Planning a road trip next Saturday, taking our three-year-old granddaughter to see her cousins, for our other granddaughter's 4th birthday. Crew will consist of Grandpa, Grandma, and two of Sarah's uncles. (Mom and Dad have other plans for the weekend.)
Apparently she is quite excited about going to the party.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Friday, 19 August 2011
Evening with Sarah
Spent a couple of hours with my granddaughter last evening at the annual Greekfest in Ottawa.
She played the whole time. My role was mainly to keep her out of harm's way while she roamed, and give her parents a chance to enjoy dinner together.
And that is pretty much all I did. At 28 months, she is steady on her legs, highly curious, focused and easily distracted at the same time. So other than watching for things she could bang into or trip over, all I had to do was follow her around. Took a few pictures, but not so many that I forgot that I was there to enjoy her company.
(I have made the too-many-pictures mistake in the past, and been told off by her with a "No Cheese!")
A puddle left over from an afternoon rainstorm kept us busy for about twenty minutes. Not too much splashing but cool on the feet on a hot evening. Wade in to the middle, wade out again, repeat. Occasionally stop for a bite of food, or a sip of juice, but then back to the puddle.
Once she had learned all the secrets the puddle had to offer, we went for a long perambulation around the grounds -- some walking, some hopping, some dancing. Stopped every so often to check out other kids her age. Babies seemed interesting.
Danced to the music for a while. (Hopped, mostly.)
Near the music stage, there was a long cable protector. She walked up and down that forwards, sideways (most of the time), and occasionally backwards. When the music stopped, she did too.
A little girl about a year older decided to use the same runway, and after a few suspicious looks, they settled on a plan to share the path. Whenever they met, each would move enough to the edge of the protector to let the other pass without bumping into each other.
The other girl was treating it like a runway at an airport, arms out as if preparing for takeoff. Sarah experimented with that for a couple of trips up and down the path, then returned to hands at her sides, out just enough to give her a bit of balance, head down, focused.
So the time went. Sometimes rambling around. Sometimes paying attention. Not particularly concerned about Mom and Dad's whereabouts.
She learned lots; I didn't teach her anything.
Hope she got a good night's sleep; I know I did.
Takeaway: Keep her safe, and stay out of her way. When she was interacting with me, she wasn't learning anything. She is perfectly capable of doing that without me.
She played the whole time. My role was mainly to keep her out of harm's way while she roamed, and give her parents a chance to enjoy dinner together.
And that is pretty much all I did. At 28 months, she is steady on her legs, highly curious, focused and easily distracted at the same time. So other than watching for things she could bang into or trip over, all I had to do was follow her around. Took a few pictures, but not so many that I forgot that I was there to enjoy her company.
(I have made the too-many-pictures mistake in the past, and been told off by her with a "No Cheese!")
A puddle left over from an afternoon rainstorm kept us busy for about twenty minutes. Not too much splashing but cool on the feet on a hot evening. Wade in to the middle, wade out again, repeat. Occasionally stop for a bite of food, or a sip of juice, but then back to the puddle.
Once she had learned all the secrets the puddle had to offer, we went for a long perambulation around the grounds -- some walking, some hopping, some dancing. Stopped every so often to check out other kids her age. Babies seemed interesting.
Danced to the music for a while. (Hopped, mostly.)
Near the music stage, there was a long cable protector. She walked up and down that forwards, sideways (most of the time), and occasionally backwards. When the music stopped, she did too.
A little girl about a year older decided to use the same runway, and after a few suspicious looks, they settled on a plan to share the path. Whenever they met, each would move enough to the edge of the protector to let the other pass without bumping into each other.
The other girl was treating it like a runway at an airport, arms out as if preparing for takeoff. Sarah experimented with that for a couple of trips up and down the path, then returned to hands at her sides, out just enough to give her a bit of balance, head down, focused.
So the time went. Sometimes rambling around. Sometimes paying attention. Not particularly concerned about Mom and Dad's whereabouts.
She learned lots; I didn't teach her anything.
Hope she got a good night's sleep; I know I did.
Takeaway: Keep her safe, and stay out of her way. When she was interacting with me, she wasn't learning anything. She is perfectly capable of doing that without me.
Friday, 8 July 2011
Are women in groups more intelligent than men in groups?
I recently retweeted a link from Sheryl NussbaumBeach about whether women make a team smarter http://bit.ly/q4vuYy.
