Weird processing

kw: dreams, teaching methods

In the dream from which I just awoke, I was being questioned by an interviewer regarding my tutoring methods. I had been taking notes, and we were on question #8, "Do you use time-resistant tutoring methods?" I had answered, "No," and we were discussing just what methods I would use. I had referred to question #4, which referred to a scholarly work by Miller. I wonder, does anyone else have dreams with footnotes? Perhaps it was because I was using Zotero last evening.

As we spoke, I was reading back over my notes. I could see the notes on all eight questions in my dream, but now, when I close my eyes, I can only see a portion of the note regarding Miller. So, what is a "time-resistant tutoring method"?

As I recall, my interlocutor and I were discussing the kinds of subject matter that were best learned by rote memorization, such as times tables and historical series of events (and of course, their dates). Memorization is dependent on the diligence of the student. For other subjects that are more concept-based, the onus is on the tutor to repeat and repeat, in different ways, so as to make the subject matter memorable to the student.

But I realize that the reason I answered No to question #8 was that I didn't know what time-resistant methods are, and I still don't. I suppose they must have something to do with the latter method. I do recall instructors and tutors who were skilled at repeating a concept in various ways to help me fix it in my memory, and that must be the point.

Nonetheless, as it happens, I am not a tutor, my wife is. For that matter, so also is my son. But not me, unless private music instruction is considered tutoring. Aha! Now I have it. In two weeks I shall be conducting a 3-hour workshop in methods of photographic composition. I've been pondering what to teach, but subconsciously I've been worrying how to teach. This is a good point to help me prepare. Now, if there really is a reference on tutoring methods by someone named Miller, I'd better look it up!

Climb to nowhere

kw: dreams, musings, climbing

Though short of sleep, I had a week's worth of very vivid dreams last night. The most memorable, and possibly meaningful sequence was of climbing, in three stretches, and No, I did not reach the top.

The first climb began after some colossal game of tag that was taking place in a large office building. When one guy pulled out a rifle, I fled up some kind of ramp, then climbed a cloth-covered slope to a window that I could not get through. However, the next stretch above the window seemed climbable, so I went on up. By this time I was alone, struggling up a rather soft-sided incline that became a vertical with ledges. It took all my strength to get to one ledge, but that led to a meadow or yard. I walked alongside someone for just a short way, then was alone again. I circled the upper part of the building I'd been in, which I now saw was mostly underground.

I was walking along, marveling at a junkyard of truly unusable stuff, when I came to another slope, with the conviction that I had to either traverse it or surmount it. It soon seemed like a giant trash bag full of leaves, and the plastic stretched and rippled, making the climbing almost fruitless. Finally, when I got to a concrete lip that I could grasp—and by this time I had two men climbing with me, plus there was a third atop the lip—the lip turned out to be a loose slab that fell back on us, at which time I awoke.

How to interpret such a thing? Climbing in dreams often indicates worry over obstacles. Two out of three ain't bad, but I remember feeling quite surprised when the slab would not support me. I guess I am anticipating a betrayal. Now I just have to figure out whether it will be related to home, work, or something else. I do remember thinking soon after I woke up that I have a very strong disinclination to turn back from any path once chosen. This reminds me of a side story.

When I lived in Pasadena, California, I owned a decrepit VW bug. It's an important detail that the boot around the gearshift was badly cracked and split. I enjoyed driving around in the San Gabriel mountains. Once I did so after some rain, and I found myself splashing through puddles in the dirt track, scarcely a road. I pancaked my way through one large puddle, and muddy water splashed up alongside the gear shift lever and got on the headliner (and on me). I said to myself, "Well, I'm glad I don't need to come back this way." I knew the track I was on was a loop. Less than a minute later I came to a "swimming pool" of a puddle. So I actually did turn back, right back through that other puddle, and got more mud on the headliner (and on me). I got home safe! 'Swhat counts.

Dream writing

kw: dreams, writing

I woke up from a vivid dream a short time ago. I had entered a quirky writing contest; I had a moment to look at a flash card with a subject, then half an hour to write an essay on two sheets (supplied) of paper. I awoke at that point, struggled a bit to remember the subject, then an essay began to spin itself out in my head. Here is the result:

Subject: "All men are created equal. Defend or refute."

Thomas Jefferson knew what he was about when he wrote, "…all men are created equal." He had no way of knowing whether it is true of "all persons…". What is true: we all begin as a fertilized ovum containing 46 chromosomes (except for a few genetic accidents). A male ovum contains a single Y chromosome. At this point creation is complete, and development, chance, experience, and education take over. These items certainly are not equal.

Consider my parents, two musical people with little else in common, though they got along quite well. Dad, a mechanical sort with great people skills, had a year of college and an Army background in the Corps of Engineers. Mom, an emotional, even passionate woman with a flair for extravagance, loved history and geology, finished junior college and worked in an engineering office until the two of them married in 1946. They had four boys…four quite different boys.

I, the eldest, got the history and geology, and a good dose of the musical talent. I got little of the mechanical aptitude. I became a computer programmer, something nothing in their background (except musical aptitude perhaps) could have predicted. I came close to earning a PhD, but didn't finish.

Boy #2 is a historian, calligrapher, and now archaeologist. A good singer, but otherwise not much of a musician. He, as I, is a perfect speller. He did complete a PhD.

Boy #3 got all the mechanical aptitude, but being dyslexic, is not much of a scholar, though he finished college. He designs environmental remediation equipment.

Boy #4 disdained college in favor of Dianetics training. He usually makes his living as a handyman and remodeler, though he has the best people skills of us all. He plays guitar and, like all of us, can sing well.

Four boys, four very different people, yet with a common thread. Created equal perhaps, but creation isn't everything.

There you have it. I don't think I'd have won the contest.