Cognition & Ally Homework

This week has been an exciting one for my family. Some bad, some good, but stressful all the same.

One of the concerns I had with The 4-Hour Workweek, is the recommendation for a low-information diet. I've certainly seen, in the past four months, how internet and social media, while they have their place, can become a time-suck.

My concern, though, is that ignorance often enables the -isms. It is a privilege to not know about what life can be like on the other side of the tracks.

Anthony de Mello tells a story about two young fish, swimming in the ocean. An old fish swims past them, and asks them "How's the water?" The young fish look at each other, and ask "What's water?"

Without awareness, without education, without understanding, we behave in passively racist ways. It takes education, awareness, practice to change from passive racism to active anti-racism. Yesterday, there was an excellent guest-post published: Homework for Those Seeking to be Allies.

I've also seen discussion of a Young Mormon Feminists group working to actively learn and deconstruct white supremacy. A similar group is being established for the Astronomy community. I would love to see similar groups for Engineering communities.

There are *elements* of a low-information diet that I agree with, that are connected to human decision-making. The science of cognition is sometimes discussed in terms of clothing:

• The Science Of Simplicity: Why Successful People Wear The Same Thing Every Day
• Why Successful Women CAN Wear The Same Thing Every Day!
• Why I Wear the Exact Same Thing to Work Every Day

And since I am stressing today, my own cognition for writing is reduced. I'm not sure how many blog posts I'll write next week.

Ripples of Doubt

I have been writing about media, leadership, and culture, and the ways in which Gaslighting and similar  #AbuserDynamics are used to maintain power and control. Much of the recent conversation about Abuser Dynamics and their connection to 'isms, is owed to the black women and women of color who began that hashtag.

Yesterday's conversation with Astro/Physicists and Science Communicators brought up 2013's #RipplesofDoubt conversation (Storify by Karen James). Trigger warning for sexual harrassment in the post below.

While I read and re-Tweeted from the hashtag in 2013, I didn't share my own experiences. One of the reasons I didn't share my own experiences, is that my experiences in undergraduate and graduate education and my experiences with work have been TAMER than what I grew up with.

[2:36 pm Update] In case the relevance of my experience is not readily apparent to those who wish to promote gender diversity in STEM, AAUW has a report, Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School, which discusses statistics and similar experiences for 21st-Century adolescents. [/Update]

I went into college knowing I wasn't physically attractive. Therein, lies the story.

About Layoffs

Not surprisingly, I've been thinking about the fact that my father was the age I am now, when he was separated from the Air Force. In part, my memories are triggered by conversations on Twitter, about South Bend's argument over a casino, and this article by the Boston Globe, about being poor at an Ivy League school.

This may surprise some people, but Purdue University is not actually in the Ivy League. It is a state school in Indiana, part of the Big Ten. It is still a big-name school for engineering.

The rest of this post draws on a post I wrote 4 years ago, on my old blog. I guess I haven't gone into my story much in the past year or two. On one hand, moving on is a good thing, it means I don't need to re-tell it. On the other hand, it also means that new readers may not be aware of where I came from.

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I was 15 that summer, when my dad came up for promotion again. As a military officer, he had two chances to promote up before he was discharged. This was the second time, and he was not promoted.  That was also the summer when Mom was expecting my Dear Brother #3 (DB3).

MOOCs and Planning my Year

I received my C++ Developer certificate in the mail yesterday, from the classes I had been taking through UAH.

I also made a video this month for YouTube, demonstrating my Lego Mindstorms bumpbot. I've received feedback that I plan to incorporate into a re-do. I'm considering a series of these videos, with Mindstorms robots, then Arduino projects, and then Raspberry Pi, as STEM outreach.

I went back to Codecademy and finished up their Python training. The discussion board listed several MOOCs that we could take to continue that work, so next I went over to Coursera and EdX. I found a number of programming and tech-related courses to sign up for and brush up on skills.

Since most of the MOOCs didn't start right away, I've moved on to Java on Codecademy. I figure if I do one segment per day of Codecademy, and one section of the MOOCs, I should be able to get the work done.

