11. Happy Thanksgiving - Let Your Heart Be Full

The other day I was reading from the Book of Mormon in Alma 34. The chapter is a powerhouse, covering topics ranging from the infinite atonement, to prayer to enduring to the end. This time while I was reading though, I was hit by a line in verse 27. After Amulek exhorts his audience to pray in whatever circumstances they may be in (34:17-26), he tells that even when they do not cry unto the Lord, they should "let [their] hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for [their] welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around [them]."

When I read that we should "let our hearts be full," I suddenly paused to think of the meaning of a "full heart." What does it mean if my heart is "full?" I thought back on the times when my heart was so full that it seemed to be stretching. It contrasts with a "broken" heart, which has a similar feeling but of pain, or an empty heart, which is a heart of apathy. A full heart is one which is full of good feelings.

As I thought on these experiences, I realized that there was a common thread binding them: I had a full heart when I was best following the commandment to not covet. Though the previous verses seem to be talking about imploring the Lord for blessings for ourselves, the implications of a full heart for me seemed to be the opposite.

I'm an analytical kind of person, and this diagram came to mind.

Our prayers can be directed towards two groups: ourselves or others.

Our prayers can have basically two purposes: to ask for blessings or to thank God for blessings already received.

Human nature is to think about ourselves and what we need. That is, quadrant one, top left. Human nature keeps us from having a full heart or feeling that immense joy.

But if we can leave that quadrant, all we find is happiness. The holiday season is all about helping us leave that quadrant.

On Thanksgiving, we are encouraged to think about the many blessings we have, moving from the top left to the bottom left. This leads to happiness.

As we all know, as soon as the turkey is gone, the Christmas music comes out. Despite the commercial nature of Christmas, which seeks to trap us back into square one, the true Christmas spirit leads us to think of others, and what gifts we can give to them, and to be thankful for the birth of Jesus Christ. Thus, the true nature of Christmas is to live outside square one.

Amulek is inviting us to live in the spirit of Christmas and Thanksgiving all year round. Yes, he encourages us to pray over our fields and our flocks - but what percentage of our time do we really spend praying? A very, very small one. The rest of the time, our hearts should be full, drawn out for our welfare and for the welfare of those around us. This includes gratitude, and seeking to meet the needs of those around us. Thus verses 28-29 teach us that we must live in the right half of the diagram. If we ignore the needs of those around us, our prayers are in vain: we'll be stuck in the empty  heart of square one.

10. Effectiveness in a Blended Learning Environment - Part II: Advantages of machine aided adaptive learning

Recap: in part one we briefly introduced the disadvantages inherent to the memorization process in a traditional schooling environment. In this post we will discuss the topic from a different point of view: why individualized, technology based learning has unique advantages.

In our previous examples, one important question was left unanswered: how can we determine when a student actually has mastered the memorization of a certain subject? This is an important question, because if we don't know when a student has memorized sufficiently, we don't know when to move on, which means we must estimate, further exacerbating the inefficiency of the system (it is highly unlikely that we move on at exactly the right moment if we are estimating).

Thus, a more effective appraisal of the students' readiness leads to a more effective teaching environment.

We really have two options for appraising students' progress: self-reporting or observation reporting (a role we assign to the teacher, for the sake of simplicity). In a traditional environment, both are costly activities.

If a pupil must determine his or her own state of readiness, there are two main problems. First, they don't know the material - that's why they're learning it! If they don't know what they're supposed to be learning, they must be provided with and understand a clear expectation of learning. Second, once they have this expectation, they must engage in self-evaluation during the the learning process. This self-evaluation is a distraction to the memorization phase (imagine our students making tally marks on correct/incorrect answers as they try and drill times tables). A main draw back to this method, though, is a lack of consistency and reliability among students. Some students will pass themselves too easily. Some will not be diligent in self-observation. Accuracy is hoped for, but not improbable. Thus, self-reporting is not feasible.

Observation reporting in a traditional environment is also unfortunately inefficient. The teacher theoretically is more free to conduct the evaluation, as he or she already understands the relevant material and is free to dedicate some mental processing power observing the students. However, the teacher doesn't have just one student to evaluate - they have an entire class full of them! Thus the observation step distracts less from students' thought processes, but it takes far too much time: if the teacher attempts to ascertain each students' progress between every question, the class will probably spend more time evaluating than learning. It is therefore impractical for a continual evaluation phase, and this is why evaluation often comes after longer intervals in the forms of quizzes, tests, and homework.

