Things I used to take for granted as a student/parent number 1: time to read. For better or for worse reading is one of those activities you simply can’t do around children. Oh, I’m not talking about reading picture books or texts with simple words and basic sentence structures. No, no. I’m talking about reading reading (you know, that stuff you do as a student, for your classes, that requires lots of time and lots of focus). It is the joy of having kids while being a student. When I didn’t have kids it didn’t make sense. I thought it … Continue reading →

Last time I talked about the nice and steady scheduling that educational environments provide for their students. Sure, it’s rough sometimes. Sure, there are night classes. Sure, you might be employed somewhere when you’re not literally sitting in a classroom, but the fact is plain to see that traditional education (and by this I mean anything not 24/7 and/or all online) provides a meaningful and predictable framework within which you have something on the educational front to do. (No this doesn’t include homework either… but stay with me for a while). This scheduling sort of mimics the nine to five … Continue reading →

One of the things about high school that was true was the consistency. You showed up every day at a certain time. You left every day at a certain time. You had classes in-between those times. Depending on what type of scheduling the school used you would have the same class every day (or, perhaps, the same classes every other day). In general, though, there was a schedule that sort of repeated. While the classes would change every quarter or semester, the time frame would stay the same. That was the benefit of the high school schedule. It was something … Continue reading →

Sometimes you’ve just got to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes, though, you can increase your odds of being in the right place at the right time if you constantly hang around the right place. (Did you follow that? If not, read it again.) At any rate, I recently realized how beneficial it is to be in the right place a lot of the time concerning research. It just so happens that I’m lucky: I really love the subject I choose to study. In addition to it being my academic job it is also my personal … Continue reading →

High school was a long time ago for me. It’s hard to forget the memories though. Rows of locker doors, that great physics teacher, that great government teacher, the difficult geography teacher (who, in hindsight, did more to prepare me for college than maybe anyone), the daily routines, the cliques, how important friends were, how important “who” your friends were seemed to be, and on and on. High school is meant to be memorable. It was such a big place back then. Driving a car was an awesome perk. My first experiences with administrators who acted more like children than … Continue reading →

I’ve written about this before but it always (and I mean always) bears repeating. Whether you’re a student or a teacher or something else, a constant connection to the internet has sort of tricked us into believing that we’re great multitaskers when we’re probably not all that great. And, even if you are a great multitasker (as I believe myself to be), not all tasks are equally successful while multitasking. I mean, think about it, some of the most important things you do (or at least large sections of the things you do) require a level of attention that is … Continue reading →

So a while ago we moved across the country. The reasons are unimportant (you can read about them elsewhere), but this provided me the opportunity to re-imagine my office area in our new home. When we were living in Texas my office area consisted of a rather nice and large corner of our home… but it was in the living room, right next to the front door, the kitchen, the TV, the music, the toys, the on and on and on — got me? It was anything but ideal, but we made it work. (Oh! How I suffered!). It wasn’t … Continue reading →

Last time I talked about meeting with a friend who could take criticism well, and suggesting (in question form) that the first 21 pages they’d written were unnecessary. Just imagine if someone did that to you! “Well, Billy, I know I asked for a 10 page paper, and you handed me twelve pages, but you just don’t need the first 8 pages, they’re unnecessary.” But I poured my heart and soul into those pages, you shout! Be that as it may, you should at least make an effort to see if the criticism might be valid (not all criticism is, … Continue reading →

“What if it started on page 22?” … “What about everything that came before?” … “Maybe you don’t need it.” … “The first 21 pages!” — Okay. Slightly dramatized (though only in the dialogue). Recently I met with a friend who had asked me to look at one of the scripts they’d written. It was entertaining and funny, occasionally heart-warming, needed the occasional formatting nudge, and overall a really great read. But I knew something about this friend concerning criticism: they can take it. So I didn’t hold back. We talked about their script and I really did ask the … Continue reading →