Cars Carry A Cargo of Memories

Cars Carry A Cargo of Memories

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

 Among classic songs about cars is one by Chuck Berry about a seat belt that refused to unfasten at a romantic moment.  “All the way home,” the rock and roll legend croons, “I held a grudge for the safety belt that wouldn’t budge.”  I predated seat belts, so this never happened to me, but I must confess to enjoying an electrifying moment when the girl beside me whispered in my ear, “You’re the driver.”  Without question, cars invoke strong emotions while delivering unbelievable adventures. 

 For many of us, cars are hitching posts for significant events in our past.   Whether it is about technical features or social relationships, each car tells a story.  Here are just a few based on the dozen or so cars I have owned or encountered since the 1950s.      

I learned to drive in a 1956 Oldsmobile two-toned aqua and white hardtop.  Its technical features fascinated me because in those days cars rarely had power-driven radio antennas and channel switching, as well as six-way power seats.  None of this saved me from my father’s wrath when I nearly drove into a ditch trying to avoid a squirrel. 

In the mid 60’s I got a car of my own for the first time.  My 1957 Chevy was a hefty gift from my dad so I could get back and forth to college.  He felt its tonnage would protect me in case of mishap if a careless squirrel crossed my path. The front grill was   a piece of muscular sculpture as big and heavy as many of today’s compacts.  The imposing diameter of the steering wheel nearly forced me to peer under it when driving.   Unfortunately, before the days of undercoating, salty winter roads shortened the life of my classic gem.  Today I sigh at the high-priced restorations I see on television.  

Skip ahead to my 1965 Ford Galaxy sedan, our first car as newlyweds. This beautiful vehicle had a nearly fatal flaw.  It loved to drift, with suspension and power steering that felt like jelly.  We crashed on the New Jersey turnpike without injury, but shaken up.  I will never forget the horrified expression of the state trooper who opened our rear door and found 10 escaped pet gerbils peering at him from under our piles of clothing. He slammed that door quickly! 

In the early 1970s, upon returning from service in Vietnam, I ordered a Volvo sedan on an overseas delivery plan.  We were convinced it would be reliable.  Wrong.  Its dual manual Btitish-built carburetors were persnickety beyond belief and virtually unrepairable.  Especially in the hot California climate, our Swedish beauty balked at every stop sign, apparently demanding a frigid climate. 

Years later, with young kids to transport, my wife and I bought one of the early mini-vans, an underpowered four-speed Plymouth Voyager.  Speeding was impossible, thankfully because our kids learned to drive in it. The mileage was decent but downshifting nearly everywhere uphill was tedious.  Even more so was removing the third-row seat, which required leveraging, lifting, and sweating like a wrestler.  

Much more recently I purchased a year 2000 Corvette that drove like an unruly truck.  We called this one the beast because it acted that way and reminded us of Batman’s black cruiser.  True to the traditions of the Corvette nation, I brought the beast out only if the sun was shining and conscientiously flashed my lights to greet every oncoming Vette.  I discovered people just have to tailgate these eye-candy babies to see what is going on.  In a land of pick-up trucks where drivers often have to show me they can go faster, I have always felt just a little strange.

 Most memorable was a state policeman who stopped me, and, after inspecting the beast’s rakish front hood, said, “Where is your front license plate?”  I stammered, “Well, there isn’t any place to attach it, so it’s under my front seat.”  He warned me that state law requires plates on both front and back.  After some hasty research, I discovered that the preferred solution is just to pay the fine and forget it.  An interesting alternative is to install an expensive gimmick that strategically makes the front plate flip down and disappear under the bumper at the push of a button.  

Some folks thrive on refurbishing and showing off so-called “resto-mods”.   I remember too many of these gas-guzzling muscle cars from the 1960s as pure junk.  Even so, I say more power to them.  I settle for keeping mine washed.  I think we should protest the accelerating disappearance of standard shifts and cozy bench seats.  Remember when your girl actually sat close to you?  Today’s wonderful gadgetry is convenient and satisfying, but nothing beats my cargo of memories.         

Does Everyone Deserve A Second Chance?

DOES EVERYONE DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE?

