Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Couldn’t Make It to the Reading? Here’s a Video

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A couple of weekends ago, at the illogiCon science fiction and fantasy convention, I read (performed, maybe? depending on your point of view) part of my forthcoming near-future science fiction novel, Walking on the Sea of Clouds. And because I’m a little odd, I started off my reading by singing one of my songs, “Another Romulan Ale”.

Thanks to the videography of Calvin Powers, there’s documentary evidence of the event:

If you’re interested, check it out by starting the video above or going directly to YouTube for Gray’s illogicon 2017 Reading.

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Zombie Blog Post: ‘Training’ is NOT a Bad Word

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(Nothing horrific here: a “zombie” post only in the sense of coming back from the electronic dead.)

Here again I’m reprising an old blog post that I particularly like. It was published on this date in 2012 on the old NCSU-IES blog, which unfortunately no longer exists.

At the time, we had been having an internal debate over whether we provided “training” or “education” to our clients. There was a definite push by the unit leadership to say we were not trainers but instead were part of the “education” mission of the university.

Unsurprisingly (and perhaps unwisely), I pushed back:

The distinction between the two, as I understand it, is a matter of practicality. Training gives us skills and techniques we can practice, hopefully with enough knowledge to know when and where they will be useful. Education, meanwhile, gives us new knowledge and insights, and a better understanding of the world. When I taught CPR, I trained my students in how to apply the life-saving methods; when I taught leadership and management, I educated my students about different aspects of and approaches to the two.

[In 2011] one of my colleagues showed a tag cloud she made of comments from our clients and “training” was the largest word in the cloud (i.e., had been used by clients most often). Immediately, a discussion started about how we might change that perception and the relative worth of one versus the other. The discussions have been interesting. From what I’ve observed, on one side of the debate are folks who came from industry and say of course we provide training. On the other, folks who grew up in the academy tend to downplay the T-word in favor of education. In the middle, folks who have spent time in both camps lean one way or the other, depending on how deeply they’ve immersed themselves in the campus culture.

Color me unimpressed by the whole thing, and firmly on the side of training.

I admit, I started out with my share of the “we’re-the-university-so-of-course-we-educate” mindset. But recently I’ve been studying and refining a model of how we … should fit into the academic side of the university, and after thinking about it I’ve (to borrow a phrase) come to the dark side.

The way I see it, education and training are two sides of the same coin: teaching. Both imply the delivery of knowledge — or at least information — from a person who has it to a person who needs it. I’ve flipped that metaphorical coin a few times and come up with what I see as major differences between training courses and classroom education….

At this point the original post presented the differences in tabular form, but I’ve arranged them in a bulleted list for this “zombie” version:

  • In terms of Location, EDUCATION is mostly On-Campus, while TRAINING is mostly Off-Campus
  • In terms of Audience, EDUCATION is mostly aimed at Traditional Students, while TRAINING is mostly aimed at Nontraditional Students
  • In terms of Source Material, EDUCATION is primarily based on Theory, while TRAINING is primarily based on Practice
  • EDUCATION mostly delivers Facts & Ideas, while TRAINING mostly delivers Skills & Tactics
  • In terms of Desired Outcome, EDUCATION primarily emphasizes Thinking, while TRAINING primarily emphasizes Doing (but smartly)
  • EDUCATION is taught mostly by “Professors”, while TRAINING is taught mostly by “Practitioners”

Adult Students in Business Class
Whether education or training, it’s all teaching and learning. (Image: “Adult Students in Business Class,” by Newman University, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

As part of its transition to become the “Industry Expansion Services,” the staff deleted the finale of that old blog post (and the entire blog itself,* which I still think violated the rules for retaining official state records). A former co-worker recovered what was left of the blog and sent me the results, and that post ends right after the table with the enigmatic “From that p.”

However, thanks to the “Wayback Machine” Internet Archive, I found the remainder:

From that perspective, our … courses and services fit much more into “training” while the university’s more general offerings are clearly “educational.” And that’s okay! In the end, it’s all teaching.