Continuous Learning

This is a very old song that had a major impact on me when I was very young. One of the reasons I have learned as many different things that I have, is because I'm always looking for new ways to grow.

Forbes: Why The Best Leaders Are Full-Time Learners

Here are some ways to continue learning for free or cheap, using online resources:

E pluribus unum

The title of this post, "E pluribus unum," is written on the ribbon the bald eagle carries, on the Great Seal of the United States. The constitutional committee suggested it as the motto for our country on July 4, 1776. (source)

It means, "Out of many, one," and it was the de facto motto of the United States until Congress officially adopted "In God we trust" in 1956.

The McCarthy era, which was about the same time that the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

If it wasn't already clear from last Friday's post on Democratic Change, I believe our United States were founded on the principal of religious pluralism. While I read arguments that the Constitution was written to exclude ethnic pluralism (with the awful assessment of slaves as 3/5ths of a person), I believe in Civic Republicanism, that Civil Rights belong to ALL Americans, not merely to white people.

How do you spend your time?

Now that my days are largely my own, this is becoming a significant question, that factors into the issues of time, money, gender.

As an undergraduate, I didn't have a computer of my own. I used the campus computer labs to write papers, code homework assignments. Most of the labs, I worked with hardware during the lab period, and not outside of it. In fact, the one exception to that "rule" was EE 207, Digital Logic, where purchasing the hardware was a required part of the class, and I could bring it home (or to the Band Lounge) and work on it anywhere.

Big City - Small Town

In a previous post, I began the story of my own understanding of diversity and social justice.  I said then that I was not sure when or if I would be ready to tell part 2.  However, I have had time in the past seven weeks to think about it, and to begin to tell the story.  This is turning into a longer series than I thought.

As a child, I wished I grew up in a small town, the kind of place where I might have a teacher who had taught one or both of my parents, where aunts and uncles were around, and where people knew who I / my family was.  Not that we needed to be famous, popular, or rich.  Just, I wanted to be in a place where my family belonged.

My sophomore year of high school, my father was discharged from the Air Force.  Dad finished his degree (a second Bachelor's), and over the summer they began job hunting in earnest.  When he was hired for a job in rural Indiana, we moved.

Culture Shock

Teach For America's Civil War

Teach For America's Civil War: This article comes from a friend on Facebook. I think it raises...

via Tumblr http://stargazer412.tumblr.com/post/55008330358

Needs and Wants

I was starting to think about an article about needs vs. wants, but some of my recent browsing has adjusted that train of thought. 

A couple of years ago on my old blog, I wrote a post titled Second-Generation White Collar.  I see that the link hasn't stayed with that post, it's based on a CNN Money blog post, "I'm First Generation White Collar."

As I start to pick up the threads of my story again, this becomes more relevant.  Because when I was *just* a college student, I could side-eye the Greeks, and classmates who spoke of "luxuries" as "necessities."   I could feel frustrated by the co-op interviewers who seemed to put too much stock in the clothes I wore.

Patience is a virtue: A follow-up on preschool bullying

Almost two years ago, the parent's newsletter at preschool had a note asking the parents to talk with their children about bullying, there had been a few problems at the school.  I write a little about the journey on my previous blog (here: book reviews and reference articles and here: Memoirs, Pretty, and about fighting back).

Life moves on...

I had started writing the series of how I got to where I am.  Most recently, I was writing about my first semester as a cooperative education student (aka, "co-op").

My Story on Federal Student Loans

This is adapted from my entry to the President Obama Tumblr regarding Federal Student Loans.

My parents are both first-generation college graduates.  My mother’s older brothers and sister went to college, but my father was the first college graduate in his family.

I grew up knowing that I and my siblings were expected to go to college.  And knowing that we would have to figure out our own way to get there.  My parents raised four of us on an Air Force Captain’s salary.  In order to send us to Catholic schools, we grew up without cable television, eating out was a rare occasion, we rarely traveled, and much of our furniture was purchased from thrift stores.

