Scattershot

Lies or messed-up memories?

The Brian Williams rocket fire brouhaha has been disturbing to me, though not for the expected reasons. Oh, I’m pretty unhappy that he lied or got mixed up or whatever, but there is more to the situation that bothers me.

First of all, I have always really, really liked Williams. I don’t “know” him from his show, as I never watch network news. Where I have always seen him is on the Daily Show, where he has impressed me as being smart, funny, quick—and a great guest for Jon Stewart. So my first instinct on hearing about his false story was, “Oh, no! There must be a mistake.” That led me to my first problem. What if he had been a news anchor or commentator that I despise? Hmmmm. I confess that everything would be different. I would be enjoying the jokes at his expense and probably feeling a bit thrilled at the skewering going on. Not good.

Then I have been bothered by the follow-up "news." Did he lie about being robbed at a Christmas tree stand when he was young? Was he telling the truth when he reported on Hurricane Katrina? Did he once rescue one puppy, two puppies, or no puppies at all? People are looking everywhere for evidence that he is a liar, and that reminds me of something I'll never forget from my high school years. There was an ax murder in my hometown, and a high school boy I knew—the boyfriend of a friend of mine—was a suspect. Once it was suggested that he was the perpetrator, people came out of the woodwork to find evidence of his guilt, and they found a lot of it. But they were wrong. It turns out there were reasonable explanations for all the "evidence," and he didn't do it. Two escapees from a mental institution were the guilty parties.

Then I am reminded, because of a couple of books I’ve been reading, of the incredible unreliability of our memories. Countless studies have showed that eyewitness accounts are quite often wrong and that memories change over the years or can even be planted by others. We don’t usually notice our memory mistakes because we aren’t usually in a position of having any way to accurately go back to the past and measure them. According to a chapter called “Remembering and Forgetting” in the book Subliminal—Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, by Leonard Mlodinow, psychologist Dan Simons evidently decided to check out the accuracy of his memory by investigating something that was crystal clear in his mind—where he was and what he did on September 11, 2001, when hearing news of the attack on the World Trade Center. He clearly remembered that he had been in his lab at Harvard with three graduate students, all of whom happened to be named Steve. He remembered that he and the three Steves had spent the day together watching coverage of the news. However, when he checked on this ten years later, he found out his memory was wrong. Only one of the graduate students named Steve was with him that day; another was giving a talk somewhere else, and another was out of town. Simons theorized that his memory was based on what usually was the case. The three students named Steve generally were in the lab with him, but in this case, despite his clear memory, they weren’t there at all. Not good.

I'm also reminded of how my husband often tells a certain story but has an important detail completely wrong. It drives me crazy. However, I’ve given up saying anything about it. I just quietly feel annoyed. He is completely convinced that what he is remembering is the way it happened. He’s wrong, of course, but his memory is clear.

And then I realize, if memories are so unreliable, is it remotely possible that it is my memory that is the incorrect one? That is a troubling thought. (What is worse is that, despite my certainty about the  “rightness” of my version, I can’t even recall right now what his frequently told story is about. I just remember that he has it wrong. Not good.)

I don’t know what will become of Lyin’ Brian, as he has now been dubbed, but the whole thing makes me kind of sad—sad that this is happening to someone I liked so much, sad that he is responsible—on purpose or not—for the scandal, and sad that so few hold out even the possibility that maybe, just maybe, like most of us, he tells stories that get better as the years go by, not because of evil intent but because of the desire to tell a good story.

3:00 a.m. on a cold, dark night

It was a cold January night in a remote area of the Colorado mountains last weekend, and I was lying in bed, wide awake. It was dark, of course, but darkness at our cabin is not like city darkness. It is a darkness that makes sure you know it is there, thick and heavy. If I get up and don’t turn on a light, the darkness wraps around me, disorients me, and even frightens me a little.

I gave up on sleep and lay there looking out the window. I saw stars, stars that always seem only distant relatives of the stars we glimpse at home. These stars form a dense canopy of jewels that is breathtaking in its beauty. I’m always saddened to know that they are mostly invisible to an urban sky.

