23 years and counting

Q and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday -- we've been together 23 years.  It feels like just yesterday we met, and yet I can't imagine life without him.  I could say that our relationship works because of how wonderful Q is.  I could describe my initial attraction to him, and how kind and supportive he was to me, a total stranger.  I could then enumerate his many fine qualities (and a very long post it would be!).  This would be a tale of how I met my perfect partner and now we are living happily ever after.  We see that story so often in movies, but it is only part of the truth.  The real story of any successful relationship is how the two people involved built a strong and satisfying relationship that stands the test of time.  I am fortunate because Q and I have worked together to create just such a relationship.

Our relationship is supported by a strong foundation of intimacy.  We enjoy spending time together and sharing our experiences with each other, building what John Gottman calls "love maps."  When we first moved in together, Q was a bit worried about how we would get along.  We'd spent five years as a long-distance couple, seeing each other only every two or three weeks.  Now we were going to live in the same apartment, both of us predominantly working from home, being together virtually all day, every day.  Would we get tired of each other?  Nope.  It turns out that no matter how much time we spend together, we never get enough of each other.  Why?  Because we not only love each other, but we also like each other.  We're best friends, and friendship is the cornerstone of a good relationship. 

Sand castling in New Jersey (1989)

As with any good friendship, we care about each other and think well of each other.  I sing his praises constantly, and he thinks I hung the moon. We not only see each other positively, we also express our love and admiration frequently.  There is rarely a day in which we don't say "I love you", not just once, but often.  (Now we can even do that via text message!)  In fact, one of our half-joking lines is, "Have I told you recently how much I love you?"  We are physically demonstrative, as well; more than one person has noted how often we reach out to each other to hold hands or hug.  In addition, we thank each other regularly; I am a firm believer in the importance of recognizing the contributions of others, and in expressing gratitude.  Whether is it a simple "thank you for unloading the dishwasher" or a heartfelt "you earned big points for all the work you did on that renovation project", we make sure to acknowledge each other's efforts.  In short, we express a lot of positive feelings toward each other on a regular (near-continual) basis.

We also strive to have a fair and equitable relationship.  It is important to both of us that we share power and contribute equally in all areas of our relationship.  We share responsibility for the household chores, each of us taking on cleaning, cooking, and shopping tasks.  (Our version of fighting over chores is, "Hey, don't do that -- I said I would do it!")  On a larger scale, we have each moved for the other's career; luckily this could be managed without tremendous cost to our career goals.  We make decisions jointly; for any major decision, we talk through the options until we are both satisfied with our final choice. While our relationship has elements of imbalance at times (when I'm grading exams, Q takes on a greater load of chores, for example), I think it ends up being an egalitarian relationship overall. 

That doesn't mean we don't have conflicts; we have our share of disagreements and sometimes even fights.  But we manage conflict well and know how to fight fairly.  We talk out our difficulties rather than burying our disagreements and creating festering resentment.  (We really do strive to follow the rule of not going to bed angry.) We try to express our feelings honestly but without being hurtful.  Since we have created a strong basis of love and trust, we are able to speak openly without fear of being rejected and listen without feeling attacked.  In other words, we communicate effectively, in part because of our strong foundation of intimacy and affection, and that helps us manage conflict without damaging our relationship.

There is now quite a bit of research on the factors that contribute to successful relationships.  But before I knew much about this research, Q and I fortunately managed to build a relationship that hews closely to the key findings of these studies.  Our relationship mirrors the scientific principles that have been identified as fundamental to successful and happy relationships.  Given the sturdy framework we have built of affection, intimacy, equality, and communication, these 23 years are just the beginning of a long and satisfying relationship.  Here's to our future, Q!  Have I told you recently how much I love you?

The card Q designed for our 20th anniversary

Want to read more about the science of close relationships so that you can build a satisfying, long-lasting relationship?  Check out my earlier post, How to build a satisfying, long-lasting relationship (through science!).




References:
Gottman, J. M & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. 

