Letters from Lisa

The Average American

According to a new book, the “average” American:
• Eats peanut butter at least once a week
I did, for a long time. I think it’s working in an elementary school environment that did it.

• Prefers smooth peanut butter over chunky
Nope. The nuttier, the better.

• Can name all Three Stooges
Bush, Cheney, and — Oh, you meant the ones on that old TV show?

• Lives within a 20-minute drive of a Wal-Mart
Probably. Except I refuse to patronize Wal-Mart, so I actually wouldn’t know.

• Eats at McDonald’s at least once a year
Try once a decade.

• Takes a shower for approximately 10.4 minutes a day
This has me picturing white-coated researchers with clipboards scurrying around to everyone’s houses with stopwatch in hand — “Mr. Johnson! Wait! Don’t drop that towel until I press Start!” But I’m sure they just asked people to time themselves, or estimate. I like to take (untimed) baths better than showers, personally.

• Never sings in the shower
If no one’s home to hear it? I totally do.

• Lives in a house, not an apartment or condominium
I’ve always lived in apartments.

• Has a home valued between $100,000 and $300,000
Is this sad that I don’t even know?

• Has fired a gun
No. Also, no thanks.

• Is between 5 feet and 6 feet tall
Yup, I’m 5′9.

• Weighs 135 to 205 pounds
I think they ought to paint this statistic in middle school girls’ bathrooms across the country. I’m just wondering - what does the average model weigh?

• Is between the ages of 18 and 53
I’m 28.

• Believes gambling is an acceptable entertainment option
Eh… it’s a free country. I personally don’t enjoy it.

• Grew up within 50 miles of current home
I still live in the apartment where I grew up. I don’t think my bed has budged six inches in 28 years.

I’m sure the book delves a lot deeper, but the really important stuff isn’t on this little list. Here’s what I’m really wondering:

• How many books does the average American read per year?
• How many average Americans have ever traveled out of the country?
• How many hours of video games does the average kid play?
• How many average Americans think it’s good to be average? How many are worried that they aren’t average? How many are relieved?
• How many miles does the average American drive per year? How many of those miles were to destinations in walking distance?
• How much money does the average American think s/he needs to be happy? vs. How much money does the average American actually have?
• How many average Americans are satisfied with their lives?

story originally found here

I’ve been struck down by laryngitis. This happens every year - and always at very inopportune times. You don’t realize how much you use your voice, as a teacher, until you lose it. There is no way that I can do my job, squeaking like my throat has been colonized by mice.

Plus, one of the kids told me that I now sound like a man.

So, yeah, time for a sick day.

in response to Why Teaching Reading Is Still In Whole-Land from I Speak of Dreams

This all started with a quote from this speech about No Child Left Behind.

We have thirty years of rigorous research about how most kids learn to read. We know that reading must be taught explicitly and directly. We know kids need to be taught phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Sure, there’s plenty we still don’t know, especially about how to help older kids who haven’t learned to read, but there’s a lot we do know. And yet in thousands of communities across this country, school systems continue to resist putting in place scientifically-based reading programs.

The reasons usually boil down to two factors: ideology, and resistance from teachers.

From a teacher’s perspective (and a teacher who uses research-based Orton-Gillingham programs, at that) there IS an ideological divide in education. Progressive education posits that kids are not cogs in the industrial manufacturing machine (which is what public schools were originally modeled on) and that their behavior and learning problems result from being treated as robots, not as individuals. And indeed, most of us have had the experience at some time when we’ve felt seriously ignored or disrespected in school, expected to do the same work at the same time as everyone else regardless of our actual ability. There are serious problems with the one-size-fits-all approach. So teachers naturally find resonance in a philosophy of education that treats children (and teachers) as individuals with inherent knowledge and ideas to offer, and methods that encourage each child to go at her own pace and come to her own conclusions. In a way, it’s the democratic ideal. Don’t let society tell you what to do! Figure it out for yourselves!

There are a small percentage of children who seem “get it” right away, just from reading books or listening to adult conversations or being the fabled “sponge” that progressive education thinks they are. I was such a child. I had years in elementary school where I didn’t receive instruction of any kind — I was usually off in a corner reading, or doing workbooks by myself, or writing books and plays and cartoons. If I hadn’t been a social outcast during those years, I would have loved it. I would have thrived at a progressive school where I could go at my own pace. So-called “gifted” children actually need the type of education where teachers are more like mentors, providing them just enough to get started and then guidance along the way.

