and find or purchase essays on a plethora of topics. Teachers who think they have an assignment that is unique or designed so cheating is not possible soon find that the market has proved them wrong. And while some students crib their work from online sources, which can be detected by plagiarism detection software, others simply provide original essays written by others. The essay arms race is never-ending.

Now ChatGPT can be the worst of both worlds: it is not the students’ work and it is original enough not to be flagged as copying. Time for capitulation, fellow teachers. Skynet has won this war, so it is time to move battlegrounds. 

What are we teaching when we ask students to write? On a basic level, we are teaching language and writing skills: sentence structure, organization, the use of evidence, tone, word choice, and grammar. Above this are thinking skills like argumentation, persuasion, textual analysis, historical and literary context, and the relationship between writer and work. There is more, of course. 

ChatGPT is a new tool with which to achieve these objectives. Instead of rejecting it and banning it from the classroom, why not make it another tool to achieve our goals? How might we do this? 

Use ChatGPT to generate example pieces of work. For some assignments, instead of having students write the essay, ask them to evaluate and improve what ChatGPT writes. Feed student writing into ChatGPT and examine the changes it makes. Give ChatGPT very specific instructions regarding tone, argument, or authorial intent and assess its effectiveness. Compete with ChatGPT. Give students an in-class prompt and then see how their efforts are similar or different from the writing of the AI. 

While I agree that writing will now be more often an in-class task rather than homework, ChatGTP could be part of an out-of-class process assignment. Students must show their steps (outline, drafts, etc.), but must also show where they used ChatGPT and where they used other resources (the writing lab, a tutor, a partner in class, etc.). This kind of assignment would allow students and teachers to go through the process together and break down the steps of good thinking, analysis, and communication. 

I will probably write further about possible ChatGPT connected assignments. I will look for articles that provide ways to adapt teaching practices to this new technology. 

Right now, plagiarism detectors like Turnitin.com may not be able to flag writing by AI. That will probably change. I came across a website that claims to be able to figure out to what degree a piece of writing is most likely written by a bot. I have played with it a little and it has been fooled as often as it was correct. 

Like computers, phones, and calculators, teachers who stick their heads in the mud and refuse to change their practices will only provide students with the choice of how to trick them with minimal conflict. Instead, like math teachers and calculators, we need to embrace this new technology, help students use it effectively and ethically, and refocus our lessons on the most important goal of our classes: competent, critical, and creative thinkers and communicators!  

The Kind of Person You Are!

You are a good person. You are a person of integrity and strong beliefs. You are a person who is thoughtful and emotionally aware. Sometimes, you get angry. Sometimes, you are disappointed and feel like this country is heading down the wrong path. 

You are not racist, sexist, or any of those things. You work hard to be fair and keep an open mind. You admit that you sometimes judge people, but that is a normal human response. What counts is how you judge - not based on skin color or wealth or religion or any of those things, but on how people function as human beings. 

While you are subject to the whims and impulses that flesh is heir to, you consider yourself logical. You may not be Mr. Spock, but you are reasonable and rational. You consider a situation carefully and look closely at the details, facts, and history before rendering an opinion. 

You are not afraid to admit when you are wrong or to change your point of view when you learn new things. Like many of us, you dislike changing your opinion, but you see it as a sign of growth. 

You see disagreement as a way to discover more about other people and enhance your understanding of them and the world. Such conversations are opportunities to deepen both the relationships and your own perceptions. 

Fairness and consistency are critical. While there are rules that are wrong, for the most part, rules should be obeyed and those who do not obey them should face consequences. Although there are people who feel like they are so special that they should have the right to walk over everyone and do whatever they want, rules should apply to everyone the same way. You have worked hard to be an evenhanded person when dispensing this kind of justice and, although sometimes begrudgingly, accepted it when it was your turn to receive it. 

The only way any of us moves forward is to help one another. You believe in charity, giving, and being your brothers’ and sisters’ helper. People have reached out to you when you needed it and you do your best to pay that forward. 

You stand by your promises. You do what you say you are going to do. You have little respect for those who talk a lot and do very little. You believe that there are obligations that we must fulfill, whether it is to our family, community, nation, or the world at large. Sometimes, you have had to remind people that everything is not just about them! 

Your sense of yourself is not bound up in any one particular thing. You have strong philosophical beliefs, but you are more than that. Your family connections are very important, but that is not all there is to you. You are complex. 

