Why aren't they doing what I have been trying to teach?

I have been thinking about instructions and how we pass on knowledge and skills to others lately. It took a blog post from Seth Godin, one of my favorites, to start me down that path. Here are excerpts from his March 12 post:

Two kinds of instructions

The more common, easier to execute sort: Instructions to remind people who already know what to do, what to do.

The more essential and harder to create kind: Instructions for people who don’t know what to do.

It’s a mistake to assume that just because you know all the steps, the person you’re writing for does as well.

[Almost all instructions on car dashboards, and most on the highway, are for people who already know how to drive and where they’re going… instructions that teach are a special category.]

He then lists some steps in thinking through instructions, including this one: Every interaction should have a “what if the person is confused in this moment?” branch (or option).

Many of my college students either don't know what to do or don't realize that they don't know what to do. I know this because no matter how many times I urge them to add support to their claims or arguments, they mostly do not do that.

Many student media advisers and students that I work with, usually indirectly through judging and critiquing their media, don't know what to do. If they did, I could stop repeating the same advice year after year, often to the same publications.

Many of the board members on a nonprofit board I currently chair do not know what to do. The evidence is found in reports that are unclear and unfocused. 

Not all, of course, in any of the above three categories, but many. And that is frustrating. 

It is possible that those who do know what they are doing and who demonstrate it happen to already know what to do. My task with them is to remind them, push them a bit, and maybe challenge them to consider doing even more or just trying some new tactic or strategy. 

Being a consultant who mostly urges students, advisers, and board members to elevate what they already do competently is still challenging but not all that essential. They would all be fine without help from me.

But now I am thinking that I all too often assume that people know what to do but are just too busy, too stubborn, or too distracted to be competent. That thinking needs to change.

Most people I work with need instructions built on the truth that they don't really know what to do. And if you don't know WHAT to do, it's tough to teach HOW to do it. 

I need to start analyzing where my class assignments, my critiques, and my requests for reports need some of those "what if the person is confused at this point?" links or sidebars or focused context. I just need to try to avoid "the curse of knowledge": sometimes I know so much (or think I do) that I lose track of my audience and skip key processes. 

Learning to teach is a long journey.

How a children's book gave me the creeps

Tim Harrower, a longtime friend, has just published a "children's book for adults," and I have ordered a copy based on some sample pages I saw on his Facebook page plus his past excellence as a writer and designer. He shared just two hours later in an email that things were a bit slow this winter and he wanted to experiment with AI tools. 

The book's text is all Tim, but the illustrations are all generative AI art tools (and I don't know which he used, but there are many available). The book is "The Dinosaur Owner's Manual," based on the concept that paleontologist Huxley Poot discovered live dinosaurs on a remote Pacific island in 1925 and brought them to Australia, where they flourished as pets for some time before adults banished them. This book is a reprint, so to speak, edited by Tim. It's a fun concept. 

It includes lavish illustrations, all generated by AI as guided by Tim's written instructions. He wrote: "You type in what you want (say, a dinosaur drinking tea), and the AI robot creates a painting, a photo, a sketch, whatever." 

I am sure it was quite a bit more complex than that, but his explanation makes sense based on what I have been learning while monkeying with ChatGPT to aid college writers. The best results from the AI "robot" come from more and more precise and structured prompts. That is likely true of AI art generators.

He has even created a promo video found here in which the narrator's Australian voice was AI-generated. 

I don't yet have the book in my hands but will not be surprised to find that the illustrations are rich and detailed. I know the text will be clever and engaging (and all from Tim). The book design will be terrific since Tim has long been a national leader in design theory and practice. 

I do have to admit that managing to illustrate an entire children's book gives me a moment's pause, so to speak. I would certainly feel a chill were I an illustrator, sensing that my services will soon no longer be required. 

Right now, I can't imagine the AI matching Tim's wits but, honestly, I would be foolish to simply shrug off that threat. It's just a matter of time, as least if an article in today's New York Times is correct.

The author has long been reporting on AI and is quite sure that we are, at most, a couple years away from AI tech that surpasses human capabilities in many areas. He may not be right, but if it's not two years, it will certainly be within ten. 

Today, we agonize over tariffs and an administration bordering on insane. We can't pass a federal budget and no one has any idea how to respond to a president who disdains all the accepted virtues and traditions of the American experiment. The stock market is tanking, though it will likely recover since rich people are quite clever and will do what it takes to "protect their own."

But the real challenge for the country and the world is likely to be generative AI that matches human intelligence and doesn't require 401Ks or even a rational government to operate. 

I used to think that the robots were coming, but not in my lifetime. I think I was wrong.