With the aide of technology, however, memorization can be highly adaptive, individualized, instantaneous, and in real time.

A prime example of this concept is found in one of my favorite learning platforms: Duolingo.

Duolingo is a fantastic and free resource for learning foreign languages. At the time of writing, Duolingo offers 66 courses between 23 different languages to 120 million users around the world. And Duolingo acts as both teacher and evaluator for all 120 million in real time on an individual basis.

When you initially begin using Duolingo, you have the option of taking a placement exam, to determine your proficiency. During the exam Duolingo is already adapting to you much as a personal evaluator would: it begins with easier questions, and continually progresses until you struggle, honing in on your real proficiency. Once it knows this information the real learning begins, but the evaluation does not. Your teacher keeps track of every question you've ever answered and how well you did. It remembers which words you "peeked" at, or spelled wrong. It remembers when you learned that word, and the last time you saw it, and feeds that information into an algorithm which estimates how likely you are to remember that word still, and drills you on words you probably struggle with more.

Here's a picture of some of the Spanish words Duolingo has taught me, together with their part of speech, the last time I saw it, and their "word strength:"

Does it have its drawbacks? Sure. For example, Duolingo isn't my only Spanish learning resource. Despite the fact that Duolingo believes I'm 2/4 on my word strength of "libro," I think that's one of the words I'm least likely to forget. Which means I'm going to drill it more than I probably should. Duolingo can't take that into account though, because it knows nothing of my "extracurricular activities." And of course, the algorithms can always be improved. But on the whole, the system works quite well for ensuring that I drill what I need to drill, when I need to drill it. This is one reason why a 2012 study found that 34 hours of Duolingo may be equal to a semester of college Spanish.

This method can and should be used in all learning environments.  Though its application to language is quite simple, it can also be applied to the arts, reading and mathematics. There are already numerous platforms with this aim: Memrise, Newsela, and Khanacademy, to name a few.

Not only are these resources more effective than endless drills and exercises from textbooks to notebooks, these resources are free - an important point considering that collegeboard.com puts the average annual spending on books and supplies at universities at around $1,300 per student.

The teacher, of course has incentive to use such services: these are digital TAs who grade thousands of questions instantly without any wages.

So again, the question is:  why do we continue to enroll thousands of students in an educational facility with an ineffective evaluation method when there are low cost, high benefit alternatives available?

9. Why listen?

I am a proud Mantite. Or is it "man-tight"? "Mantise"? "Mantovian"? What ever you want to call me, I am from Manti, a small town in central Utah. While we obviously struggle to find a suitable demonym, virtually everything else about the place is perfect. One of Manti's unique attractions is the Manti LDS Temple. Situated on a hill at the north end of town, the temple stands as a beautiful symbol of the pioneers who built it (it is the fifth LDS temple constructed), and of the same principles  for which the city still stands. There are many other benefits to the temple: having a place to stroll on a nice Sunday afternoon, easily accessible temple ordinances, its service as a welcoming sentinel when you come home after a long trip, and as the venue for the yearly Mormon Miracle Pageant.

"The Pageant" as we affectionately call it, is a month of excitement and fun (as well as stress, if you ask certain parents). Our entire town mobilizes with others from around Sanpete County and beyond to provide the 1,000 cast members, numerous stage crew, dozens of ushers, nightly security guards, and many other logistical positions required. It takes a lot of people, time and preparation to welcome the 15,000 visitors who come for the pageant - 15,000 per night, for nearly two weeks. To put that into perspective, that's roughly five times the population of the town, all rolling in on the highway each evening around 6 o'clock. You can see why those growing up in Manti would love this perennial transformation.

Unfortunately, not all of these guests come to enjoy the pageant's spirituality and entertainment. Others come from far and wide in order to save the poor souls of those who are duped into believing the "false doctrines" of the Mormons. Crowds gather on the streets as cross wielding men on soap boxes brandish signs denouncing Joseph Smith and cry repentance on the streets of our little town. And every year, you can expect to hear the same advice from parents, ecclesiastical leaders and friends: don't go argue with the protesters.

This advice, as usual for advice from Church leaders to avoid certain opposing doctrines, comes under fire from both Mormons and non-Mormons who would have us be "more open-minded."

