End of the Semester Crunch Time Squared

Hold my blogging!

We will be dwelling in that end of the semester crunch time for the next several weeks.
(Quantity squared).

The Boychick is finishing up or has just finished up several major freshman projects. He has done his Inquiry Project for Humanities, and he has given his presentation.
He is working on his Big Ideas Project for Science. This project is cool because the project has to be about Big Ideas and their connections for the Scientific Revolution for the big Medieval Faire the school is having this coming week. He has chosen to explore the connections between the Plague (Pestis yersinius), Galileo and Newton. Ought to be interesting! Newton had repaired to his mother's country estate to escape plague infested London, when he was sitting under the apple tree and observing the waning moon, when he had his AHA! moment that the force that caused the apple to fall to the earth was the same force that kept the moon in its orbit. I know that Newton refined Galileo's ideas about motion, particularly falling bodies, but I don't know how Galileo is connected to the plague! Except that the falling bodies he dealt with were not corpses. They were marbles and cannon balls and oranges from Africa.



In the meantime, this was my home today, and I will be spending more time there in the next few days. It is Zimmerman Library at UNM. I work there, because the Lobo lab lets me print journal articles for free and because there is a coffee shop right in the Library. (A tired student can take a cup of joe right into certain areas of the reading room, if it is properly covered). I make occasional forays over to Centennial Science and Engineering Library (CSEL) and even rarer trips to the Health Sciences Library and Infomatics Center (HSLIC). Much of what I need can be obtained electronically from the more centrally located (right next to the duck pond) Zimmerman.


My crunch time involves two papers for courses, and doing organizational work, research and editing for a paper to be published.


Today, I did a lot of work finding imaging studies for my Psych 650 (Neuroimaging Analysis). I am looking at two competing theories on visual processing differences in autism. The studies I was interested in finding are to provide evidence to suppport or discount either of them. For Psych 650, my job is to look at the experimental designs and imaging analysis techniques to determine if differences of opinion are the result of different analytic styles, or problems in the data. Overall, however, my research purpose is to become really knowledgable about the "vageries of visual processing in autism" (as one paper is called), because there is a growing consensus that the "deficits" we see in autism may be the result of a very different way of processing sensory input; a way that does not obligate the brain towards global perception.


My other paper is a lit review for Special Education 695 (Readings). I will place what I learn about the neuroimaging results from the Psych paper into a larger look at the recent literature about cognitive theories of autism, and the structure of intelligence in autism viewed through the lens of visual processing differences. I will looking to find the gap between the science and interventions that is the ground for all good translational research.


I will be probably be lurking a bit on my favorite blogs, old and new. But if I am not commenting, don't feel too lonely. I still owe ChristineMM an answer in a discussion sparked by this blog entry weeks ago!

It is, after all, ACT--Academic Crunch Time! Squared.

Years ago in Russian class, our prof, Boris, taught us a delightful little song: "From session to session, a student's life is fine!" A "sessiya" is exam and paper time.

We made up our little ditty to the tune of Frere Jaques:
Ya niznayu, Ya niznayu, na evo, na evo,
Ya n'panimayu, Ya n'panimayu chorosho!
(I don't know, I don't know, from it, from it! I don't understand, I don't understand, at all!)

It's Academic Crunch Time!

See you Mother's Day.

Focus on Visual Processing Development in Three Ways

The UNM began a few weeks ago, and even with everything else that is going on, I am doing some interesting work. In particular, I am interested in how differences in development between what is called the dorsal visual stream (a.k.a. the where stream) and the ventral visual stream (the what stream) may be affected by autism, what symptoms may arise from that, and how such developmental differences may be similar to and different than those in people who are neurotypical visual learners. What I want to do with this information is called translational research--that part of research that focuses on using the basic science to development treatments and educational interventions to help people with ASD use their visual gifts and yet interact with the rest of the world.

My coursework this semester is quite specialized in order to help me delve more deeply into my interests.

The only organized course I have is Psychology 650: Introduction to Neuroimaging Analysis. In this course, we will learn how to interpret data provided by the various neuroimaging techniques: EEG, ERP (event-related potentials),MEG, Positron Emission Tomography (both PET and SPECT), fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging, and MRS (magnet resonance spectroscopy). Each technique has strengths and weaknesses, and each has specific ways to properly interpret the data collected from it. My purpose here is to be able to tell when conclusions made in the original research are warrented or not, and also learn how to analyze and interpret data that I get from my research.

In this class, the professor lectures about a technology--right now we are doing EEG and ERP--and then assigns us papers to critique. The doc students (like me) have the additional assignment of finding papers in their area of interest to critique. EEG and ERP are particular interests for me, because much of the data in my area of interest is gathered from these electrical imaging techniques. However, there is a very specialized vocabulary for interpretation, so that even though I know my neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, and even though I understand the physics of the EEG and ERP methods, I find myself getting lost on the interpretation. The prof did not assign a textbook, and it is hard to tell what sources on the web are reliable and relevant. So I e-mailed the prof and asked about a book. He recommended one, but naturally, our university library does not have it. However, Amazon does, and at a very reasonable price. So I am eagerly awaiting Steve Luck's An Introduction to the Event-related Potential Technique in Cognitive Neuroscience.

I am also taking hours for Psychology Problems 550 with my second major advisor, Dr. C. These problems involve the neurodevelopment in visual processing and also differences in cognitive switching, and will result in my name going on two published papers. I am currently finding and reading papers on the trajectory of cortical development as measured by the thickening and thinning of the cortex of the brain in normal children, intellectually gifted children, children with ADHD, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and other developmental differences. Here is where the class on analysis is paying off already, even though my understanding is still at the novice level. Now when I read papers, I can at least begin to understand why two different papers using the same technique can come up with very different results. Much of that has to do with how differently they collected their data, and how they interpret it.

