Welcome to 2014 January 12, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, older son, personal, younger son.Tags: chores, cleaning, dissertation, goals, grad school, housekeeper, new years day, older son, resolutions, younger son
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Despite all of my good intentions, it’s taken a bit more to get back into my routine. The youngster went back to school on Monday. I was relieved not to be teaching this week (or this semester), but I had a paper deadline this week along with a lot of other anomalous stuff.
In particular, a friend of mine passed away at the beginning of the week. It’s made this week seem a bit surreal.
That’s given me an opportunity to think about my priorities, which was something I had started reflecting on over the break. I’m not one to make resolutions, but it’s good to reflect on goals. And nothing will make you think about your goals more than realizing they can be cut short.
My thesis has been weighing heavily on my mind. I definitely reaffirmed that I want to finish my PhD, but it’s been hard and frustrating this past year, particularly the past three to four months. I really anticipated being farther because I didn’t anticipate how rough the fall semester would end up being. So I’m working on getting my schedule set up to have more time to devote to that.
Realistically, that’s the one thing I’m really not happy about. It’s a big thing, so it’s not something as simple as, “I can put in 15 minutes a day on it.” But I’m making an effort to rearrange a few things, particularly with kid schedules, to facilitate getting more time on things.
I also want to be blogging regularly again. The holidays and grading threw an awful crimp in that one. One day isn’t a data point, but you need that data point to start a trend.
I’m happy to report that our housekeeping effort is going well. That is, the kids are doing a great job. I gave up on trying to have them get things done before the weekend. We just schedule a time for them to work on it and, when we tell them it’s time to, they do. (We’ve found that it seems like we can’t get to it every week, but we’re holding steady with every other week at least.) We pay them according to which jobs they do, and we match everything they earn with a deposit into their savings account. The house is staying cleaner than when we had a housekeeper, and I think we’re actually spending less.
This is actually much more about the kids than it is about the house, though. I’m really happy that they are both at a point where they are taking responsibility for their chores. I hate breathing down their neck about anything. I also really am happy about the fact that doing chores is one thing they do cooperatively. They have a system worked out – older boy does the tall stuff, younger boy does the floor stuff that older boy hates, etc. They worked it out themselves and, even better, they seem to have fun doing it.
At the same time, the older son is getting ready to go to college this fall. I anticipate that there will be a lot of changes despite his plans to live at home. I’m impressed that he’s trying to move forward cautiously and not bite off more than he can chew. I also have no idea how the big changes over the next couple years will affect the younger son, who quite adores his older brother.
I anticipate there will be a lot of bumps in the road this year, but I’m hoping that it will be uphill from here. I guess I’d rather start the year on a sad note so that I can look forward to how much better it will get.
She loves me more… November 22, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in older son, pets.Tags: Gigadog, older son, parenting, pets, teenagers
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Tonight, the older son jumped over Gigadog. I asked him to please step over her carefully. If he jumps over her, he could slip and miss her, and he’d fall on her. Having someone fall on her would likely freak her out, and she would bite him. This would leave me in a dilemma: I have an injured dog and an injured child. Who do I bring for medical care first?
I told the older son that I would likely bring Gigadog because she loves me more. He looked stunned.
“It’s not that I love her more, but she loves me more. She sits and pants and wags her tail when I get home. You do none of those things,” I told him.
“It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s that I just express it differently,” he responded.
“I don’t recognize the way you express it. It would be much better if you panted.”
I’m not sure *anyone* recognizes the way teenagers express affection toward their parents. Dogs are so much easier to read.
A useful exercise November 19, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, older son, teaching.Tags: effectiveness, evaluations, students, teaching
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Since I began teaching this class, I’ve had this nagging question in my head: is what I’m doing effective? I’ve contemplated inquiring as to whether anything changed in terms of retention or GPA of students who went through the class before versus after I started teaching. It would be good to track that as much as possible, so that I could see if changes in the class manifested in changes in those retention-type numbers, although I wonder if I would be able to evaluate micro-changes in the class that way given other issues seem to swamp data about student behavior. (It may just be me, but I’ve noticed that when the economy is good, more of my students seem to be interested. When it’s not good, I have a lot of students who are back in school because they think it’s the only way to get a better job or the students are very pessimistic. It seems like the attitude of all of the students get pushed in pulled in ways like that.) It might also be a good thing to put on my resume. Wouldn’t it be impressive if I could say something about improving retention in the dept. since taking over the class? Having quantitative data saying you’re an effective teacher certainly can’t hurt.
