Ms. Keileen Learning Blog

David Altshuler, M.S. Newsletter

July 17, 2012

Hyper-Vigilant Attentive Disorder

As I’m writing the newsletter this week, I am also actively, if sporadically, engaged in returning phone calls, answering emails, planning my next trip to see therapeutic boarding schools in Utah, thinking about what I’m going to get for my wife for her birthday, and giving some serious thought to the newsletter for next week. Oh, and there goes a squirrel outside the window. What a beautiful, big, bushy tail she has.

I’m glad I didn’t miss seeing her.

Because if I were afflicted with Hyper-Vigilant Attentive Disorder, I might have been ultra-focused on this one piece of writing and not have seen the squirrel at all.

Engrossed only in writing this newsletter, absorbed in this one task, I might not have noticed the squirrel. Ignoring the squirrel, I would not have reflected how she might have been looking for nuts which, in turn, would not have allowed me to remember how much I like salted cashews. Not flashing on salted cashews would have caused me to forget to consult my list for the market–bread, milk, eggs, raspberries if they’re on sale–where I had jotted down a note about reading some essays that I had promised to some of my college admissions counseling kids. I also got some insight into a personal problem that had been troubling me. I don’t know where the answer came from. I’m just grateful that I don’t suffer from Hyper-Vigilant Attentive Disorder because I could have missed it.

***

There’s an Einstein story that goes something like this: Einstein spent decades trying to come up with a grand unified theory (GUT). In the six decades subsequent to Einstein’s death, no one has made significant progress on this problem, the invention of high speed computers notwithstanding. Einstein would work on parts of the GUT problem there at his home in Princeton. Wearing rumpled trousers, a sweater, and socks, he would cover black board after black board with arcane equations. And he would get stuck. Twelve or fourteen hours of the greatest pure though guy the world has ever seen thinking about a part of this GUT problem and he’s stuck, S-T-U-C-K, done, throw the chalk at the board, the-heck-with-it, done.

So he’d do what any greatest intellect in the history of the world would do: have a snack and go to bed.

And in the morning, he’d pick up the chalk and write down the answer, the answer that had come to him in the night as he slept, the answer that had come to him while he was thinking about something else entirely.

The point being that–for want of a more articulate explanation–there are “people” living in your head. You don’t know their names; you don’t know their addresses; you can’t “call” on them when you want them, but they’re there. Sometimes you can access these folks and the information they have and sometimes you can’t. Don’t believe me? Think that you’re the one and only captain of your ship? Then why can you sometimes remember stuff and sometimes not? Here’s an even simpler explanation: How come you can usually find where you put your keys?

And sometimes not?

***

Which brings us back to the problem of what to do with those students among us who are afflicted with Hyper-Vigilant Attentive Disorder, those poor souls who can’t think of more than one thing at a time. It has been suggested that we put them in “special” classrooms with a label on the door that says, “These poor thud puckers think differently.” Then we can “treat” them with “strategies.”

***

Regular readers will know how often I refer to the facts that women in this country were not allowed to vote until 1920; there were few women in college or university until just a generation ago; the number of women in my dad’s law school class was three. Now there are more women in college and more women in medical school than there are men. But for hundreds of years women were excluded from higher education because they were thought to be unable. As Dr. Johnson said: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Similarly, aren’t we “throwing away” those who learn differently? You wouldn’t shop in a shoe store with a “one size fits all” philosophy, why do you live in a community where many schools still treat all students as if they all learn the same?

I’d write more about this topic, but I’m off to the store to pick up a few things–salted cashews for example. I’m hoping that along the way, I’ll figure out what to get my wife for her birthday!

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DavidAltshuler.com

Apropos to the recent NY Times article on good teachers, see a cut/paste of his recent newsletter below:

Bad Teacher
Sun, 12/11/2011 – 19:26 — David

A scant 33 years ago, at the ripe old age of 22, I eked out a precarious existence as a middle school math teacher at a private day school. I loved teaching; I loved my colleagues on the faculty; I loved my students.

But their parents scared me to death.

I remember one conversation vividly: “Why was this question on the test?” Mrs. Bethel began, her hand firmly on my arm. “Don’t you think this concept is too difficult for seventh grade? she went on. My eyes followed her angry finger past the C+ written on top of her daughter’s paper to the equation “X + 3 = -2” further down the page.

I might have explained how I had taught the children to add positive and negative numbers. “If the temperature is two degrees below zero and the temperature goes down three degrees, it’s five below.” I might have mentioned how I had drawn number lines on the board and had the children point to ‘negative five’ then count “One, two, three” and end up at negative two. I might have told Mrs. Bethel about how I had the children line up holding big signs “Negative Two,” “Negative Five” and had one student move three giant steps from negative five to negative two. (OK, I never actually did the lesson this way, but I wish I had.)

I didn’t say that I had tried to teach to all the sensory modalities, visual, auditory as well as tactile/kinesthetic. I didn’t say that I has showed up for extra help every day after school (and that Mrs. Bethel’s daughter had not.)

Instead I justified giving the problem on the test as follows: I told Mrs. Bethel that I had assigned “X + 4 = -3” for homework. I showed Mrs. Bethel that I had given the problem “X + 5 = -1” on a quiz.

In that moment, I took a significant step in the direction of becoming a bad teacher.

Because I realized that being creative in the classroom, that helping my students to love learning in general and to love math specifically, that getting excited about curriculum wouldn’t help me in conversation with the Mrs. Bethels of the world. What would help me with the conversation was being able to justify the questions I asked on the tests. What would help me with the conversation was being able to quantify what I had done.

I have written about how silly it is for teachers to ask students to memorize meaningless information. “Memorize the names of the 67 counties in Florida” is my favorite horrific example. What assignment could be more vacuous? What task could possibly make chilren hate learning geography more? What list is easier to find on the Internet? The names of the 67 counties in Florida are a dozen nanoseconds away.

But what if the teachers assigning this inanity are scared, just like I was? What if a complaint from Mrs. Bethel can derail their careers? What if they don’t want to have a conversation with Mrs. Bethel in the first place? Helicopter parents, and their new counterpart, TANK parents, are more prevalent and vociferous in our schools now than they were three decades ago when I was standing in front of a classroom. Here’s a simple way to keep the Mrs. Bethels at bay: Only make assignments that can be quantified. Susie memorized 60 of the 67 counties or 89.5 %. That’s a B+. Johnny got 27 wrong, for 59.7%. Johnny gets an F.

How much did my students learn about solving equations? How much did they come to love math? How much did my enthusiasm for the subject and my love of kids and love of teaching come through? These questions are much harder to answer with percentages.

I wonder how many young teachers get discouraged and end up teaching and testing only that which can be quantified and justified.

It’s a shame.

In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be grades or pressure. Students would learn at their own pace and Mrs. Bethel would have no reason to come to school.

In the meantime, in our imperfect world, my hat is off to those teachers who still try to impart a love of their subject and a love of learning. I hope the parents of those lucky students will understand.

David’s blog

If the link doesn’t open, copy and paste it into your browser.

I do know of one school in town that espouses to the homework policy set out in the article. Other schools might think about adopting : )

Are Children Doing too Much Homework?