I've been putting off this press release for days. The researcher's asked me twice about where it is; I've given him vague, half-true responses about overwork and other releases and other deadlines. Here's what's whole-true: I've been putting off writing it because I don't understand it.
I write about high-level science at one of the top universities in the world. No, seriously. The world. I never really understand the science I write about, because it's the state of the art in its field; it's stuff that the scientists themselves are only just beginning to understand after spending their entire careers looking at this one small set of questions. If I could really, truly understand what I was writing about every time, I'd be...too smart. Not-real smart. Impossibly smart.
I am not that smart. I am not even close.
But that's not the kind of "don't understand" I mean here. For every ten releases I write, I am seriously, significantly in the dark on one or two. This time? I wish I could find my way through the vacuum of my complete not-understandingness back to just seriously, significantly in the dark.
It's a little scary, and it's more than a little embarrassing. Because while I'm not impossibly smart, I don't like to admit that I'm stupid. And when it comes to this research, this release...I'm stupid, all right.
The thing is, I've been here before in this job; this is the second, maybe the third, time I've been this lost on a press release. And yet, in the end, I will write the release, and it will, with some work on my part and help from the researcher, make sense. I'll define terms, and look things up, and try to weave the words around in such a way that it makes a comprehensible whole, without drowning my reader in jargon and explanation and just a flood, a verbose avalanche, of words. It'll make sense...and yet, I still won't have a clue what this research is about. I still won't understand it. At all.
It struck me, as I stared at the blank page that should be this release just moments before clicking over here to write this (oh, please...if you didn't realize this post is little more than a procrastination tool by now, you don't know me very well...), that this is a feeling that a lot of us blogging parents have, especially those of you (us? me?) with kids who have special needs. And especially those of you (us? me?) whose kids' needs aren't so easily discerned.
So many of the posts I read--and oh, so many of the posts I write--are exactly this: Descriptions of stuff that's happening, of complex thought and sensory processes playing out before our still-ignorant eyes. In my case, I realize, so often I see what's going on, I watch oh-so-carefully, and I try and try and try to digest it and make sense of it so that I can report on it. And I do...but I don't understand. So often, my child--like many of your children, I know--gets sucked up by that vacuum of my complete not-understandingness.
And yet, in the end, I will write these blog posts, and they will make sense...and yet I still won't have a clue what is going on, what my child is all about. I still won't understand him. At all.
But I'll keep trying. And maybe, after defining my terms and looking things up and weaving my words, I'll make some progress. One can only hope.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Gratified By His Failure
N came home with a science test today; out of 17 possible right answers, he got 7. In other words, he failed. Big.
But that's OK. Really, it's more than OK. Frankly, I'm thinking I might laminate and/or frame this test, because I'm going to be showing it off a LOT in the near future.
Why? Because it is a pitch-perfect representation of two of the deficits I tried--not entirely successfully--to get the school district to recognize during his IEP.
One of the deficits is his acknowledged-though-somewhat-grudingly speech disorder. I have been saying over and over (and over and over) again that N's problem is in forming coherent, logical sentences. If I'm right, something like that would show itself in, say, an inability to handle fill-in-the-word questions. Because, if he can't really figure out how to make sentences "work," it would be difficult for him to fill in a missing word in a sentence. How could he figure out which word makes sense, if he has no idea what the sentence is missing, or where the sense of it is going?
So, the science test: The first five questions? Fill in the blank. Four out of five wrong--and it looks like he almost got all of them wrong, but erased his initial answer on the fifth one at the last minute. (A sample: The ______ can be clear or full of clouds. The right answer: sky. His answer: temperature.)
Now, the following six questions? Same exact material, but instead of fill in the blank they were pick-the-right-answer-to-the-following-complete-sentence questions. He got only two wrong here...and one of them I can totally see why; it's a pretty fine distinction for a first grader. (What warms the Earth? Choices: light from the sun; energy from the sun. N chose light from the sun.)
If that doesn't make my point about his major difficulty being in the form of the testing rather than in his understanding of the concepts he's been taught, I don't know what would.