Finally, on the Internet I found an interesting paper on the subject of education versus training, which included this amusing item:

Think of it this way. If your sixteen-year-old daughter told you that she was going to take a sex education course at high school, you might be pleased. What if she announced she was going to take part in some sex training at school? Would that elicit the same response? Training is doing. Training improves performance.

So I say: of course we train people (though, not in sex). And if we educate folks at the same time — and we often do — that’s a bonus.

My perspective on this hasn’t changed: Education and training are both good and useful things. It’s all teaching.

And if you’re involved in the business of teaching — wherever you do it and whatever you teach — my hat’s off to you.** Thanks, and keep up the good work!

___
* I can’t even provide a link to the old NCSU-IES blog, since they now redirect to the College of Engineering page for some reason. I find it ridiculous.
** For more on teaching and learning and organizing schools and systems for better teaching and learning, may I present Quality Education.

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Monday Morning Insight: Are You a Friend to Government?

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

Today is John Hancock’s birthday, at least according to the “New Style” calendar — the Gregorian calendar, which became the legal calendar in Britain and the colonies in the mid-1700s. But whether the day he was born is considered the 23rd or the 12th of January 1737, he was certainly a patriot and a statesman, and served as Governor of Massachusetts (twice) and president of the Second Continental Congress.

On the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre — on 5 March 1774 — Hancock delivered a speech in Boston in which he said,

Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.

That quote seems appropriate for our present day and our present government, especially given the inauguration of a new President this past Friday and the widespread protests the day after.

Were you a friend to our government, until this past Friday? Or, conversely, did you only become a friend to our government this past Friday?

In other words, were you consistent in your support of our government until a President of whom you disapproved was elected and inaugurated? Or were you consistent in your opposition to our government until the country elected and inaugurated a President of whom you approved?

How you answer the question may tell us more about you than it does about our government.

Because neither before nor after this past Friday has our government been totalitarian, nor has it disavowed the principles of reason and justice upon which it is founded. Yes, we may support or oppose some policies and programs for which our tax dollars pay, and in turn may wish such policies or programs to continue or to cease. Yes, our government’s standard of justice may shift or be unevenly applied. Yes, government levies some requirements on us, and more or fewer requirements on others. But that is the nature of limited, imperfect governmental action, and it does not make such actions tyrannical.

Broad Stripes & Bright Stars
How well do the lights of our government shine? (Image: “Broad Stripes & Bright Stars,” by Jason Samfield, on Flickr, under Creative Commons.)

I, for one, agree with Hancock: “I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice,” and so long as our government remains so I will be pleased to support it. With Hancock, however, “I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny,” no matter what political persuasion the President happens to be — but I will not let fears and phantasms of despotism cloud my mind, and cause me to see tyranny where it does not exist.

We are still the land of the free, and I wish you peace in pursuing your freedom.

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Fighting My Outrage Addiction

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I intend to make this post deliberately obtuse, as general and nonspecific as possible. If you think it may apply to a situation with which you’re familiar or in which you’re involved, you may be right. Here goes:

I get mad sometimes. Maybe more often than I should.

Not as mad as I used to get when I was younger, I think; though the people closest to me might disagree. Same frequency, maybe, but lower intensity? I think that may have something to do with not having as much energy as I used to have. (What was it Heinlein said about how what appears to be “mature wisdom” resembles just being too tired?) I find that what used to induce paroxysms of rage in me now elicits only grunts of disapproval.

But the stimuli to outrage continue. In fact they have increased in frequency because I encounter them on television news, in online news of various types — sports stories or science stories that contain not-so-thinly-veiled references to political or societal turmoil — and pretty much everywhere in social media. The lines in the sand are drawn, have been drawn now for some time, and no matter how often some of us try to smooth them away others are prepared to redraw them, often deeper and more distinct than before.

And all that leaves me struggling against my own addiction to outrage, my long-established and well-practiced tendency to fight back, to fashion my words into missiles and fire them in thundering salvoes.

241/365
Sometimes it’s hard not to give in to the outrage. (Image: “241/365,” by Kenny Louie, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

But I fight against that tendency because the results usually aren’t that good. Too often, surrounded by the exhaust plumes of my tirade, I have exulted in my triumph — until the winds of reality blew away that fog and I realized that the only things I’d damaged were my friends and friendships.