It was too early to get up, so I just continued watching the stars. There are worse things to do at 3:00 a.m., though I knew from past experience that I shouldn't think too hard about those stars. But I couldn't help it. Where are they? How many of them are there that we can't even see? What about the planets and solar systems and who-knows-what-else that is out there? Why is it all there? Who else is there? Who are we? What is life, anyway?

I started to become overwhelmed by my own insignificance, and my mind couldn't take it anymore. I made my way to the kitchen to turn on a light and make a cup of coffee. I sat down to read, trying to distract myself from unsettling questions brought up by the universe.

After awhile, the universe sent gifts. I looked outside, and the mountains and aspen trees had become black silhouettes, highlighted by the soft glow of the sun starting to rise.  Soon pink and gold streaks appeared above the mountains, melting across the sky. In the distance, three moose lumbered across the meadow.

The aspens were still. The sky was clear. Life was good.

Whatever this world is, wherever it is, I’m glad to be part of it.

Drive-up banking chutes and PARCC tests

When I was a kid, my family’s bank installed a drive-up window, the first drive-up in our very small town. Posted beside the drive-up chute with its carrier tube was a sign that said, “Do not put coins in the carrier.”

My mother wanted to deposit some checks and several rolls of coins. She saw that she shouldn’t put the rolls of coins in the carrier and so she—quite reasonably, in her mind—tossed the rolls of coins into the chute itself, gumming up the whole works and causing the new drive-up to be shut down for repairs.

Though we still laugh about this today, the truth is that I absolutely understand my mom’s thinking. I can even imagine myself doing the same thing if I’d never before encountered a drive-up window.

Indirectly—okay, very indirectly—this incident is connected to why an editorial in the Denver Post this week bothers me. (More on that connection later.) The editorial urges us to get behind the Pearson-created PARCC tests now being given across the country. The author says, “The central truth about this test is that it will provide unblinking data on the progress that children are making toward acquiring the world-class education they all should have, regardless of where they start in life.”

Really? Who says? How do we know that? Should we just assume that Pearson knows what it’s doing and that its tests are perfection and that they give meaningful insight into American education?

I have serious doubts. Too many people in too many states are finding errors, problems, issues. Just this month, in a piece called “Ivy League Grads Can’t Pass the New GED,” author Matt Collette takes issue with the new Pearson-created GED test. He decides to take a practice test himself and, though he has a master’s degree from Columbia and writes for a living, he gets only a little over half the English section questions right. He gives an example of one item he “misses,” according to Pearson: He puts quotation marks around a television title but doesn’t underline it as well. (In other words, Pearson says he should have written, I watched “The Voice” last night. Where Pearson gets that notion, I don’t know. No reference book I know of recommends doing that. None.) It seems like a very simple thing to get wrong, and it is a small thing. But these are the test writers, the test gods who are measuring young people everywhere with their questions. I don’t think they should be getting basic things wrong.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to go to the PARCC website, look at practice tests and tutorials, and see if I could find at least one problem or mistake within five minutes or less. It took me only three minutes. 

I found that I needed to take an “Equation Editorial” tutorial before trying an actual practice math test. Okay. I started the tutorial. Seven screens to navigate.

First screen: I learned that I could write an equation using numbers on my keyboard. Fine. I wrote numbers with my keyboard and moved on.

Second screen: Oops…. my first problem. The screen told me that some symbols were not on the keyboard, such as the symbol I would need for writing a fraction. To write a fraction, I would need to click on a certain symbol that was not on the keyboard and then fill in the little boxes that would appear. Well, if this symbol was not on the keyboard, where the heck was it? I’ll be darned if I could find it.  

Finally, I went back to slide #1. Was I missing something? I read and re-read how there were symbols I could click on “below the box.” But there weren’t. There was a box, but there were no symbols below it. No symbols. I was very frustrated.

Then, quite accidentally, I clicked on the box itself. Poof! The symbols at last appeared. Sigh. 