You do not respect people who take advantage of the weak, old, or vulnerable. You will not be scared into decisions or let fear drive your choices. You do not like cheaters, spoiled sports, or bullies. Those who work hard should reap the fruits of their labor while the lazy, entitled, and selfish should not be allowed to profit from others’ efforts. 

You work hard to be honest with yourself. Sometimes, you excuse bad behavior of those you like or are critical of good acts of those you find objectionable, but even as you do this, you realize it is not consistent with how you see yourself. You would not want to be judged that way. 

You are practical. You rarely engage in flights of fancy, except perhaps as a mental exercise or an occasional lark. You believe that the simplest and most straightforward explanations are usually correct and when people have to twist themselves into pretzels to justify or explain something, you are suspicious. 

Sometimes you have trouble trusting people. You want to believe that people are naturally good, but that doesn’t fit with all you have experienced. You agree that most people want to be good, but don’t always make good choices for a variety of reasons. You can forgive some of them, sometimes. Forgiving is one thing, but it doesn’t mean that you allow yourself to be duped or conned. 

When you were younger, you would sometimes say and do things to get the approval of your friends or authorities, even when you did not agree with them. You recognize that this is also a normal and human thing to do, but as an adult, you do not conform with the majority when it is not authentic. You are willing to champion an unpopular view when you believe in it and you resist yielding to social pressure.

You would make a good judge. You weigh facts before making decisions. You are slow to anger. You try to see things from the other person’s point of view. The world is not just good and bad, near and far, rich and poor, but is far more complicated. 

When your heroes and leaders reveal their feet of clay, you are disappointed, but not surprised.  You feel uplifted when they make things better, and like a disheartened parent, are saddened when they behave badly. But they, like all of us, should face the consequences of our choices. You strongly believe that no one is above that. No one has the right to get away with misdeeds. No one, you insist, is above the law. That would be unfair and would cause or society to collapse. 

Of course, there are people who think the rules do not apply to them. You have encountered these people too frequently. You pity them as much as dislike them. While it isn’t usually your job to remind them that they are human, too, you have taken perhaps too much pleasure in knocking some of them down a peg or two. 

You vote. You pay your taxes. You obey the laws. You go to the courthouse when you are called for jury duty. You are a good citizen. You believe that we all should support our communities. 

You are charitable. You give to the poor, sick, and those who have had bad luck. You hope you will never be on the other side of that, but you hope that, if you were ever in need, people would help you. 

You could never support a candidate for office who you knew to be cheating, lying, or hurting people. That would not be consistent with who you are. You would never give your backing to someone who was selfish, spoiled, or hateful.  You would not turn your back to all you are and all you hold dear to follow a seductive smooth-talking charlatan! You are not a sucker or a hypocrite! You wouldn’t be able to face yourself in the mirror if you did. 

Watch Out Parents: Big Conservative is Not Just Coming After Teachers and Librarians

We need to talk about how you are interacting with your children at home. What are you teaching them? How are you modeling well? Are you making the right choices - the best choices? Would your legislators and political leaders approve of how you are raising your children? Do you talk about CRT? Are you too accepting of gender non-conforming behavior or ideas? Would you allow your child to use they/them pronouns? If so, Big Conservative might knock on your door for this kind of thought crime. 

We hear about parents’ choice. That is the rationale for a slew of censorship across more than a dozen states. However, which parents? What choices? For the most part, these book-banning (and sometimes burning) movements are aligned with a far wrong wing political agenda. They do not reflect ALL parents’ choices, just a specific conservative religious and usually white one.  

So this isn’t just about parents having a say in what their kids read in school. This is about ideologues having control over your children’s educations. Teachers and librarians were the first to experience this intense scrutiny and vitriol, but this movement will not end with them. 

You may think, what I teach my children in my own home is not anyone’s business but my own – and you would be right as long as what you were doing was aligned with Big Conservative. But if it is not, your behavior might be labeled child abuse and you as a negligent parent. 

Several states banned children who identify as a gender other than the one assigned at birth from receiving any interventions. They criminalized the act of assisting these children from even exploring anything beyond their gender at birth – even if their parents did it! 

So if you are looking at teachers and librarians and thinking, just pick less controversial texts, just make your lessons about the subject area and not about social issues, know this: that same message will be tailored for parents who don’t agree with the censors and extremists. 

Let’s go one step further: How will these wrong wing censors know you are veering away from their prescribed curriculum? Your children will tell them. The idea that children would “turn in” their parents was common in totalitarian and fascist regimes. Whether it was the Hitler Youth, the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers, or Communist Youth reading Mao’s Little Red Book, this technique has deep roots in authoritarian governments’ control of parenting. 