On the other hand, I’ve wondered if it was worth the time to do so or if the school would give me some reason why they couldn’t provide me with that kind of data. Or worse yet: what if I didn’t like what I saw? (It’s easy to attribute favorable changes to one’s efforts but seems hypocritical to evaluate negative changes as being out of one’s control.)
When I started teaching this class, which is supposed to be an academic skills class for freshmen, it was done as whatever each teacher wanted it to be. I imagine most people put a decent amount of effort into it, but there was one year that apparently didn’t go well. A former classmate told me that when he took the course (a decade ago?), the prof decided that, being engineers, they didn’t need academic help: they needed social skills. They spent the entire semester playing fantasy football. I wish I was kidding.
When I put the course together, I came up with “everything I wish I’d known as a freshman plus all this stuff on how to learn and study effectively (because I’d been reading a ton on learning disabilities because of older son) along with things I’ve observed my students really ought to know even if I knew those things at that age”. So, I jammed a lot of stuff into the course. And, as I said, I have no way of knowing how well it’s working as the only feedback I’ve had was student evals (which, I have to admit, have been much better than I anticipated).
At least, I didn’t until today. I had requested to have some upper-level engineering students come to my classes to talk about their experiences and answer questions. One student went through my class last year. At some point, she said, “I bet you all think this class is a waste of time.” She continued, saying how useful the class was in transitioning her from high school, where she didn’t have to work much in order to get good grades, to college where things were more challenging. She mentioned a couple of the project-type activities I had them do and said she’s using that information a lot in her upper-level classes.
I was surprised. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m hoping to hear, but I was surprised that she began discussing that unprompted. (I had only mentioned in introducing her that she was a former student.) It’s made me wonder how many other students have similar perceptions being a year or two into the program…and whether I need to rethink my view of trying to get concrete data.
October sucks October 13, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, family, older son, personal, teaching, work.Tags: college, family, family/work balance, NSF, older son, sports, stress, work
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I really am starting to dread October. Being in the midst of it, I understand why.
October is when *everything* happens. There’s no way to handle it but to keep going until the sheer exhaustion kicks in. For me personally, I have NSF proposals due. I am deep in the throes of teaching and grading. I have reports due and conference papers to prepare. My kids have all their various sports and other activities in full swing, meaning that we have activities going on 3 or 4 nights per week.
This year is definitely worse than last year because I’m still recovering from my medical fiasco last month, complete with lots of fun follow-up tests, and still am not able to engage in complete stress relief on a regular basis (i.e. running). Further, the older son is going through the college application process, which is generally more time consuming than either of us really likes at this point. I am hoping that these factors won’t be present in Octobers to come.
Half-way there, though. Just a couple more weeks, and things will ease off. One of the sports that both boys are in will be done until spring, NSF proposals will be over, most of the major grading I have will be done…and there will be leftover Halloween candy. As long as someone saves me a peanut butter cup, I’ll be fine.
To get to the other side… September 30, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, geology, older son, physics, teaching, younger son.Tags: humor, jokes, physics, students, teaching
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If anyone knows who made this comic, please let me know so I can credit them.
Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook may remember that I compiled a whole series of physics jokes. I was posting them daily for about two months. Some people loved them. I think a bunch of people also unfriended me because of it.
When I did this, I had an ulterior motive in mind: I wanted to tell them to my classes. I’ve found that students tend to listen better to teachers they think are likable. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the warm, fuzzy personality that many of my friends (particularly those in geology) have. I come across, sometimes, as a mean, nasty type.