The problem is that for every one child who does this (or CAN do this — not every “gifted” child performs in school), there are a far greater number of children who can’t. We have a really hard time seeing this in our society - we know we’re supposed to believe in equality, so we end up spouting the line that equal means the same in every way. So if one child can learn a certain way, then everyone can. (And therefore, if one school can get 90% on the state test…) We’re really uncomfortable with the idea that there might be real, tangible differences in academic ability when children arrive at school, so we usually end up blaming upbringing or social class or some societal ill. I’m not even talking about children who have learning disabilities (many of whom are gifted themselves), just everyday kids who learn and grow at a developmentally appropriate pace.

And because we assume that children should just be able to naturally “get it”, we expect teachers to present wonderful, insightful, “fun” bells-and-whistles lessons as though they are entertainers desperate to get applause from a listless audience. Then, in the general education model, it’s assumed that the kids “got” what was presented, and it’s time to move on. THIS is where the breakdown is, in my opinion — not in the quality of the teacher, not in the upbringing of the students, not in the scriptedness of the reading program. The kids get assessed to see if they really got it or not, and then what? Teachers in general ed don’t have the TIME to go back and help those kids who didn’t get it. This is where research-based education is supposed to help - by making sure all kids get it the first time, so that teachers don’t need to go back and supplement and remediate. Because — regardless of students’ needs, or teachers’ intentions — they don’t have TIME.

TIME is the most valuable, and scarce, commodity in education today. Money can’t even begin to compare. Teachers don’t want to change what they’re doing in the classroom not out of some ideological imperative, and not because they think they are God’s gift to education, but because everything new that gets added to their plate means that TIME is taken away from something else. Most teachers don’t enter the workf0rce with training in methods that are shown by research to be effective with the majority of learners. So that training, and the time it takes to implement the programs effectively, happens during the school day, or just before school starts, or during teachers’ personal TIME. Many of these programs are complex and have a large number of (expensive) materials that go with them, but teachers aren’t given TIME to master them - they’re expected to just dive in and use them, and they’d better be effective… or else! Some school districts crazily jump around from one program to another every few years, hopping on the latest research bandwagon, so teachers in those areas are asked to switch curricula just when they’re getting comfortable with the ones that they spent so much TIME learning and implementing.

Another issue dealing with TIME is the school day itself. We know that reading instruction should encompass many different elements, which all take TIME to teach. But teachers today are asked to teach more things, in more depth, than ever before. And this makes sense… every year we accumulate more history, more technology, and more scientific knowledge, so schools naturally struggle to keep up. Decisions about what to teach, and in how much depth, are generally made by school boards and administrators and bureaucrats who have little idea of how much TIME it will take to actually teach all these things, especially not to a particular class of students who all have unique learning strengths and needs and background knowledge. This puts a huge squeeze on teachers — because when you do the content and skills you’re supposed to do, in as much depth as is expected, you’re often going to have to move on just as your kids are getting interested, or your slower students are starting to catch on. You just don’t have the TIME to do the job you’re capable of doing.

AND, at the same time, you are dealing with far more students with special (and often intense) learning needs than ever before, due to new policies about inclusion. These students generate far more paperwork and require far more in-class and planning TIME. Teachers are feeling the burden of this too, particularly when the support staff is not forthcoming and the school administration doesn’t provide the behavioral support or show a united front to parents. Teachers need to deal with the daily realities of keeping kids safe and functioning in the classroom, which reduces the amount of TIME they have to successfully implement new teaching approaches.

In general, by and large, teachers WANT to do right by all their students. They just don’t have the TIME. They feel overwhelmed, pressured, and underappreciated. We still don’t have a realistic appreciation in American society for the difficulties of reaching students. Everyone is expected to be on grade level regardless of actual academic ability, proficiency in English, support from home, presence of disabilities, exposure to trauma, and conflicting cultural attitudes about academic achievement (which is another post altogether!) For every teacher in America who’s never tried a research-based reading program, there is a teacher whose district has tried three such programs in the past five years. And every time the administrator changes, the program changes again. This is a huge morale buster and an imposition on the teacher’s TIME.

By the way, research-based reading programs ARE very successful for the majority of students. But there are still going to be some who struggle. Teachers will still need the TIME and training to help those students.

