Author: sophicpursuits

New World vs Old World or is it a collaboration that is necessary?

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Here in the US, we have a society that dictates that every minute should be active.  We have to fill our lives with appointments, our calendars with schedules, “manage our time”, and the list could continue.  We fill our moments with screen time in its varying forms.  So much so that we as individuals can’t remember a time when there wasn’t something that “had to be done.”  This is our modern challenge.

So, join with me on a bit of a thought experiment.  When was the last time you, as an individual, sat quietly and did nothing for 60 seconds?  I do a pre-professional workshop each year with college freshmen.  The goal of the workshop is to help students reflect on the skills and experiences that will make them more marketable and ultimately successful beyond the designated coursework for their degrees.  My “ice breaker” is an exercise that first requires them to envision their position in 4 years, they have just landed their first post-graduation job, and they are at an introductory cocktail party. They are paired with another “new” employee and need to describe how they got to this position. I introduce the exercise, and then I have them stand up and pair up with someone they don’t know.  The person that they are paired with will have to introduce you to the group.  This is a typical icebreaker-type scenario.  But here is my twist.  I have them stand quietly for five minutes to develop their vision of how they will get to that point 4 years from now.  It may not sound like much.  But, having done this exercise for several years, here is what you would observe:  the fidgeting begins at about 45 seconds, the awkward glances at about 90 seconds in, and the silence breaks at about 2 minutes, and you have to remind them that they need to be quiet so that others can think.  Ultimately, most cannot do it; they can’t stop and think, imagine, or reflect quietly for 5 minutes. It is too much.

Yet, our science and our society tell us that we need that time, that time of reflection, that downtime.  We see it in learning studies, in leadership studies, and in nature.  To grow, we have to be willing to stop and rest.  We need the quiet “dwell time,” or what psychologists call latency.  We need to reflect, we need the quiet, we need the pause.

If you have been following social media and finally mainstream media, you may have come across the “Walk for Peace.” A group of Monks walked from Ft. Worth, Texas, to Washington, DC.  If you watched what happened, it was truly fascinating.  First, people tied all kinds of different meanings and scenarios to the walk.  Then, as individuals realized that this group was simply following their path, their intent, and their demonstration that what the world needed was peace and a simple message, things changed.  The crowds came, but they were quiet.  People stopped, they paused.  People began to understand that each individual needs that quiet time.  It may be an active quiet like walking. But it is quiet, without the “noise” of our society, i.e., constant need for input from something outside of our natural environment.

What might seem counterintuitive in our fast-paced, always-on-the-go society, there is a way to find that “quiet” time. While the Monks were walking, I was personally working with the other end of the spectrum, engaging with the fast-paced changes we are encountering with our electronic, or “smart” assistants.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly become part of our everyday lives. It is in our usual tools, our wordprocessors, as part of our “smart” feeds for television, our email, our social media, and the list can continue.  Yet, it can also help us find the pauses, the quiet time, the time for reflection, and even help us focus our jumbled-up thoughts into a reflection.  My AI Assistant has provided me with ways to free up my time, transcribing meeting minutes, providing summaries, and more.  It saves me several hours per week just by providing typing support.  Since ChatGPT was “released” in November 2022, our lives have been fundamentally different, whether or not you personally have noticed it.  I made a conscious decision to learn about the technology because I understood it would be part of our lives. Yet, I have adapted it into my workflows so that I can pause and reflect.  I have seen an increase in the time I can spend on slow things, like taking two days to make a lovely loaf of bread or a slow-cooked pork roast.  I can go on a “media” free walk and observe the stars or listen to the birds.  I feel less stressed, because I have an assistant who can help me find minutes in the day and help me organize.  It is a case where the “new” world is enabling the “slow” world.  And, I am finding a lot of peace in that.

Habit Trackers

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Do you use a habit tracker?  Or, are you aware of a habit tracker that is monitoring you?  (We tend to see these at the end of the year when you get your “Spotify Wrap Up” or your year-end credit card statement.) You might have even thought about a habit tracker to get you started on your “New Year’s Resolution.”  If you did think about it and possibly did an internet search to see what tools, suggestions, and applications were available, you might have gotten a bit overwhelmed.  The real question is not really about the habit tracker itself, but the why behind it.  What is it that you are really trying to do: develop a new skill, make sure that you have completed a “must-do” task, or as a way to cope with some of the stresses of daily life?  Fundamentally, habit tracking is a means to an end, a way to support the development of daily behaviors to build self-awareness, consistency, and even resilience.