Now I know what you are thinking: “Well, no wonder she had trouble with the directions. This is coming from a woman who would throw rolls of coins into a bank chute and gum up the works.”

Um, well, yes. Maybe. But I am also a person who knows there are kids who, like me, can be quite literal, and if the directions say that there are symbols below the box, will expect there to actually be symbols below the box. I’ve also taught enough kids to know that almost all of them are often confused by instructions on tests and in textbooks. If kids don’t do well on a test on fractions, does it necessarily mean that they don’t understand fractions? Or could the scores be influenced by the fact that Pearson has created a cumbersome testing tool, and kids are confused by having to navigate a system that uses symbols and instructions unlike anything they've ever used on paper?

And don’t even get me started on the question of whether or not we should really be spending class time having kids take tutorials in how to take a test.

So, Denver Post editorialist, I believe you are dead wrong to say we should get behind these tests because of the “crystal clear data” they will provide. The jury is still out on whether that data is meaningful or even correct, let alone crystal clear. If I can find a problem in three minutes, what can I find if I spend even more time on the site? (Actually, I know the answer to that. I’ve found issues every time I’ve visited.)

Really. Let’s stop assuming that the tests have some secret hotline to truth and justice and the American way. They are tests, created by people—people who probably haven’t worked in a classroom with real kids for a long time, or ever. It’s time we did some testing of the test designers themselves.

 

 

 

Kosher Chinese

I just finished reading a fascinating book called Kosher Chinese—Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s other Billion, by Michael Levy. With warmth and a sense of humor, Levy writes about his Peace Corps experiences teaching in Guiyang, in the heart of China.

Levy writes, “The results of an educational system focused entirely on high-stakes tests were easy to see. Students spent six days a week, ten hours a day, from grades eight to twelve cramming information for the Gao Kao. They then spent college getting ready for the next round of tests. Anything that distracted students from figuring out how to fill in the blanks correctly was a waste of time. Sports and physical health were out. Music was out, as was sex ed. There were no glee clubs, school newspapers, yearbooks, or debate teams. All of this, along with other expressions of creativity, were mere distractions, as was critical thinking.”

When he is asked to teach a graduate class in English literature, he is told that he doesn’t need copies of the books because the students shouldn’t actually read the books they will be studying. When he questions a colleague about this advice, she says, “Why do they need to read the books for themselves?”

He explains that his class discussions will be based on the books.

“But what is there for them to discuss?” she continues. “They don’t know anything. You are the expert, so you should just tell them what to think.”

As Levy gets to know his students, he often discovers incorrect or even bizarre notions that they believe—for example, that all Americans love meat and are fat, that swimmer Michael Phelps is Jewish, that because they hate old people, Americans are suppressing a pill that allows people to live to 150,  If he tries to correct them, their response is a shrugged, “We have learned it.” If he says with exasperation, “You’ve learned it, but it’s wrong,” they say, “It is in a book.” If it is in a book or they learned it, it is true. Period.

And yet there are those who understand the limits of their education system. A university president, after quite a bit to drink, admits to Levy that, “Everyone knows Chinese are good at math and science, but we are also very bad at creativity. We only build things in factories, but we never innovate and invent them on our own….No Chinese citizen has ever won a Nobel Prize. Why is this? It is because we only teach the students how to memorize, and we test them and test them, and punish them if they cannot pass the tests.” (Five years after this conversation, though, a Chinese man becomes China’s first Nobel laureate, winning the Peace Prize for promoting human rights, democracy, and political freedom in China. As Levy reports, “His reward? An eleven-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion of state power.”)

On a lighter note, though, I got a kick out what that same university president says when Levy admits he had never heard of Guanwang before arriving in China. “The man is shocked. ‘But we have a Walmart!’ he said.” 

I guess that Walmart is all a city really needs.

Kent Haruf

One of my favorite authors, Kent Haruf, died this week. He received so many awards in his lifetime, as well as the admiration of a lot of people, me included.