The other thing this test does really nicely is to shoot down the contention made by several of the people who evaluated him that he's a visual learner, when that is just not how I see him at all. (My friend Ambre, who pooh-poohed the visual-learner label the second she heard it, will be especially gratified to see how this worked out.) How was that shown? The remaining six questions on the test were picture questions, of the "circle the tool you would use to measure the weather shown in the picture" type. N got four out of six of those wrong. Clearly, seeing a picture does NOT provide a thousand words for him...or if it does, a good 666 of those words are incorrect.
OK, so I may have been kidding about the lamination and framing, but I am totally not kidding about dragging this test with me all over the freaking place. In fact, in the hour since N brought it home to show me, I've already emailed his science teacher (yes, they have a different teacher for science in FIRST frigging GRADE...because there's not enough for these kids to deal with, so why not throw in adapting to two different teaching styles right off the block?) to ask for a few minutes of her time so I can talk to her about his IEP and accommodations, and emailed his speech therapist to ask for some time so I can show her in gorgeous black-and-white just what I think needs working on.
I'd be a lot more worried by his failing this test, in other words, if I weren't so thrilled by it.
But that's OK. Really, it's more than OK. Frankly, I'm thinking I might laminate and/or frame this test, because I'm going to be showing it off a LOT in the near future.
Why? Because it is a pitch-perfect representation of two of the deficits I tried--not entirely successfully--to get the school district to recognize during his IEP.
One of the deficits is his acknowledged-though-somewhat-grudingly speech disorder. I have been saying over and over (and over and over) again that N's problem is in forming coherent, logical sentences. If I'm right, something like that would show itself in, say, an inability to handle fill-in-the-word questions. Because, if he can't really figure out how to make sentences "work," it would be difficult for him to fill in a missing word in a sentence. How could he figure out which word makes sense, if he has no idea what the sentence is missing, or where the sense of it is going?
So, the science test: The first five questions? Fill in the blank. Four out of five wrong--and it looks like he almost got all of them wrong, but erased his initial answer on the fifth one at the last minute. (A sample: The ______ can be clear or full of clouds. The right answer: sky. His answer: temperature.)
Now, the following six questions? Same exact material, but instead of fill in the blank they were pick-the-right-answer-to-the-following-complete-sentence questions. He got only two wrong here...and one of them I can totally see why; it's a pretty fine distinction for a first grader. (What warms the Earth? Choices: light from the sun; energy from the sun. N chose light from the sun.)
If that doesn't make my point about his major difficulty being in the form of the testing rather than in his understanding of the concepts he's been taught, I don't know what would.
The other thing this test does really nicely is to shoot down the contention made by several of the people who evaluated him that he's a visual learner, when that is just not how I see him at all. (My friend Ambre, who pooh-poohed the visual-learner label the second she heard it, will be especially gratified to see how this worked out.) How was that shown? The remaining six questions on the test were picture questions, of the "circle the tool you would use to measure the weather shown in the picture" type. N got four out of six of those wrong. Clearly, seeing a picture does NOT provide a thousand words for him...or if it does, a good 666 of those words are incorrect.
OK, so I may have been kidding about the lamination and framing, but I am totally not kidding about dragging this test with me all over the freaking place. In fact, in the hour since N brought it home to show me, I've already emailed his science teacher (yes, they have a different teacher for science in FIRST frigging GRADE...because there's not enough for these kids to deal with, so why not throw in adapting to two different teaching styles right off the block?) to ask for a few minutes of her time so I can talk to her about his IEP and accommodations, and emailed his speech therapist to ask for some time so I can show her in gorgeous black-and-white just what I think needs working on.