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

   

   Every day I encounter second chances.  If I burn the breakfast toast, miss my plane flight, or encounter a salesperson who ignores me, is there another chance to correct the situation?  I hope so, but it depends on the circumstance.  The toast can be replaced easily.  A missed flight may be rescheduled with a transaction fee.   I may give a negligent salesperson a second chance, but I also have the choices of complaining to the manager or finding another store.      

     

    Do all these daily choices shape our views about second chances?  Very definitely, because the freedoms of American life enrich us with so many options.  However, do we honestly believe everyone deserves a second chance?  Answers reveal our national character.      

As a lifelong educator, I have found that second chances produce cognitive dissonance in our schools.  We struggle to hold contradictory ideas at the same time.  One-time on-demand tests are a traditional way of measuring what has been learned.  Standardized testing is built on this approach, and it works well as a way to sort and select students.  In contrast is mastery learning where teachers use multiple informal assessments to gauge progress toward learning goals, as they coach, correct mistakes and give feedback along the way.         

   

    On a much broader scale, second chance dissonance extends across the landscape of national policy. Incarceration highlights the issues.  We imprison our population at an awesome rate.  Our penal population is well over two million, and we house 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.  Our incarceration rate is currently three times higher than at any time in the last century.  We act on the belief that imprisoning perpetrators for breaking the law is a legitimate punishment, and that threat of it will prevent lawlessness. Ultimately, a release from prison is supposed to have taught a lesson that improves the odds for second chances.  It is startling that about two-thirds of released prisoners are rearrested within three years.

   

    More promising, according to Prison Policy Initiatives, are recent enactments by 23 states to reduce barriers faced by those with criminal records in the workplace and elsewhere.  Mostly this involves sealing or expunging records.  Hopes for rehabilitation and second chances are certainly enhanced by pardons, probation, mentoring, mental health counseling, additional education and skill training while still in prison.

   

    Marriage, divorce, and remarriage provide a very different perspective on second chances.  According to Pew surveys, about half of Americans over 18 were married in 2016.  Foregoing marriage has increased among the young, while divorce rates have risen among older Americans.  Relative to second chances, about four of every 10 marriages these days involve remarriage, and half of those involve both spouses.  As of 2013, an almost unbelievable 23 percent of the married had been married before.  Interestingly, men seem much more interested this second chance than women.     

  

     Whether we are considering prison pardons or remarriage, a lot of forgiveness is necessary.  Psychologists strongly recommend it because this gives us a strong sense of well-being, happiness, and even redemption.  By forgiving often, we save emotional energy and demonstrate the belief that people can learn from their mistakes.   

    

    Strong opinions about second chances are institutionalized in our American value systems.  For me, second chances should never be wasted.  They should not become excuses to sluff off, but rather should be opportunities to learn and improve.  I believe that we are all fallible and prone to mistakes.  Given a second chance combined with sufficient inspiration and guidance, lives can be turned around.  Ultimately, the second chance is up to us. 

JMB

4/21/1028 

The Search for Happiness

  The Search for Happiness

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

We have become obsessive about finding happiness.  In the last decade, books of relevant advice have ballooned into thousands.   Across the country, innumerable life coaches have found a new career niche.   College courses about finding life’s sweet spot are multiplying fast.  

 

The inalienable right of pursuing happiness given by our Declaration of Independence is certainly being put to the test.  National trends are misleading.   The real thing is much more of an individual matter.  For example, certain people simply choose to be happy no matter what.   Somehow it lives in their genes.     

Since the majority of us are not born with sunny dispositions, we hope for a positive outlook in things we can possess.  Yet happiness is a feeling that grows within ourselves.  No one just gives it to us.  Emotional responses to very specific associations can release it, say from a shot of dopamine, or a dog or cat sleeping peacefully in your lap, a superb dessert, or even finding a bathroom when getting desperate.   My personal favorites include making photos look like paintings and  listening to music that makes me want to dance.    

 When we think beyond emotional glee, a deeper kind of happiness stems from living a personally meaningful and purposeful life.  Linked to self-perception and values, this is a journey rather than a destination.  The journey begins at an impressionable age.