I still get mad, sometimes. Probably more often than I should.

But I’m trying not to give in to it.

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Did You Know? Or Have You Not Heard?

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This past weekend, some friends told me they had listened to Truths and Lies and Make-Believe while they were traveling recently, and wondered when I was going to do a new CD.

Truth to tell, I had hoped to record a new CD this year — I’ve got a few scratch tracks down, and some more songs I haven’t quite worked up. If I managed it, and could get it released before the end of the year, then I’d have completed a new CD every two years since the first one.

In the course of explaining that I don’t think I can make it happen this year, though, I realized that they didn’t know I already had a second CD out … even though it came out almost 18 months ago!

That’s how bad I am at self-promotion.

promotion
Have you heard? Did you know? (Image: “promotion,” by Platform4, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

And that’s the reason for the question in the title. Did you know, or have you not heard, about these things? Then I really haven’t done my job, have I?

I try very hard not to beat people over the head with what I’ve done, but clearly I could do a little better when even my friends are unaware of new releases.

So now you know. It’d be great if you let someone else know, too!

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Monday Morning Insight: 230 Years of Religious Freedom

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

On this date in 1786, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia enacted the “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom” into law. Thomas Jefferson had drafted the statute in 1777, and it was first introduced in the assembly in 1779. Jefferson considered the statute so important that he asked for it to be included as one of three accomplishments listed on his tombstone, along with the Declaration of Independence and founding the University of Virginia.

I love the way it begins:

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free

Indeed, and God wants us to use our minds well! There’s a reason the prophet Isaiah says, “Come, let us reason together.”

Religious Freedom
Detail on a monument to Thomas Jefferson in Louisville, Kentucky. (Image: “Religious Freedom,” by Don Sniegowski, on Flickr, under Creative Commons.)

The statute declares that punishments or burdens enacted to try to influence people’s thinking

tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do

“Hypocrisy and meanness.” Lord knows that often we cannot help but be hypocritical, but I pray God will forgive us if we persist in it and if our religious practice is either unkind or shabby.

As someone who believes that science and faith agree more than they disagree, I find this clause amusing:

… our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry

And given the unfortunate antagonism we face from time to time, no matter which side of whatever divide we find ourselves upon, this part is encouraging:

And finally, … Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, … she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict

Unless we disarm Truth by restricting “her natural weapons, free argument and debate.” Let’s try not to do that, shall we?

And, finally, the act declared that

… all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and … the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

Religious freedom: It’s a marvelous thing. I hope you have opportunity to practice yours this week.

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A Quartet of Educators Sound Off on Those Unrealistic Goals

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Last week I pointed out that the Wake County school board has instituted a deeply flawed goal: specifically, of achieving an annual 95% graduation rate by 2020. (That sounds like a good goal, doesn’t it? It would surely be a fine thing to achieve, but to set it as a goal was simply foolish.) After I wrote the post criticizing the goal and explaining why it’s misguided, I asked some of my educator friends what they thought when their management instituted goals that were unrealistic.

A middle school teacher in Hillsborough, NC, Samantha Dunaway Bryant, wrote:

After 21 years teaching, I no longer waste a second of my time thinking on such things (if indeed I ever did–I’m not sure I did). Education is not such an easily quantifiable thing. The moments that matter and change lives are about relationships and lasting influence, not about scores on a test or number of kids handed a diploma. Every attempt to make the process objective is an exercise in futility or a marketing ploy by amateurish and clumsy marketers.

“Amateurish and clumsy” — that’s a pretty apt description. But it’s good to remember an “amateur” is someone who does something out of love for it. The people who make goals like the “95% by 2020” goal are not doing so out of malice. They truly believe they are doing something that will help schools and the school system get better, that setting the goal will lead to achieving something awesome on behalf of the students. But their belief and their sincerity cannot make up for the clumsy nature of the untenable goal.