Second Chances: Cooperative Education

I had interviewed for cooperative education positions in the spring of my freshman year of college, with no luck. One of the difficulties I discussed seemed to be proving my interest in aerospace on the resume, as an electrical engineering major.

So in the fall of my Sophomore year, I made a few changes to my co-op resume.  I added the Russian language I had begun to study.

Giving Arts a Chance: Senior year

We moved again, the summer between my junior and senior years.  My father's contract was not renewed, so he spent the summer looking for a new job.

I missed a lot of the job search.  My aunt & uncle in Oceanside, California were preparing to move, and needed someone to house-sit for a few weeks.  So for the price of a plane ticket, I spent the summer with them.


He found another job in South Bend.

Giving Arts a Chance: Junior year

So we moved from Nebraska back  to Indiana.  The place that is home, but not mine.  My mother's family has lived in Indiana since at least 1920.   My father's side of the family has been on the Indiana/Ohio border for about 200 years.

Mom grew up visiting her grandmother on Sundays, and playing with her cousins regularly.  I was lucky to see my grandparents once a year, and my cousins less than that.

We moved to a small town in northwestern Indiana.  Starke County, just north of Pulaski County.

I don't recall registering for classes, so I am guessing my parents registered me.  I'm not sure why I didn't take band that year.  Did I consciously choose not to?  Did they simply forget to sign me up?  Or did it have activity fees that they balked at?  It might not have fit the schedule that I had.  Regardless, I didn't take band.

Endless winters when the dreams would freeze

The summer between 8th grade and high school, was the summer I went to Florida.  I wasn't sure it would actually happen.  Truthfully, living in Nebraska, where the oceans were multiple days drive away?  We didn't travel that far, and I had never seen an ocean before.  Florida and California both seemed like exotic locations.

But I had an aunt & uncle living there.  They had a 3-year-old, and another on the way.  I could buy a round-trip ticket, and be their au pair for the summer.  Eight weeks, and I only got yelled at once.  (I don't count my cousin, she was only three.)  It seemed like heaven.

Giving Arts a Chance - Sophomore Year

Continuing my series of thinking about arts in my life.  My Sophomore year of High School, I was actually enrolled in band.  We had two bands: Intermediate and Advanced.  I was in the Intermediate Band.  This was the year I learned that the only other clarinet player in the school was a Senior.  I got to know her a little better that year, as the only other clarinet player.

Then again, she was out in front of everybody a lot that year.  She was selected as Mother McAuley for the senior's Mercy Day play, she got the lead in Godspell, the Fall Musical.  The school did that with an all-girl cast, it was cool.  And she was the lead for Cinderella, the spring play.  I was so in awe of her.  We exchanged pictures towards the end of the year, she wrote a note asking me to take care of Mrs. Jensen the next year.  I wish I could have done that.

Giving Arts a Chance - Freshman year

In my last post I wrote a little about the arts offerings at my first high school, and I thought I would elaborate on the classes I mentioned, the plays my friends were in.

Being the only student from my elementary school to go to that high school, I didn't walk into school with friends.  The day that we had class retreats, one of the Freshman activities was to make friendship bracelets, and then give them to someone in the class.  I guess the teachers figured out that nobody knew me well enough to give me one, so Mrs. Wells (my Academic Advisor, who was there that day) made up a bracelet and when we did presentations, she gave it to me.

Intro to Arts was required for all the Freshmen.  The school operated on a quarter/semester system, so the class was divided into four groups, and each quarter we rotated to the next class.

Choosing a high school

As I reached 7th grade, I wasn't sure what my parent's plans were for high school.  I knew money was getting tighter as my parents went back to school, and they now had 4 of us in Catholic school.  I half expected them to switch me to the public schools after I graduated from St. Mary's.

My mother did that, she went to a Catholic primary school and then to Hamilton Southeastern High School.  One of her brothers was chosen to attend a Catholic high school.  I wonder, now, if that influenced her.  If Mom wanted me to have an opportunity that she was denied.  I know sometimes I want that for my son.

My parents asked for my input.  If I were to go to a Catholic school, where did I want to go?