Become an incremental theorist

You've decided to learn something new.  Say you've taken up the banjo*, for example, and you've never played a musical instrument before.  In those first lessons, you find yourself struggling with the first halting notes of "Old Joe Clark" -- this is not as easy as you thought!  Do you say to yourself:  

A.  I have a lot to learn, but I'm getting better with every session.  If I keep trying, I'll be sure to get this eventually. 

or

B.  I'm not good at this -- I guess I'll never be a really good banjo player.  I'm just not musically inclined.

If you lean towards A, you are approaching banjo-playing as what psychologist Carol Dweck calls an incremental theorist.  That means that you think your abilities can improve over time and that you can achieve this task with sufficient practice and study.  If you tend more towards B, you would approach banjo-playing more as an entity theorist.  You see your musical ability as fixed and unchangeable; banjo-playing is something some people are naturally better at than others, and you are just trying to figure out whether you are one of those gifted musicians or not.   For most tasks, there is probably some truth in both approaches.  Some people have the capacity to achieve a higher skill level than others, but all of us can improve with practice and dedicated study.  Nevertheless, the particular emphasis you bring to the task can dramatically affect how you handle challenges and failures, ultimately affecting your overall performance in the task.

Suppose you have an entity theorist approach to mathematics, for example (as many people do in the U.S.).  In your early experiences in math class, you're looking for evidence of whether you are good at math or not so good at math.  If you don't do well in your first few tests, you'll probably decide you're not so good at math.  Having made that determination will then affect your level of engagement with math.  If I'm not good at this, I should direct my efforts elsewhere and just take the minimal math classes required.  Why should I spend extra hours studying?  I'll never be that good at math -- I'm just not a math person.  (Sound familiar?  I can't tell you how many of my students come in with similar narratives about math.)

On the other hand, if you have an incremental theorist approach to mathematics (as many do in Japan or China), you come into the class with the belief that anyone can learn math; mathematics is achievable with sufficient effort.  So early failures or challenges don't signal that you aren't good at math, but merely that you must put greater effort into studying and get additional help to learn the material.  I don't understand this well yet, but I know that I can learn this material.  I'll need to keep trying so that I can improve and develop my skills more fully.  Look how much I've already learned!

The incremental theorist approach encourages us to focus on improvement, rather than identifying those individuals who are gifted (or not so gifted).  Instead of responding to failure with disengagement, we respond with renewed effort.  Instead of being vigilant for cues of our lack of ability, we are focused on evidence of progress and growth.  The entity theorist fears failure (signifying, as it does, inherent lack of ability -- they've found me out at last!), and so, avoids risk.  Yet learning requires risk; we must be willing to try and fail in order to grow and improve. 

An incremental approach needn't blind us to differences in ease of learning or final ability.  Some will learn the material more easily and some less easily.  Some may rise to unusual levels of excellence in their performance (e.g., the difference between a competent or even skilled banjo player and one who is a banjo virtuoso).  But I cannot know my ultimate capacity if I quit trying at the first failure.  The child who gives up on math might well have become a gifted mathematician -- struggling with a subject does not necessarily preclude significant mastery later on.  But beyond that, achieving a basic level of mathematical competence is still a worthy achievement, and one that opens a number of career doors that will otherwise be closed.  I need not be mathematically exceptional to successfully master calculus, which then allows me access to a variety of career options in the sciences and social sciences, many of which do not, in themselves, require extensive use of mathematics for successful achievement.

If we are to inculcate an incremental theorist's mindset, it means we need to change the kind of praise we give.  Rather than telling our students they are smart when they get the right answer (an entity approach), we should emphasize their capacity for growth and new learning.  A recent Washington Post article discussed the process of fine-tuning praise in schools:

[Carol Dweck’s] studies, embraced in [schools in Montgomery County, MD] and elsewhere, have found that praising children for intelligence — “You’re so clever!” — also backfires. In study after study, children rewarded for being smart become more likely to shy away from hard assignments that might tarnish their star reputations.
But children praised for trying hard or taking risks tend to enjoy challenges and find greater success. Children also perform better in the long term when they believe that their intellect is not a birthright but something that grows and develops as they learn new things.  (Chandler, Jan. 15 2012)

After all, this is true -- learning new skills fosters new neural connections and increases our brain's complexity.  We are always capable of growth and improvement, and emphasizing this capability provides a mindset that gives us a sense of control and promotes greater success in the long run. 

