Author Archives: Liza Loop

by | June 1, 2019 · 8:57 pm

Second Entry: March 18, 1961

June 1, 2019.

I wonder what I was having trouble doing.

 

I had a horse and a dog at this point. The cats had all died. So had the white mice and the parakeets. Animals were my refuge. I suspect I was angry at my mother and wanted to convince myself to be gentle with her.

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by | · 8:26 pm

First Entry: March 6, 1961. Going on 16.

 

June 1, 2019 –

Paragraph 1.  See introduction.

Paragraph 2. I remember so clearly the struggle I had not to become lazy and complacent. By any standards we were rich. I knew I had choices. I was enrolled in 4 advanced placement classes in an academically challenging private school. I didn’t know it then but I had mild dyslexia perhaps complicated by a pair of eyes that didn’t focus together (a condition called amblyopia, I was born with one crossed eye). I couldn’t catch a ball reliably. I read slowly. It would have been so easy to lie back and relax, become a “girly” girl like so many of my classmates were doing, Even so, learning was the game I was best at.

The very public conflicts my divorced parents had over money led me to my skeptical view of my potential earning power. My mother, who grew up sewing her own underwear on a chicken farm in upstate New York, had gotten into an extended custody battle over my brothers and me with my wealthy “Our Crowd” father 4 years ago. I still don’t know what details she kept from me but she made it perfectly clear that she went back to work because my bastard father cut her off, she was sacrificing for me and I was inadequately grateful. As you may read about later, my father was unsuccessful at disinheriting my adulthood self so, in complex ways, it turned out that my schooling really has not had much impact on my earning power or lifestyle.

It is significant that this early interest in the interaction among personal effort, job-related earning power and educational level has stayed so prominent in my mind that I am still writing about it. (See www.netaablog.wordpress.com)

Paragraph 3.  I had just read Voltaire’s Candide for the first time. My preoccupation with appropriate use of superlatives is still with me as well.

Paragraph 4.  I’m sure I hadn’t yet read Plato’s Republic so I expect the story of the cave was related to me by either parents or my older brother and his friends. I majored in philosophy in college and, to this day, consider myself a career “social philosopher”. Oh, the seeds we sew.

Paragraph 5.  The school that I had been attending since second grade was nondenominational but certainly Christian in orientation. We were required to study both the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible and to attend morning chapel three days a week. I was familiar with Exodus 3:14. I had also been exposed to Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. But, looking back almost 60 years, I suspect my existential crisis was more closely related to my increasingly tumultuous relationship with my mother than either religion (which was strictly forbidden by both my atheist parents) or philosophical texts that I had heard about but not yet read. It’s ironic that gratitude is a hot topic among members of the “self-help” crowd today.

Paragraph 6.  I’m still haunted by what I called ’ostentation’ at 15. At that time people used to accuse me of being ‘conceited’, of thinking I was somehow better than everyone else. In some senses they were right. By any objective measure I had been gifted with more than my fair share of musical, mathematical and literary talent for which I could claim no intentional merit. I hadn’t earned those gifts and I knew it. My peers were missing the fact that much of my bravado was compensation for low self-esteem. Further, my parents brought up the concept of ‘noblesse oblige’ with some frequency. I had been born into privilege and I would carry an obligation to give back all my life. They also demanded that I “carry myself” like the aristocrat I was supposed to be. It was 30 years before I learned enough about body language to stop striding into a room as if I owned it with a haughty expression on my face. And you’re reading this because I’ve given up secrets.

 

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by | · 7:56 pm

Inside Liza: Reflections on Reflections – Introduction

I was born in 1945. I tried writing a diary when I was 7 and then again when I was 10. I thought it was what girls did but I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I was too busy living to reflect on what was happening or why. But by halfway through my 15th year the questioning had started in ernest. I’m sure I talked things over with my friends but that wasn’t enough. I know my mother wanted access to my inner life. We spent hours discussing current events, whether either of us would be able to shoot a neighbor breaking into our bomb shelter (actually, we didn’t have one), what had happened to our “beautiful relationship” (the one we had when I was a child who worshipped her and didn’t question her decisions), the meaning of life in general. By 15, sharing my inner life with my mother had begun to feel invasive. Besides, I already knew what she thought and I wanted more. So I got an extra spiral-bound notebook and began sharing with myself.

Today, June 1, 2019 (It happens to be my mother’s birthday, or would be if she was still alive) I’m going to begin Journaling 2.0 – Reflections on Reflections. I’ve kept all those old notebooks. Each time I return to them I’m amazed at how little I’ve changed. That doesn’t mean there’s been no change, but it’s clear that, at age 74, I’m the same person with many of the same unanswered questions. As you’ll see on the next page, I began with the sentence:

 

“Possibly if I write down my thoughts, the one’s worth thinking will not be forgotten.”