Of course, there are other ways of solidifying a good habit or behavior. For example, as I was trying to develop a yoga practice to support flexibility and health, I put a quarter in a jar each time I practiced, so I could reward myself with something I wanted after enough change was collected.  (This was a bit better than seeing a little box get checked on a scoreboard, but it still was a habit tracker.)  We also see a number of programs that pass out badges, challenge coins, and other “rewards” when you reach a milestone.  But, again, these are the result, not the why.  A person really needs to look at the why and also reflect on the journey.

Each person is on their own specialized journey, and one of their own making.  We celebrate the common milestones, birthdays, and anniversaries.  We tend to celebrate bigger achievements, graduations, and years of service.  But, each of us track other things, number of books read, number of steps per day, number of days practicing the piano, etc.  These are more personal, sometimes celebrated, sometimes communicated, but they are something you do for yourself, and it is not about the passage of time.  These “streaks” say something about you.  They point out what you “value,” whether or not you have articulated it to yourself or not.  Currently, I am tracking some things very actively, but others sort of snuck up on me.  I have a Duolingo streak of 1,618 days as of this writing (been working on German, but also have done a bit of Spanish and Navajo).  It is also a bit fascinating that I chose to look at the streak today, as 1.618 is the “Golden Ratio,” an idea of symmetry.  It is found in nature, in art, and in mathematics.  But, for me, it is a coincidence that allowed me to focus on the geometry or framework of my current development or the architecture of my daily and weekly actions.  I am building on what is important to me to focus on my goals and what I want to accomplish.  This particular streak is a strong reflection of my value for continuous learning.  It may seem like just a “habit,” but it is one that cannot be maintained without that drive.  

The drive keeps me going, but we all know that streaks come to an end.  For example, I maintained a streak last year that lasted over seven months, listening to a particular podcast daily.  The streak ended when I got busy with family and work.  But the fact that I didn’t return to it after the disruption indicated there wasn’t the “drive” to keep it going.  However, the reason I was listening to that particular podcast, and the streak has restarted in a different way.  The purpose, the why, is still very present, and the new habit is sustained in a much more constructive way.  This is just an example of how our streaks can scaffold our growth and support our lives.

A key to maintaining the streak, habit, or purpose is the why behind it.  Why do you track the number of glasses of water you drink each day?  It is a technique to ensure that you maintain hydration, and it is a tip for helping lose weight (sometimes we eat just because we are thirsty).  Why do we track the number of steps each day? Supposedly, it helps us maintain a level of fitness or supports our health because we have to get up from behind the desk.  Think about what you are tracking or not tracking.  As we rely on our “tools” think smart phone, and calendars, we generally don’t take the time to reflect.  Without reflection and examination, we tend to be adrift in the world, and our lives are less fulfilling.  Understanding what we value and building our scaffolding to help us focus on those values provides a sense of fulfillment and peace, and allows us to maintain the streaks that are important to us.

Time

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Time is an interesting concept, and it is very human.  There is the physical idea of time, one that scientists provide a measure, the second, and record time in established intervals.  The second is defined as the duration of exactly 9,192, 631, 770 cycles (or periods) of the microwave radiation of a specific energy transition in a cesium-133 atom. This is a precise atomic standard, and we see these seconds tick by in our analog and digital clocks.  But, for most of us (unless we are doing scientific measurements), time is a bit more ethereal, cultural, and subjective.

Take for the basic idea of what day it is?  You might get an answer related to the day of the week, such as Monday or Friday.  Or you might get our world standard, the day’s date (I am writing this on January 2, 2026).  But, you might get another answer depending upon the specific calendar you are using, common ones include the Julian, Hebrew, Islamic, and Chinese.  Some are based on solar observations, some lunar observations. Do a quick internet search, asking the question about the number of calendars in common use, and you will get around 40 different calendars, with the six to ten being considered major calendars.  Each calendar has a particular cultural or religious use.

Before getting a bit philosophical, let’s look at our common calendar, the International Calendar.  This calendar is based on the Georgian Calendar. It was not widely accepted until after 1752 when Britain and the British Colonies accepted the correction to the Julian Calendar. This calendar is named for Pope Gregory XIII, who proclaimed its use in 1582.  Astronomers still use the Julian Calendar. The Julian Calendar is based on the one adopted by Julius Caesar in approximately 46 BC with a few corrections and finalized in 8 CE.  The Georgian Calendar is a slight correction to the Julian Calendar in how it manages leap years.  The average length of the Georgian year is 365.2425 days as measured from equinox to equinox, i.e. a solar tropical year.  Using this calendar the error is only 1 day every 3300 years as compared to the Julian Calendar which accumulates an error of 1 day in every 128 years.  (The advantage of the Julian Calendar to astronomers is that all of the known astronomical observations have positive Julian dates, making the math easier.)