Anyone who has any experience with children knows that anything you do with them always ends up taking more TIME than you thought it would. They are not machines. They grow and develop unpredictably, usually when you’re not looking. They pick up things when you think they aren’t listening, but seem to ignore the things you spend so much TIME going over with them. They are complex creatures who often respond in ways that you don’t anticipate. That’s the beauty of children, and also the frustration. So many educational policies seem to have been designed with some other creature in mind - definitely not a child. These policies want kids to perform and produce, forgetting that the child herself IS the product. And good products take TIME.

Is it seriously the last day of Thanksgiving weekend? Bizarre. I was sure I had a few more vacation days in there somewhere.

We’ve been on a whirlwind entertaining guests, eating, having more guests, eating, having dessert, and — oh yeah — eating. Dessert, too. There was so much going on in the house that, until dinner last night, I hadn’t left the apartment in 3 days.

It’s 11 am and I still don’t know what I’m going to do today. Awesome.

Just finished an excellent, but frightening book — Born to Buy. It points out, in graphic detail, the lengths that multimillion dollar corporate conglomerates have gone to to make young children into loyal consumers. These efforts include:

• enlisting young children to act as “viral marketers” - spreading the word about products and companies to their unsuspecting friends
• cultivating a marketing base by encouraging young children to nag their parents incessantly in order to buy more products (the book has some frightening quotes from marketing directors about this!)
• deliberately marketing age inappropriate products to young children, such as sexual messages, violence, and adult themes, then claiming that it is “parental choice”
• dangling money in front of school boards for the right to sell their products in schools, where kids are a captive audience and parents have no direct access to the message (and yet, if there is so much money pouring into schools, where is it all going?
• teaming up with trusted “educational” corporations such as Scholastic and PBS to hawk marketing tie-ins
• convincing parents to allow market researchers nearly unlimited access to their children, even in their own homes

I have grown disgusted with consumer culture in general - I see it being controlled by fewer and fewer greedy people at the top, all of whom are paying themselves generous salaries while skimping their workers on healthcare, fair working hours, and job choice through their monopolies. The Bush Presidency is the most corporate-generated and owned ever, dominated by special interests such as oil companies, drug companies, and Big Food. I think about 85% of the marketing done today is overbearing, invasive, and unhealthy, since it strives to undermine our development as human beings by telling us that we should never have to delay gratification, work more than a few minutes for a huge reward, or ever be satisfied with what we already have. Companies’ pitches fall disproportionately on the people who can least afford to counteract them with positive cultural messages of their own, creating a cycle in which people are spending money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need and spend time on pursuits that won’t increase their prospects.

Because this is money we’re dealing with, we seem to be blind to the implications of this - how completely a small, select group of anonymous people are controlling our choices and attempting to hijack our desires, goals, and daily activities for their own gain. It’s disgusting, really. It makes me want to retreat into the wildnerness and never buy a corporation-marketed project again!

It took me FOUR HOURS to learn how to knit the other day. Literally. I sat there for four hours at a beginners meetup while people circulated around trying to help us get going. I was practically in tears, ready to give up, when the organizer of the event saw that I had taken the yarn off the needles and was staring in a melancholy way off into the distance, sipping my coffee, and showed me one final time.

Now I can’t stop!

I’m going to see the Darwin exhibit at the Museum of Natural History today. Assuming it isn’t sold out, of course.

Live tortoises!

… water bottle caps.

Yup, those little white plastic caps. They draw on them, flick them, name them, make them into characters in elaborate stories.

Just more proof, in case you needed it, that kids don’t need elaborate, sophisticated, expensive talking bells-and-whistles toys to have fun.

What do you do for fun?

It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend: Helping The Child With Learning Disabilities Find Social Success is a parent-friendly tome that explains, in detail, how various aspects of learning disabilities impact upon the ability to develop social skills and relationships. Concrete suggestions are offered, as well as dire warnings.

I’m ambivalent about books like this, mainly because of the “dire warnings” section on what could happen to kids who don’t have friends. Don’t get me wrong — I certainly believe that kids need friends, and I know firsthand the pain of early rejection and teasing. But the individualistic side of me wants to complain when a book advocates, for example, making sure your child fits in with the latest clothing trends to avoid rejection.

I have two problems with this: first, that this doesn’t actually prevent rejection, because if kids want to tease or criticize, believe me, they’ll find something, even if it means making up new “cool clothing” rules specifically to exclude the child who is trying so hard to fit in.