Wishing I were a more efficient interviewer

I have been doing some research, including lots of personal interviews, with people associate with St. Luke's UMC, where I sing in the choir. The church celebrated 40 years on March 13, 2023 and I was the Emcee, for unknown reasons. I found myself dissatisfied with what was shared about the earliest days of the church starting, right along with Highlands Ranch. They both began in the early 80s, basically from dirt.

There was something about "two visionary pastors who had the idea of starting a church in this new community south of Denver." And that was about it. That just didn't seem enough and eventually I got it into my head that I would appoint myself unofficial historian and try to find out what actually happened. Who were these visionaries? Was the whole process smooth and without challenges? 

We didn't move to Highlands Ranch until August of 2002 and we soon joined St. Luke's. That was 19 years into the church's history and the building had gone through three incarnations, each time adding space as the membership grew. So, I knew quite about of our recent history.

But there had been two senior ministers who had established a lot of what the church was, and long before we arrived. We enjoyed the third senior minister, but he left in summer of 2003. Bottom line: there's a lot of church history that I did not live through. 

I began reaching out to former ministers (all of whom but one, who died in 1993, lived nearby), and all were glad to talk about St. Luke's. I began meeting them and talking for an hour or two once in a while, asking for memories and insights and key dates and people. At the same time, I was doing research reading primary source documents like old church newsletters, old scrapbooks, official documents, and online news stories. 

I am still working on this little project nearly a year later and I only have a hazy idea of where things are going in terms of publishing or posting. I have expanded my research by interviewing various church members who have been involved before I ever arrived... a few go back to the early to mid-80s. There is an urgency to some of the interviewing since some of those early-year sources are getting what even a 74-year-old might call elderly. 

Every single interview has been delightful and informative.

But here's the fact that has become clearest to me: Interviewing is hard! I know. Big surprise. I have taught interviewing for decades to students but I was never a working journalist. 

I have interviewed two former ministers at least three times, usually for 90 minutes or more, and each time I learn a bit more. Mostly I find that there is so much more to the story... so many people it would be helpful to hear from... so many related facts and local history that interacts with this little church south of Denver. 

It's too late, of course, but I would apologize for being a bit short with lots of student reporters over many years. It's easy to talk when two people share interests and one of them (me) is genuinely interested in stories they can share. 

But my notetaking is spotty. I get back home and try to type up my notes and discover endless holes, questions about chronology, mystifying stray words and phrases that I must have thought important enough to jot down... and then all that confusing stuff becomes the excuse for the next interview.

So far they have been patient with me, but it's about time for a first draft on those first 20 years of St. Luke's. 

"A penny for your thoughts" is kind of insulting

Amidst the past week's chaos in the federal government -- clearly, our new normal for some time to come -- we were reminded that the cost to produce one penny is 3.69 cents. One nickel costs 13.78 cents.

Trump wants to mandate the elimination of the penny, and this is hardly something that hasn't been demanded for decades. I have no idea why he stopped with the penny, when the over 2020 million nickels in circulation cost nearly three times what they are "worth."

Dimes, quarters, and half dollars continue to be worth more than it costs to mint them. I guess that makes them a good deal? Honestly, who knows? Money, whether in coins or bills or crypto or other paperless exchanges, is whatever we all agree to think it is. 

Once upon a time, the U.S. claimed to back its paper currency with gold, though the total gold reserve in Fort Knox amounts to about $429 million. The U.S. is currently $36 TRILLION, so I hope we won't need to "buy back" any significant amount of that any time soon. 

I assume a large percentage of pennies and nickels (and probably all coins) are sitting in jars and coffee mugs and dresser drawers and automobile consoles. A smaller percentage is in coin collections. I used to pore over the change I received when I collected weekly payments for the Iowa City Press Citizen, squinting at dates and the names of mints and consulting price sheets and historical records. 

I would periodically collect enough coins that I would need to get paper "rolls" to stack them in neat groups to take to a bank to exchange them for paper. Fifty pennies would fit in one roll, for instance. I guess one roll of pennies cost $1.84 to manufacture, or they do today. 

It seems dumb to invest more in materials and the processing of coins than they are worth, but my sense is that our entire monetary system is just a series of interactions and spreadsheets and assumptions and, well, sheer faith that a penny is worth a penny... that a dollar bill is worth a dollar. 

Kathleen and I have a whole lot of money in Wells Fargo Bank but we never see it... and never have seen most of it. We do get checks in the mail from time to time, but it's rare. Most of our income is like most of our expenses: we use some sort of middleman to electronically receive money from, say PERA, and routinely use a credit card to pay for things. 

The economy is a giant math problem and when you start thinking about the $36 trillion that the federal government owes, well, somebody (maybe everybody), it all starts to seem like a game we can't win. 

Inflation (maybe?) made Donald Trump president again... and people HATE inflation. On the other hand, economies tank with no inflation (or, the horror. deflation). One dollar from the year 2000 is worth about $1.83 today. About half of what a dollar was worth then.