This criticism is seldom well-founded.

In the case of the pageant, the admonition to avoid the hollering protesters is especially legitimate, since I've only very rarely seen a civil exchange of ideas taking place on the cordoned off streets, but rather angry attacks, vicious personal challenges, and absurd "Bible-bashing." Neither party leaves happy or any closer to God. Granted, the lack of value in these exchanges is obvious even to most critics of the pervasive LDS tendency to avoid non-LDS opinions, but they still often accuse Mormon ecclesiastical leaders and opinionists of attempting to shield their membership from opposing views which could shake their faith - presumably because the members would "see the light."

I wholeheartedly agree that a lack of understanding others' viewpoints and feelings is a core reason for many of the banes of society - notably violence, hate and inconsiderate behavior, for example. We need to be more understanding and informed about other people who are not like us. However, I would contend that the idea of avoiding opinions which not only oppose ours but seek only to convince us of the error of our own position is a reasonable position, and is not limited to our religion ideas.

The idea is easier to understand if we compare it to something we all know from our modern age: "yo mamma" jokes. These jokes, which insult the listener by way of their mother, are a form of what is termed a "maternal insult." Maternal insults have been around since antiquity - the Wikipedia article on the subject lists an example from the Bible (2 Kings 9:22) and Shakespeare (Timon of Athens, Act I, Scene 1).  These insults are timeless and nearly universal because they play on the virtually ubiquitous phenomenon of "filial piety." That is, it works because nearly everyone loves their parents - particularly their mother - and thinks that they are good people.

You probably wouldn't listen to me very long if I were to walk up to you and presumptuously exclaim, "your mother is a terrible person, and here's why!"

Does it matter if their claims are true? No, not really. I love my mother, but I'm sure that if you really tried, you probably could find something negative to say about her, especially if you looked far enough into the past. I'm guessing your mother is the same. I'm also willing to bet that you, like me, don't really care, and would rather not know every rowdy thing your mother may have done or said in her crazy years anyway, because the fact remains that you were raised by an angelic figure who loves you with all her heart, taught you everything important you'll ever need to know, and sacrificed everything to give you life. And that opinion isn't going to change. So, if you feel the need to inform me otherwise, please ignore that need, because your efforts are not appreciated. But who would actually do that? It's just plain rude!

Similarly, no matter how many silly things Church leaders have said over the years, no matter what contradictory opinions there may have been or how imperfect the Lord's human servants invariably are, and no matter how many doctrines and policies I cannot fully explain, I will not be abandoning my testimony of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ or my love of the church I believe to be His. I cherish them, and am grateful to them, for they have brought me as much happiness as has my mother. So, again, if someone feels the need to inform me that this belief is, in fact, as deceiving as he thinks my mother is, I hope he isn't foolish enough to expect me to read his books and pamphlets deriding it or listen to him argue.

Now, back to our hypothetical situation: you've turned the mother hater away, but, realizing that he can't convince you of your mother's filthy nature, he begins to spread his message among your friends, children and neighbors. What is your reaction? I'm willing to guess that it may be more violent than the reaction of those ecclesiastical leaders who advise their followers not to listen to protestors. Yet, the principle is the same. They love the beliefs which are under attack, and it is clearly not just for anyone to persistently seek to defame them, their comments true or otherwise. So, they warn all they can that this belief will be under attack and they'd best close their ears. Why should we expect any other response?

Clearly, we need to engage in civil discussions about our deepest beliefs and values, including our religious ones. But it must be done civilly, and with mutual respect. I also believe there to be room for proselyting efforts: truth can only be known if it is shared, and every religion has the right to attempt to share that which they love. These efforts must not defile or abuse the closely held beliefs of others, however. There is, after all, a vast difference between an interlocutor who sincerely states "my mother is an amazing person, and you should get to know her," and one who insists with any degree of civility "your mother is worthless."

8. Effectiveness in a Blended Learning Environment - Part I: Wastes in the memorization phase

With the advent of modern technology and the resulting increase in the average person's standard of living, information has become ubiquitous. If I'm holding my smartphone in my hand, I can call its attention by simply uttering "OK, Google" (iPhone users will recognize "Hey, Siri"), then ask any question I want. Assuming there's a relatively good answer to the question somewhere on the internet, Google will respond in kind, voicing a brief explanation. Otherwise, she'll at least google it and give me a starting place for my own search (why Google's female, I don't know. She is).