So as you are confronting those who don’t want their kids to “feel uncomfortable” in school because topics deal with parts of our past that are problematic, this is just the first battle in a larger war for who decides what your child learns – in and out of school. 

As with abortion, immigration, and elections, choice just means sticking with Big Conservative’s point of view; freedom means the right to express opinions that echo specific politicians in a specific party. They are not advocating for freedom and choice, they are creating vehicles to coerce and control – and their reach will not end at the schoolhouse – if we don’t stop it, it is going to ram through the door and enter your house! 

Reading for Treasure: Banned, Burnt, Beautiful Books

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Too many people want to control the books that are taught in classrooms or available in libraries. I saw a meme that read, “If you’re afraid that books might change someone’s thinking, you’re not afraid of books, you’re afraid of thinking.” While these challenges may also be attempts to prevent children from learning about specific issues, that is not their main objective. There is no doubt that the rise in book challenges and restrictive legislation is not about learning, protecting children, age-appropriate texts, or making kids uncomfortable. Children can find these books and ideas so easily. Banning books is political, manipulative, and a dangerous attack on our open and free society. Here are some articles about the issue, the politics, and the books. 

What do we know about banning books? Here is a list of articles from Literary Hub to help you learn about the history, purpose, and politics of trying to censor literature. “Recommended Reading for Banned Book Week.” 

In a second Literary Hub article, Deborah Applebaum explores ways that teachers can approach controversial or challenged texts in the classroom and make the questions about them part of the lesson: “Teaching Literature in the New Culture Wars: Some Alternative Approaches.” 

In this fascinating NewsOne Op-ed, Helen Kapstein compares the techniques and purposes of censorship in Aparthaid South Africa to what is happening in the United States now: “When It Comes To Book Bans America Could Learn From Apartheid South Africa.”

Clarence Page, of the Chicago Tribune, writes about his love of banned books: “Here’s why I celebrate banned books.”

Are you surprised I have a third article from Literary Hub on this topic? This spot-on article addressed a key issue: “The Purpose of Book Bans Is to Make Queer Kids Scared.” There is no doubt that challenges to books that deal with BIOPOC and LGBTQ+ topics are a form of bullying. It is designed to further marginalize these communities.

A high school student in California, Sungjoo Yoon, writes about how her liberal community banned books and why she opposed it in this New York Times Op-ed: “I’m a High School Junior. Let’s Talk About ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘Mockingbird.’”

Finally, not exactly banned books, but books that explore the restrictions on woman’s reproductive rights. This article from CNN has some great titles on it, “6 books beyond 'The Handmaid's Tale' that explore the loss of reproductive rights.”

I am currently reading War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. 

Thank Goodness for Teachers!

The school year is starting. Some of us welcome the “back to school” sales, while others see them as the death knell of summer’s freedom. And even though they are not paid during the summer, schoolteachers have spent an unfair and disproportionate part of it getting ready to receive our children. 

Professors, teachers, and especially public school faculty have become political punching bags recently. Not only is it disgusting and unfair, but it is also sharper than a serpent’s tooth! Public schoolteachers are the masons of success and, as we continue to learn from the pandemic, the foundation of our economy. When the schools stopped, the great machinery of business and industry stalled and sputtered. 

So let us give thanks for those wonderful souls who teach our children. Let us give thanks to those who have earned enough education to join the upwardly mobile and the moneyed upper middle classes, but eschew just earning a living and instead choose a vocation of giving. 

Let’s face it; those who teach could have been bankers, lawyers, doctors, scientists, artists, and all manner of professionals. Instead, they chose service to the children and our communities. They deserve our gratitude – and support! 

Get off their backs! If you don’t like the book, read your child another one. If you don’t like the ideas, discuss your beliefs with your children. While what happens in school certainly shapes children, it pales compared to what happens at home. If what you, as parents, are teaching your children can be so easily washed away by school lessons or activities, that speaks to what is going on at home far more than what is happening in the classroom. 

Consider this: teachers receive and welcome your children, even on the days when things have not gone well, even on the days when your kids were upset with you or you with them, even when you thought that maybe this whole parenting thing was a big mistake, even on the days when your children wondered if you still loved them. To whom did they turn? Their teachers. And their teachers reassured and supported them. You’re welcome. 