I paid $3.09 per gallon of gas yesterday (though I was able to take 80 cents off that thanks to our King Soopers points). When I was a kid (I know... long, long ago), there were regular "gas wars" where neighboring filling stations would compete for business by lowering the cost of gas. I distinctly recall 25 cents per gallon.

That sounds great, but I looked up what a dollar was worth in 1950... and that same dollar is now worth a bit over $13 today in purchasing power. So, is it more accurate to say that gasoline in 1950 cost the equivalent of $3.25 today? I mean, I did the math, multiplying 25 cents times 13 and there you go.

So are gas prices a crime today? Most of us can't be bothered to do the math but the internet can do all this for us... The answer has to be no. In fact, it might be a smidge cheaper than inflation would indicate.

By all means, let's work out a smart plan to retire the penny (and the nickel, while we're at it). But we do need to remember that a 1950 penny would have purchased 13 cents of goods in today's money. 

In other words, there is math involved. Some engineer or computer scientist will work out the hidden costs of gathering the estimated 116 BILLION pennies in circulation. My guess is that our "magic" system of assigning worth would not net the government (or us, as we turn them in) anywhere near the 3.69 cents each penny costs to produce.

Bottom line: Trump and his minions shouldn't spend a moment more on this idea. Like many of our new king's ideas, it's not worth it.

Tune in next week for "Jack noodles about tariffs..." 

Our "no nothing" leadership enjoys its moment

Among so many provocative and often simply off-the-wall social media posts from Trump in the past week was this one: He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” I have preserved his odd capitalizing of nouns that don't require such. 

I have no idea where he ran across this quote that is usually ascribed to Napoleon, which first appeared in a book written by Balzac in 1838, nearly two decades after Napoleon's death. Balzac was an admirer of the emperor and spent years gathering quotes about the man along with quotes from the man. 

I would be willing to bet serious money that Trump doesn't read old texts by Balzac and that this idea came from some bright young aide who regularly visits "famous quotes" sites. 

Unless firmly part of the Trump Cult, most people must see this as the rationale of a would-be dictator/emperor/king, staking a legal and ethical claim saying that mere laws should not apply to him. 

No one really knows if Napoleon said the quote (in French, his second language after Corsican Italian), but most scholars agree that it sounds like something he might have said. After all, he lived a life, for a time, that illustrated it.

If nothing else, the post from Trump riled people up and got some searching for whether the source was correct. 

These historical quotes that pop up regularly online as memes are always catchy and rarely verifiable, it turns out. 

In fact, the very first thing we should do when some catchy quote appears in our news feeds is to go to Snopes and see if there has been any verified research into its origin. It's quite easy but there is a good argument for not bothering. After all, social media is awash with lies, provocations, and hate. There is no harm in simply continuing to scroll.

My plan when Trump returned to the presidency was to sit back and watch as the cult inevitably attacked itself and his low-information voters began to realize that they had been bamboozled... again. Those things are happening but my plan is not providing me much satisfaction.

We have been spoiled as Americans, lulled by the relative success of our nation and our political systems over the past 70 years, at least. I'm afraid we are having trouble right now comprehending that we are in the grasp of stupidity. Musk appears brain-damaged by his ketamine use and the urge of unchecked power. Trump has always been a flim-flam man who combines luck and bravado to thrive.

Few Americans would argue that indiscriminate firings and deletions are the "smart" way to proceed in reforming government or schools or businesses... or anything. 

Americans have always been a bit "anti-intellectual" but the Trump Cult has gone all in on not knowing, and thus far only a few lonely judges and the governor of Maine seem to have called out the ignorance. 

For most of us, we wait for someone to save the day. 

A far-off death fires up the time machine in my head

A 92-year-old died Wednesday in a retirement facility in Coralville, Iowa and I just read about it on Facebook. His name was Audra "Bud" Williams and I honestly had no idea he was still living until Feb. 12. I can't recall the last time I saw him, but it must have been years and years ago. 

There is no practical news value in this information. A 92-year-old has certainly seen a lot and hung in there and lived beyond an average lifespan, but the news often will mark this sort of milestone. For me, I was suddenly time-traveling to Nov. 22, 1963, as I sat in Bud's history class at Central Junior High School as an 8th grader fascinated by the amount of white shin that was revealed when the teacher would lift one foot onto an empty chair while telling us a story. 

I do know that I avoided taking that sort of stance during my own teaching career, wanting to avoid that sort of display. On an unrelated note, seeing a fellow teacher who consistently wore a tie with a short-sleeved dress shirt made a similar impact. I vowed to never make that wardrobe choice unless under duress. Then again, I am the guy in church choir who wears a suit or jacket and tie every Sunday, stubbornly refusing to submit to the informal nature of Colorado church services. Plus, I own some decent suits, though all are over 20 years old.