The possibilities for learning go much deeper than this though.

Let us consider "education" as the product of two factors: memorization (the assimilation of information - numbers, rules, dates, names, whatever) and understanding (a deeper comprehension of a system or theory, signaled by the ability to make predictions about its implications and utilize the knowledge to solve problems and create solutions). That is, it's one thing to be able to say "adverbs modify verbs," but quite another to be able to label all of the adverbs in a paragraph of text, or craft a rich Italian sentence using them correctly. The first is quite useless; the second, theoretically better, but still not terribly helpful in real life; the last alone is education profitably put to good use.

The problem is that different people have different aptitudes for different subjects or learning phases, and certain individuals seem to learn faster than others across all subjects and learning phases.

Traditionally, this disparity led to huge wastes of potential. Let's consider the most extreme example.

Before the invention of the printing press, books were hard to come by. The average person didn't have access to learning materials. If they wanted to learn, they listened, memorized and understood through repetition of the same. Think of pupils sitting at the feet of Plato, absorbing his every word and seeking to memorize and understand. Some were pretty good at it; the average person obviously wasn't, because they stayed in their fields tending their crops.

Imagine a modern math class learning times tables through this method. A teacher stands in front of a dozen students, holding the only copy of the twelve times tables chart up for all to see, and they repeat them all, over and over again, in an effort to memorize and understand.

Assuming that they are all beginners, they all are learning in the beginning, and all are profiting at least in some part from the experience. At a certain point though, those students who are good at the memorization of numbers, sequences, or words will master the chart. The moment that that student has mastered the chart, his utility of being in class is greatly diminished, and the utility of the less to the class collectively is likewise lessened. So what are the options?

1. The class can continue to drill the same thing, because the rest of the students still need it. The student(s) who have it down are basically wasting their time. They could leave, they could stay. Either way, their educational experience is stagnating. These individuals are wasting time in their education as long as they are relearning what they already know, assuming the increase in understanding is negligible from the repeated drilling.
2. The class can move on to properties of multiplication. The student who was ready to move on continues to profit; the other students may or may not. They will struggle, because the more advanced principles build on the ones they don't have fully memorized nor understood. Some will manage to stay afloat; others will drown and stop learning. The potential of the drowned is wasted.

Sure, it's an imperfect picture with logical holes, but the basic logical model remains. Seems like a lose-lose situation for the education institution.

Fast forward from Plato's time to the present day. A quick Google search of "learn times tables" yields 6.2 million results. The first result is "http://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables," let's hit that. Wow, it's a site with 9 different gamified methods for learning times tables. 

Each student in our math classroom now has their own digital "teacher and book" (which is far more effective then the "teacher and book" method, but that's outside the scope of this topic). Now, each student works independently, and each is allowed to allocate just enough of their valuable time to learning the topic to not waste time in over learning, but no one runs out of time, either.

No time lost for the fast, no potential lost for the slow.

So, the question is, why do we continue to enroll thousands of students in an educational facility where we do group drilling activities where everyone is forced to spend the same amount of time on learning the same thing? Unless all of our students are exactly the same - and they're not - we're knowing accepting an educational institution which creates waste.

To be continued.

7. The Immortality of Writing

The other day in Italian class we were discussing verbs. Verbs are one of the most beautiful parts of any language, in part because they don't usually translate directly. That is, there is almost always some nuance of meaning that is lost when you translate the verb. Learning to speak another language gives you the opportunity to put yourself into a new mindset and see the world in a different way... More on that in another post.

Back on track. We were studying the different uses of the simplest of tenses: present indicative. "I say," "you say," "he says," etc. While the Italian present indicative is used on several ways that the English equivalent is not, there is one interesting use that they share: providing second hand accounts of written works. That is, such as in the following sentence:

"In his famous book, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith makes the case for an 'Invisible Hand,' and therefore for free market economies."

Who is the subject in that sentence? Adam Smith. For those who are wondering, Adam Smith was an influential pioneer of economics.¹ He published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, and it is still an well known and commonly referenced book on economics.

What is the verb tense? Present indicative: "Adam Smith makes." But he's dead. How can a dead man act in the present?