Angie Williamson Mills, who taught public middle school for 18 years and has spent the last 10 years in public school administration, said, “Having been in charge of collecting graduation rate data at a high school in SC for 6 years, that goal is ridiculous and definitely setting all up for failure. What is being done to prevent dropouts?” She also wrote:

The largest jump I have seen from year to year from any one school in graduation rate is 3-4%. I would love to know the formula used in NC for calculating graduation rate. How does NC handle special needs students who will not earn a state HS diploma (which in most high schools is between 3-6% annually)? How are students who drop out but earn a GED (which in most high schools is 4-8% annually) calculated into the graduation rate? How are 5th year graduates included in calculating graduation rate?

Excellent questions! And those questions get at the heart of why a simple, single numerical goal is a trap: because if the pressure is on, the easiest way to meet the goal is to change some definitions so that the numbers come out more favorably — in other words, to cheat.

I particularly like her reference to the year-over-year fluctuations in graduation rate. As the numbers of students coming into and leaving the system change over the years, and the makeup of the student population changes, it is only natural for the rate to change — sometimes only a little bit, sometimes more radically. Thus, if a 95% rate were achieved one year, would there be any guarantee of sustaining that 95% rate into the future? In a word, no, but the goal is to achieve the target rate annually.

Goals
Having a goal isn’t bad, but having a bad goal isn’t helpful. (Image: “Goals,” by Robert Degennaro, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

Beyond the Wake County district’s goal, though — which caught my eye because I live here — managers at higher levels of education impose unrealistic goals, too.

An English professor differentiated between how she treats goals from different levels of management. She explained that she and her colleagues meet regularly to discuss their classes and agree on the goals they intend to pursue, and in addition she takes her department chairperson’s goals very seriously. “I am more likely to ignore” goals from higher levels in the college, she said.

I roll my eyes. Usually the goals are broad and vague — “good customer service” is one. (No, really, we provide “signature service” like Time Warner Cable. Ugh). Management that hasn’t ever done my job, hasn’t been in the trenches a bit, but believes it knows how to do my job better than I do, is completely ignored — often with hostility.

She did, however, express her willingness to participate in meaningful projects and goal-setting exercises, a sentiment that I’ve heard from other teachers. “I’ll participate in the process,” she said, “because I firmly believe that if you don’t vote (semi-figuratively) then you don’t get to complain — and maybe you don’t get a say next time, either.” I find that to be rather common because teachers want to do well and want their students to do well — but giving them an arbitrary target to meet, without understanding what it entails or what resources might be needed to meet it, does not help them.

Finally, massage therapy instructor Danny Birt posed another set of excellent questions that we might wish management — whether college administrators or school board members or whoever — would consider:

The more nebulous the goal in day-to-day life, the less attention will be paid. While having a quantitative goal makes it more distinct (in this case, 95% graduation rate), what is a teacher going to do differently in their everyday school life? How does one teach, for example, six point five percent better than last year? Which students will a principal decide comprise the five percent which will not graduate? How does everyone coordinate which efforts must be made? Maybe if they have specific objectives which lead toward the overall goal they may come closer to achieving the desired result.

And that is the crux of the matter: setting the goal without understanding the system — the inputs to it, the influences on it, its capabilities and limitations — provides no guidance for meeting the goal. It would be far better to lay out a coherent, realistic plan of action (as Danny said, “specific objectives which lead to the overall goal”) and then figure out what gains that plan is likely to achieve.

What do you think of problematic goals in general, and education goals in particular? I’m grateful to everyone who contributed comments, and welcome more! Add a comment below, send me a message, or even stop me on the street somewhere and let’s talk about what needs to happen to provide students and teachers with the tools they need to succeed.

Thanks to all!

___
Some final notes:
– The post that led to this one is The Local School Board’s Deeply Flawed Goal.
– For a deeper look at the education system and how it can be improved, check out Quality Education: Why It Matters, and How to Structure the System to Sustain It.
– If you’ve read all the way to here, thanks very much! And I’d be pleased if you’d subscribe to my newsletter.

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illogiCon: SF&F in the Research Triangle

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(Professor Schrodington, the illogiCon mascot.)