And, as noted before, there is still some debate as to the “proper” calendar.  Even our idea of the second and the synchronization of time is actually relatively new.  Historically for most communities, time was a local issue.  As commerce expanded, time and location became linked in what was known as the longitude problem, i.e. where was a ship located east or west of a given line.  The problem was solved by using sophisticated mechanical clocks measured against a reference. Hence, the establishment of Greenwich Mean Time or the GMT, and the basis for internal establishment of Universal Time (UTC) or Zulu Time.  The longitude problem was officially solved, as recognized by the awarding of a prize by the British Government, in 1773.  Yet, standardization of time was still at least a century away.

What finally made it an imperative to establish a standard time and time zones?  The advent of the railroads.  At noon on November 18, 1883, the U.S. and Canadian Railroads adopted what was then called the General Time Convention, which later became the known as “Railroad and Telegraph Time.”  The General Time Convention used the meridians (longitude) to establish time zones.  The Naval Observatory was responsible for providing the noon signal which allowed the railroads and telegraphs to synchronize the clocks based upon the convention established.  This occurred prior to formal establishment of GMT being the international standard at zero longitude.  The international agreement to establish UTC came in 1884. 

But, then there is our philosophical and personal perception of time.  We have all had that feeling that time is dragging, usually when we are “watching the clock” or impatiently waiting for something or someone.  Then there is the sensation that time has flown by, you are in the zone and are working on something and you look up and see that an hour or two has passed.  We also experience this when reflecting on the calendar, just how fast did 2025 fly by?  Or the past 3 years?  Each of us has our own perception, and those perceptions can be influenced by events and expectations.  This perception is the stuff of poets.

For now, let’s just marvel at the fact that we can monitor time in a precise way to help us understand our physical world, as well as monitor it in a way that allows us to engage with others.  Our calendars are precious things (on a personal and cultural level).  We use them to plan, as well as to reflect.  We use them as guides, as well as measurements of milestones.  Particular days have meaning, and some are just a box.  The key is that time is now, this present moment.  It can’t be stored or saved; it just is.

Preparing for the Solar Eclipse

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On Monday, August 21, 2017, the United States is in for a celestial treat!  The Moon is going to pass between the Sun and the Earth.  For part of the United States along the Path of Totality, the Moon will completely block the Sun for about two minutes and 40 seconds although the Moon will be partially blocking the sun for a much longer period.  Find the time and duration for your city at https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/@4548267.

The Path of Totality is approximately 70 miles wide and is going to be a path that includes parts of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.  Because the Earth rotates about an axis, the exact timing of totality for any given city or location is going to be different.  Lincoln Beach, Oregon will be the first to experience totality at 10:16 am PDT and Charleston, South Carolina will be the last to experience totality at approximately 2:48 pm EDT.

The last total solar eclipse viewable from the contiguous U.S. was in 1979.  Solar eclipses occur on average once every 18 months.  But, because of the shape Moon’s orbit about the Earth, the Moon’s position relative to the Sun and the Earth changes, affecting the specific location and duration of the solar eclipse.  Because they do not occur in the same location, a solar eclipse seems like a rare event, and for specific locations like Dallas, Texas it may be 400 years between total solar eclipses.  (The next scheduled total eclipse viewable from Dallas will be predicted to be April 8, 2024, and the last one was Oct. 23, 1623.)  While conversely, Denver, Colorado had a total eclipse on July 29, 1878, and will see another one on Aug. 12, 2045, which is only 167 years apart.

What will you see?  First, DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE SUN, as the Sun’s intensity can damage the eye.  But, there are many other ways to watch the event.  Special viewing glasses are available at viewing events or ordering them online.  These glasses are designed to filter out the harmful rays to allow for safe viewing.   There are indirect ways to view the event as well.  (Here is a link to the NASA Safety webpage https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/safety)

You can build a solar viewer, which is essentially a pinhole projector. This can be done by using a piece of paper, cardboard or cardstock.  Make a tiny hole with a needle, straight pin, or thumb tack.  The hole should be round and smooth.  With your back towards the Sun, hold the piece of paper with the hole and project the image of the Sun onto another sheet of paper or concert (this is your screen).  The size of the image will be dependent upon the distance between the paper and your screen. (https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/make-pinhole-projector.html)  Caught without a piece of paper?  The leaves of a tree can act as your pinhole view as well as use laced fingers.  Using fingers or leaves, you are likely to get multiple images of the event.  You can build a pinhole camera viewer as well, see https://www.livescience.com/59721-solar-eclipse-viewer-photo-tutorial.html?utm_source=notification. With the viewer, you may be able to film the event with your phone camera.  The key here is to watch the event safely.

