Bricolage

"If you don't have the right equipment for the job, you just have to make it yourself."

–MacGyver

Well, this might be the most difficult blog post for me to write yet.  My office-mate from graduate school and one of my closest friends, Dave Conz, died last week.  When something like that happens you end up thinking a lot about the person's life and what it meant, to you and to others.  Dave offered so much to this world.  He had a doctorate in sociology, a master's degree in humanities, and a bachelor's degree in aerospace studies.  He was a pilot, a motorcycle mechanic, a hobby farmer, a dancer, a welder, a drummer, a skateboarder.  He spoke German.  He made biodiesel and beer from scratch.  And so much more.  Perhaps his biggest contribution intellectually was identifying the constraints and opportunities in modern society to combine a bunch of random ideas and things together to create something extraordinary (per the MacGyver quote above- one of Dave's favorites).  In a lot of ways this is what we are trying to do with the Applied Social Science program- getting students to the point where they combine all the random things they learn in a meaningful and consequential way.  Sociologists (and others) call this "bricolage", and while there is considerable scholarship on this topic I want to take some time ruminating on it in my own way.

The utility of the coin flip?

Recently Freakonomics guru Steven Levitt announced a new research project of his on strategic decision making.  He argues that when we really cannot make a definitive decision between two things then the only logical choice is to flip a coin.  With that he launched a new website that is dedicated to Freakonomics Experiments.  You send in your decision that you cannot make, flip a coin, let them know your outcome, and then they check in with you a couple of times in the future to find out how that decision turned out for you.  I am really curious what they find out.  I think this is fascinating, but perhaps not for the reason Levitt does.  I believe it's fascinating because it disregards the role of emotion in that decision, which reflects a problem with the role of emotion for decision making in modern society.

The Productivity of the Waterfront and Two Hearted Ales

I'll let the secret out now: I spend my happy hours at the Waterfront Bar and Grill with colleagues in the social science department.  Regularly.  We like the atmosphere and the food.  Sitting outside in the summer is nice, even with the algal bloom off the lake.  And they always have Bell's Two Hearted Ale (a Michigan IPA) on tap.  However, what is most important to us is we talk about work.  And we really love doing so.  We actually get a ton of program planning done and classroom exercises created.  To me, this illustrates the importance of our social relationships to our jobs.

The Importance of "The Ponder"

We have a person in our department who is a wonderful historian and teacher.  Let's call him Labid Scheim.  His first reaction to external stimuli is typically to "ponder".  He uses that precise word.  I was originally a bit critical of his persistence to ponder.  Alliteration aside, my concern was that such pondering may constrain an immediate effort to get something done when we really need as many people as possible instrumentally driving our program and department forward.  This is certainly not unique to him- many professors in our department and around the country take this approach.  Consequently, it feels like we do not have an instrumentally productive enough division of labor to be efficient as a department.  But then again, maybe Dr. Scheim offers us a reminder of the dangers of pursuing outcomes "efficiently"...

Belonging, Education, and Civil Society

I want to bring up an interesting study out of Stanford to talk about the role of educators as productive members of civil society.

Walton and Fisk (a psychologist and sociologist, respectively) found that women perform far better in traditionally male disciplines (math and engineering) when they are made to feel like they belong, that they "fit in" with those disciplines.  Essentially when women are around sexist men who make them feel like they should try fitting into more typically female disciplines (writing, for example), women tend to do worse in their math and engineering performances.  In addition, when women hear uplifting stories about how well women do in math and engineering, they will feel like they belong and perform better.  Part of this might be because they will work harder to learn math and engineering, and part of this might be the simple confidence boost that gets them to productively use the knowledge they already have in their brains. Either way, feeling like you belong really matters to how well you will perform at something, especially if you've been told before that you do not belong (in either subtle or overt ways).

A Story of Education, Part II

As you can imagine, the rant on Part I is really what you can almost feel as an on-the-ground consequences for teachers.  And it is certainly not sustainable.  That quote is from a high quality teacher.  She is not perfect.  However, she does not need to be perfect, because it would be ridiculous to suggest that all (or, in fact, any) teachers could be. They especially cannot be perfect if you evaluate them by narrow outcomes that must be achieved not by them but by the (sometimes) dozens of students they teach at a time, students who each feel different constraints on their lives. These constraints are made even more illogical and insurmountable when considering the lack of resources flowing to education.

So, my question for those who are knowledgeable about such constraints- what are they?  Let's see if we can map a realistic theoretical and empirical picture of what needs to be taken into consideration for meaningful public education policy.  

Secondly, how might we get there?  Let's see if we can map that out too.  

I dont mean to be too formulaic in this, as that might be part of our problem (too much positivism!).  But I think it would be good to get the best general knowledge we have out there so this blog can offer a nice primer for those interested in applying social science to education.

A Story of Education, Part I

Virginia has decided that teachers were overpaid for not producing adequate results.  Well, not all of Virginia.  Just a few in power.

The ideology is simple, actually.  No Child Left Behind just needs some tweaks (i.e. expect more from (I'm paraphrasing) lazy, incompetent teachers) to make the 2014 target work.

Right.

The basic ideology is that standardizing expectations, particularly in Math and English, across the country will even the playing field because everyone, no matter their background, will be expected to perform at the same basic level or better.

Funny thing is, now states are realizing that they will not be making their 2014 target.  So they have two solutions: increase demands on teachers, or decrease the expectations.

Ecosystem Services and Civil Society- The Solution?

I watched an interesting TED talk earlier today about an NGO out in Portland, Oregon called The Freshwater Trust.  The Freshwater Trust figures out ways in which ecosystem services and technology can couple to address the speed and scale of water degradation.

I am wondering a few things right now:

What does (should) "civil society" do?

This is a theme I would like to come back to often and have others take up.  I am not entirely sure we have a good grasp on it, either as academics or as regular laypeople.  

Can I start with this as universally agreeable outcomes (or, in social science speak, dependent variables)?  We want social order (e.g. coordination and cooperation; safety and security) that offers real opportunities for high standards of living (e.g. health, happiness).  

How do we get there?