When I was first reading his book Plainsong, I remember thinking, “Wow. This is exactly right. The author must have lived somewhere near where I grew up.” His details about rural ranchers and farmers were spot on, and the characters were so much like people I had grown up with. I loved it.

It turns out I was right about his background. He was born not far from where I grew up, and he lived and taught high school for a time on the plains of eastern Colorado.

A few years ago Plainsong was chosen as our library sponsored city-wide book to read, and Haruf spoke at a local theater. He told about how, when he had finished his most recent book, he read it aloud to his wife as they drove to California. When they arrived, he knew he had to start over. As I remember it, it was because his writing didn’t have the simplicity and clarity he strived for. I loved hearing that, as I know that nothing is harder, when it comes to words, than making them simple and crystal clear. Complicated is easy. Simple is not.

I also remember him saying that he hated the Hallmark television movie made of Plainsong. For one thing, he didn’t like the way the movie portrayed the two farmers as hicks and didn’t respect them. Putting a farmer in a backwards-facing baseball cap was the last straw for him. “No eastern Colorado farmer or rancher would ever wear a backwards baseball cap,” he said. He got that right. Even the thought of my dad or brother or any other farmer I know dressing like that is absurd. For one thing, a baseball cap—frontward or backward—isn’t going to provide the protection a farmer needs from the blistering sun on the plains. Also, anyone dressed like that would be hooted out of the local Co-op by the farmers there having coffee.

But one of the best things about his talk was when a women in the audience mentioned that she had been in one of his high school classes. He recognized her immediately and went on to tell a story about her to the whole crowd. I knew then that he had to have been a good teacher as well as a wonderful writer.

It was nice to see the human side of the man behind the books I love.  

Scrooginess

Almost every day, our local paper prints “thank you” comments from people who have been eating out at local restaurants and had someone anonymously pay for their meal. They are always thankful, often going on to comment on the wonderful generosity of people in this town and sometimes telling how they will take this generosity and “pay it forward.”

This undoubtedly shows a lot of Scrooginess on my part, but I confess that these notes kind of irritate me. It’s not because I’m against generosity or kindness or paying it forward—quite the contrary. It’s because I don’t think paying for someone’s meal in a restaurant for no reason is all that admirable. Really, if people are eating out at a restaurant, they presumably can afford to eat there, so how is paying for their meal such a great gift?

Also…more Scrooginess coming…I think this pay-for-someone’s-meal trend lets people feel generous without actually being generous in a meaningful way. Would they think of walking that same money over to the food bank, where it might go towards feeding some hungry kids? Would they think of slipping it inside an envelope and putting it inside the front door of the single working mom who is clearly struggling? Would they think of giving it to someone who is not at all like themselves and unable to go out to eat in restaurants at all?

But then I have second thoughts. Maybe generosity with no strings attached is something we should never judge. We’ve all heard comments like these: Why should I give money to taking care of injured animals when there are people who need help? Why should I donate to a foundation fighting Ebola in Africa when there are people right in town who can’t afford the cancer treatments they need? Why should I pay to attend that Christmas fund-raiser to benefit the Lymphoma Society when I know the Parkinson’s Foundation needs donations? It goes on and on. If we start thinking this way, it can become an excuse for not giving at all. There is no end to need in the world, both near and far. We all must pick and choose our causes.

And then I have more second thoughts. One of the premises of “Pay it forward,” at least in the movie, is that paying it forward should be something hard for you. Maybe, just maybe, paying for meals in a restaurant really is hard for the people doing it. Maybe paying for another meal is a stretch for them financially. Maybe they aren’t used to giving at all, and giving to those most like themselves is a first step toward learning to give to those who are really in need. Maybe.

So, really, who am I to judge? After all, if it was my meal someone was paying for, I would certainly be happy. Can making someone happy, even for a moment, ever be a bad thing?

I should probably work on curbing my Scrooginess and just be thankful for generosity of any kind. Anywhere. Any time.

And for anyone.