I have been concerned about using the term love here because it has been dirtied and maligned by those who cheat on their spouses, swindle their customers, lie to their constituents, and then tell you that you can’t trust teachers. It has been sexualized by those who pay hush money to sex workers and similarly would silence teachers who want to help our children make this a safer and saner society –for our kids and all of us. 

Because, like good parents, teachers love our children. They sacrifice for our children. They are not perfect. Like parents, they range from stellar to so-so. Like politicians, they make mistakes, even in service of larger goals. Yet, like good shepherds, they lead our children to find nourishment, comfort, community, and enlightenment. 

Stop beating up teachers and start extolling and exalting them. They hold our country together. They love our children even when we falter. 

And frankly, some of your children have questions they are afraid to ask you. Some of your children are curious about the books you have stolen from the library and destroyed. They want to talk to you about the concepts you want teachers to hide from them. Banning these ideas from the classroom will not prevent this exploration. It will not stop kids from thinking. It will change their view of their parents.  

Do you want your children to realize that, sometimes, their teachers have their best interests at heart even when their parents are silent and afraid? Thank goodness their teachers are there even when their parents want to shut down the conversation. In the age of the internet, banning books and forbidding discussion will never stop the ideas. Teachers know this. Some folks fear this. There is no stopping it. 

Teachers are the support structure and safety net of our society. As we send our children back to the classrooms, let us be grateful. 

It's Way Too Complicated!

“Let me make this simple for you.”

Simple? For me? Does that make me a simpleton? Why do you need to make it simple? What happens when you simplify? Are we losing important information and ideas if a complicated issue is turned from a detailed mosaic into a black and white cartoon? 

Sometimes, people don’t want to think that hard. Sometimes, they don’t want to make difficult choices and decisions. Life is so much easier when the alternatives are straightforward: good or evil, rich or poor, right or wrong. 

That’s why we sometimes tie ourselves into knots finding ways to make tough problems easier. That’s why politicians provide sound bites instead of thoughtful arguments. They believe we don’t have the time, patience, or mental capacity to understand the nuance, see the details, or appreciate the complexity. But we do. We must! 

Sometimes, we’re lazy. We make choices about where to spend our precious energy, especially our brainpower. Running a marathon is grueling, thinking one is even more so. Governments, advertisers, cheaters, and crooks appeal to this laziness hoping that, if they make it simple for us, we will do what they want us to do. They don’t want us to worry our pretty little heads about these grown-up issues. 

Trust me, this is the heart of the matter. This is what is going on underneath all the layers of manipulation, deflection, and denial. I’ll do the thinking for you. I’ll tell you what to think and then I’ll tell you what to do. You’ll do what I say. You’ll believe my interpretation. You’ll just follow along. Trust me. 

No! 

We must confront the complexity. We must take the time to sift through the information. We must examine the shades of gray, uncertainties, and inconsistencies. I’ll trust the expert who has credentials – and I’ll ask them to explain their reasoning. 

I might have a question. I might have many questions. If the issue is so simple that no questions are needed (or desired), then why are we talking about it? Why is there disagreement? If the statement begins with, “Anyone with any common sense would, of course, come to the conclusion that…” it is probably been over-simplified. 

Years ago, students would say to me, “I’m sorry, but I prefer math to English class because math doesn’t make me defend my interpretations and answers. In math class, the answers are just the answers. Everything is clear cut and I know when I am right.” In other words, I don’t want to think that deeply. Wow, were those students in for a surprise when they find themselves in upper-level math classes where content is as nuanced as any literary analysis. 

It is challenging to comb through information in search of patterns. It is hard work to reach decisions based on reams of information. But I would vote for thoughtful leaders who take the time and energy to really figure things out over simpletons who jump to easy decisions quickly because they won’t – or can’t cope with complexities. 

Dealing with COVID is complicated. The war in Ukraine is complicated. Dealing with racism is complicated. Important issues aren’t simple. We wish there were more, but, as the old saying goes, wish in one hand, spit in the other, see which one fills up first. 

Googling the question is not doing research. Reading an article or watching a story on television is not figuring it out. Real reasoning takes time and critical evaluation – and expertise. It is a rigorous process. This is why academic journals only accept peer-reviewed articles. This is why good journalists verify what their sources tell them. It is easier to jump to conclusions. It is faster to only read the headline or listen to the sound bite. It feels better to just decide that the answer you want to be right is correct. 