 No one experiences extremes of euphoria and depression quite like adolescents.  This is why a major study finding by psychologists at the University of San Diego is so intriguing.   Looking at a sharp decline in the happiness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction of more than a million young people since 2012, the researchers discovered a potent incubator:  social media via rapidly accelerating smart phone ownership.   Teens who limited their leisure use of communications technology to an hour daily, while devoting more time to seeing their friends in person and varying their contacts and activities, were definitely happier than teens who devoted significant daily time (up to five hours) to the internet, computer games, texting, video chat or watching TV. 

 Tech tools can become addictive.  They can isolate and alienate children and adults from one another.  The visual and textual content of messages shared among teenagers can depress self-esteem and assurance.   Parental monitoring, or adult counseling can pave the way to improved conditions for happiness.

 So in what tense – past, present, or future -- can we find happiness?  According to psychologist and bestselling author Daniel Gilbert, looking for it either in the past or the future is misguided.  Yet the present is suspect too!   In his entertaining analysis of “Stumbling on Happiness”, Gilbert targets pervasive gaps in our memory of events which we then fill in with inventions based on the here and now.  Also, when we try to imagine future events, we mispredict both what will happen and our emotional response quite badly.   As any futurist will tell you, the future is pretty much now.  Gaps in the past and future are readily filled in with today’s material.  We need better sources of happiness.

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The answer for Gilbert lies in what he calls surrogation.   As much as we resist thinking we are really very much like others, Gilbert insists that we are, and therefore we can predict the future or better understand the past by comparing what others think, do or have done – in other words by relying on a substitute for ourselves.   As the professor puts it, “Surrogation is a cheap and effective way to predict one’s future emotions,” but instead we are sorely tempted to fall back on our faulty imaginations.

An affirming treasure of insights about happiness can be found in a Harvard Grant Study which tracked a range of life factors over a phenomenal 75 years in a group of 268 graduates.   Stated simply, all the luxury and material wealth in the world meant very little without love.  The roots of love were found in human relationships, in connecting with others in personally meaningful ways.  The relationship may derive from a mother’s connection to her child, or from life in a community.  Most likely that community promotes a culture that values caring, kindness, mindfulness, and direct face-to-face communication with others of like mindedness.  

By comparing the routes  in the studies I have described, we can find some commonality.  No disastrous malignancy in our national psyche is curbing happiness. The bedrock for it lies within ourselves, in our individual relationships with others, in meetings anchored in the present moment, and in finding personal meaning and purpose.  Happiness cannot be bought, or captured by the past or the future, but it can be nurtured by the empathy and love of others within a community of concern.   

JMB/2/2/2018

  

Understanding Mediocrity

Understanding Mediocrity

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

The popular slogan “failure is not an option” suggests teachers’ courageous commitment to their students’ successful learning.  Yet we know that failure often happens.  Repeated failures usually trigger interventions and special programs in our schools.  At the other extreme, high achievers are motivated and reinforced by a system whose DNA makes academic accomplishments the prize.  But what about the students whose average performance seldom earns recognition?   Would we support the idea that their “mediocrity is not an option”?     

Even the dictionary doesn’t know what to do with the term “mediocrity”.   One meaning is adequate or ordinary, but another is poor or inferior.    Being mediocre offers a devious combination of justifications.  Its circumstances change depending on the stakes, the skills or activity we are looking at, who is being compared to whom, and whether the performance is adequate, marginal, or poor.   

Management consultant Mark Friedman says there are three ways to compare our performance -- to ourselves, to others, and to standards.  Each one offers a different viewpoint.

I really enjoy swimming.  When I swim laps in a pool, I keep track of my time.  When it improves, I reward myself with something sweet.  Mediocrity means nothing until I compare myself to others.   If I were to dive off the blocks in competition with Michael Phelps, I would choke on his wake.  Chances are I would finish the race eventually, not failing, which would probably mean drowning, but as an example of mediocrity.   Millions of others would share my fate.

Standards also define performance.  As a five-year-old, my son set the 50-yard freestyle record in his age group by thrashing up and down the pool at SUNY Albany. For his parents he was outstanding, but compared to any other age group’s standards, he was mediocre.  At least in sports, the benchmarks are essentially records.

 Not so in school, where teachers tend to set their own standards by subject, grade level, and track, although the use of descriptive rubrics and criterion-referenced exams has helped clarify matters.  Because there is no consensus on standards of mediocrity, a “C” grade can mean just about anything.  Regents exams and the SAT or ACT provide standard anchors, but they hardly predict the performance of average learners.      