On that November day, the school PA blared out a sudden announcement that school was dismissed for the day (and it was about 1:30 p.m., about half an hour after the news broke). President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and was dead. 

That was a long, trying weekend at our house. Lots of crying and being glued to the TV. It all seemed very strange to my 13-year-old self, that's for sure.

I had been in fifth grade at Roosevelt Elementary during the Kennedy-Nixon election and had been campaign manager for the eventual victor during our in-class election. I recall making quite a few posters and giving an introduction to whomever was playing Kennedy in the class debate. I remember precisely zero about that debate and wonder if that sort of "lifelike" experience happens any more in American classrooms.

After all, one false move, one provocative statement, and one surreptitious video shot by an enterprising student and shared with dad might end a teaching career. 

And those memories from my youth MAY have something to do with the disappointment I feel concerning Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his nuttiness. That he is now Secretary of HHS seems like a joke missing a punchline. I guess it's not his fault that 45/47 decided that he would be a most excellent "troll" for those damn libs, preeminent among many such choices. 

Back to Bud, we were at City High together for nearly 20 years... he was Dean of Students and coached cross country and track. He coached Lesley in track, and I look forward to hearing some stories from her next time to get together. 

Bud was a character but he created a girls cross country program that drew as many as 100 girls to the team, despite only the top 6-7 counting in results of meets. Young women joined just to get in shape and to be part of mammoth pasta dinners put on by parents and generally be part of many state championships. 

I thought he was quite elderly in 1963, but it turns out that he was only about 36 at the time. He was from a different generation and from a northwest Missouri farming family, but somehow we became colleagues and friends. 

I have no memory of whether he was emotional on that fateful November day, but assume he held it together, whatever he felt. That's what a guy did. Maybe that's still what a guy does. 

Anyway, RIP, Bud. He was one-of-a-kind.

 

Having trouble sorting through the deluge of weirdness

The weirdness just washes over us these days... and it almost all comes through social media and TV. 

Just this week I saw that a Colorado legislator has introduces a bill to legalize concealed carry for anyone 18 year of age. He claims on his website to love the Lord, to value families and vehemently oppose abortion. He is a Second Amendment champion and (I guess) his idea to covertly arm America's youth is the logical extension of his faith in weapons.

This proposed law has no chance of even getting out of committee in Colorado. It's purely performative, and I get it: that's how politics works today. But I do wonder if he can actually imagine thousands of high school seniors packing heat as they head out to work at the grocery store or just to hang at the mall. 

Hey, I like 18-year-olds. I was one. But let's not arm them in the vague hope that "it takes a high school senior to stop a criminal." Actually, isn't that something all Americans could come together on?

Here's another post that caught my eye this week, this time from Colorado State University, where I continue to plague young writers who find proofreading to be an unfair burden (well, that's how it appears at times): A report claims that 60 percent of American college students "meet the criteria for at least one mental health problem." 

Hold on. I know there is a flood of transgender athletes ruining college sports but over half of all college students qualifying for mental health support? THAT seems like an alarming fact that we ought to think about. When 60 percent of a population has some form of mental health problem, it makes me think the following:

• We are defining "mental health problem" too broadly. 
• Is more education producing more mental illness? Or should we be surveying young Americans NOT in college to see how they are doing? 
• If everyone is in need of mental health services, how many mental health professionals do we need? 

I would never want to downplay whatever mental or physical challenges those around us are experiencing, and I accept that modern life and the pandemic and political and economic conflicts are difficult. But are they more difficult than, say, life during the Civil War? More difficult than penniless immigrants in the 19th century working dangerous and exhausting jobs just to eat? 

I realize I am indulging in 'whataboutism," but 60 percent??!! I have 30 in my CSU writing class. What do I do with the fact that I should expect 18 of them to be in need of mental health services of some sort? Will insisting on them reading the entire assignment prompt push someone over the edge? Should I avoid deducting points for late work because of the likelihood that their assignments were caused by a mental health crisis or, perhaps, a therapy appointment that went long?

Among many other examples of weirdness from just this week are the endless whining commentaries from the press on "what's wrong with the Democrats?" Why aren't they fighting (and winning)? And what about our Arab-American friends in places like Dearborn, Michigan suddenly noticing that the new president misled them? 

Oh, and then there is the 50 cent per egg Waffle House surcharge that made headlines. And Musk and "Big Balls," the online name for his 19-year-old engineer now combing through America's personal data. And $100 million in condoms for Hamas. And it goes on and on.

But, hey, Sunday is the Super Bowl, and we can enjoy TV commercials that cost $8 million for one spot, munch on over a billion chicken wings (could this be why there is an egg shortage?), and revel in large men beating the heck out of each other as pop stars cheer. 

On Monday we can make an appointment with our therapist or pharmacist. Let's enjoy the weekend.