Unfortunately, I fear the simpletons and lazy thinkers are in the majority. Many people don’t want to think that deeply. They work hard doing many other things. They want the answers to be short, sweet, easy, entertaining, and cheap – and when the shysters claim that it is all really very simple, they are selling exactly what these simpletons desire. 

Learning Not Lecturing

As teachers and professors move back to in-person classes and distance learning becomes a last resort for special circumstances and snow days, we will see what no video chat camera could really show. We will see firsthand how much students have been struggling and families have been in crisis. We must not avert our eyes and pretend that the pandemic never happened. It will be hard work, but if we do not do it, our students will pay the price. So it is incumbent on anyone in a classroom to really reflect on learning strategies that worked and didn’t work during our time apart and before. 

One strategy that needs revision is the lecture. I love this piece from Math With Bad Drawings. It is an “origin fable” about how lectures came to be. Lectures were the way that professors and other instructors conveyed their ideas to their students before there were any other means of doing so. When it was too difficult to produce material to read or enough copies for the class before any form of recording could be made when the students were wealthy white men who going to run the world anyway. In fact, lecturing may be the oldest teaching strategy we have! 

As I researched the effectiveness of lectures, I found many articles discussed how to deliver an effective lecture. The advice was almost always the same: have meaningful slides, using engaging questions, speak in an entertaining and dynamic manner, and so on. In other words, lecture is effective when it is accompanied by other effective techniques. Look at this website from Iowa State!

This article from Edtopia and this one from the Washington Post cite research that should make any educator reconsider the lecture. NPR reported about physics professors at Harvard and other colleges who realized that all they were doing was repeating what their teachers did and their students did not really understand the concepts. All they did was parrot back the lecture! 

The NPR article is an extension of a fascinating radio documentary by American Radio Works called “Don’t Lecture Me” about college lecturing and a college that decided not to use them. If your hackles are up and you are feeling defensive about the lecture, I urge you to listen to this. 

There is a place for lecture in education. Lectures, done well and done for brief amounts of time, can be a good teaching tool. As with many other areas, all generalizations are false: lectures are not universally problematic. 

However, I will argue that the vast majority of lectures are ineffective because the lecturer is not using dynamic teaching techniques. According to research cited in the radio documentary referenced above, only about 10% of students will learn well from a lecture, and it is likely that those students would teach themselves the material no matter how it was presented. Is it possible that the people who most benefit from lectures are the lecturers (and perhaps the institutions they work for)? 

The traditional college lecture in an enormous hall with hundreds of students feels like mass education gone horribly wrong. Let’s not even talk about the tuition cost to the students for such an experience. What is the rationale for not simply recording these lectures and allowing students to view them online? In fact, why not get all these lectures recorded and then allow the teachers to really teach or go do research? 

Maybe there is something else going on here. Many students might love lecturing because it asks so little of them. They don’t have to do anything but listen – and sometimes not even that. I have had many students who prefer not to think, but to just repeat what the teacher said. It is easier. 

If you visit a crowded lecture hall, you might see many students taking notes. You might see others surfing the web, texting, or doing other things. You might also see some who were sleeping. For many of these students, attending the lecture is performative anyway. The professor is only reading from a Powerpoint, which they later publish. Perhaps they even include notes. Students fully understand that they don’t need to see the show, they can just read the script. Is this a good use of their time and tuition dollars? 

Lecturing does make teachers and professors feel professorial. It is great to get up before an audience and show off. It feels good to have children praise and adore you for your knowledge and wit. Of course, they also expect that you will pay them for their worship with grades, preferably good ones. It is fun to have fans, but let’s be honest, impressing children for ego gratification feels low indeed. 

While brief and focused lectures may be necessary once in a while, teachers and students would be far better served if the classroom were a place where learning was interactive and engaging. We used to sit in a little red schoolhouse and write down our lessons with chalk on slates. We don’t do that anymore. Students now have access to every piece of information on the planet. Reciting it to them is far less useful than teaching them how to evaluate and create it. 

Come down from your stage, teacher, and help kids to make their own meaning, forge their own education: more than that special 10% will benefit  - and your lessons will have far-reaching impact.

A Crisis of Critical Thinking

As a toddler, my son loved trains. We sat by the crossing and waited for hours for trains. Once, as we waited, he proposed a way to make a train arrive: activate the gate. If we turned on the flashing lights and brought down the safety bar, he thought, the train would arrive. From his point of view, it made complete sense: the lights came first, the train came second. When I tried to explain it to him, he was incredulous: I just didn’t want to wait with him any longer. I didn’t know how to turn on the lights and I wasn’t willing to admit it. He WANTED that train to come and my rational (and correct) explanation did not satisfy him. I was powerless to do an experiment. 