My wife asked me about the retweet in bed some time later, specifically whether I believed that it was true, and I said yes.
Her "hmnh" was non-committal at best, and I have found myself thinking a bit more on the subject.
Anecdotal evidence from my childhood and parenthood would seem to support the contention. Whether it's biology or environment I cannot be sure, but I have seen this behaviour in action in a worklife spanning 40 years, in the classroom, the shop floor, the boardroom, and at family gatherings.
Full disclosure: I am not a woman, and when I offer opinions on what it is like to be one, my wife and daughters are quick to call bullshit on me. But I am a man and I have some observations to make on how they operate. Whether my comments about men apply equally to women, I will have to let women decide.
When men work together to solve a problem, a number of things come into play.
First thing is pecking order. We know very quickly who to defer to, who to ignore, who the competition is. We may have already have alliances with other men, through blood or previous engagements, and we may already have been in combat against some of the men before. Sports and military metaphors figure highly in our conversations, and in our conversations about our conversations.
Rivalry, good-natured or not, informs many of our conversations, both personal and professional. One-upmanship can allow us to put down an idea for no other reason than that it wasn't ours.
Certainty and boldness and impatience (which may all be part of the same trait) also affect how we interact in teamwork and problem-solving. We like to win, we like to win first, and we like to win often. And we tend to see life as zero-sum most of the time.
So we tend not to collaborate if there is a way to succeed without it, and each side tends to describe the results of a collaboration in terms of how they came out ahead. Witness how union and contract negotiations get reported to the media -- both sides clearly won, no matter what the outcome.
It's not that we don't want an intelligent decision to come out of the group; it's just that we typically want to be recognised as the individual who deserves credit for the intelligent decision.
All of this is has to be seen in the context of growing up in North America, in a dominantly Protestant society, in the latter half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st. I can't speak for other groups, other places, other times. I do see less harmful competition in younger colleagues.
I see more tolerance, generally, in my sons than I saw in my father and uncles. I see more open-mindedness and creativity at play. So maybe this difference will diminish over time. It would be nice if it did.
My wife asked me about the retweet in bed some time later, specifically whether I believed that it was true, and I said yes.
Her "hmnh" was non-committal at best, and I have found myself thinking a bit more on the subject.
Anecdotal evidence from my childhood and parenthood would seem to support the contention. Whether it's biology or environment I cannot be sure, but I have seen this behaviour in action in a worklife spanning 40 years, in the classroom, the shop floor, the boardroom, and at family gatherings.
Full disclosure: I am not a woman, and when I offer opinions on what it is like to be one, my wife and daughters are quick to call bullshit on me. But I am a man and I have some observations to make on how they operate. Whether my comments about men apply equally to women, I will have to let women decide.
When men work together to solve a problem, a number of things come into play.
First thing is pecking order. We know very quickly who to defer to, who to ignore, who the competition is. We may have already have alliances with other men, through blood or previous engagements, and we may already have been in combat against some of the men before. Sports and military metaphors figure highly in our conversations, and in our conversations about our conversations.
Rivalry, good-natured or not, informs many of our conversations, both personal and professional. One-upmanship can allow us to put down an idea for no other reason than that it wasn't ours.
Certainty and boldness and impatience (which may all be part of the same trait) also affect how we interact in teamwork and problem-solving. We like to win, we like to win first, and we like to win often. And we tend to see life as zero-sum most of the time.
So we tend not to collaborate if there is a way to succeed without it, and each side tends to describe the results of a collaboration in terms of how they came out ahead. Witness how union and contract negotiations get reported to the media -- both sides clearly won, no matter what the outcome.
It's not that we don't want an intelligent decision to come out of the group; it's just that we typically want to be recognised as the individual who deserves credit for the intelligent decision.
All of this is has to be seen in the context of growing up in North America, in a dominantly Protestant society, in the latter half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st. I can't speak for other groups, other places, other times. I do see less harmful competition in younger colleagues.
I see more tolerance, generally, in my sons than I saw in my father and uncles. I see more open-mindedness and creativity at play. So maybe this difference will diminish over time. It would be nice if it did.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Father's Day
Tech Republic wants to know what geeky pursuits my dad inspired me to discover.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/what-geeky-pursuits-did-your-dad-inspire-you-to-discover/7189
My dad was born in 1905 and to my knowledge, never saw a computer. The one phone we had was pretty much off-limits to the kids, just in case the company he worked for needed him to work overtime.