The other problem is: Seriously? This is the message you want to give your child? That it’s your fault if people are mean to you, just because you’re wearing the wrong clothes? That in order to be friends, you have to dress alike? Or spend money for designer clothes that you probably can’t afford?

Believe me, there are kids who can get away with wearing ANYTHING, whether it’s “cool” or not, because they are well-liked and highly confident. No one bothers to criticize what these kids are wearing, and if they do, these kids do not care.

I have fewer problems with other suggestions in the book, which include things like teaching your child to make eye contact and practicing “small talk”. To me, these suggestions are much more helpful.

I also should point out, though, that some of us made it through the early years of school miserable and friendless, and we didn’t turn out to be juvenile delinquents or sociopaths as a result. Many of us needed to hang in there until a peer group came along that we could identify with. Sometimes you just have to be philosophical about this stuff, realize that people generally act out of fear and frustration, and that it doesn’t mean anything about your worth or potential as a person just because you’re on the receiving end.

These things have nothing to do with a child’s ability level — or a family’s income level. And this isn’t a scientific list (though many things on it are supported by research) - this is what I’ve observed after about 6 years of teaching.

Top Ten Ways Parents Can Support Kids’ Success in School (and in Life)

10. Model the learning behavior you would like to see in your child. Read for pleasure and for information, take “field trips” to places that correspond to the family’s interests, have discussions about nature documentaries or current events or whatever you spend a lot of time thinking about. Kids need a lot of practice evaluating statements from the media — when to trust an advertising claim or a statistic, how to tell if a newsanchor is giving a factual statement or spouting off (I’m looking at you, Bill O’Reilly) — and you can use the opportunity to share your own opinions and values while helping your child to think critically. If you spend a lot of time dealing with financial decisions (who doesn’t?) try showing your child how to manage money, pick stocks, compare sale prices, calculate the tip at a restaurant, etc. “School learning” only makes sense if children understand that people are ALWAYS learning, and applying what they’ve learned.

9. Know when to critique. If your child is studying for a spelling test, then yes, pointing out an error is wise. If your child is completing a math problem and seems to be struggling, offering an easier way to solve it MIGHT be wise. But if you’re watching your child draw a picture or paint of piece of pottery and she’s smearing all the colors together into a mushy brown, or she’s banging all the keys on the piano, or she’s writing a story and you notice three misspellings… don’t critique. These things are done for the sheer joy and experience of doing them. Think of the most fun thing that you absolutely love to do, and then think of someone standing over you judging the result and pointing out all the minor things you did “wrong” (or saying “Good job!”, for that matter) Now that you’ve got an audience, and a judging audience at that, it sure changes how you approach that activity, doesn’t it? Much of teaching writing, for example, is un-teaching the attitude of “I can’t spell perfectly, so I’m not going to produce”. And kids who aren’t able to try aren’t able to succeed.

8. Praise realistically. Kids want to feel recognized for genuine success, but it feels insincere when the praise is about something that wasn’t really a success in the child’s mind. Don’t tell your child he is “the greatest” at something if he’s clearly not the greatest. Either he’ll believe you and develop an unrealistic picture of himself and his abilities (to be later shot down mercilessly by other kids), or he won’t believe you, and then he won’t accept the praise from you even when he really deserves it. On the other hand, it’s important to get positive feedback from the people who love and care about you most. Help your child to see himself in an optimistic, positive light — emphasizing growth, improvement, motivation and effort. Make praise as specific as possible, i.e. “Look how you blended all those colors together! Your painting has a lot of energy!” vs. “Great job!”

7. Don’t get drawn into an avoidable battle with your child’s teacher. You’ve probably noticed how children sometimes try to play you off against your partner (or ex-partner) when they are trying to get out of trouble, or even just tell two conflicting stories because they don’t remember the exact details or aren’t that skilled at keeping the story straight. Find out the teacher’s side of the story before you decide that the teacher is out to hurt your child. If there is a genuine conflict and you feel the teacher has not treated your child fairly, model for your child what mature, appropriate conflict resolution looks like, and shift as much direct communication to your child as possible — you won’t be able to call up his college professors to complain about his grades, so he might as well get the practice advocating for himself while you’re still available to jump in and help if necessary.