I'd be a lot more worried by his failing this test, in other words, if I weren't so thrilled by it.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Attention
I'm sure many people who are a lot smarter than I am will have or already have had much to say about the NYTimes piece today on ADHD and academic success. So I'll be brief: This is news? I mean, yeah, it's sorta news that kids with behavioral issues will do well on their fifth-grade math tests whether or not their issues are treated. But, really, isn't that a waywayway side issue? I mean, I'm not pursuing help for N because he failed his first-grade science test. I'm pursuing help for him because I want him to be better able to navigate this way through the world--the worlds of social interaction, of working and playing well with others, of speaking his mind, of organizing his thoughts, of reaching his potential...It goes on and on. He's not a behavior problem, and he doesn't have ADHD (so far as I can tell), but it just feels like these studies miss the point of why we, as parents, push so hard to get help for our kids. We're thinking big picture, long-term success. Not "I want Johnny to get an 85 on his fractions test next week." Nobody gives their kid medication so that he can get an 85 on his fractions test. Or, at least, I hope not.
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As an aside, I once interviewed that story's author for a job at the university where I used to work. I knew him in that way that you tend to know most of the main players in a small specialty field--in this case, science writing--and I remember telling him I thought he could do better than the job he was applying for. So I really shouldn't be ragingly jealous that he's writing lead health pieces for the Times, while I...am not? I should be pleased for him, right? I'll work on that, I guess.
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My legs, they are restless again. When they woke me up at the stroke o' three last night, I started wondering about where, exactly, they wanted to go. I was pretty much ready take them wherever they wanted at that point, if it would make them stop feeling 'that way.'
They refused to tell me a thing. Bastards.
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I've lost about six or seven pounds in the last month, for absolutely no specific reason I can figure. This used to be my body's MO, so I'm not especially worried about it. Maybe it's all the stress. (Probably it's at least in part because of that.) Or maybe it's because I've been skewing vegetarian in my food choices of late--which is a HUGE difference from BEING vegetarian, mind you. Skewing vegetarian means I'm making myself tofu and string beans for lunch today, or choosing the veggie burrito at Los Gringos Rapidos when I stop in there for something to eat during a long walk. But it doesn't rule out Susanna's chili or Baroy's ground-beef-and-sausage-laden spaghetti sauce. Or a McDonald's hamburger, even. So, I'm not really sure how that would knock six-plus pounds off in less than four weeks. But knocked they have been. And I'm OK with that.
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As an aside, I once interviewed that story's author for a job at the university where I used to work. I knew him in that way that you tend to know most of the main players in a small specialty field--in this case, science writing--and I remember telling him I thought he could do better than the job he was applying for. So I really shouldn't be ragingly jealous that he's writing lead health pieces for the Times, while I...am not? I should be pleased for him, right? I'll work on that, I guess.
-------
My legs, they are restless again. When they woke me up at the stroke o' three last night, I started wondering about where, exactly, they wanted to go. I was pretty much ready take them wherever they wanted at that point, if it would make them stop feeling 'that way.'
They refused to tell me a thing. Bastards.
-------
I've lost about six or seven pounds in the last month, for absolutely no specific reason I can figure. This used to be my body's MO, so I'm not especially worried about it. Maybe it's all the stress. (Probably it's at least in part because of that.) Or maybe it's because I've been skewing vegetarian in my food choices of late--which is a HUGE difference from BEING vegetarian, mind you. Skewing vegetarian means I'm making myself tofu and string beans for lunch today, or choosing the veggie burrito at Los Gringos Rapidos when I stop in there for something to eat during a long walk. But it doesn't rule out Susanna's chili or Baroy's ground-beef-and-sausage-laden spaghetti sauce. Or a McDonald's hamburger, even. So, I'm not really sure how that would knock six-plus pounds off in less than four weeks. But knocked they have been. And I'm OK with that.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Science-Geeky Goodness
I have never really "understood" art; music doesn't move me the way I know it should. It's all too abstract for me. But when a scientific finding like this one comes out, I suddenly think to myself, "This is what artists and musicians mean when they say that you either get it, or you don't."
To me, this sort of finding is simply...beautiful. On so many levels. I can't explain it except to say that when I read this report, I grinned. It makes perfect, elegant sense. Bravo.
To me, this sort of finding is simply...beautiful. On so many levels. I can't explain it except to say that when I read this report, I grinned. It makes perfect, elegant sense. Bravo.
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