Teamwork and group projects add another confounding link between accountability and mediocrity.  Either on the assembly line or in school, even when roles and goals are assigned, some individuals slough off.   If the project is completed and production targets are met, the phenomenon of mediocre engagement may frustrate the achievers, but unless separate ratings for each team member are included (wise teachers do this), the lesser performers slide by.

Statistics and social beliefs impinge on mediocrity.  Educators find the distribution of students in a classroom a natural fact of life represented by a bell-shaped curve.  Performance and talent are thought to be concentrated in the middle, while the top and bottom extremes number far fewer at the two ends of the curve.  Thereby we define ability grouping, tracking, and the like as a convenient but terribly inequitable means of organizing instruction.   

Nowhere is the impact of mediocrity more pronounced than in the use of A-F or numerical grades in our schools.  To get their work done, and to remain accountable to the system, teachers aim for the middle.  Despite efforts to differentiate instruction, and despite successful models like individual learning plans for children with disabilities, most teachers have to adjust lesson quality and rigor by giving the broadest support to the most students.  Accordingly, not only students, but teachers too, are blamed for being mediocre.  

Do we chafe against mediocrity?  Unsurprisingly, yes.  Often it carries a belittling connotation.  Our society celebrates accomplishments.  The deluge of worldwide news publicizes the extremes or the unusual.  Mediocrity is not newsworthy so it is often neglected.  

Public schools are wonderful starting points for reversing the negative effects of society’s mediocrity.  The meritocracy of schools can make middling or average performers feel lost in the crowd.  To counteract this, our teachers can use small-group instruction, cooperative learning, alternative or informal assessments, unique and progress-focused rewards and recognition, and projects that encourage individual curiosity and creativity.

 These days school districts recognize the importance of a culture of positive engagement.  Programs and activities encourage the interests and inspirations of the students.  Teachers committed to the success of all students can offer continuous, constructive feedback on academic work.  They can and should attend to diversity and social intelligence, while promoting a safe and supportive community environment.  When the groundwork is laid, mediocrity in school and in life afterward need not be an option. 

Curious Encounters Should Inspire Learning

CURIOUS ENCOUNTERS SHOULD INSPIRE LEARNING

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Nearly every day we encounter things that just do not make sense.  We try to figure out an explanation and usually end up building our preconceptions into a rationale we can accept.  All seems to go well until a better explanation comes along, or perhaps disaster occurs, or perplexity hounds us enough to reinvestigate. 

Curious encounters can be witnessed face to face, but most often I read about them or find them jumping out of my tv or smart phone.  I enjoy these mysteries because they violate expectations, puzzle us, and lead to breakthroughs in learning.

For instance, not long ago at 36,000 feet, I found myself staring at a little screen showing the path of our jet flight from New York to Ireland.  Counterintuitively, the plane seemed to be headed directly north to Greenland via Canada. Later, as we looped back toward continental Europe, I remembered we live on a globe where the shortest distance between two points may be over the dome.   

On that same flight I was trying to make sense of Stephen Hawking’s “Briefer History of Time.”  My wife threatened to disown me if I tried to explain to her one more time why this book told me I would become much younger than she if I left earth on a spaceship traveling near the speed of light, and then returned while she had been sitting here on earth growing much older than me.  Einstein’s theories of relativity blow up many of my personal fallacies with regard to time, light, space and gravity. 

All around us are familiar beliefs that contradict the way we think the world should work.  When I asked for some illustrations from my facebook friends, they replied as follows:  If you want someone to do something, forbid them from doing it; love your enemies; the only thing to fear is fear itself; and the best way to control a skid is to turn in its direction and take your foot off the break. 

One respondent mentioned the destructive practice of planting misinformation.  Called “gaslighting,” a term derived from a 1944 film in which a man convinces his perfectly healthy wife that she is going insane by manipulating her beliefs.  Gaslighters plant doubts to make others question their own memory, perception, or sanity.

We love to construct truisms for convenience.  Often these are unproven.  For instance, we say that leaving the door unlocked will be fine because no one has ever robbed us.  Or we tell others they will catch a cold unless they bundle up.  Or we overestimate the risk of death by plane crash when compared to a drug overdose. 