I call this toddler logic. It makes its own kind of sense. Toddlers want what they want and they want it now! They are good at figuring out how to get it, even when their methods defy logic, reason, or common sense. 

P.T. Barnum said that there is a sucker born every minute. Like Barnum, there are people who have made the exploitation of toddler logic into a business plan. They are growing rich and powerful making people believe that all it will take for their train to come is to turn on the signal. 

Robocalls, phone scams, phish emails, and other schemes are flourishing. I have written about strategies to prevent falling victim to this kind of nefarious traps. It is a sad statement that being trusting and open can be used for harm. 

It is more than falling victim to fraud. We live in the age of alternative facts and false news. Conspiracy theories and misinformation are so prevalent that it is understandable that some even bright well-meaning folks are deceived, duped, and deluded – because other people make it very difficult to distinguish toddler logic from reasonable, rational thought. This is a crisis of critical thinking. 

What are the barriers to critical thinking? What habits of mind must we practice so we and the people we love do not fall down the skunk hole of toddler logic or worse? 

Critical thinking takes effort and time. Sometimes we don’t want to work that hard. We are not willing to do the heavy thinking that is almost always required to sift through the cacophony of misinformation. It is quicker, easier, and more satisfying to grab the first reasonable or appealing idea and not ponder further. Critical thinking requires intellectual patience and power.  

We must not confuse what we wish to be true with the verifiable facts. My son was invested in a train coming. He wanted to see a train. He was aware that, if we waited too long, I’d take us home and he wouldn’t get what he wanted.  Often, it is not our logic that drives our thinking, but our desires. We aren’t thinking; we are feeling. Because we want a specific answer or conclusion, we rationalize a way to get it. We know the sum of the problem and we fudge the numbers so they add up. 

Complexity is unavoidable, frightening, and not as attractive as simplicity. When the problem is too big, when we are overwhelmed by the complexity of the issue, we are tempted to simplify it. We reduce the problem and thus eliminate the pieces that are getting in the way of solving it – or getting us what we want. How many times have people framed issues with something like, “this seems complicated, but is really simple.” Few important issues are really cut and dried, and while we may argue over them, the problems that are likely to turn us into suckers are usually ones that, when simplified turn us into simpletons. 

Even when they deliver bad news, we must both evaluate and embrace authorities. Remember at the beginning of the pandemic when it seemed like everyone was an expert in medicine? I found myself asking “How do you know this?” and “Is there some research to back this up?” all the time! Yet, experts often disagree. We can’t be expert in everything and thus must rely on specialists to help us. It takes work and is highly complex to evaluate the authorities and weigh their opinions. Reading technical journal articles is both time consuming and not nearly as fun as reading novels! Wading through the opinions of specialists and authorities is like, well, root canal sometimes. Dismissing experts because of their expertise is dangerous; we may not like what the doctor tells us, but if we don’t listen to her, we might pay with our lives. 

Humility allows us to use error to our advantage. People like to be right and hate to be wrong. If we stick our neck out and make a statement, it is embarrassing when we make mistakes. Critical thinking requires error. It requires a process where we evaluate, decide, and then apply our thinking. Sometimes, oftentimes, that means we are wrong. Unless we have the humility and resilience to admit our errors, learn from them, and then change our thinking, we will be stuck. We will be like that person who will not take directions on the road trip. It will be very long, not where you want to go, and there will be no bathrooms.

Thinking is hard work. Critical thinking is complex and intricate work. Without it, however, we turn into P.T. Barnum’s suckers trying to lure trains with our signals. Some might come – but we will not have called them, even if we think we did. 

Reading For Treasure: Before The Election:

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

How can we tell what is “real” or “fake” news? For most of us, our social media feed is primarily populated with opinions similar to ours. Wired’s article, “How to Break Out of Your Social Media Echo Chamber” provides some good suggestions about how to change our use of Facebook, Twitter, and other online sources so we can get a more balanced and complete picture of our world – not just a confirmation of what someone thinks we want to hear.

A second Wired article explores the problem of fake news, specifically the use of deep fake videos. How can we recognize news sources designed to fool us? Maybe, “America Needs A Ministry of Truth.” The author explains that this is not going to be the same as the one in Orwell’s 1984, but more along the lines of the EPA, FDA, or other agencies that protect the public. As I read this, I thought about a media Underwriters Laboratory; an independent agency that puts their stamp of approval on information. Regardless, we are soon going to need help separating the fact from deep fake.