6. Don’t shield your child from all disappointments, setbacks and problems. Kids need to stretch and warm up their coping muscles in a safe, supportive environment. Kids sometimes get the unintended message from adults that they should not feel any sadness, anger, or disappointment — that they’re too fragile to handle it. And, indeed, if they never have the experience of soothing themselves after a disappointment or counting to twenty to avoid an angry outburst, they might end up being too fragile to handle it. Some parenting “experts” have perpetuated the idea that kids should never be denied anything they want, no matter how unreasonable, because it is inhibiting their personality development. In fact, the opposite is true. Kids who never are allowed to experience the slightest bit of discomfort and cope with it never develop the part of themselves that is strong and capable of dealing with adversity.

5. Have your child evaluated at the first sign of developmental trouble — particularly if it’s a speech delay. Don’t accept a pediatrician’s blithe advice that your child is a “late bloomer” or that boys just naturally learn to talk slower than girls. Children who can’t communicate effectively are more likely to develop behavior problems, since they can’t get what they want with words. Reading and writing, both dependent on mastery of language skills, will be much more difficult. Intercepting a problem early on makes a qualitative difference in how your child will function in 1, 5, even 10 years from now.

4. Limit access to violent video and computer games. I’m not into censorship, so I don’t believe in pulling games off the market that contain objectionable content. They’re rated for your convenience, so if your child is young, you don’t have to allow him or her to play an M-rated game, or even T-rated if you think it’s too mature. It just isn’t helpful for an 8 year old (or 10 year old, or 12 year old) to be spending large amounts of free time interacting with drug dealers, car thieves, gang members and prostitutes (as in Grand Theft Auto). You wouldn’t let your child spend 5 minutes in that environment in real life, so why would you let your child spend HOURS in it on the TV screen? In your own house?

Actually, the real tragedy of video games is not that they desensitize kids to violence or glamorize violence, although I certainly believe they do that, particularly for many young kids who don’t have the background knowledge to even understand the cultural references or the humor in these games. The real tragedy is that the hour (often hours, plural) spent shooting up cars and splattering blood onscreen could have been spent playing with building sets, doing art, reading for pleasure, spending time with family members and friends, or playing an instrument. These latter activities build concentration, motor and visual skills, social skills, knowledge about the world, passion for a productive interest, and creativity.

I’m not suggesting that (older) kids should never play these games — I know plenty of functioning adults who do, including some pacifists. But you’d be surprised how many parents are aware that it’s overkill, and complain to the teacher that their child is not interested in anything else other than these games and is spending hours playing them. Parents DO have the right to turn the Play Station off!

3. Make sure your child has the opportunity to make and cultivate friendships, both with fellow classmates and other kids in the neighborhood. Don’t schedule so many activities and lessons that your child never has time to invite friends over or go to friends’ homes. Kids who are doing very well academically, but have no friends, often end up hating school. If your child is being teased at school, get the teacher’s input right away. Try to find out if your child is interpreting the peer situation in a realistic light, if there is anything your child needs to do differently (kids often target the child who tattles, responds in a very high pitched voice, runs away crying, explodes over minor changes in game rules, etc.) and who in your child’s class might be a receptive new friend that you can encourage your child to get to know better. Do NOT encourage your child to hit or curse out a classmate, even if you think the other kid deserves it. The last thing your child needs is to be labeled a troublemaker or bully. Besides, in the majority of cases, your child will still encounter the “enemy” at school every day. The other kids in the class are your child’s coworkers, and your child is getting a crash course in office politics. Use this opportunity to help your child learn to navigate the ins and outs of networking, negotiating, and knowing when to involve the boss.

2. Keep your child home when she’s sick. Our society has to do a better job of providing sick days and realiable child care for parents, particularly when they have young children. So teachers do understand when it’s hard for you to take off from work. On the other hand, your child probably caught that cold from another kid on the playground who should have stayed home, but didn’t. And your child has now passed the cold on to ten other kids, and the teachers. Plus, if she comes to school, she’ll be expected to perform. It’s usually easier to just make up the work later than to struggle through it in class while sick.

1. Help your child have a good night’s sleep! Yes, this is #1! There is a ton of research out there on sleep deprivation and how it impairs judgment, decision making, and performance on cognitive tasks. Lack of sleep also makes people irritable and clumsy. Your child will not perform at his best if he is sleep deprived. If it’s a choice between cramming in the spelling words one last time or going to bed early, I vote for going to bed early. (This will also help prevent your child from getting sick… see #2!)

Well, there you have it. One teacher’s advice. I think I’ll do a Top Ten for Teachers next.