And so the jokes…
They really do work. Students will loosen up and talk. They relax a bit. They smile. And most important, they don’t think I’m out to get them. Those endorphins do wonders.
The problem I’m having now is that so many of my jokes are physics related…and I’m teaching freshmen. While they all know about atoms and noble gases and protons, electrons, and neutrons, many of my jokes cover more esoteric topics. They give me blank stares when I talk about Heisenberg or Schroedinger or neutrinos…
There’s a part of me that would like to teach older students simply so that I have a more receptive audience. Or maybe my problem is that I’m teaching engineers and not physicists. Or maybe too many of them are from farms (see above comic).
But you, my dear reader, are a more receptive audience, right? And my kids…my kids know what neutrinos are…kind of. Maybe they’re just laughing at me because I sound funny when I talk about physics.
Incidentally, the punchline to the joke in the title, if you’re wondering, is, “Why did the tachyon cross the road?”
running update: 23 months September 22, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, older son, running.Tags: health, medication, Mike, running
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I went for a run today for the first time in a month. It was nice, particularly since I could actually feel my feet the whole time.
Yeah, that sounds strange, doesn’t it?
I haven’t run the past month because I ended up in the hospital. Some of you may recall that about a year ago, I had a bad reaction to some medication. Some of my doctors have been dubious that this was the case, however, given the reaction was extremely rare. (By extremely rare, I mean I-managed-to-find-a-whole-three-medical-case-studies-on-pubmed rare.) I was given the medication again, and this time I had a similar reaction, only it didn’t stop when I stopped the meds…and I ended up spending some time in the hospital. Some of my (two) readers may have noticed I didn’t post much a couple weeks ago. That’d be why.
As an aside, while the hospital food wasn’t all that bad, I was very ticked that they put me on a ‘heart healthy’ diet despite my complete lack of metabolic disorder. I suspect I may have gotten some gluten contamination while there, as well. My husband has been informed that any future trips to the hospital will require him to cook and bring me food, which he thankfully said he’d do…although it may just be a lot of gluten free egg rolls and scrambled eggs. :-)
The good news is that things are getting better…I can stand long enough to teach my classes without getting dizzy and, as I said, feel my feet again…most of the time.
Needless to say, this is putting a bit of a damper on my race plans. I had planned to run a 10k next month with the older son, but I’m trying to take it slow. I’ll probably just try the 5k. I was initially rather upset that I’ve been running for almost two years now and am having to start over. However, after my run this morning, I came to an important realization: I ran more than I had planned because it felt good to get out and move. My body knows what it’s doing now, so I’m really not starting over…just giving myself some space.
Things I never thought I’d say to my kids September 10, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in gifted, homeschooling, older son, teaching.Tags: classes, english, languages, older son, teaching
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There are a million things I never thought I’d say to my kids. Truth be told, I’ve avoided a lot of them. Today, however, I found myself telling the older son something I imagine would have made my 17-year-old self would cringe. Or even hurl.
The older son is taking some classes through correspondence this year, mostly English, to finish up the classes he needs for college admissions. We’ve managed to do most other things at home, but English was one thing I never bothered with because he’s an avid reader. And by avid, I mean he devours books like candy. He’s also done exceptionally well on any sort of standardized testing in this realm. I didn’t want to waste his time by pushing stuff on him when he was doing pretty well in his own right.
He got his first homework assignment back from one of the classes and was reading it over while we had some lunch. He gave me this look…the same one you get when someone tells you a joke that you can see the humor in but don’t particularly think it’s all that funny because it’s just weird. You know what look I mean.
The comments on a couple of the problems were simply horrible. As in, the teacher had rewritten his answers so that they were entirely dumbed down. It’s not that these answers were vague or wrong or anything; he chose words that made the point and his answers were succinct. The rewritten answers were long and meandering but weren’t any more clear. I called Mike and read the rewritten answers.
“You’re kidding me.”
Sadly, no.
So I found myself saying something that I know I would have never, ever believed in my own youth: “You just need to get through the class and pass it so you can go to college. College will be better.”