Finally, I am also taking Special Education 595: Indepedent Readings in Special Education with my first major advisor, Dr. N. I am meeting with her tomorrow in order to determine a direction for my readings. I am proposing to look into the connection between visual processing and deficits in working memory for people with ASD. This also involves the development and functioning of the two visual streams. I am hoping to agree upon writing a Literature Review on this, using information from cognitive testing to bridge the gap in understanding between the basic science and methods for helping with working memory.

Working memory is the cognitive ability to temporarily store and mentally manipulate limited amounts of information in order to guide behavior. (Behavior here can mean anything from mental math activities to choosing what to pay attention to and what to ignore). Auditory working memory is known to be deficient in ADHD, and certain forms of ASD. New evidence is now coming out that suggests a link between visual processing and attention, that seems to also affect visual working memory. And I have a great interest in this area, as I explained above.

What is really good about my coursework this semester is that each one contributes to and reenforces the others, and all of them allow me to focus on my particular area of interest. This is how a Ph.D. progresses. Coursework starts off broadly, working off the master's degree, but as the doc student progresses, it increasingly narrows towards the dissertation interests. All the papers read, all the knowledge gained during the coursework phase prepares the student for Comprehensive Exams. These are exams that test the student in the areas of interest important to the dissertation topic, and assure the candidate's committee that she is conversant in the narrow field. Once the comprehensive exams are completed, the student then begins the often lonely process of finishing the research and writing the dissertation. Good advisors try to help their students maintain a narrow focus in a particular area, so that the dissertation actually gets written before old age sets in! Once the dissertation is finished and successfully defended, the new Ph.D. has joined the community of scholars by virtue of expertise in a narrow area and by expertise in the research process. Then the new scholar can once again attend to broad areas of interest to the field.

I have very good advisors. Whenever I want to go off on a tangent, both of them sit me down and force my attention strongly encourage me to get back on track.

I am going to be much closer to the dreaded Comps after this very focused semester!

Catching the Rhythm of Spring 2009

Oy.

Ragamuffin Studies has missed two Nearly Wordless Wednesdays in a row!!
It may return next week, or another type of weekly photo post will be substituted.

It has to do with scheduling nightmares.
And with catching my rhythm as the new semester begins.

Last week, I returned to my tutoring job at the COE Graduate Writing Studio. I changed my GA from .5 (20 hours per week) to 0.25 (10 hours per week) because I found that I needed much more time for managing the Boychick's education, working on my dissertation proposal and studying for my classes. I set up my 10 hours over two days, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These were also class days for me, so that I have three week days that I donn't have to drive into town.

The courses I had signed up for were Functional Neuroimaging (For Behavioral Neuropsychology), and Doctoral Seminar (for Special Education). Alas, when I signed on to my account last Tuesday, I had a message: the Doctoral Seminar class was cancelled. That would have been fine with me, except that I need six hours to keep my GA. Sigh.
So it was back to Loboweb, where the course catalogue turned up nothing in Special Education that I wanted/needed to take. So I arranged with my Special Education major professor to take a course in directed readings that would follow the plan, more or less, that I had been developing for the Doctoral Seminar. It took some effort to get a hold of Dr. N to get this all done, as she was traveling to Washington D.C. to attend the Inauguration. By Thursday, however, the necessary waiver had been made, and I was able to register.

Classes began yesterday, and so I came in to work and then was planning to attend the first meeting of Functional Neuroimaging. It was scheduled for 2-4 PM in the afternoon. However, when I signed in to my account, I had a new message. The course had been rescheduled, the students had been dropped, and we all had to sign up again. The new time, 3-5 PM could not have been more incovenient. But I really need this class. So just for yesterday, I had to leave work early in order to go up to the Boychick's school and drop off his Taekwondo bag, then swing by home to let the dogs out. Then it was back to campus for class. The Engineering Geek was persuaded to leave work early to pick up the Boychick and take him to Taekwondo. It worked out, but I had 10 minutes to inhale my lunch on my roundtrip to the East Mountains and then back to campus. We're going to have to figure something else out for the rest of the semester.

Did I mention that I really, really need this class?

When I went to the class, I found out that all of this was done at the behest of the Department Chair in order to accomodate undergraduates. This course is a 650 level course. I hope it doesn't get watered down like the course I took last spring. It was similar in that it was orginally a graduate level class, but then changed to accomodate undergraduates. And it meant much less depth for those of us taking the graduate version.

I am skeptical. But did I say I really, really, really need this class.

Of course, life outside the Ivory Tower continues. The Boychick needed a root canal and now the general dentist cannot finish it because the site is still draining. So tomorrow, it is off the consult with an endodontist. I have been at a dentist's office twice last week (once for the Boychick and once for me), and with tomorrow's appointment, it will be twice this week. We have been working on the Boychick's IEP. And getting him settled into a routine for school and scouts and Taekwondo.

I hope next week we'll catch the rhythm. And I'll figure out when to do the Nearly Wordless Wednesday post!

The good news: the days are getting perceptively longer!

Writing, Politics, and the Great Pumpkin

When I was a kid, I used to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on television every year around Halloween. I thought the shows were fun and I loved the jazzy piano music by Vince Guaraldi. In fact, whole seasons of my life as a child seem to be set to the Guaraldi music.

But what I didn't realize at the time was that I was also learning some important philosophy from the Peanuts gang. Some of it was common-sensical, like the admonition to stay away from kite-eating trees and beware of Lucy with a football. And some was good advice for getting along with people; advice quite useful to a child with undiagnosed broader autistic phenotype.