The great scientist Carl Sagan wrote about “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection” and provided some very specific advice in his book, The Demon-Haunted World. His route to critical thinking has been the subject of several articles, including “The Baloney Detection Kit: Carl Sagan’s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking” from brainpickings. The article summarizes his rules and provides Sagan’s take on logical fallacies as well. If you are interested, here is the complete chapter of the book.

While a lawn sign may tell which of your neighbors supports which candidates, Lifehacker provides us with tools that let us “See Who Has Donated to a Political Campaign With These Tools.” If we want to avoid the echo chamber or make certain that a source is being sincere in support, it might be good to know if they put their money there, too.

Two articles answer the question I hear a great deal, “how could THEY believe this stuff?” Medium’s “Why Your Christian Friends and Family Members Are So Easily Fooled By Conspiracy Theories” and the Independent’s “I grew up in rural, small-town America – and I can tell you the real reason why people love Donald Trump.” While not entirely unbiased, they do give a glimpse into these specific points of view.

The Washington Post recommends, “Stop fretting about Trump and do something about it. Right now.” This article is good advice regardless of your political leanings. It is basically a guide to how to check your voter registration and make sure you can vote - and get others to vote!

I am currently reading The Regional Office is Under Attack by Manuel Gonzales.

How’s Distance Learning Working For You? Ideas for the Fall

It is not hard to hear the cries of teachers, parents, and students right now. Distance learning, e-learning, or whatever you want to call it is not a big success. It is difficult and cumbersome. It is a very poor substitute for what happens in classrooms across the country. At best, it is a stopgap, and at worst it is a sham. 

And now we are learning that we may not be able to return to school as usual in the fall! Does that mean that teachers get all summer to get better at the bad solution? One could rationalize that we are only now learning how to do learning online and, by next fall, we’ll all be experts and do it beautifully! I don’t know who might say that, but whoever would has never been in education – or they are experiencing quarantine delusions.

Kids are disengaged, teachers are frustrated, and parents feel like they don’t have the tools to help their children. The technology is buggy, the content feels overwhelming, and so many other factors are at play. Providing an online analog for school is not working.  

So what do we do? More of the same? Amp up what isn’t working anyway? Become stricter and create more punishments if students don’t comply? Threaten kids with grades, demotions, or failure? What a great formula for success!

We must create better options and reinvent the way online school functions. Rather than a failing attempt to replicate regular school online, let’s use what we know about what makes learning successful to create new options.

The relationship between student and teacher sits at the heart of education. Anything that disrupts this relationship will have a devastating effect on learning. Whatever we do in the fall, it must allow teachers and students to build powerful interpersonal bonds. This is especially important since teachers and students may not have met each other prior to this crisis.

Students must be actively engaged in learning and that engagement must be maintained over time. Teachers are talking about digital fatigue. Students are complaining about school being turned into a series of worksheets, readings, online quizzes, videos, and Zoom meetings.

More is not better, no matter what the highly materialistic parts of our culture may argue. Students are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with formulas, dates, and texts. Education is not a constant barrage of information. Without active involvement, interactive experiences, and engaging ideas, students either disengage or robotically play the game.

So what do we do? How do we make the best use of this time with our students even though we can’t be in the same classroom with them? Here are alternative ways we might structure school in the fall:

Less is More: Some high schools have as many as nine periods a day. Some schools use a block schedule and have two, three, or four longer classes for any given time period. Beloit College in Wisconsin is considering  breaking its first semester into two parts. Students would only take two classes during each part. Teachers would teach fewer classes, too. These classes would be more immersive and in-depth.

What if, instead of taking five, six, or more classes, each student only took two? This would allow for more in-depth contact with the teachers, more time to explore in more depth, and prevent some overload. Instead of a long semester with many classes, what about two classes at a time for four weeks each? 

Teachers and schools must be flexible with their curriculums and standards. This is an unprecedented situation and insisting that we cover all thirty-seven chapters, quiz on each, and take the unit test is not the path to success now. Fewer classes give teachers and students a better chance to develop a relationship. It gives them more time to find engaging activities that might go beyond the computer screen. It could also provide a natural limit on the content.

Beloit is also using their two at a time as a way to be able to pivot when the actual building can be opened again. After the first set of two classes, maybe we can then get back together. If not, we do it again.