As you may have noticed by the lack of word count updates, I decided to give up National Novel Writing Month for this year. I have about 11,000 fairly decent words of a children’s novel that has a super concept to it and a lot of potential, so I actually feel fine about taking it off the ultra-hot front burner. My last children’s novel took about a year to finish, so I don’t mind not finishing a book in one month.

Besides, I’m still in the midst of a creative nonfiction class and writing progress reports. There are only so many hours to spend on writing each day, and I have to distribute my time fairly. This weekend it’s going to be the memoir and progress reports, in that order.

Well, folks, you were right to be scared — my website has been infected with bird flu.

Makes you nostalgic for the online casinos and ringtones, doesn’t it?

(By the way - when you are viewing that comment, please don’t reward spammers by actually clicking on the bird flu link.)

Just finished: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and really enjoyed it. I haven’t picked up many works of fiction recently (aside from kids’ books - but that’s for work!) and I’m generally not into mysteries… I guess I was into this one more for the interesting backstory about Africa and African families. I didn’t mind the detective stuff, of course.

I guess I’ll be picking up some sequels soon!

A short, succinct set of criteria for identifying when to be skeptical about a claim. Note: sometimes real scientific breakthroughs might have some of these attributes. But be cautious.

The full article, by Robert Park, MD

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.

The integrity of science rests on the willingness of scientists to expose new ideas and findings to the scrutiny of other scientists. Thus, scientists expect their colleagues to reveal new findings to them initially. An attempt to bypass peer review by taking a new result directly to the media, and thence to the public, suggests that the work is unlikely to stand up to close examination by other scientists.

2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.

The idea is that the establishment will presumably stop at nothing to suppress discoveries that might shift the balance of wealth and power in society. Often, the discoverer describes mainstream science as part of a larger conspiracy that includes industry and government. Claims that the oil companies are frustrating the invention of an automobile that runs on water, for instance, are a sure sign that the idea of such a car is baloney. In the case of cold fusion, Pons and Fleischmann blamed their cold reception on physicists who were protecting their own research in hot fusion.

3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.

Alas, there is never a clear photograph of a flying saucer, or the Loch Ness monster. All scientific measurements must contend with some level of background noise or statistical fluctuation. But if the signal-to-noise ratio cannot be improved, even in principle, the effect is probably not real and the work is not science.

Thousands of published papers in para-psychology, for example, claim to report verified instances of telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition. But those effects show up only in tortured analyses of statistics. The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn’t really there.

4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.

If modern science has learned anything in the past century, it is to distrust anecdotal evidence. Because anecdotes have a very strong emotional impact, they serve to keep superstitious beliefs alive in an age of science. The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn’t. Contrary to the saying, “data” is not the plural of “anecdote.”

5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.

There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed “alternative medicine” is part of that myth.

Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the output of modern scientific laboratories.

6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.

The image of a lone genius who struggles in secrecy in an attic laboratory and ends up making a revolutionary breakthrough is a staple of Hollywood’s science-fiction films, but it is hard to find examples in real life. Scientific breakthroughs nowadays are almost always syntheses of the work of many scientists.

7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.

Ugh, I’ve been writing so much that my right arm is permanently throbbing. Maybe I need one of those elastic braces that people wear for sports injuries. Writing can be a sport, can’t it?

The word count’s 7,106. This has to be a big weekend or I’ll fall behind. Don’t know why they make National Novel Writing Month in November — just about the busiest month of the year for me. They should make it March, where nothing’s happening!

Multiple intelligences…

You scored as Verbal/Linguistic. You have highly developed auditory skills, enjoy reading and writing and telling stories, and are good at getting your point across. You learn best by saying and hearing words. People like you include poets, authors, speakers, attorneys, politicians, lecturers and teachers.

Musical/Rhythmic		100%
Verbal/Linguistic		100%
Intrapersonal		86%
Bodily/Kinesthetic		61%
Visual/Spatial		57%
Interpersonal		54%
Logical/Mathematical		32%

The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences
created with QuizFarm.com

I’m off and running!
Well, walking.
Walking with a limp.
I mean, I’m mobile.
Almost full range of motion.
I’m scraping along the ground on my belly.
Could someone come over here and turn me upright?

Actually, 1713 words isn’t bad. You need 1,667 a day to stay exactly on track, since National Novel Writing Month requires 50,000 words in 30 days. I tried it in 2003 and didn’t get there, but I will this time!