I have had cause to consider this sterling piece of advice from Linus in the past few weeks, as I have started a GA in the UNM College of Education Graduate Writing Center:

Linus: There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.
(From: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and quoted on Wikipedia).

Only I think that in the "Arts" parts of the College of Arts and Sciences Linus needed to amend his advice to say "politics that's not on the far left." And I imagine that since one can discuss almost anything else, including deviant sexual practices, the Great Pumpkin is probably not off limits, although religion--at least the western ones--are.

What is interesting about my experience outside of science, is that I am not a conservative. I am neither "paleo" nor "neo", but my views also cannot be defined by the current understanding of the word "liberal." I find the two-party, tennis-court-congress definitions of left and right as restrictive as a straight jacket. My political stances are probably best defined as libertarian with a small "l".

But what I have discovered is that what passes for political discussion in the Liberals Arts is not reasoned argument, or concerned discussion, but rather a frantic mission: define and destroy any idea that does not agree with the TRUTH. And Truth here is defined as something to the left of FDR. In this atmosphere, even asking reasonable questions causes the defenders of the doctrine of Republican Evil and Democratic Socialist Righteousness to start shouting.

For example, in a discussion of the coming storm in unfunded government obligations (Social Security and Medicare), I asked a question: "Where will the money come from?" Simultaneously I had the righteous indignation of three people shouting at once:

"Where are you getting your information!" (I had said that G3 books are not reported to the public).
"Why in my country (Brazil) we take care of everybody!" (If I could have gotten a word in edgewise I'd have asked about their deficit and how much monetary and defense aid they get from the US).
"People are going to have to work more and pay more taxes!" (If I could have gotten a word in edgewise I'd have asked what this person--who is old enough to know better--thinks will happen when our children are paying taxes so high that it is no longer worth it for them to work).

The hullabaloo would have been downright funny except for the sensory-overload feeling I was getting. It was a classic attempt to herd me into the Vision of the Anointed. There was no way to reasonably answer their arguments because there was no way they were going to let me finish a sentence, let alone a complete thought. However, I did have the chance to make two observations about this behavior that will serve me well in the future.

The first is that when people have the TRUTH with a capital "T," they will place you into one of two categories: 'with us' or 'against us.' And there is no straying from these positions. If, for the sake of argument, a person supports gun rights, then she must also be for the death penalty, and against the environment. This need for polarity on the part of the ideologues extends right down to where a person lives. If a citizen lives in a rural area, then that person just has to be poor, white, and "clinging to god and guns."

The second is that if one does not agree with the TRUTH, then one must be at best, unintelligent and uninformed, and at worst, evil. Therefore, it is appropriate to skip over reason and move right to expressions of hatred for "the other side." There is no room for honest differences of opinion among intelligent people. There is no meeting place where different experiences in life can be brought to the table for discussion. This second is probably the most important contribution to shouting down the opponent. Shouting is not an argument, it replaces any argument. But then, there can be no argument with the TRUTH.

Thus, in their attempts to herd me into line with right thinking, the most telling statement was: "Most people are too stupid to run their own lives."
This was really said, and it was said baldly and without apology or equivocation.
That one really made me laugh inside. A wonderful headline for the Daily Onion occurred to me at that moment:

EDUCATED IDIOTS OF THE IVORY TOWER TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

Too bad I do not have the comedic talent to actually write the spoof.
I can see it, though, staring Dan Akroiyd and Chevy Chase as the profs--rubbing their beards and trying to figure out how to survive out there in the "real world" a la Ghost Busters.

That was fun, but I digress.

The need to polarize issues and the refusal to listen to one another is rampant across what is left of the political spectrum of ideas in the United States. Some say that it is generational. Some think that it has to do with the formation of wholly separate value systems. I suspect it is both. And.

This is why, although I have certain reservations about John McCain, and there were certain issues that worry me that were not addressed in his speech last night, I found that I was very hungry to hear what he said about bringing a wide variety of competent people into his administration. Even Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, when opinions were extremely divided, understood this need.

What I don't know is, will the Anointed on the Right be too rigid to accept that?
What about the anointed on the Left?

We have a lot of big fish to fry in this country at the moment. Listening to the rhetoric, I wonder if we can focus our attention on those or if we will become even more atomized by wrangling caused by our convictions that our side has the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth.

I worry for the future of the American experiment.

But I have learned that Linus was right. From now on here in COE, I will consider religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin are out of bounds.

But secretly, as Halloween approaches, I am on the lookout for a Pumpkin Patch that is Sincere.

Beginnings

'Beginnings are hard.'

--The Talmud

Several people--all homeschoolers--have asked me versions of this question:

"I'm more concerned about you. As a veteran homeschooler myself, I know what you mean about the feeling of loss. What are your plans? How do you feel about leaving your active role as a homeschool mom?" (Barbara Frank, August 19, 2008).

Homeshoolers who are in the trenches, and those already 'retired,' are well aware of how much of a homeschool mom's time and identity have been given to the project, and how much empty space there will now be for me as the Boychick tests his wings.

For us, homeschooling was an important part of our lives, but it was not the whole of our lives. The Engineering Geek is busy as always, balancing his professional responsibilites--which are considerable--with his home improvement projects and his commitments to scouts and amateur astronomy. But this summer, as I took a paid job that had me away from home most weekends, he was a bit testy about me not being there and some of the complications this produced for him and for us. Change is difficult for the Engineering Geek, unless and until he can get it all mapped out in his mind. When he fills in the "here there be dragons" places at the edges of his maps, the change becomes routine and he resumes his normal and preoccupied ways. He can then wander around the house, humming idiosyncratic nigunim* under his breath.