Want more details about the eclipse?  You can go to NASA’s eclipse website: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-who-what-where-when-and-how.  It has links to maps and other information about this upcoming event.

NOTE:  A version of this post will appear in the Midweek of the Ponca City News on August 9, 2017.

Engaging with the written word

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Have you thought about how you engage with the written word?  Sometimes, it is words combined with pictures on a screen – Instagram, memes, blogs, etc.  Sometimes, it is a personal experience with paper and pen.  Sometimes, it is a tactile experience with a magazine, book or newspaper.  The written word can appear in a glance, or can be deeply pondered.  But, it has become apparent that how we engage with the written word is very different that it used to be.  And, may be highly dependent on how the information is presented.

Blog post graphic book

During the past week, I have encountered numerous stories discussing how reading has changed.  How we as learners, educators, and consumers of the written word interact with the messages and ideas being conveyed.  Our society has changed.  We read mostly in snippets, brief interactions.  And, this is driven by our devices: computers, smart phones, tablets, billboards, ads, etc.  We may or may not actively engage with a more complex reading format: a longer article, or a book.

This change in reading behavior presents a significant challenge to educators, how do we get students engaged with the text to think more deeply about an idea?  How do we get individuals to really comprehend the information being presented? How do we encourage an imagination?  There is obviously no clear answer.

Add to this the fear of the summer time reading slump, i.e. not reading over the summer; and we have to consider how individuals engage with reading.  For parents, there are some resources that are available.  Local summer reading programs at the public library.  Many school systems send home summer reading lists.  And, then there are organizations like Reading is Fundamental or Unite for Literacy. So, access to reading is available.  The trick is to engage in the activity.

Reading is a skill that needs practice.  We also need to engage in different types of reading, because our comprehension skills are different based upon method of interaction with the words.  It is time to encourage some quite time with a physical book in addition to reading an e-book.  We also need to engage in the act of writing, note taking, and pondering.  Perhaps if we do that more ideas and solutions may appear.

Happy New Year – Return to Normal?

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Frosty Field

All of us have this definition of normal.  With the holidays completed, there is this sense that we are going to return to normal.  But, what is that?  Really, what we are saying is that we are returning to that ordinary state of routine.  For families with children, this means that we are returning to a school routine.

January is also a time when we reassess our school year goals and set some new goals as well.  So, what are your goals for the remainder of winter and into spring?  Have you though about adding some science activities?  January is actually a great time to look at your science curriculum.

The homeschooling catalogs will be coming out soon.  So, it is a great time to start thinking.  But, there are other resources that come out during January.  Here are some good ones to start your creative juices flowing:

Astronomy

Sky and Telescope has come out with their 2015 Observing Calendars and Information.  There are other sites as well – the Sea and Sky has their Celestial Events Calendar  out as well as Stargazing Tonight.

Science Fairs

It is time to think about those science fair projects (if you haven’t already started).  The International Science and Engineering Fair is in May – and students are required to participate in qualifying fairs.  You can find information about affiliated science fairs here. Many local fairs are in February – so if  you haven’t found your dates – it is time to look.

Global Science Events

Every year there are a number of scientific and medical meetings held around the world.  And while, they may not be directed toward you and your family personally, many of these meetings have auxiliary events.  For example, the American Chemical Society which will be meeting in Denver in March and in Boston in August usually supports a science activity for families and school children as part of their meeting.  Thus, looking to see if one of these events is coming to your area may inspire an activity or a lesson plan.  You can find one listing of Science Events here.

Weather and Climate

In addition to astronomy, there is also sky watching as related to weather, clouds, climate, etc.  Winter is a great time to look for the Aurora Borealis – you can find the forecast for viewing here. Of course there are a number of sites that follow weather – there is the NOAA.gov and Weather.com.  These should provide you with lots of activities.

Check out the Calendar

Earth Science Week  – has extended their celebration to the entire year.  National Engineering Week is February 22-28, 2015 and information can be found here.  Earth Day is April 22 and many professional societies have activities planned.  Pi Day is March 14 and this year is special because of the year.  (You might also search STEM activities – UCF is holding a STEM Day on Jan. 30, 2015, and STEM Saturdays are being held at Northern Illinois University. There are a host of other Colleges and Universities that are doing STEM outreach – so checking your local community college, or other higher learning institution may also provide you with inspiration.)

Finally, watch the museum and library calendars you never know what might turn up there.