The illogiCon science fiction and fantasy convention starts tomorrow! I’m going — are you? If so, stop in and see me …

Friday:

  • 7 p.m. in the Cameron Room — Nerd Music Unplugged, with Madison “Metricula” Roberts
  • 9 p.m. in the Smith Room — “Hell Week” Panel, a look at the Space Shuttle disasters
  • 10 p.m. in the Crescent Room — Drop-in Music and Filk Circle

Saturday:

  • 11 a.m. in the Cameron Room — “Famous First Words” Panel, a look at story & novel beginnings
  • 12 p.m. in the Cameron Room — “Famous Last Words” Panel, a look at story & novel endings
  • 1 p.m. in the Crescent Room — Reading … possibly something from my forthcoming novel?
  • 2 p.m. in the Reynolds Room — Baen Books Traveling Road Show
  • 4 p.m. in the Smith Room — “Live Action Slush” Panel, in which we consider the story openings of brave volunteers
  • (Tentative) 10 p.m. in the Crescent Room — Open Filk

illogiCon includes a number of unique events, including the illogiCon Brewmaster Competition, which has a “Steampunk” theme for 2017. I’m honored that they chose my tune, “Another Romulan Ale,” as the competition’s theme song!

Hope to see you there!

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Thirty-Five Years

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What … a … game.

It’s been 35 years since the Clemson Tigers were college football’s National Champions. The 1981 Tigers secured their final victory in the 1982 Orange Bowl, when I was a senior in high school and — if I recall — had yet to receive my acceptance to attend the school. (I’m certain I had applied, but things moved slower back then.) The 2016 Tigers secured their final victory last night, in a game that lived up to its billing and will likely go down as “one for the ages” … as some of us predicted it would.

(From the Clemson University Facebook page.)

 

I admit that, in the grand scheme of the universe, it’s a little silly for me to invest so much energy and attention in following the team and its exploits. It’s a little silly for me to wear so much orange and purple, to get so excited when the players execute flawlessly and so agitated when the opposition does so, to feel in the pit of my stomach the anticipation of each play as it develops. It’s a little silly for me, whose football career ended after a year playing on the “club” level — that’s one step above intramural and a really big step below junior varsity — to tense my muscles at every hit, to yell at the television as if the players can hear me, to vicariously picture myself in the midst of the action.

It’s a little silly, but a little silliness isn’t all bad.

And it’s still a great time to be a Clemson Tiger.

___
P.S. Speaking of silliness, I write stories and songs and other things from time to time and you can subscribe to my newsletter to keep up with all those shenanigans.

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Monday Morning Insight: Robot Overlords, and Hope

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

 

Today marks a lot of birthdays of people I might have quoted — guitarist Jimmy Page (1944), singer-songwriter Joan Baez (1941), author Stuart Woods (1938), actor Bob Denver (1935), football player Bart Starr (1934), President Richard Nixon (1913) — and particularly science fiction luminary Algis Budrys (1931). But as I thought about it I decided I’d like to quote a different science fiction luminary.

Czech author and playwright Karel Čapek was born on this date in 1890, and he is best known as the author of the 1920 play R.U.R. R.U.R. stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots” — in Czech, “Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti” — which, in addition to marking the first use of the word “robot,” became the pathfinder for every story that postulated the eventual subjugation of the human race by our robot overlords.

Anyway, in Act Two of the play, after the head of Rossum’s and one of the robots state that they “only meant it for the best” — a familiar refrain! — two of the top robot builders combine to observe that

… mankind will remain. In twenty years’ time the world will belong to them once more; even if there’s nothing more than a few savages on a tiny island … that will be a beginning. And any beginning is better than nothing. In a thousand years they’ll have caught up with us again, and then go on further than we ever did … and fulfil the dreams we’ve only ever talked about.

Without spoiling the R.U.R. story, I find that to be a very hopeful message to hang on to for whatever difficulties we may face. “Mankind will remain…. and any beginning is better than nothing.”

Robots

(“Robots,” by Bart Heird, on Flickr, under Creative Commons.)

 

While we’re at it, I also think this quote from Čapek’s 1922 novel The Absolute at Large is pretty funny:

You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you’d have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.

I think almost anyone who has worked in a government office can relate to that. But never fear, “Mankind will remain…. and any beginning is better than nothing”!

Have a great week!

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