In 2012, Wikipedia celebrated a milestone achieved by a shy, frugal Indiana man named Justin Knapp: he had edited parts of Wikipedia one million times (in only seven years). For his extensive, competent efforts, he had earned … zero dollars. "Editing these projects is relaxing and rewarding," he explained. Wikipedia is 60 times larger than the next largest encyclopedia (according to Wikipedia). The English version has between 4 and 5 million articles. Printed out, the English version would be contained in almost 2,000 Britannica-sized books. It is the largest source of knowledge in human history, and it is almost entirely created by volunteers. Wikipedia is the product of a collaboration between Jimmy Wales (pictured) and Larry Sanger, a philosophy professor. Both had loved Fredrick Hayek's Use of Knowledge in Society, which argued that knowledge is decentralized. While working on a for-profit encyclopedia, they were introduced to some of the concepts of "extreme" programming, particularly the idea of open source collaboration through software called "wikis." The extreme programmers divided the world into two models. The first, the "Cathedral," are projects that are created by an exclusive group (a company, university professors). The second, and to them, far superior, is the "Bazaar," which are projects that are open-source. Oceans of optimistic ink have been spilled about the open source movement, and there have been some successes: wikipedia, reddit, and Linux are examples. There have also been many failures, often not discussed. Why do some open source projects succeed while others fail? A forum like "Ask Historians" on reddit - where professional historians continually respond to any question with well-written, detailed explanations and cited sources, all for free - hints at the difference: there is a deep human desire to teach.
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Twenty years ago this month, the president of Rwanda's airplane was shot down. Within hours, or even minutes, of his death, a shadowy group of "Hutu Power" extremists carried out the beginnings of a well-orchestrated plan. Roadblocks were set up around the capital and moderate Hutu leaders were murdered. The radio began rousing people to kill the "cockroaches" - the Hutu extremists' term for Tutsis. Three months later, close to a million Tutsis were murdered, most with machetes. Half a million women were raped. Horribly, close to a million participated actively in the genocide. The international community, famously, was either useless or shockingly complicit (French military forces aided the Hutu government). Great stories of heroism have emerged: a hotel manager, memorialized by Hollywood in "Hotel Rwanda," sheltered over a thousand Tutsis. An officer from Senegal, Mbaye Diagne (memorialized, unfortunately, by almost no one) a member of the UN's horribly underfunded peacekeeping force, saved hundreds of lives through trickery and sheer bravery. While those stories are important and inspiring, it is equally important to tell the story of the leaders involved in the genocide, both heroes and villains. Paul Kagame (pictured) commanded a rebel army, the RPF, which at the time was stationed in Uganda. It was horribly equipped and without a permanent home. Kagame transformed it into a highly disciplined, highly motivated, highly educated force. His focus on educating his troops was unusual. The army was a paragon of law and order wherever it was stationed. His invasion of Rwanda was tactically brilliant. He faced a well-financed military twice the size of his army, (and included a French contingent!) and still won handily. His battles are apparently studied at West Point. He has made the difficult transition from rebel to ruler: he is currently the President of Rwanda. But his reign has been controversial. Many praise him for helping the economy of "an impossible country" grow to be one of the strongest in Africa. Others fault him for human rights restrictions and for his invasion of the Congo. Nevertheless, Kagame has received a fair amount of international attention for his work. What is shocking is that the mastermind of the genocide is almost completely unknown. All the other atrocities of the twentieth century have perpetrators that are household names: Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic. But Theoneste Bagosora, who planned and executed the evil massacres of 1994, rots in prison, uncomprehended. picture credit: ITU/J.Ohle Sports psychology had its origins about 100 years ago in Germany and the United States. Its growth in both countries was in fits and starts. The early discoveries are so well known that they are ho-hum: competition makes people work harder, reaction times and reflexes matter, and (from an ornithologist!) the pattern of habit formation and skill development follows a similar pattern, for all skills. It was the Cold War and the Olympic rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union that made the discipline grow in the 1960s and 70s. Here, the discoveries seemed ripped out of popular education literature from the last ten years. The writing on mental toughness and self-efficacy is suspiciously similar to all the recent talk about "grit." Much of the sports psychologists' research into team dynamics and coaching sounds a whole lot like modern organizational psychology. What is interesting is that sports psychology had a chilly initial reception in the academy. It was not "scientific." (How do you replicate the pressure of the Olympic 100 meter final in a lab?) A sports psychologist retorted that most "scientific" psychology has validity that only extends to the antiseptic climate of other laboratories. Confining psychology to experimental conditions robs it of vast, interesting and important aspects of the human experience. A motto of sports psychologists became, "No research without action, and no action without research." As long as education is taking insights from sports psychology, a few recommendations for other, common techniques employed by practitioners:
"He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary." - Seneca The Roman stoics talked frequently about fear. Stoic mentors would encourage their pupils to face fear head on. According to the stoics, there were three main fears: fear of death, fear of slavery, and fear of exile. The stoics recommended thinking about your own mortality daily. It was the ultimate truth, and could happen at any time. The stoics formulated an adage that was the reverse of Thomas Jefferson's: "we all die equal." Many artists and leaders in the previous 2000 years, including Leonardo da Vinci and Ben Franklin, followed this advice, and would carry "memento mori" objects. At first glance, the last two fears - of slavery and exile - seem like outdated relics. Indeed, the stoics were talking about these fears literally. While tutoring a crown prince, the philosopher Plato was almost sold into slavery. Seneca, after an affair with the emperor's sister, was exiled to the distant island of Corsica. But are these fears outdated? Exile is an archaic form of ostracism, and many of us fear that on a daily basis. In fact, many of the most crippling negative emotions, such as embarrassment, are tied to this fear. The pursuit of status and other similar vices, like greed, are also tied to this fear. And what is slavery but loss of freedom? Many people hate their jobs, or even the idea of having a "real" job, because it makes them feel trapped; others flee relationships for similar reasons. It would be impossible to summarize the stoic approach to conquering these fears in a short space, other than to say that they advised thinking about your own thoughts, and how the thoughts themselves create a lot of pain. The stoics would also regularly discuss epic poetry, like the Iliad, and draw lessons. How do you confront fear? How do you tell your students to confront fear? The most effective way to get a middle school student ready for high school is to take them to visit colleges. At that point in a student's life, they are sick of taking orders and doing busywork, and are ready to make decisions. Unfortunately, all to often, a middle school student's decision is to NOT work. Visiting colleges, even something as simple as looking at the dorms and the cafeteria, shows them what awaits hard work. Leapfrog motivation, in which you consider the "next-next" step, is not just limited to middle school students. Anyone can benefit. High schools students can get ready for college by visiting places of work. And it is not just students that can benefit. Lack of motivation is not simply a lack of quotable quotes in your mind; it is a lack of perspective. It is easy to think of examples of leapfrog motivation: want to avoid a midlife crisis? Get traveling and taking risks in your 20s and 30s. Want to be surrounded by grandchildren when you are 80, boring them with stories? Well Teddy Roosevelt was a severe asthmatic as a child. His attacks were so severe at night that they would blend with his dreams and cause near death visions. At some point in his childhood, he famously embraced "the strenuous life" and started by remaking his body. He developed an iron willpower, learned to box and lift weights. Throughout his life as a cowboy, rough rider, and President, he was renowned for his boundless energy and courage. He seems to have inspired "Chuck Norris" stories avant-la-lettre: in one, he was walking up to give a speech when he was shot by a would-be assassin. The bullet penetrated the bible he had in his front pocket and lodged into his chest. He stood up, gave a two hour speech, and then went to the hospital. Some versions of the story have him starting the speech holding up the bloody bible and announcing, "You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose!" John F. Kennedy was sick throughout high school, with a "blood illness." He was originally enrolled at Princeton and had to drop out due to his sickness; his father took him to Europe for a year to heal and then wrote the Harvard admissions to get him enrolled there. Young pictures of him look sickly. As a senator, and later as president, JFK was famous for his vigor (vigah?). He discussed physical fitness in numerous speeches; critics, like Ayn Rand, did not deny his vigor but instead tried to use it against him, as evidence of his thirst for power. He exercise frequently, to clear his mind, during the Cuban missile crisis. Stories of his sickly childhood only emerged later. Augustus Caesar, the founder of the Roman Empire, and a leader so influential that his contemporaries practically forgot that they had grown up in a republic, was also sickly in his youth. He was an unimpressive soldier, suffered from typhoid fever, and preferred writing poetry and reading plays. The assassination of his adoptive father, Julius, seemed to galvanize him and he won a series of impressive victories over his rival, Marc Antony. Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, whose influence was everywhere in the early Roman Empire, from plays, to business, to governing Rome, to tutoring Emperors, to Stoic philosophy, suffered from asthma and other illnesses his whole life. As he writes, "If you meet sickness in a sensible manner, do you really think you are achieving nothing? War and the battlefront are not the only spheres in which proof is to be had of a spirited and fearless character … [make] the fight with illness a good one." "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me." - Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln's struggles with "melancholy" are well documented by his contemporaries. He told an early colleague, who found him funny and sociable, that whenever he was alone, his "hypos" would overcome him to such an extent that he never dared carry a pocketknife, out of fear that he would kill himself. John Quincy Adams, the sixth president and son of John Adams, the second president, discussed his depression at length in his diaries. He said his parents had put unreasonable expectations on him. Many of John Adam's contemporaries, particularly his friends from school, describe him in ways that are consistent with clinical depression. Health