It makes me really sad that my son, who loves language and literature, is going to have to endure a class where he was hoping to be able to think about and discuss literary works on a really grown-up level. Sadly, it looks like he’s going to have to keep it light for his teacher. I could only reiterate that this is why I feel that high school is a waste of his time.
Wordless Wednesday: Admiring the lake August 21, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, older son, photography, younger son.Tags: itasca, Mike, older son, pictures, wordless wednesday, younger son
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Making your mom proud (if she’s a physicist) August 19, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in gifted, homeschooling, older son, physics, science.Tags: homeschooling, older son, physics, science
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One of the classes that the older boy is doing this year is physics. Rather than give him something very math intensive, I instead chose to have him study from Paul Hewitt’s Conceptual Physics text. It’s a book I came across after I’d already had a couple years of physics, and I regret not having had that book first. It does a wonderful job of explaining how physics works and what the concepts mean without drowning the reader in math.
When I picked up the older son after his study session the other day, he began talking about how imbalances in forces are what cause objects to accelerate. For instance, a car will move forward when the force created by the engine to move the car forward exceeds the forces of friction, gravity (if it’s on a hill), etc. After listening, I asked the question, “What happens then if the forces become balanced?”
I fully expected him to say that the object would stop moving. I really did. This is what the vast majority of students in my physics labs assumed when asked that question. Their assumption is that the forces must always be out of balance if the object is moving.
His response:
It would really depend on if the object were moving or still to begin with. If it was moving, it would continue to do so, and if it wasn’t moving, it would continue to stay still.
My response was to yell, “Yes!!!!!” at the top of my lungs and pump my fist. I’ve been proud of my son many times over the past few years, but few things make me beam as much as displaying a clear understanding of Newtonian mechanics.
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I am a feminist because I have sons August 25, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, feminism, older son, societal commentary, younger son.Tags: feminism, older son, stereotypes, younger son
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One thing that should make any mother a feminist is having a son go through school. Having two boys makes it doubly bad.
“What is ‘it’?”, you may ask.
In my experience, boys deal with an excess of stereotyping that is just as pervasive as what girls deal with and often times is more rigid in it’s ‘enforcement’. I’ve had teachers complain because both of my sons played with girls. I’ve lived in fear that my kids will get picked on because they like nail polish or My Little Pony or Dora or pink things (discussed here). I’ve had to deal with parents who think it’s inappropriate that I let my little boys cry in public rather than getting them to suck it up. And oh so much bullying.
I came across a graphic on Facebook this weekend that nicely sums up the situation:
This is not a realization that came easily to me. When it finally hit me was when the older son was in kindergarten. I was taking a sociology class on gender roles, and I was lucky enough to have a teacher who focused a significant portion of the class on male gender roles. She described how men are raised to be unemotional and competitive. She described how forcing them to be stoic could later cause problems when emotionally bonding with a partner or how they can be depressed if they can no longer be involved in competitive activities (primarily sports) when they get older, especially if their identity centered around their participation in these activities.
The class was an eye-opener for me. Having spent so long defending myself against stereotypes about women in science, I had really not had the opportunity to observe how stereotypes were affecting the men around me. I can certainly appreciate where some of them are coming from now, though I still need help now and again to understand why I perceive circumstances a lot differently from some of the men around me.
It wasn’t long after that I got the first comment about the older son playing with girls. (At nearly the same age, the same thing happened with the younger son.) It was fairly apparent that neither of the boys was as rough and tumble as some of the others, and they preferred interactive/imaginative play with girls to dog-piling with the boys. I was more disturbed that the teachers thought this was a problem.
Having one child who has nearly reached adulthood, I feel that reacting to these teachers by saying, “So?!” was definitely the right thing to do. The older son now has an amazing ability to pick out stereotypes of both genders and explain exactly why they’re ridiculous. It’s impressive, and I hope it’s helped him to feel comfortable with himself and not like he has to adhere to some societal norm that’s simply not him.
Being comfortable yourself and not having to adhere to someone else’s expectations is exactly what feminism is about, and it’s just as important that boys are able to break out of stereotypes as girls.