When he attended school, he actually used a slate (a low-tech iPad, I suppose). It did support text and graphics, however.
What he did have was tools by the dozens. When I inherited his tool collection when he and my mom moved into an apartment, I got at least three dozen different hammers, several of which he made.
A couple of weekends ago, my daughter and I were raking the back yard and she found a fairly large thistle. When I cut it out with a knife my father had made, she asked about it. "He MADE it?" she said.
Yup. He made knives, chisels, hammers, even an anvil from a length of railroad track, so that he could use the anvil to make other tools. (I always hoped that the railroad track came from an inactive line.) Several of my chisels still bear the marks of the original files they were made from. He had a tap and die set, and made his own bolts.
With the tools he made, he made furniture, some of which I still have. I have a small bookshelf he made as a wedding present for my mom in 1933. Up until my mom's death last July, she kept a larger bookshelf he had made in her room in the nursing home.
Because of his interest in woodworking, he had a large collection of books on antiques and furniture repair. He also repaired furniture for the local museum. He said they picked him because he was old enough to remember what the undamaged piece would have looked like.
On a visit to Upper Canada Village, I remember him snorting when the young lad in the carpentry shop talked about a tool and had the wrong use for it. He asked my dad if he knew what it was for, and my dad proceeded to tell him about that and other tools for the next 15 minutes.
I asked him on my first visit to the village if they had used the sawmill to cut the boards for the bridge into the village, and he pointed out the circular saw marks on the raw lumber. "No," he said.
"the saw marks would be vertical."
He was handy, and loved working with his hands. And he loved talking. Lies, mostly, as I found out, but more interesting than the truth might have been.
So was he a geek? I suppose. He loved a problem, loved tinkering, loved figuring things out.
He could repair just about anything my brothers and sisters and I could break, and we kept him busy.
Even in retirement, he worked as a handyman, making things last just a little longer.
I think I will tidy up the workbench this weekend, and maybe I will make something.
It's what he would have done on Father's Day.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/what-geeky-pursuits-did-your-dad-inspire-you-to-discover/7189
My dad was born in 1905 and to my knowledge, never saw a computer. The one phone we had was pretty much off-limits to the kids, just in case the company he worked for needed him to work overtime.
When he attended school, he actually used a slate (a low-tech iPad, I suppose). It did support text and graphics, however.
What he did have was tools by the dozens. When I inherited his tool collection when he and my mom moved into an apartment, I got at least three dozen different hammers, several of which he made.
A couple of weekends ago, my daughter and I were raking the back yard and she found a fairly large thistle. When I cut it out with a knife my father had made, she asked about it. "He MADE it?" she said.
Yup. He made knives, chisels, hammers, even an anvil from a length of railroad track, so that he could use the anvil to make other tools. (I always hoped that the railroad track came from an inactive line.) Several of my chisels still bear the marks of the original files they were made from. He had a tap and die set, and made his own bolts.
With the tools he made, he made furniture, some of which I still have. I have a small bookshelf he made as a wedding present for my mom in 1933. Up until my mom's death last July, she kept a larger bookshelf he had made in her room in the nursing home.
Because of his interest in woodworking, he had a large collection of books on antiques and furniture repair. He also repaired furniture for the local museum. He said they picked him because he was old enough to remember what the undamaged piece would have looked like.
On a visit to Upper Canada Village, I remember him snorting when the young lad in the carpentry shop talked about a tool and had the wrong use for it. He asked my dad if he knew what it was for, and my dad proceeded to tell him about that and other tools for the next 15 minutes.
I asked him on my first visit to the village if they had used the sawmill to cut the boards for the bridge into the village, and he pointed out the circular saw marks on the raw lumber. "No," he said.
"the saw marks would be vertical."
He was handy, and loved working with his hands. And he loved talking. Lies, mostly, as I found out, but more interesting than the truth might have been.
So was he a geek? I suppose. He loved a problem, loved tinkering, loved figuring things out.
He could repair just about anything my brothers and sisters and I could break, and we kept him busy.
Even in retirement, he worked as a handyman, making things last just a little longer.
I think I will tidy up the workbench this weekend, and maybe I will make something.
It's what he would have done on Father's Day.
Friday, 3 June 2011
It's all about education
My other blog at Wordpress is more miscellaneous. This blog will focus on education. Admittedly it's all about education but this blog will, I hope, allow me to consolidate some of my thinking after close to 40 years in various classrooms and teaching occasions.
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