Interdisciplinary Teams: Another approach would be to bundle several classes together. Instead of a single teacher and twenty-some student several times a day, what if we had a group of teachers and a group of students working together? Instead of Science, Math, English, Art, and Social Studies, what if we had a team of teachers working with a group of students? They would not divide into individual subject areas but create an integrated curriculum. The group of teachers might also include a counselor or social worker. Perhaps these classes would focus on social issues like climate change, racial identity, or a particular art form, period in history, or scientific concept. Perhaps they would employ a variety of experiences both on and off the computer. Perhaps they could engage parents and community members who had specific talents or backgrounds.

This approach must not be “today is social studies day, look at the document.” To function well, each activity and assignment should challenge students to explore. The connections would be the focus of the course! We could feed one bird from several feeders!

Again, teachers and schools will have to say that they are not covering the entire AP curriculum and be willing to go deeper with a more narrow focus.

If they build it, you will come: We can take both of these ideas one step further. What if we let students drive the curricular choices? What if we put them in charge and make teachers their guides and coaches instead of their directors?

What if we ask kids what they would like to learn and organize courses around student generated interests? Students and teachers would be paired based on suggestions, maybe some from the adult staff and some from the students. These teams would then design their own courses as a team, students and teachers working side by side. Could everyone “do the work?” Could assignments, activities, and assessments apply to everyone, adults and kids alike?

This would also mean that some courses might need outside experts as consultants. Teachers might have to move beyond their areas of expertise and learn with the kids.

After school activities could be approached in the same way. Could we have e-sports teams? Could we move from theatre productions to short films? What about puppetry? Electronic music? The school newspaper online could be a critical piece of keeping the community informed and connected!

We must be able to relax rigid structures that stand in the way of student success during this time of learning apart. We must be willing to make relationships, engagement, and depth the educational priorities. Why can’t we have multi-age classes? Why can’t art, physical education, and world languages be integrated with traditional academic subjects? Now is the time to go as far as is necessary to help students learn and thrive. They deserve no less.

Escaping the Noise!

This summer, I could not escape from the blaring sounds of leaf blowers, garden tools, construction vehicles, and jackhammers! I was trapped in an anti-symphony! Closing the window only turned down the volume – and not enough.

My street was under construction. They were tearing out most of the curbs and replacing them. The school behind me was under construction. They were renovating the student cafeteria that faces the back of my house. My neighbors’ landscapers seemed to live at their homes and one was replacing their roof. I wished I owned earplugs!

I wonder how people who live in very noisy places can focus. When even one of the construction sounds stops, even briefly, the relief is enormous.  My days have been punctuated by the beep-beep-beep of vehicles backing up – into my house and my head.

Sometimes it is hard to focus on the important things because of the noise. It may be the latest television show or the most popular game app on the phone. It maybe the spin from politicians that is purposely designed to make me angry, indignant, or divert me from the real issues.

The noise distracts me and makes me unable to hear clearly. It makes it more difficult to think logically and focus on what is really important. For the past few weeks, I have cherished the few moments when quiet and clarity prevailed.

As we head back into election season, I fear that we all will be living in a construction zone. It will be challenging to cut through the noise and hear the real issues and ideas. It will be all too tempting to stick our heads into the ground, put in earplugs, or escape into the banal world of triviality and escape. Noise hurts, and when it surrounds us, we are not our best selves.

Have you ever been in one of those uncomfortable and noisy conversations where you fear you might say anything to change the subject or turn off the loud rhetoric? It is the conversational equivalent of a truck beeping in reverse for a very long time. How do we handle this? What do we say? Do we look at our laps and wish for silence? Do we add to the noise by raising our voices above the rest or simply talk about the weather or the local sports team?

I have been seeking silent focus. It has been difficult to find. I fear that will be the case for a while. However, I am teaching myself to tune out the noise by writing like this, and by becoming more involved in important and meaningful activities. I don’t notice the noise when I am with my family or working with my students. I notice it in those moments in-between.

Noise keeps us from being who we really are. Noise prevents us from thinking fully and deeply. Sometimes, those who do not want us to take advantage of our higher intellects use noise to prevent significant conversation. Sometimes noise is the accumulation of all the trivialities and distractions that are far more salient and attractive than the important matters that count.

There is a place for small talk and idle conversation. However, it should not replace big talk and substantive thought. Easy answers, quick platitudes, and flashy distractions are the cotton candy of our social diet. Living in the noise is not healthy. We must create spaces and times when we can slowly, thoughtfully, and quietly think.