I've always known that we could use the grammar like this, but I guess it was the first time that it really hit me that writing things down is the best way to immortality known to humankind, because it's the best way to influence future generations. Sure, you can influence them through your actions now, in shaping their environment. But only like this will your intellect, your being, communicate directly with theirs.²

Turns out that I'm not the first one to have thought of this (shucks, another non-original idea). The writer of The Immortality of Writers proved himself right when 3,000 years ago he said, "Man decays, his corpse is dust. All his kin have perished; But a book makes him remembered through the mouth of its reciter. Better is a book than a well built house."³

What significance does this have for me? Well, not a lot. I don't have a huge desire to be immortally dead, and I don't particularly like writing anyway. But, I think it does give reason to pause and think about the power and duration of everything that we write (or record), and perhaps another good reason to keep a journal.

---

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith   ↩

2  OK, not quite. Artistic representations of an artist's viewpoint predate any written writing system, and one could argue that a picture is worth a thousand words. And with the modern era of video cameras and audio recordings, there is no argument that an audio/video recording of someone actually speaking is far more effective than their written words alone. But, for most of human existence, writing has been the best immortality elixir available, and even in today's modern era it is yet easier and natural for many of us to write.  ↩

3  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortality_of_Writers ↩

6. First Semester Impact

On Wednesday we turned in our Writing 150 research papers. Sweet relief. So, naturally, we had to begin yet another paper in order to stifle our happiness.

Our new paper is a personal narrative on a story of a time that we changed. Since it has to be 3 or 4 pages long, I assume that the story of how I got dressed this morning is going to count.

Today's blog prompt helps me understand better what the paper prompt means: "How has your world view changed since the beginning of the semester?" Apparently it is required that we go a little deeper than just our wardrobe.

Since I got here to BYU, I know I've changed, but I'm not sure if that changes how I view the world. I think this signals I need to view the world a bit more and engage in more metacognitive pondering.

5. Personal Narrative Brainstorming

When I think of how I've changed in life, I can't think of many specific time periods, events, or things which caused me to change. But if there are two times I've changed, it was either middle school, or my mission. 

There was one period in my mission when I and my world view perhaps changed more drastically than at other times in the mission, and that was when I was in Pistoia. I'll take this period of my life as an example.

Place

The time of year is spring in Italy. Cool weather, dark skies, humid but crisp.

My companion and I lived in Pistoia, on the second floor of an apartment.

I had the most time to think while we were on trains between Pistoia and Prato. 

Not very clean. Pretty dirty. Beautiful Italian countryside outside the windows.  Many people from all walks of life circulating around me.

The beautiful town of Carmignano; Prato Cathedral steps; the dirty park in front of Prato train station, thick with prostitutes while feather-hatted alpini look on with their fully automatic rifles.

People

Me. Learning to lead as a missionary. Changing my view of the world.

My companions were Anziano Lott and Anziano Greene.

We were teaching a) crazy Italians b) refugee Nigerians and Ghanaians. Both types contributed to my world view "changes." The spiritual maladies of sadness and melancholy assailed the majority of the people around us, and the spiritually ill ignored the messengers of healing, as I perceived us. Then there were the poorest, most scarred people I'd ever met and hopefully ever will meet as I tried to teach our African brothers. It was a sort of sad period.

Anziano Lott is always upbeat and faithful. Resilient.

Anziano Greene is a new missionary, still quiet and hesitant.

Plot

1. I arrive in Pistoia as senior companion and district leader.
2. I became a missionary who led, was proactive, and confident.
3. I really began teaching refugees for the first time.
4. I got a new companion, Elder Greene, who I was training. More growth.
5. We teach even more refugees, and I learn to understand them better.
6. Our Italian investigators are a) crazy or b) spiteful against God.
7. We meet the Bishop (?) of the Duomo di Prato, and I realize how far gone the world really is.
8. I get over it?

Conflict

How did I see things differently as a result of what happened? What things or people seem different to you?

1. I came to understand that spiritual/emotional poverty is far more of a plague than economic, even more.
2. I cannot base my happiness entirely on others' actions.

Result

This experience really did influence my world view a lot. Rather, my mission did, and this part of my mission was an especially strong part. I could easily write about what I learned there.

However, I will struggle to make it into a personal narrative. How can I represent 2 years in 3 pages of dialog? How about 2 transfers? Oh, boy.