Loyal readers

Waiting for a table at a local restaurant last night, my husband and I ran into long-time friends Don and Nancy. Don stood, wrapped me in a bear hug, and then said, "Wait. Stand still." He started feeling the back of my neck.

"What are you doing?" I asked. You never can tell with Don. 

"I want to see how cold your neck really is," he said.

For just a second, I was stumped. Then I remembered my last blog post, where I mentioned how my neck is always cold. Don and Nancy, I know, always read Scattershot.

"And where have you been?" he continued. "I check every morning, and it's been at least two weeks since your last post." He gave me a stern look.

Don and Nancy are one reason I keep up Scattershot. I like writing and would write no matter what, but sometimes I wonder why I bother posting my scattered musings. A few people frequently email me to comment on posts, but I don't really know if all the other subscribers ever actually read what I write. I could just as easily end the blog and email my posts to those I know will read them.

But every time I'm on the verge of giving up, I'll get a sweet comment in my email from a stranger, or a surprising request to reprint my words, or an interesting response that makes me smile or laugh or think, "Ah! A kindred spirit!"

Or I'll get an email from Don. "Where is Scattershot???????????????????????" he will demand.

I'll smile and decide to post. It's good to know someone is paying attention.

So to Don and Nancy and others who frequently email me with comments, thank you for letting me know you are there.

 

Ruffles and Brussels sprouts

Last summer my sister told me, “You are getting more like Grandma every day.”

Harumph. In my family, that kind of remark is not intended as a compliment. We all loved Grandma a lot, but she was, well, just a little bit odd. She laughed nervously when nothing funny was going on. She put sugar on everything, even pie. She carefully broke Wheat Thins into quarters before eating them. And towards the end of her life, she ate pretty much nothing but Brussels sprouts. No one ever could understand why.

I turned to my sister, annoyed. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, you are getting smaller the older you get—just like Grandma did. Your neck is always cold, just like Grandma’s, so you like to wear scarves. You don’t get jokes that other people get. You look at stuff, well, differently.”

Harumph again. I’ve been a bit bothered by this comparison ever since.

Then last week I made a Christmas dress for my baby grand-daughter Annabelle. It’s covered with ruffles and lace—a very girly little dress. (No harm done; it will balance all the skiing, biking, saililng, hiking influences she gets from the rest of the family.) When I finished the dress, I remembered: Grandma made me ruffled dresses when I was a baby—lots of ruffled, lacy dresses. Was I channeling Grandma again? I tried to put it out of my mind.

After I finished the dress, I was on a roll. I thought, “Maybe I’ll make Annabelle a cute little doll, too…and maybe one for my niece.”  I went on the Etsy website, bought a couple of adorable patterns, and went shopping for fabric and supplies.

At the fabric store it hit me. What was Grandma best known for? Her hand-made dolls. I sighed and was glad my sister wasn’t with me.

Then, driving home, I started thinking about Thanksgiving and turkey. I always go for the wings first. “Just like Grandma did,” I remembered. I sighed again.

And then I remembered the vegetable side dish I’ve been assigned for Thanksgiving. I had spent some time the day before on food websites and printed out a new recipe I want to try.

It’s for Brussels sprouts. I love Brussels sprouts.

Maybe my sister does have a point.

And after we finish the Wheat Thins in our cupboard, which I have not broken into quarters, I think I’ll not buy any more. Just to be safe.

Volvos and mothers and black-footed ferrets and...

It was a late afternoon wine and cheese party, expected to last a couple of hours, but it didn’t wind down until midnight. Why?

Only women had been invited.

Now I have nothing against parties that include men, and I like men a lot. Sometimes, though, men tend to grab control of conversation, and all too often that control includes far too many references to quarterbacks, cam shafts, jibs, torque, chain saws, batting statistics, fly rods, ski bindings, and…well, you get the picture. With women, the conversation more often turns to stories—rich stories, funny stories, human stories. My head is still spinning with details from the many stories I heard Friday night.