Science is surprisingly ignored.  For example, the practice of injecting someone with a virus to protect against it still prompts some to reject vaccinations.  Nor do some consumers believe there is any good reason to heat up milk (pasteurization) when it is meant to be chilled for drinking.   

In his book “Science Blind”, Andrew Shtulman describes the ironies of science denial in an age when research particularly about health and climate is geometrically expanding our knowledge.  Ideological, religious, and obvious political motivations obscure reality.  A dramatic example is our current Presidential administration’s denial of climate warming which has turned the United States into an embarrassing worldwide minority of one.

Schtulman defines intuitive theories as our “untutored explanations for how the world works.”  These are best guesses which are better than no theories at all, but they frequently blind and bind us.  We refuse to give them up easily because we constantly overestimate the value of what we already own.   

Yet there is hope for stubborn doubters.  We can begin by ruthlessly deconstructing our biases. We can look beyond our senses and unproven intuitions, and then rebuild knowledge based on reasonable proof.  Today’s technology offers abundant data, opinions, and facts.  We should let our curious encounters stimulate challenging questions. Young children do this all the time, so why shouldn’t we?

What It Takes to Change the Game

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

Popular magazines publish lists of the world’s most influential thinkers each year, but few of these people become true game changers.  Yet once in awhile it happens.   Someone shatters our preconceptions and creates a very different way of looking at things.   This has been called a paradigm shift, most often seen in science and technology.       

 Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell describes how a momentous change most likely is influenced by combination of people in various roles.   He calls them connectors, mavens, and salesmen.   Personally, I try to decide for myself whether to make a paradigm shift part of my quality world.    

Our own choices define our “quality world”, according to reality therapist William Glasser.  Our needs are met when those choices harmonize with our role models, possessions, and systems of belief.  The quality world is a place of personal ideals and perfection.   No paradigm shift can find its way into our own hearts and minds unless it can be calibrated to fit our “personal picture album”.

Ask yourself what recent changes have affected your habits of thinking.  Did they happen suddenly?  Were opinion shapers involved?   Are the changes gaining traction in your quality world?  The answers can be self-revealing  

Let me share a couple of personal examples.         

I am still proud that I won an elementary school high jump contest in 1955.  I remember it vividly because after winning, I took an extra jump and broke my arm in the packed sawdust.  Thirteen years later an American competitor named Dick Fosbury won the high jump at the 1968 Mexico Olympics with a 7’4” vault.  I was awestruck.  He was destined to revolutionize the sport and set the world standard in short order.   Defying conventionality, he invented what became known as the Fosbury Flop when he kicked a lead leg upward and then rotated his body like a corkscrew, falling backward over the bar.   

A thick foam rubber landing pad helped Fosbury develop his skill early on.  Invented in 1929, with enormous current implications, foam rubber has kept legions of high jumpers and pole vaulters from breaking their necks.  But Fosbury was truly a game changer.  The jumping events remain a very big deal in my personal quality world.  I never miss watching the Olympics.  

Paradigm shifts begin with a contention so universally accepted that no one really questions it.   Pencils are still a perfect expression of technology, but lately a cascade of shifts has made them all but obsolete.   When I was growing up, a phone was meant for taking and making calls, usually to my girlfriend.  However, in a blink of time, they have been transformed from clunky wire-linked vehicles into wireless digital instruments that perform extraordinary tasks.   Not the least of these is storing and sharing nearly all of the world’s recorded knowledge.  

 My game changers in this realm are Mark Zuckerberg and Steven Sasson.  Zuckerburg and friends launched facebook in 2004.  Via this powerful social engine, I maintain contact with “friends” across the country.   Moreover, I upload and share digital photos daily, thanks to Steven J. Sasson, an American electrical engineer who invented the first (26 pound) digital camera at Eastman Kodak in 1975.      

Latent paradigm shifts are constantly percolating as technology races ahead.  We gain perspective when we throw out old assumptions, keep nostalgia in check, and gauge usefulness.   Shifts may be sudden, or take decades or centuries while struggling for release from prejudice or ignorance.  When they fully activate, they quickly gain momentum and affect millions of people.   Game changers rock the world, but personal choice determines whether that world is our own.  

Photos to Accompany A Tour of Irish Connections