Yet in another local story, the District of Columbia is looking to improve education in struggling schools by providing incentives for effective teachers to move to schools in which students are performing poorly.  Holding aside the obvious difficulties of measuring "effectiveness" in teachers, this constitutes an entity approach to the problem:  Let's find the good teachers and move them to the underperforming schools where they can promote student learning and success.  What if we were to take an incremental approach, and focus on how to help teachers improve in all of the school districts?  We could take the money that would have been poured into incentives for high-performing teachers, and use it provide resources and professional development for teachers in the challenged schools.  The excellent teachers throughout the system could well be among those resources, providing mentoring and support for other teachers to grow and develop their ability to promote student learning.  As Cosby Hunt (a former DCPS teacher) said in a recent Washington Post article: 

“The question is not how can we look to a few superstar teachers to serve as our fix-it crew, but rather, how do we raise the effectiveness of all our teachers?” (Turque, Jan. 23 2012)

Exactly.  After all, if an incremental approach works for our students, why wouldn't it work for teachers?  We need to stop looking for the gifted few and start promoting lifelong learning and development for everyone.  In other words, let's stop waiting for Superman** to swoop in and save the day.  We need to start working on our own improvement and growth instead.  Maybe we can't all be superhuman, but that doesn't mean we can't do well enough to get the job done . . . and with practice and help, we'll do even better tomorrow.

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study.  Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.  ~Henry L. Doherty

 *A shout-out to my sister (different sister from the one mentioned in my previous post) who just started learning banjo.

**OK, this is an obvious reference to the documentary film, Waiting for Superman, which I just saw last weekend, but no particularly pointed commentary on the film is intended.  In some ways, the film is about looking for exceptional educators to save the day, but not in the same way as the proposed DC initiative.  I have very mixed feelings about the film, but that's a tale for a different post. 

References
Chandler, M. A. (Jan. 15, 2012).  In schools, self-esteem boosting is losing favor to rigor, finer-tuned praise. Washington Post.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-schools-self-esteem-boosting-is-losing-favor-to-rigor-finer-tuned-praise/2012/01/11/gIQAXFnF1P_story.html?hpid=z3

Dweck, C. S. & Leggett, E. L. (1988).  A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality.  Psychological Review, 95, 256-273.

Madden, J.  (Jan. 24, 2012).  D.C. to lure top teachers to underperforming classrooms.  National Public Radio.  http://wamu.org/news/12/01/24/dc_to_lure_top_teachers_to_underperforming_classrooms

Stigler, J. W., & Perry, M.  (1990). Mathematics learning in Japanese, Chinese, and American classrooms.  In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds).  Cultural psychology:  Essays on comparative human development (pp. 328-356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Turque, B.  (Jan. 23, 2012).  Educators say it will take more than dollars to lure effective teachers to struggling D.C. schools.  D. C. Schools Insider, Washington Post.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/educators-say-it-will-take-more-than-dollars-to-lure-effective-teachers-to-struggling-dc-schools/2012/01/23/gIQARMwkLQ_blog.html

The power of names

Lore and legend has long held that true names have power.  From the Egyptian gods of the netherworld to Rumpelstiltskin, deities and supernatural beings of all kind can be controlled, dismissed, or invoked through saying their true name.  To know something's true name is to know its shape and thus do we leash it and make it bow to our will.

But what is a true name?  Proper names seem particularly unlikely as true names.  Inherited or given at birth, these are merely arbitrary handles that seem to have no connection to our inner self.  But at times these names, random syllables as they are, become part of our selves.  The name has been attached to us and we grow attached to it.  As we become entwined with our name, we may come to see it as at least a fragment of our inner self.