 

The years have taught me at least two things. First, that writing down thoughts in a private journal will not preserve them. I will die, the notebook is likely to be thrown out unread, my memory will go with me. That’s forgetting. But if I share what I’ve written, publish it, there’s some chance the wish embedded in my sentence could come true.

Second, there’s no a priori way to judge which thoughts will have value, “be worth thinking”, beyond the simple joy of having them. There’s a kind of natural selection for ideas as well as genes that happens over time. Genes are lost by being bred out of the gene pool. Thoughts just get forgotten. Publishing thoughts may be like the strategy in nature of an individual laying 10,000 eggs each season even though only 2 or 3 of them are likely to survive to produce the next generation. Perhaps I can push this metaphor a little further. Most of those eggs get eaten by other species. Their specific genes are digested, destroyed, not passed on. Still, the eggs have served a purpose. They have nurtured someone else. Maybe thoughts really are like eggs…

My juvenile notes are interesting to me, in part because I can compare them to what I think now as I read them. I’ve chosen a strategy make them interesting to you by adding my “mature” reaction to each journal entry. You might want to do the same and pass the result on. 

One more lesson I hadn’t learned at 15. There’s a certain value in simply amusing each other. My mother used to repeat, “Fools names and fools faces are always found in public places.” I interpreted this to mean I shouldn’t carve my initials in tree trunks or paint them on mountain tops. Those who did were fools. I also believed, on a deeper level, that I shouldn’t talk about myself. So I kept this journal secret. Experience has taught me otherwise. People enjoy stories, the more personal the better. So, dear reader, even if you find no profound ideas in the words that follow, I hope you enjoy the story. 

 

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by | April 16, 2018 · 8:04 pm

When educator logic fails learning styles are called “myths”

This post is a stub of a response to an article debunking learning styles that I found referenced on LinkedIn. The article claims that evidence supports the conclusion that learning styles are a myth and should not be used as guides for how to teach. I read the article and then the comments. I’ll add more details and references to this blog post in the next few days.

For now, it seems to me that all the commenters are falling victim to two logical errors. First, they are generalizing from a specific model of learning styles to the idea that learning styles probably don’t exist at all. Second, they are dismissing learning styles instead of asking whether there is another, more dominant factor, determining the results. Let’s look a little more closely.

There have been many different “learning styles” proposed. One of them is the auditory-visual-kenisthetic break down mentioned in the article. Another theory looks at field dependence/field independence. A third, J. P. Guilford’s Structure of Intellect proposes 128 different cognitive factors that interact to produce a complex learning style profile. I’m sure there are more.

What bothers me is not whether or not the learning style model presented is a useful tool for analyzing learners. Rather, I worry about researchers, teachers and journalists who are incapable of drawing valid conclusions from the evidence available to them.

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by | March 30, 2018 · 10:45 am

More Musings on Online Privacy

Have you seen this recent viral article on the information social media companies collect about you?

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Trust

In the one of the first replies to this article (no, I didn’t read them all) the writer asks “Do you really trust Google?” My answer is “yes, completely”. Google is a for profit information company and I trust it to collect every scrap of information about me and the rest of the world it can. I trust it to profit from this information in any way it can. A company, like a robot or an AI, has no human morality, no conscience, no moral compass. These characteristics have to come from the humans who control it — or abdicate that control.

“Trust” does not stand alone as a concept. To be meaningful it has to be accompanied by answers to the questions, trust whom? to do what? under what circumstances? And it is we humans who must supply those answers, thoughtfully.

Thoughts Left Out

What this article doesn’t say explicitly is that turning on the security controls doesn’t stop the tracking. The next step to privacy is to be very specific about what actions to take. For example, if I turn wi-fi off on my computer is it really offline or just not reporting to me? It isn’t in the interest of Google to tell us these things. The company’s advertisers (other profit-making companies) want us to expose ourselves so that they can entice us to buy their products. They don’t want us to control their access to information about us and they don’t want us to control our impulse to buy. Why would they make it easy for us to protect that information? Why would we “trust” them to do so?

I’ve been teaching since 1975 that the only way to stop a robot (or computer) is to detach it from its power source. That means, if it’s, say, solar powered, get inside it and snip the wires between the charger, the batteries and the cpu. This will also work if you want to stop a computer program designed to collect information that will result in giving it the ability to present images to us that will trigger behavior we might later regret. Asking a company to act against its self-interest seems unlikely to succeed. No matter how many apologies or assurances Facebook publishes, its survival depends on keeping your information flowing in. In the end, I don’t think greater privacy controls will solve the problem. Rather, we need to accept responsibility for responding to those oh-so-effective triggers.

What is Privacy?

