They could ask me anything!

A friend of mine said that the day of her doctoral oral exam, she thought "They could ask me anything!".   That might be correct.  Some clown or provocateur might ask for some outlandish knowledge.  What was Mozart's mother's maiden name?  Other members of the orals committee or the candidate herself might counter with Why do you ask that?  Or What is the relevance of that question?

As I age and think, I find more and more subjects that I don't know about.  New subjects are invented, including those that I have never heard of. Items I did know include many that I have forgotten.  Most of several courses I used to teach and some science and social studies units even for 5th graders I could not teach now without a serious review of lessons and facts.

By the way, if a candidate for a doctor's degree, like a PhD, gets asked something he can't answer, he will just calmly say "I don't know".  Doing so is much more acceptable than guessing or bluffing.

Mrs. Banner

A couple of years ago, I noticed that when I read CNN Five Things, I found information about the news but without too many ads, without other documents than what I was reading appearing in the middle of the page.  I found language that was more simply informative and less provocative, slanted or emotional.  I looked to see who had written such reports and the answer was Mrs. Banner.  

When my wife first introduced me to creating web pages, the World Wide Web seemed a politer, more civil place.  Later, the first time an ad for less expensive vacuum cleaners appeared over the text of a news item, I couldn't believe anyone with consideration for a reader would interrupt that way.  Does another human being really believe that such an interruption will be accepted quietly?

Miss Honey

So you have a child with exceptionally high intelligence but this child has dunderheads for parents.  She begins going to school now but the principal of the school is a physically dangerous child hater.  Where can this little girl turn?  To her classroom teacher, of course: Miss Honey.  You can see this situation and its unfolding on Amazon, Netflix and Apple TV.  They all show "Matilda". 

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I am an admirer of women.  I actually came from a woman's body and I have been told most if not 100% of us did.  One of several stats supporting the notion of the superiority of women is their greater longevity than those of my sex.  You can refer to Dr. Ashley Montagu's 1952 book "The Natural Superiority of Women" for more information.  I admit that if you focus just on combat ability and the lust for blood, women are probably #2.

I was impressed when I mentioned Miss Honey in talking with my wife and that intelligent woman volunteered that she too thought Matilda's teacher had a perfect name.  The warmth and acceptance that women can radiate helps us all

Number 1 in what?

You may already know that I taught a course on testing and grading.  The rather silly stuff I wrote yesterday was motivated by trying to think of ways that I was No. 1.  Of course, we could list the weakest, lowest first and move to the highest, best last.  But if I am the best speller in the class, I typically have to state the size of the class to establish how good I am, writing "I am the best speller in the entire third grade of 114 students!"  It is easier and faster to rank them best first, so that Number 1 is the best and number 2 is second-best.  With a spreadsheet or some other software, it is easy to sort various columns quickly and accurately. OpenAI says that 2 billion people use the free Google Sheets and 1.2 billion use Microsoft Excel for handling and analyzing numbers.

Because each human is unique and our situations are always changing, I think it can be fun to toy with the criteria for ranking.  It may be easy for students to think that the teacher knows the "correct" answer to test questions but as we get more knowledge, sometimes we find that what was taken to be the "right" answer isn't correct.  More often, I think as we proceed through our lives, we find that skills and abilities that were not called upon in school turn out to be valuable.

Am I number 1?

1. Who has the best credentials for identifying as me?  Me!

2. Who has been me the longest?  Me!

3. Who is the first person they think of when they think of me?  Me!

4. Who would I rather be: Ralph Waldo Emerson or me?  Me!

5. Who knows more about computers?  Betty Grable or me?  Me!

Clocks and watches tonight

At 2 AM, Central Standard Time will change to Central Daylight Savings Time.  So, if you live in the US, official time may Spring-forward.  The official web site "time.gov" says the time change occurs at 2 AM tonight but it will probably work out to change clocks and watches just before going to bed.

Look!

We took a bus trip from London to Edinburgh for a short visit.  That evening, we ate in the hotel dining room.  Lighting above the ceiling showed a rat running about here and there, in the ceiling.  As you can see, I still remember that critter from back in 1974.

The day of the week

My watch tells me the day of the week and the current time.  It can deal with something about the tides, too, but I don't need that and I don't use it.  When the month of March began, it began to tell the day of week incorrectly.  The last time, it was wrong, I went to a local jewelry shop and a woman got the watch corrected quickly.  But this time, two different women said they didn't know how to fix it.  One of them advised me to use the numbers on the back of the watch, find the right manual and follow instructions to correct the watch.  I had no faith that such a procedure would work but I was wrong.  

I had time last night and used the numbers to find the appropriate instructions, followed them and now my watch says it is Thursday!

March forth!

Some humorist I read said that "March 4" is the only date that is a sentence.  I haven't checked all the dates but I think the idea is to consider the date to be "March forth!" instead of "March fourth".  The search software Duckduckgo says "there are approximately 40 calendars in use around the world".  Of course, they have histories, some being in their present form way back and some recently formed or modified.

Matilda

The book "On Repeat" by Margules introduced me to the fact that many people naturally listen to the same music repeatedly but go out of their way to avoid reading a book they have read.  The book by C. S. Lewis "An Experiment in Criticism" emphasizes that serious readers often return to a book.  I have had little experience with film studies but someone told me that a film course they took required watching a movie three times over: once for a general introduction, once with an eye to the acting and directing emphases and once for concentration on camera angles and lighting.

Last night we watched the movie "Matilda" and I was surprised to find that previous viewing came back to me at moments expectedly.  The movie is about a young child, maybe first grade age, with an unusual mind.  It is the story told in the children's book by Roald Dahl.  This little girl is the daughter of Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman, a father and mother who are unable to see they have an unusually intelligent child.

The whole experience of watching the smug, certain parents and the child's experience attending the school headed by actually dangerous Principal Trunchbull who despises children is a delight.