One woman’s story was about how she had spent years searching for her birth mother, finally hired a detective who found her, and then suffered the agony of hearing that her mother didn’t want to meet her and never wanted to be contacted again.

Another woman told about the most recent excursion of a group she belongs to called Destinations Unknown. Members take turns planning trips, but the attendees are never told where they are going or what they will be doing. They are told only what to bring, how long they will be gone, and the kind of dress that will be appropriate. Their most recent trip involved, among other things, a tour of a medical marijuana plant.

Another woman told a long story about her adventure stranded in a remote area of the mountains with a Volvo that wouldn’t start—a story that involved six miles of hiking in Birkenstock sandals, letting herself into a farmhouse where no one was home to get water and use a land line, and later dealing with a frustrated tow truck operator, a tenacious farmer, a black-footed ferret, and an inventive fish and game warden. It was hysterical.

Another woman told of moving to Colorado many years ago with her husband and having nowhere to stay until their new rental was vacated. They camped for two weeks in the mountains and were so poor they spent their time playing cribbage on pieces of paper, drawing in the dots because they couldn’t afford an actual cribbage board.

A German immigrant told stories of her experiences substitute teaching in America and her surprise that substitute teaching even exists. In Germany, she told us, teaching is quite a respected profession, and when a teacher is absent, one of the school’s teachers in training always steps in.

There were stories from the woman whose elk-hunting husband called her from a mountain top where he could get cell-phone service, asking her to check the weather forecast, the grandmother whose gay grand-daughters had stretched and improved the attitudes of her fellow church members, the sisters who found raccoons munching in their kitchen one night, the woman who moved across the country to marry a man from her long-ago past, and the woman who keeps five hives of bees in her back yard and is trying to solve the mystery of why their honey production was only a fifth of usual this year.

One particular story sparked a lively discussion about secrets and the appropriateness and even the ethics of other people knowing something about a person that the person herself does not know. Another discussion emerged from a story about how some people do not want to know any more than just the facts about a current situation, not the back story.  “Why do you need to know why or what happened before when it will make no difference to the outcome?” a woman quoted her husband as saying. “Why do you need to know?”

Well, I think I know why. Many of us want to know because behind the facts of the current situation usually lies the good stuff—the stories.

And that’s why the party Friday night was such a good one. It was simply brimming with stories.

I loved it.

Brainstorming intrusion

I sat in a coffee shop yesterday indulging myself in a Halloween treat of a pumpkin latte with whipped cream and brainstorming ideas for a new project. I wrote words randomly over the page, no matter how unfocused or how silly they might seem because…because, well, that’s how I operate.

Looking back, I saw these words on the first half of the page:

• Ensemble of four women
• No itchy stuff!
• Photos of grandmothers and moms
• Bad girl, good girl, pampered baby, religious nut
• Something not “us”—me in maybe a flamboyant poncho and Pat in a hat
• Lunch with Amy
• Glam-spirations
• Style-spirations

Then something changed. Surrounding me were people having business-related meetings, and scraps of their conversations started creeping in from all directions and tangling with my thoughts. Soon I found myself writing down the words I heard:

• Take a horizontal approach
• Multi-directional
• Took a leadership role
• Across different platforms
• The private sector
• Embark on an email campaign
• Check pricing on that
• Budget-wise
• I can speak to that
• That’s a conversation we need to have
• Marginalize

As I looked down at these words, cringing, I wondered why the heck I was writing them down. I decided that it was out of gratitude—gratitude that I’m living a life where such words and phrases don’t intrude—except in a coffee shop where a pumpkin latte goes a long way toward neutralizing them. I went back to my unfocused ramblings:

• A dance of one step only, in different combinations
• Underwear. Bras. Lack of.
• The Arla stick-my-foot-in-my-mouth incident at the Catacombs
• Find the sister song
• Sisters!
• Collaborators…
• Sally’s two retired friends…meet and talk?
• Panache
• Dust
• No eyelashes

Ahh…Now I was getting somewhere. I have no idea where exactly that will be, but I have confidence that I will arrive.

Eventually.