Proper names are poetry in the raw.  Like all poetry they are untranslatable.  ~W.H. Auden

Of course, if our names hold the shape of our true self, then those who share our name reflect upon us, for good or ill.  When Bear-Stearns was implicated in the subprime mortgage debacle, I felt vaguely culpable somehow, even though I have no affiliation with the company whatsoever.  I was startled each time I heard "my" name on NPR.  My sister, Julie Wiener, blogged about the challenge of being a Wiener, particularly during Weinergate. (She's technically my stepsister, hence the different last name.) As Eric Weiner wrote in the New York Times:

With all due respect to Shakespeare, a rose by any other name just isn’t the same. We look in the mirror and see not a generic person but a very specific one. We see Ted, and Sarah, and José, and yes, sometimes we see a Weiner. Names don’t merely describe. They invest meaning. The river of semantics flows in both directions. Call someone a nincompoop often enough and long enough and they start to believe it. There is no such thing as “mere semantics.” Names matter. (Weiner, June 7 2011)

My name, Stearns, has the benefit of not moonlighting as a generic term, so one might think it would elude the affiliations of food and sex attached to Wiener/Weiner.  Perhaps so, but while I don't have a hot dog jingle with my name attached, I, too, am linked to any number of commercial products.  Think of all those Stearns & Foster mattresses!  And really, what are we to take from this ad campaign?  (I guess it's a compliment, of sorts.) 

Interestingly, the first hit on Google for my last name is for Stearns life jackets -- I had no idea that I was a Life Jacket Expert.  Add to that the motor brakes, packaging, and banking, and we Stearns seem to cover the gamut of goods and services.  I certainly take pride in my Stearns family lineage, decorated as it is with important personages and fine achievements.  However, in the public discourse, "my" name is inextricably entwined with capitalism.  Perhaps I should be pleased to reflect the longstanding tradition of providing goods and services for those in need, but I want my true self to be more than a mere outgrowth of the marketplace. 

I turn, then, to my first name.  Surely my given name will be more my own than the inherited family name that I share with so many others.  Except that my given name is even more common than my last name.  There were always two or three girls named Deborah in my class in school. At least I could differentiate myself from those who went by "Debbie," as my parents ensured that I never answered to that nickname.  If my true self by any name be known, surely it could never be . . . Debbie.  (One of the faculty members in my graduate program sometimes called me Debbie, and I flinched each time he did so.  His less-frequent tendency to call me Barbara was more welcome, quite frankly.) 

In the Bible, Deborah was a judge and prophetess, an independent woman whose story inspired The Song of Deborah.  She is known not for her relationship to an important male figure, but for her own achievements.  Her name means "bee" in Hebrew.  (When I stand in our garden, surrounded by busily humming bees, Q is wont to call me beekeeper.) 

Bee on the hyssop in our front garden (2009)

But is this ancient figure the woman who is evoked by the name "Deborah" in modern parlance?  I suspect not.  The name has become so commonplace that virtually everyone knows someone named Deborah, and it is that person who is elicited by the name.  Here I do not battle a central, capitalist namesake, but a thousandfold crowd of Deborahs, all unknown and unknowing.  When I am introduced to someone new, which Deborah is invoked?  I cannot tell.  I will not, in this endless line of Deborahs, find my true self.

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.  ~Salman Rushdie 

I hold that my true self cannot be named.  There is no single appellation that will encompass who I am.  Or perhaps my true self holds a secret name, to which even I am not privy.  This name cannot be simple, for I am complex.  It must reflect my many selves to embody all that I am and all that I can be.  In the end, it may be that we spend our entire lives in discovering our secret true name, and it is only with our last breath that the final syllable of that name is inscribed.


References
Weiner, E.  (June 7 2011).  Weiner like me.  New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08eweiner.html?_r=1

Wiener, J.  (June 13 2011).  Wiener and Weinergate.  The Jewish Week.  http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/julie_wieners_mix/wiener_and_weinergate

Teaching toward a better world

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
          -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose tireless dedication to a world free of bigotry, poverty, and hatred helped bring us the civil rights movement.  I cannot do justice to the man or the movement, nor can I improve upon the many wise and profound words that have been said by and about him, so I will not try.  I want, instead, to take a moment to reflect on my own commitment to social change.

I sang for social change from 1989-1994.
(I'm in the middle in the back row.)

Exuberant enthusiasm and concomitant excess

So often we are advised to practice moderation.  "All things in moderation," they murmur, urging us to sample pleasures in small portions.  We are assured that excess is bad; after all it is, well . . . excessive.