The other thesis the article misses is that our whole concept/expectation of privacy has changed in the last 3 centuries. It used to be that “privacy” was the cultural practice of averting one’s eyes rather than today’s assumption that we ought to be able to prevent direct access to information. If you were a servant in an upperclass household, a clerk in a bank, or perhaps a resident in a multifamily, Native American longhouse, you saw a lot of things you never talked about. It’s only recently that a significant number of  humans have lived in conditions where information we now expect to be “private” was not readily available across a broad swath of neighbors, relatives, and tradespeople. The more I confront this topic the more convinced I become that we will find relief from our distress in cultural adaptation, not technical fixes.

Maybe some of today’s youngsters have got a better idea. Just take naked pictures of yourself and post them.

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by | December 8, 2017 · 7:38 pm

The Fire is out, now how do I help you?

On October 8, 2017 a small fire broke out in rural Sonoma County, California. By the time is was put out 110 thousand acres of wild land and heavily populated areas had burned, 8 thousand structures were gone. We had several thousand newly traumatized and unhoused residents in our community. Full recovery is not expected for three to seven years if at all.  I’ve been doing whatever I can to help people whom we originally called “fire victims” and now refer to as “fire survivors”.

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This satellite image using shortwave infrared (SWIR) shows damage from the wildfire in Santa Rosa. (Digital Globe via AP)

Three days ago a similar horror began in the southern California county of Ventura which is, as of this writing, still only 10% contained. 143 thousand acres have already been consumed.

I’d like to help her but have no idea what I can do that would be helpful and meaningful.

A few days ago a friend from New York emailed me:

“I know you have been heavily involved in the recovery effort after the awful fires in northern CA. I just learned that a good friend of ours lost her house to fire in Ventura. It was very fast and she was able to escape with only her cat. She has nothing. I’d like to help her but have no idea what I can do that would be helpful and meaningful. Your insights and suggestions would be appreciated.”

Here’s what I wrote to my friend and am now sharing with you:

Ask yourself and your friend…

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Evacuee Martha Lynn rests with her dogs Broonzy (not pictured) and Golly (right) at a Red Cross shelter after evacuating her home following the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 9, 2017. (Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle)

1. Does she have a comfortable place to stay with adequate food, clothing and any medications she needs? For the next few days? For the next few weeks?

2. Does she have a computer connection so she can contact support agencies? They won’t get into full swing until about a week after the fires are actually out.

3. Does she have enough money for the next few days? Next 6 months?
4. Is she emotionally stable enough to cope with all the stupid paperwork that will be necessary in the coming months?
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Terrie Burns stands in the middle of her destroyed at the scene of the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, Ca., on Monday October 9, 2017. Massive wildfires ripped through Napa and Sonoma counties early Monday, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses on Monday October 9, 2017 (Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle)

5. Has she applied for FEMA and SBA funds? Although these services are mostly targeted to low income folks there are usually some benefits for all fire survivors. The SBA has very low interest loans for individuals to replace personal property lost in the fires. SBA is not only for businesses. She must register with FEMA and then apply to the SBA to establish eligibility within 2 months of the fire. Then she will have years to apply for actual grants and loans should she decide to go forward with any of them.

I like to think of a fire survivor’s psychological state as somewhat similar to what happens when you unexpectedly find yourself living in a foreign country. The environment is strange, the people and their customs are strange. You have none of your familiar surroundings and life props – like your favorite music. It’s important to resupply yourself with some of those props so that you can take an emotional vacation back to your old life on occasion. Life will never be the same but a little respite from the newness can help. In intercultural communications we talk about the “W curve” of culture shock. I suspect the emotional waves of disaster shock are comparable and much like other grief trajectories. It’s reassuring to know that recurring waves of emotion, from total numbness to euphoria and back, are “normal”, i.e. experienced by most people. You’re not going crazy when they happen.
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For you, as a helper/supporter, patience is the most valuable gift you can offer. It’s too soon to go beyond question 1 right now — unless she is asking. Even then, don’t expect her to remember what was said and be prepared to go over everything several times. The recovery path is different for each person or family. Losing “everything” is different for an insured homeowner with a strong family or friends network than for a socially isolated renter who was financially insecure before the fire. They will all have shock, grief and frustration in common but the assistance they need from you will be very different. Listen carefully but wait until your friend is ready to talk. Don’t try to send her “stuff” until she has a closet again.
Recovery from these fires will take 3 to 7 years for many people. Right now, your friend’s mind is likely to be bouncing between surviving the next two days and envisioning life after rebuilding. Make sure tomorrow is covered and hold on to your desire to help so it’s still there in 6 months when the real, long-term needs begin to kick in.

Many of you who read this will have more experience helping people navigate the trauma of fire and other disasters than I do. Please add your comments and suggestions in the comment section below. If you think this piece contains good advice go ahead and make it your own. Use it and share it. This is a time for open community giving. What’s here is a gift, not a piece of intellectual property. A great society is one that pulls together in time of need and celebrates the richness of its sharing.

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