and personality in those days were thought to be linked to various bodily fluids; his friend described how his studies "corrupted" his "blood and juices." It is impossible to diagnose the presidents with any real validity, but various historians suspect between ten and fifteen presidents suffered from depression at significant points in their lives. That is a whopping 20 to 35%, and includes Jefferson, Madison, Wilson, Coolidge, and Eisenhower. All too many teenagers view depression as a sign of weakness. They would do well to notice that many of our greatest leaders struggled with depression, and perhaps, as is thought about Lincoln, look at it as a potential source of wisdom. "Love is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love." -Joseph Campbell Joseph Campbell, the famous mythologist, traced the history of love through myths and stories from cultures around the world and throughout history. He came up with a shocking thesis: romantic love, as we understand it today, was invented in the 12th century, by the Troubadours in France. The ancient conceptions of love are familiar: eros is the physical love that underlies romantic love, and cultures around the world celebrated it or sanctioned it in various ways. Agape is the moral form of love, in which you love your neighbor and help people. But the modern form of romantic love did not exist in ancient times. Marriage, of course, had existed, but it was generally arranged. Various societies had various degrees of formality about how they arranged their marriages, but the marriage was a product of the society's wishes. Campbell emphasizes that many of these arranged marriages had loyalty and fulfillment, but they were different. The Troubadours celebrated individual choice, that people were free to fall in love with who they wanted. The love stories that the Troubadours told feature lovers struck like lightning with passion, and choosing each other despite the disapproval of their parents, even to the point of accepting death. Campbell points out an important theme in most of these stories of romantic love: rebellion. Romantic love was a rebellion against the established order. The word, amor, used to designate this love is an inverse of Roma, or Rome: all that represented authority. Happy Valentine's Day, rebels. "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" - Walt Whitman In 1815, after escaping exile on the island of Elba, Napoleon was able to put together an army by walking from village to village in southern France and convincing the farmers to join him in retaking the throne. The King, in Paris, heard of his return and dispatched a regiment to kill him. When the regiment arrived, Napoleon rode out alone before them, within firing range, and delivered a short speech of such power and charisma that the soldiers turned on their commanders, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" They overthrew the King soon after. Certain historians wax poetic about Napoleon's unequalled public speaking prowess. Earlier in his career, he had attempted to address a political audience, and collapsed from the fear of public speaking. This was not the only contradiction in his personality: he would often march energetically with his troops on a campaign, shouting encouragement and endearing himself to his men. Other times, he would be listless and sullen and could barely interact with people. A former secret service agent published a tell-all about his years in the Clinton White House. His "revelation" was that Bill Clinton was not the gregarious, charming, outgoing person he appeared to be; he was often listless and sullen, and would stare off into space. We have a desire to "diagnose" the characteristics of leaders and then hopefully instill those traits in ourselves or our students. But most of the remarkable leaders in history were hard to pin down: they exhibited a diversity of personality. Certain psychologists believe that the human brain evolved from various subselves: one for interacting with friends, one for interacting with competitors, one for dealing with our children, one for winning status, and another for dealing with romantic partners. Assigning a single number to assess ourselves on a trait, like "extraversion," is nonsense. What is becoming scary is that certain half-baked theories of success ("leaders are extraverted") could easily infect our education system. Shouldn't we encourage our students to see themselves more accurately, as Walt Whitman said, "containing multitudes?" "Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part." - Nassim Taleb A friend works in a school with two principals; apparently, the two get along famously and the school is extremely well run. The friend speculated that all schools should have dual principals. I asked, "What if they did not get along? What if one or both were incompetent?" Dual principals is an excellent illustration of what economists call "high variance structures." If it works out well, dual principals could be better than one principal. But if it turns out poorly, the school will be much worse off. In the private sector, good ideas are automatically rewarded. If a dual-CEO company worked out well, the company would reap the benefits. If it failed, the company would suffer. But in the public sector, crappy ideas endure. Failures do not automatically disappear, especially if they are politically popular. Attach the term "creative" to anything in education, and it will be accepted. "Creative" math sounds excellent, why not spread it to the entire curriculum? Especially if "studies" show that it has better results? Optimistic education reformers will often picture young, charismatic educators implementing their reforms. A good heuristic for education reformers would also to imagine Milton (pictured above) implementing your idea. Would it be a bit better than the status quo? Then do it. But if it would be much worse, avoid it. |
AuthorI'm an entrepreneur and I teach math, history, economics, and fitness. I'm looking for arguments. Archives
November 2019
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