I've never been good at moderation.  I'm full of bubbling enthusiasm that inspires me to fling myself wholeheartedly into one activity after another.  I go from a passionate pursuit of teaching perfection to months of extreme gardening only to then throw myself into a grandiose creative project.  There is no temperate jogging for me -- I'm always running full-tilt.

I've never forgotten some words of wisdom my undergraduate class received during our college orientation.  We were urged to pursue our passions intensely.  If we enjoyed a writer's work, we should read everything we could find by that author.  If mathematics intrigued us, we should immerse ourselves in the study of mathematics.  I found this advice deeply compelling.  The idea of plunging headfirst into something, letting it take me over completely, fit my approach to life.  Moderation be damned!  If we are going to do something, let's really go for it, fully and without reservation.  I wanted to meet life with exuberant enthusiasm, not cautious reserve.  Indeed, in my first year of college one of my friends gave me a sign that reads, I Am Subject To Bursts of Enthusiasm.  I have it on my shelf today as a badge of pride. 

Writing is Life

Montgomery College student

In recent years, colleges have been asked to prove the utility of a college education for the job market.  Of what possible use are liberal arts courses?  After all, a course in philosophy or literature does not seem to facilitate the development of specific job skills.  The typical rejoinder is that such courses teach broadly useful skills, such as those involved in research, writing, or analytical thinking.  This is indeed true.  Beyond these skills, though, taking on the challenge of college courses teaches life lessons that extend beyond the academic environment.  Take my my students' experiences of completing a research paper, for example.

Losing the lecture?

When I was a college student, most of my classes were lectures.  I had some excellent professors, who gave inspiring, entertaining, and informative lectures.  I sat in the front and took notes furiously, trying to get every word down.  I still have some of those notebooks, somewhere in my archives. 

In graduate school, when I began teaching, I wrote lectures.  I interspersed some demonstrations and some discussions, as well, to engage the students further, but I stayed within the lecture format, by and large.  After all, that is what professors did -- they organized the information and delivered it through lecture.

In recent years, though, I've shifted away from lecturing in most of my classes.  In part, this came from a desire to engage students in discussions of complex issues rather than have them passively absorb information.  One semester I spent four hours of my Psychology of Human Sexuality class lecturing about female sexual anatomy and physiology and it seemed like a phenomenal waste of class time, particularly since the information was readily available in their textbook.  Given that I can't possibly cover all of the material in class, making myself a conduit for information from the textbook struck me as a poor use of class time, which is, after all, a limited resource.  I wanted the students to grapple with debates, learn to apply the concepts, to actively engage with the material, and lecturing was not reliably accomplishing those objectives.

Interrogating Museum Exhibits

I just gave a talk at the AFACCT conference with some of my colleagues about our experience with the Smithsonian Faculty Fellowship program at Montgomery College.  It was a wonderfully interdisciplinary panel, reflecting the diversity of perspectives in our SFF cohort (Marcia Bronstein, English/ESL [moderator]; Genevieve Carminati, English and Women's Studies; Marissa Prosser, Anthropology; Michael Tims, Biology; and me, Psychology).  We each discussed the museum assignments we created for our students and how that facilitated their learning as well as how that reflected the various communities that interconnect through the SFF program.  I talked about what I learned from the museum curators about reading objects and images.

Looking back on 2011

Rabbit on our driveway (6/2011)

New Year's Day is traditionally a day of new beginnings.  I love new beginnings -- the excitement of starting fresh with the allure of pristine new projects.  Accomplishments are just over the horizon, glittering in the near distance.

But taking stock of where we are means pondering the past as well as looking to the future. Yet I'm less likely to mull over tasks completed than to dream of what is to come.  So I'm challenging myself to spend some time thinking back over what I've done.  Rather than compile a list of individual achievements (as in Lisa Call's 100 Accomplishments for 2011), I wanted to think about how my activities fit into my goals.  Perhaps I'm considering my cosmic footprint for 2011 (to borrow a concept from fellow blogger and academic Jill Kronstadt, whose blog is really worth reading).  So in the larger sense, what did I do in 2011?

Another reminder of why I love my job

My Psychology of Human Sexuality class today included discussions of the following topics: