TED – Ideas Worth Spreading

I’m not sure why I have delayed posting a link to this website until now.  The site contains hundreds of videos of speeches that are given at a convention for intellectuals that have some unique idea to spread to other people.  Visit the website, watch a few videos, and you will fall in love with it.

Here is the link to TED’s website.

Firefox – The Dictionary Tooltip

A few years ago, I realized that a strong command of the English language is an essential skill whose possession greatly increases your chance of succeeding in life.   In order to accurately articulate your thoughts (as well as think them in the first place), we need to have precise language to describe them.  This precise language develops hand-in-hand with an extensive vocabularie.

Unfortunately, although it isn’t difficult to learn new words, it is a pain to look up.  Certainly no one wants to pull out a dictionary.  Some of us (like me) consider it a chore to open a website such as dictionary.com.  Others (also like me) are easily distracted and will forget what they were reading when they look up the definition of a word.  The Dictionary Tooltip, provides a quick, productivity enhancing and vocabulary developing solution to these problems.

I imagine you have heard of the Internet browser FireFox, which is loved by technophiles for its add-ons.  The Dictionary Tooltip is one of these add-ons.  After installing it, all you need to do is double-click on a word online, and then a small box will pop up containing the desired definition.

Note: this program only works with the Firefox Browser. You can download FireFox here.

Download the Dictionary Tooltip here.

Compensation Can Hurt You

I always wanted to start writing a series of articles for students with learning disabilities.  Here is the first.

I have a reading disability, and, as you can imagine, I’ve always been a slow reader. In high school I was frequently asked if I would like to listen to required readings on tape. I continually rejected these offers. I told them that I wanted to fix my reading difficulties, not ignore them.

At the time I did not realize the gravity of this statement. In this day and age, you cannot get by if you struggle to read. You will be required to read millions of words in your life, and I promise you that the majority of these will not be on tape. Had I chosen to listen to books on tape in high school, I would have never become a competent reader. Chances are I would have been unable to perform in college as well because I would have struggled to comprehend every assigned document, textbook and article.

You might be saying that since most reading material (meaning anything that can be read…articles, newspaper, books etcetera.) is not available on tape, listening to a few books on tape shouldn’t hurt. Interestingly, though, books on tape exist for a lot of literature, and if you consciously try to avoid reading, which is definitely the case if you choose to listen to books on tape, then you are never going to have any practice reading, since required readings in school (aka literature) constitute the majority of your – if not sole – exposure to prose.

The moral of the story: do not use books on tape! They will only slow your learning progress. So, if you have dyslexia or another form of a reading disability, please do yourself a favor and struggle now, otherwise you will be forced to struggle for the rest of your life.

I would really like to emphasize the struggle now part.  If you are a parent, please encourage your kid to struggle while he’s young. Our brain is like a giant piece of Play-Doh when we are little. We can mold it into all different kids of shapes; however, as time passes, the Play-Doh hardens, and it slowly loses its malleability until it becomes rigid.

Learning is analogous to reshaping the Play-Doh or, in our case, the brain. The brain can be carved into any shape while we are young. When we grow old, it doesn’t work the same way. If you struggle while you are little, you can become quite proficient in anything, even if it is not intuitive to you.  In contrast, if you were to wait until you were old to try to develop that same proficiency, you would experience minimal improvement. 

If you are a high school or college student, I’m not telling you that hope is lost. You are still young enough to substantially impact your performance in any intellectual arena.  Your efforts will not yield that same effects that they would have ten years ago, but you can still make a substantial difference.  

The process will be arduous, but you will be rewarded in the end.  Not only will you improve whatever deficiency you try to rectify, you will receive another, much more valuable reward.

A few adjectives and all of their synonyms are commonly and aptly used to describe students with learning disabilities: determination, motivation, perseverance, etcetera,. The majority of these students, through the process of learning to cope with their difficulties, develop a resounding quality of determination.  You do not want to sacrifice the opportunity to learn this determination by taking the easy way out, by abusing your opportunity to learn to learn by negatively compensating.

If you have ever lifted weights, I am sure you have heard the word compensation used in a similar context. Specific weight-lifting exercises are designed to taret specific muscle groups.  When someone compensates, he performs the exercise improperly by using muscles other than those the machine was designed to target to more easily complete the exercise.  As a result, the muscles the machine was designed to work will not grow as strong as they could have.

When I was asked if I would like to listen to a book on tape, my teachers were only thinking in the short-term.  Listening “To Kill a Mocking Bird” on tape might have enabled me to pass the test,  but did the activity improve my reading skills?  I may have improved my listening skills and my ability to follow a story, but will the next article, comic or novel be any easier for me to read?  Of course not.  I did relieved the stress placed on the reading muscles by divvying it up among others. I negatively compensated like a slacking weightlifter.

 Negative compensation begins a cycle of dependence that leads to short-term success but long-term failure. Suppose that I listen to the next five books on tape. I do well on the tests. The next assigned book is supposed to be really hard, so it would be foolish for me to actually read it, right? If I were to adopt this mentality, I would never read a book!  Books only become harder, not easier. In the above scenario, I would not only fail to conquer mydisability, but I would also learn that I will be  rewarded for taking shortcuts, for slacking, for giving up.

Peer help is a good example of a readily available as well as commonly abused compensation techniques.  In contrast to something like a book on tape, if used properly, it can actually help you in the long-term, but it can also hurt you if it is exploited.

Suppose that you are asked to write an essay.  You take a quick twenty minutes to scrawl out something that you know is junk, something that you know you can easily improve.  But why would you ever want to take the time to do that if there is a writing center where another student will revise your essay.

 These peer tutors are there to give you assistance, but they will never know what you know unless you show them.  If you present to them something that does not resemble your writing potential, then they are going to try to review with you things that you already understand but were  too lazy to consider when writing your junk essay earlier.  By not trying, you completely waste valuable time with your tutor.

In high school, in my lower level math class, I often found myself bombarded by inquiries for answers.  I would try to explain how I got the answer to each student, and they would give me that ugghh are you serious look.  Sometimes I asked if they wanted an explanation: every response was something similar to “no, I just want the answer.”

These students achieved their goal of finishing the assignment, but in the process of doing so, they gave their teachers the impression that they understood the material.  Had I generously given them all answers (many students would), the teacher would never have known that they were struggling.

If you are in doubt about whether or not a certain learning strategy or accommodation benefits you, ask yourself, “Am I doing the original assignment slightly differently, or am I accomplishing it through a completely alternative means?”  If you are told to practice active reading by highlighting sections of a novel and by jotting down notes, you are still reading the book.  You are still learning reading skills, just a little bit differently.  If you are told to listen to the book on tape, are you reading anymore?  Clearly not.  You are engaging in an entirely new activity: you are listening, not reading.  

Try to ask yourself what the assignment is designed to teach you.  If you notice that approaching the assignment differently no longer teaches you what it was intended to, then that new approach is likely a poor one.  If you copy a friend’s math homework, you complete the assignment, but you complete it in such a way that you don’t learn what you are supposed to learn.  The exercise is worthless.

I want to reiterate and further touch on the determination that students learn from struggling with disabilities. (I got on a huge sidetrack before.)  Determination is by far my best character trait, and I can only attribute it to my overcoming my learning disability. Had I not had one, I would have likely just coasted through school, and I would have never learned what true hard work is.

Never give up. Don’t pretend your learning disability does not exist by ignoring the obstacles it poses before you. I promise that you will overcome your learning issues if you continually confront them and actively attempt to amend them. You will simultaneously learn to struggle and to fight adversity, which is likely the most valuable thing you can ever learn in your life.