*A nigun (pl. nigunim) is a Hassidic invention: songs without words, hummed to syllables--ay,dai-dai or bim-bom-bum. These can go on in on in contrapunctual rhythms with variations for hours. The EG's are often set to The Beatles, the Tijuana Brass, or Pink Floyd, and quickly become variations on a theme.

For me, change is also difficult; I react by filling in my time with all kinds of activity, complaining, often loudly, about how overscheduled I have gotten myself. Once I then settle into a routine and prune some of the wild first growth of activity, settling on some projects that can sustain my interest, I then alternate between my organized /organizing state (which drives the rest of my family nuts), and a state of intense preoccupation with whichever project has alternated to the front burner. I can sustain this for roughly a semester. Usually at winter break, and again at the end of May, I become languid and slow. I wander unproductively, I sit and watch the clouds and shadows pass across the mountains. In December, I hibernate; In May, I flit. These periods, timed as they are, make me the perfect academic.

Aside: One reason that I had such difficulty with the IRD training is that for me, those weeks at the end of May are what I call the Time for Mind Wandering and Wool Gathering. I don't want to be bothered by anything more important than what to make for dinner.

So what are my plans?

I have a tendency to live life backwards. I left classroom teaching at the beginning of my Educational Anarchist journey. Living homeschooling life with the Boychick, and the thinking that I have done as I dwelt on the gifted ed fringes of special education, have taken me further into educational iconoclasm. This has brought me 'round to a place where I have wanted to learn from educational mavericks about the pedagogy of reading and writing. I am interested in reading and writing specifically, because these are the basis of western thought and classical education; and here, if anywhere, can be found the reasons for the failure of public school as Education, with a capital E.

My primary research interest has not shifted: I am still passionate about the neuropsychology of twice-exceptional children, especially those on the autism spectrum and/or those with "maverick minds." But my interest has always been focussed on the gap between the neurology and the kinds of teaching required to bring these brilliant, quirky kids into our world enough so that they can contribute to it, live good lives by their own standards, and, perhaps, bring our world and their world closer together.

These are the theoretical underpinnings of my plans. They are goals towards which my activities are directed. This year, though, where does the rubber meet the road? How does all of this get expressed in a practical way? How do I meet my goals now that I do not have the endless fascination of being with and guiding The Boychick on such a journey?

This summer, I learned quite a bit about the pedagogy of reading, practically, and from people who know reading, rather than from the Ivory Tower. Of course, being me, I did flesh out my experience with some neuropsychological study about how reading affects the brain, and changes thinking patterns in literate people.

While I was teaching this summer, I also applied for and received a Graduate Assistantship (GA) as a writing tutor in the College of Education's Graduate Writing Workshop. This will not only provide me with a tuition waver and a small stipend; I will be learning about the pedagogy of the writing process from the coordinator of the GWW and from my students. The model here is not one of the trendy educationist movements that come and go; it is based on the practical experience that comes from developing what works for students whose previous educations have failed them in the area writing; they need to be able to write and they don't know how.

I also will be taking two doctoral-level seminars. One is a two credit-hour Seminar in Physiological Psychology and the other is a one credit-hour Neuroscience seminar. The first will be a critical examination of current empirical and theoretical research in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. The second seminar is a weekly presentation of new research results in all aspects of neurobiology. These are both necessary and interesting areas of learning for the research I am contemplating.

I will be taking three hours of Graduate Problems in Behavioral Neuropsychology. Here I will be working with my neuropsych advisor (I have two, and getting both of these busy people plus a committee together is one of the trials and tribulations of a multi-disciplinary Ph.D.) on a paper for publication and a research proposal for my dissertation. Here we will be planning a pilot study, as well as beginning that study (probably in the spring), as well as doing data analysis and writing the paper for a study already in progress.

All of the above means that some time must also be spent wrangling with the Office of Graduate Studies about the multidisciplinary Ph.D. Bureaucracies don't like it when someone pushes the boundaries. There are no neat categories for it. But I am a 'retired' homeschooling mom--I am used to pushing the boundaries. I live in a family of boundary pushers, and anyway, being Jewish* means being a boundary crosser.

*Our name for ourselves, Ivri, Hebrew, means boundary-crosser. For more, see Rabbi Gershon Winkler's book, The Way of the Boundary Crosser.

And then there are the other areas of life: seeing the Boychick through high school, drivers ed (OY!), confirmation, and on into the goals he sets for himself. Helping out with scouts, Taekwondo, and Machon. Enjoying being married to the Engineering Geek.

These are the plans. This beginning is like planting a garden. I will get into the dirt up to my elbows, and wait to see what sprouts, what needs to be pruned, and what must be pulled up.

And through it all (see Lisa P.-- I've learned from you), I want to have fun with it all. There's something nice about approaching fifty; almost nothing is as dead serious as I thought it was when I was in my twenties and thirties. So...

...this is going to be FUN!

But Is It Education?

So, I've got the angst off my chest. Sniffle. I feel much better now.

And while surfing the homeschooling blogosphere, I happened upon an interesting post by Dana over at Principled Discovery about higher education and what has been termed the "educational industrial complex" by none other than Paul Peterson, Harvard's Education Policy and Governance chair.

I have had some grave concerns about the differences between my own college education, and the college experiences that my daughters' generation is having. I have thought for a long time that such universities have neglected undergraduate education and have forgotten their mission to truly educate students at that level. In my experience listening to and mentoring young people in college, I have learned that the university bureaucracy, which is mitigated for the sake of graduate students, has become a daily ordeal for undergraduates; sucking up their time and their money, it often costs them extra semesters of study to get their degrees because of adminstrative lack of concern and sheer, unadulterated incompetence. Harsh words I know, and certainly not applicable uniformly upon all adminstrators, and yet how else does one explain advisement by administrators rather than professors, or the frequent, repeated loss of paperwork?

But in my opinion, what is even more damning in the 'Educational-Industrial System' is the lack of understanding by those who ought to know better about what teaching really means at the level of "higher" education. Instead of being a mentoring process that nurtures and challenges young minds, higher education at the undergraduate level, like K-12 education, has become a conveyor belt in which thinking has been replaced by the reflexive desire to treat unequal things equally.

And we all know the result of such an education for conformity:




Mind-sausage.

In talking to young students that I know and mentor, I hear stories on a regular basis of upper division classes being taught by first-year graduate students, many of whom do not know the content they are expected to teach the students with no supervision from professors. I hear tales of professors who refuse to meet with students that want to know why they did poorly on exams and papers. I have heard of professors who spend class time discussing their political views and thereby making short shrift of the content the students have paid to learn. In the eyes of many of the young people I have talked to, therefore, a college education has become a series of hoops to jump through as efficiently as possible rather than an opportunity to participate in the Great Conversation of our culture.

Being in an academic setting, I have heard professors lament that "students these days" do not care for the knowledge that they could take home, but only for the points needed to make the grade and graduate. But I seldom hear these professors lament the lost opportunities to teach their students to think differently. The undergraduate system is set up in such a way that students must care about points more than knowledge.

Among many university professors, there seems to be an attitude that "raising standards" means acting as gatekeepers to diplomas, rather than mentoring students to help them achieve their best work. This spring, a number of students, some of whom are academically quite talented, were refused graduation under rather unreasonable circumstances. For example, a student who choses a difficult and challenging course for this last semester of the college career, and who struggles with the material early on, may earn an A on a cumulative final and still fail the course.

During my college days, such a thing would not happen. A professor who is truly concerned about students would consider that, yes, the student struggled at first--but the learning curve is logarythmic--rising slowly at first, and then reaching an inflection point and then taking off to heights previously unattainable. (This is how Dr. Reiter, my P-Chem professor explained it to me when I wanted to drop the course back in 1980). If you aced Dr. Reiter's cumulative final, you would pass the course, even if you had flunked a test at the beginning. This was so not because he was giving an undeserved grade. Nor was it because he did not care about "standards." It was because a person who can ace a cumulative final has mastered the material in the course and has earned a passing grade. So I was taught--mentored--by my old chemistry "prof" not to be afraid to take difficult courses and learn very difficult material.

Students now are afraid of the hard courses. And with good reason. Lose one too many points out of the total, and no matter how much one may have learned, it doesn't matter. A person could have spent much money and lost many opportunity costs, only to come out with nothing except the label failure after four years.

When I was responsible for student grades as a graduate instructor for genetics, I thought of it this way. Two people climb a mountain. Maybe one starts out at a different point than another, and encounters a more difficult course. That one slips, slides, groans and gets back up, trying another way. And maybe another. Both reach the top of the mountain. Both has "mastered" the mountain. But which one knows that mountain better? It may very well be the one that struggled, and fell numerous times, scraping his knees, losing skin from his hands on the ropes. That one left pieces of himself on the mountain and received pieces of the mountain into himself. Likewise, it is the student who struggles who often knows the content of a difficult course the best.

These are the students who, like Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman (z"l), (who almost did not complete his Ph.D.), often have the most contribute to the field. Thank goodness Feynman had a mentor who did not dismiss him as a failure; instead he entered into a discussion with him, and they walked it through to completion.

But what of the Feynmans of tomorrow? They cannot afford to risk four years, all the money and opportunity costs, and thus may play it safe and do what is easy and predictible.

And those who do take risks may very well be labled failures for the very characteristics that give them the most to contribute to their fields.

Yes. It's still college. But you can hardly call it an education.

Honk If You Passed P-Chem!

This is our own resident 'Chemistry Geek.'

While she's whipping up a really good salad using spring greens, cranberries, walnuts, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms, she'll be chatting on about these really "huge ligand molecules with cobalt" that she's "doing columns" for in her independent lab study.

She will graduate this coming May with degrees in Chemistry (of course!) and History. An interesting combination, I know. But who knows where it will take her?

But last fall she worked hard to pass another milestone.

Physical Chemistry, known affectionately as P-Chem, is "calculus-chemistry hell, with physics thrown in." It is the most difficult course of the 'Chem' major for most students. Those in Chemistry have a little tradition of getting a bumpersticker when they successfully pass the course. Our 'Chemistry Geek Princess" passed--and more than passed--in December.

Naturally, we wanted to mark this special occasion.

Bruce had gotten a rain check for an A-OO-GA horn from his favorite tools and mechanical notions store. It finally came in a few weeks ago.

Last night, on the pretext of having some steaks in the freezer that just had to be eaten, and the fact that it was warm enough to melt the glacier so we could get out the back door to grill, we invited Chemistry Geek's boyfriend over to dinner. Of course, he was in on the secret. As Chemistry Geek and I cleared the table, the guys disappeared to the garage. They reappeared and placed a bin with the horn and car-battery charger in it under the table at their feet. I put out champagne glasses, champagne and a cheesecake, saying, "Well, we didn't drink this champagne on New Years and it's using up room in the 'fridge."

When we sat down to dessert, Bruce passed the CGP an envelope from Cafe Press. I had ordered something for her. When she opened it and read the bumper sticker, Bruce and the boyfriend took turns running the AH-OO-GA horn. I took pictures--of course!

The CGP was quite suprised as you can imagine.

She even consented to having the boyfriend install the horn into her car, and to having the bumper sticker on the bumper.

And of course, there was another present.

CGP is also a coffee drinker.

She has a T-shirt with the molecular formula for caffiene on it, with the legend "Better Living Through Chemistry." So we got her a coffee cup to take to her lab. It identifies her true nature.

Geek that she is, she was overjoyed!

And still very suprised.

And, naturally, we had to give her the reward that any schoolchild can tell you is important.

A Gold Star. The front of the card says:

"Congratulations! If you were in grade school, they'd give you a gold star."

It opens to say:

"Oh, what the heck! Here..."

The last semester of undergraduate studies can be trying. Graduation seems so close, but good study habits must be maintained to get to that big day. And there is the job search to focus on, too. And chemistry is not an easy major. In fact, CGP has told us that there are only six people graduating with the degree this spring. A little celebration of an accomplishment leading up to the goal seems warrented to add a little joy to a stressful semester.

And...what the heck! Any excuse for a party!

And if you happen to get behind a car that says "Honk If You've Passed P-Chem!" give the person inside a friendly little toot. Few people realize the work and commitment and sheer brains it takes to pass that course.

And More Unsettled...

Yesterday went from unsettled to more unsettling.
N. is not the only person who dislikes sudden schedule changes.
Being a midwesterner at heart, I dislike missing commitments.
Even when I have good reason. So following is a photo-essay of why I missed class last night.

January 31, 2008

Dear Professor N.,


Yesterday was a most unsettling day!
This is what it looked like at about 1 PM,
as N. and I were eating lunch.
The storm clouds were sweeping across the Sandia front and into our valley. Still, the snow showers came off and on, and the temperature was about 33 degrees.






At 2 PM, the snow that had covered my driveway was melting in places.
Henry the Big Red Truck had dried himself off by basking in the sunlight that appeared and disappeared as the clouds continued to move briskly across Los Pecos Ridge. So I decided to take a shower and get ready to go. Piece of cake, I thought. I will make it to class.



But when I got out of the shower, my driveway looked like this! Yikes! The temperature had dropped to 23 degrees in half an hour! After consultation with the radio traffic reports, with my husband in town, and with the carpool driver for Machon, and after getting an e-mail from the Sandia Labs East Mountain Drive Updates, we decided that home was definitely the best place to stay. Bruce and MLC even came home early.
We settled in with a video and popcorn to enjoy the blizzard.


And then, as the temperature continued to drop, the wind came up. It stopped snowing over Los Pecos Ridge.
We could see the sky clearing to the west, even as snow continued to fall in Tijeras and in the pass. It did not seem so bad at home, but we could see that the pass would be windy and treacherous.





As the temperature continued to drop,
the cold front came through, with winds strong and fierce. You can see the snow being whipped from north to south along the trees in the high meadow.

The temperature was 16 degrees at this point, and the wind chill was such that in 10 minutes, unexposed skin would be subject to frostbite.

Our road out was drifted. I could probably have gotten into town, but I would not have gotten Henry up the hill later, when coming home. And walking two miles up the hill in this wind would have been life-threatening.

I think I made the right decision.


This morning, we had 1 degree and 5 degrees.
In the predawn, the temperature was 5 degrees above zero. The sky was perfectly clear.

And most spectacularly, Venus and Jupiter were only one degree apart, as they near conjunction in the eastern sky. In the picture, Venus is a faint dot to the left of the tree which is to the left of the right post. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will be able to see both planets.

The weather is still unsettled. Cold, with strong winds, is the order of the day. But it should warm up tomorrow. Just in time for another storm to roll in from California this weekend.

Would you accept this excuse?

Fog, Fire and Ice

The weather has been giving us some spectacular moments to make final exam week and the end of Hannukah more exciting.

Yesterday was my day to study all day for my Neuropsych assessment final exam.

But before I began, I saw the river of fog in the valley below our mountain. The freezing fog had only recently lifted from the hilltops, and the trees were frosted with it.

It was a good day for brewing up a cup of Licorice Spice tea and curling up with my 25 pound Neuropsych book. All day it was gloomy, with snow showers and sleet. I felt very cosy in my warm office. A perfect study day. I got a lot done, even though I spent the first hour organizing papers for the class into binders.

By the time the guys got home from Boy Scouts, I was ready to stop studying for the day. We had another one of those intimate, quiet, no fuss Hannukah candle lighting times. We sat and listened to music as the candles burned down. As the light increases, we are able, more and more to do without the electric lights. I was feeling especially content because I had spend the day well, and could relax in the candlelight. I am sorry that tonight is the last night!

As we got ready for bed, I looked out and saw that the sleet followed by snow had coated the Aspen tree outside our bedroom.

First fire in the Menorah, and then a little bit of ice--enough to make the tree beautiful--and then snow, to end a gray, indoor sort of day.

We did park the vehicles up at the top of the driveway, just in case...

And in the morning, we were glad that we did.

Three inches of new snow fell while we slept, and I had visions of neuropsychological tests for memory, attention, and aphasias dancing in my head.

This morning, the clouds looked threatening, but the drive into Albuquerque was uneventful. We had an excellent discussion of our various papers on adult neurogenesis as our final meeting in Neurophysiology. I felt a little choked up as I left. I will miss that group. We have studied together now through Neurobiology and Neuroanatomy and Physiology.

I had a few hours to review before the Neuropsych final, as the clouds rolled into the city, another gray day perfect for curling up with notebooks at the SUB. And, as an added bonus, they had done the hanging of the greens and the air in the building smelled wonderful!

Now, as we go into the last night of Hannukah, my weather cricket on the computer is chirping at me. Snow advisory. Three to five inches here in the Sandias. I guess tomorrow might be another cosy day.

Ask A Stupid Question...

I just e-mailed the take-home portion of my Psychological Assessment midterm to the professor, and now I have completed midterms.



I had a test on the construct and measurement of intelligence yesterday in that class.

I also had a presentation on the reliability of motoneurons in the pontine nuclei for Neuroanatomy and Physiology. I did quite well on the presentation and actually managed to generate some discussion. It was an interesting paper and I enjoyed it.


I don't know how I did in the Psychological Assessment exam.


I find that I am having trouble changing the "set" (as they call it in psychology) from Neuroscience to Psychology as I run from one to the other. The neuroscience classes tend to have a very tightly focused research orientation and the psychology class seems to be looser and more clinically based. Also the culture of the departments is different, especially with respect to the interactions between students and professors.



It gets really difficult for me to change my set when the subjects interact, as they did on Tuesday, when in Psychology, the professor did a presentation on basic brain anatomy. At one point he was discussing the Pons and he said that injuries to the Pons tends to cause widespread neurological problems due to the importance of the Reticular Formation to the function of the higher centers.



I was excited by his comments. At last! Something that I could relate to my other class. I was, after all, in the middle of developing my PowerPoint for the Hu paper on the Pons. My focus, alas, was on that research, so I asked the following:
"Do clinicians look for visual-motor signs that could indicate Pontine Reticular Formation damage? Like problems with saccades?"

The professor paused for a moment and gave me a funny look.
Then he said: "Well, generally people with massive damage to the Pons are either dying or dead."



The class giggled. I felt like a total idiot. I was thinking of the research level, in which induced lesions in the deep nuclei of the Pons are shown to have specific effects on saccades--which are a quick movements of both eyes in the same direction in order to direct focus at a new stimulus. But the good professor was talking about clinical situations in which a person suffered massive head trauma. And anyway, he was introducing general brain anatomy to the class. He wasn't interested in tightly focused details. We were talking on completely different wavelengths.



I didn't get the social cues. At times like these, I am sure that the apple does not fall far from the tree. N. has Aspergers, an Autism Spectrum Disorder. I can see that I do display the Broader Autistic Phenotype, as Tony Attwood calls it. This is probably why I do better in neuroscience than in psychology.



And you know what they say:

'Ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer.'

That's exactly what happened.



Naturally, my curiousity led me to take a look at Kandel--our neuroscience text.

It turns out that there are two problems that can arise from lesions in the Pontine Reticular Formation that can lead to visual motor problems.

One is nystagmus--the inability of the eye to fix on a stimulus after saccading to it. This means unwanted, repetitive saccades because although commands are coming from the frontal lobes to pay attention to certain sights and sounds and not others, the visual-motor neurons are compromised and cannot carry them out.

The other is seen in patients with MS. It is called internuclear ophthalmoplegia, and is caused by dysfunction of the motor commands to the medial rectus muscle--the one on the side of the eye nearest to the nose--but only when it moves laterally in saccades.



You see, I asked a stupid question. That is, wrong focus, wrong time, wrong place.
And I got a stupid answer. That is, one not directed to the level at which I was asking the question.



I did learn from it.



But I am especially mortified because as we talked about intelligence tests and the concept of intelligence, this professor specifically stated that understanding social situations--that is issue like "set"-- are an important component of intelligence.



I guess that makes the somewhat socially inept, technical geniuses in my family...stupid.



What we need to do is make a new movie in which introverted neuroscience grad students take over the psychology department by virtue of their higher performance IQs.

We could call it Revenge of the Geeks!

Mom's Education on Tuesdays and Thursdays

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am not an unschooler. Rather I am a graduate student with formal classes and labs, running from North Campus to Main and back again, listening to lectures, symposia and working in lab.

Today was my full day at the "U." This morning, I was running late because I had to drop Bruce off at Sandia as his car is in the shop.


So I arrived at the Basic Medical Sciences Building just a few minutes before Neuro A&P lecture. The first half-hour was a presentation of a paper. The paper itself was poorly written and the diagrams were not adequately explained. The student presenting it had looked up other papers by the authors and did a great job of enlightening us on what the diagrams actually met. The discussion and conclusion of the paper, about the interactions of Bipolar "Off" cells and Bipolar "On" cells with each other and horizontal and finally ganglion cells in the retina were very interesting. Then Dr. Partridge gave a lecture about neural pathways from the retina to the lateral geniculate nucleaus and to V1 in the occipital cortex. On the way, we learned about how the cells work that provide us with edge recognition, color vision, and depth perception, as well as non-imaging systems like the autonomic systems that control the dialation of the pupils in response to amount of light. This stuff probably sounds a little dry, but it is actually quite fascinating. It is amazing how all of this works.






After class, it was time for the dash to main campus. And today it was really a dash, because I had to stop by my advisor's office to pick up a signed form for the travel grant proposal I am working on getting for the NAGC Annual Conference I am presenting at in Minneapolis. From there, I stopped by the Office of Graduate Studies to turn it in and then across the construction to the Psychology Building for Psychological Evaluations: Intelligence and Neuropsychological Assessment.





Today, Dr. Yeo finished discussing the subtests of the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS-III). That took most of the class period. However, with five minutes to go, he posed a question about whether or not we agreed with Weschler's definition of intelligence as it is presented in the test. Whoa! He should know never to pose such a question with 5 minutes to go. Thirteen minutes later, and three minutes before I was supposed to be back on North Campus for Neurosciences Seminar, he finally dismissed. Not that I noticed until the end--the question was intriguing and the discussion more so.



Then it was time for a truly mad dash back to Basic Medical Sciences. Good thing I know a few short cuts! I arrived sweating and panting after the speaker had been introduced and she had launched into her talk. I picked up in medias res. The talk was a good one on some recent work with Neuronal Stem Cells and their effect on epithelial cells in the brain. It appears that the stem cells make several factors that promote the regeneration and survival of epithelial cells after ischemic and other low-oxygen accidents in the brain. I enjoyed it and the questions from senior researchers after. This is truly fascinating stuff!





When the seminar was over, my tummy rudely reminded me that I had burned a lot of glucose that morning and needed to replenish my energy supplies. So it was back to main campus, to get something to eat and then read the dissection manual about today's brain dissection. I still cannot read the manual and eat at the same time, so I enjoyed some of Ursula K. LeGuin's short stories in Changing Planes while I ate my California Rolls at the Student Union. After two-and-a-half trips from North Campus to Main and back, I felt a stong need for a latte. I can drink that and study the dissection manual--which has good photographs of the dissections. Too soon, though, it was time to make the trek back to North Campus. No more dashes today, thank goodness!





At Basic Medical Sciences--BSMB for short--I found my fellow classmates in the lounge outside the old dissection lab on the third floor. We were joking about the coming work, donning our lab coats and gloves, and for those of us who have a hard time with phenol--masks.
Then the elevator bell sounded and out came Dr. Cunningham pushing a cart.





"I've got your brains!" she announced.


"I wondered where mine went..." quipped one of us.


"Dr. Cunningham, can I have a complete brain transplant? I've had difficulties with my basal ganglia all day!"





Today it was indeed a dissection to expose the deep structures of the brain. We removed the top of the right frontal lobe and worked down to the Cingulus--a bundle of nerve fibers that associate many parts of the cortex. We could see the Cingulate gyrus that is superior to it, as well as the Cingulate sulchus in the left frontal cortex. Then we dissected down to the corpus collosum, and then removed the gray matter to see the Extreme Capsule, and medial to that, the Claustrum, and then the External capsule, and medial to that the ...well you get the idea.





When we exposed the right lateral ventricle, my partner and I saw that ours was rather small. So our specimen was from someone who was younger than most, since the brain shrinks as a person ages, enlarging the ventricles. That's kind of sad. I felt like saying "thanks" to the person who donated his/her brain so we could learn. That was a quiet thanks. Some people don't like to think a lot about where these brains came from until the whole dissection is over.





Finally, we were done. I always leave with the smell of phenol in my nostrils. I really like to go right home and take a shower, but today I had to pick up Bruce at the Home Depot just outside the KAFB gate. Then it was two errands before home, a shower and something to eat.

What a long day!

But I get to sleep a little later tomorrow. Then it's work with N., down-load some papers, and get ready for Shabbat!

Right now it is well and truly Guinness time!

In the Meantime...

...life has been going on here at home while I have been feverishly documenting our California 'whirlwind tour.'





Here, the sunflowers are blooming and the highways, byways and fields are turning yellow with their colors. Helianthus neomexicanus, our very own New Mexico sunflower is the color of August and harbinger of the approaching autumn.











My coursework for the Ph.D. began again this week at my alma mater, UNM--the University Near Mom.

The left side of my milk-crate bookshelf is evidence of the major gelt I spent getting books for my classes. This semester, it is eight hours of coursework, all for the neurospychology emphasis:

• Biomed 533: Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology--4 hours, with a brain dissection lab
• Biomed 535: Neurosciences Seminar--1 hour, listening to weekly presentations of current research
• Psychology 533: Psychological Evaluation: Cognitive and Neurospychological Functions--3 hours

Rainbow season is upon us once more!

We seem to get the most spectacular rainbows in August as the monsoons settle into the 'isolated showers and thunderstorms' mode.

This year, we brought the rain home. It did not rain the whole time we were gone and then, on Thursday evening, we got 0.35 inches during two rainy periods. And a double rainbow! Look carefully above the more visible one for traces of the double.



And my guys are 'getting her done' as they have a great time installing the dining room flooring. They hope to finish it this weekend. I will be happy to have the dining room back--sort of. A finished dining area will mean taking the living room furniture out to start there!

And no, the picture is not totally crooked. The chandelier is swinging. Without the table under it, Bruce keeps running into it when he stands up. It causes a great deal of "guy" humor and giggling to burst from the dining room at somewhat regular intervals.

These guys are having too much fun altogether on this part of the project!

That's the news from Sedillo, NM--where life is going on this week while I am blogging last week. One more Travelogue and I am done with that bit!

B-B-B-Busy as a BEE! Carnival of Homeschooling

Almost there!



Last night we did our Mock Trial for Special Education Law.

I was worried because the case was difficult and had only one obvious strategy for the plaintiff's side--which was my group's job. Since I am the "Doc" student, I had to be a lawyer. Most groups had 4 people and 2 lawyers, but one student walked out on our group two weeks ago, leaving us with three students. That meant only one lawyer. Me. Have I said that I don't LIKE lawyers very much? Or maybe I should rephrase that--I don't like BEING a lawyer very much. But the others in my group worked hard and helped out a lot last night. Also, the other side did not anticipate our strategy and in fact, by adding a condition to the child in question, made our job easier! We'll find out who won next week, but we did a credible job.

It took hours for the adrenaline to wear off last night!

Today, I have to defend my hypothesis in Neurobiology. This morning I got up early to finish the slide presentation and practice. I couldn't sleep well last night due to that dratted adrenaline! So today I am tired. I hope I can get myself "up" for the presentation. It is 10 minutes with 5 minutes of questions.

Tonight is Guinness Time!

Tomorrow is "take your offspring to work" day at Sandia National Labs. Bruce will take N. I have the day off to recover. I intend to spend part of it over at the Carnival of Homeschooling at Sprittibee! It very appropriately has a "Bee" theme--that works for me!

I still have a reflection paper to write for the Mock Trial and a final to take for Special Education Law. I think the final is overkill after the work it took to do the Mock Trial.
Sigh!

I am counting the days: ALMOST THERE!