Good morning, fellow travelers! Or, should I say, "Good mnrniog folelw teelvras!" For, due to some tricky quirk of the human brain, even when the "interiors" of familiar words are disorganized (same letters, but spun around), as long as their "exteriors" are intact, most people can still make out the exact word(s) and the meaning of the phrase. There is a reason for this, and it is an example of this morning's reflection topic. Psychologists call it schema theory, but versions of it can also be found under frames, scripts, and mental maps.
On Tuesday mornings, learning is a multilane highway! If you have learned anything this week, and I suspect you have, please share in the comments so we may benefit from our own collective enlightenment. While not an expert on nearly anything other than Highlander movies (of which, only the original was any good- but wow, what a goodie!) and the occasional Fuller's ESB, I humbly offer up some tidbits to get the discussion going...
What A Concept!
First, let's define terms. To define schema, I offer a definition first of "concept." A concept, I propose, is a collection of related ideas. For example, the concept of "dog," for me, is defined by four legs, animal, fur or hair, barks sometimes, eats dog food, etc... A concept is a category. Concepts can represent both concrete or abstract subjects, one can have a concept for "tree" just as well as "justice" or "love."
But, some concepts contain other concepts, and these have special names. Superordinate concepts are large-scale, like "forms of transportation." Base level concepts are examples of the larger category, like cars, planes, helicopters, and catamarans. Subordinate concepts are specific examples of base level concepts, like BMW, Sikorsky, or Airbus. You may have noticed that each of these can be subdivided yet again, in which case we simply trigger a new subordinate concept, and the previously subordinate is now a base level to that new subordinate group of Superhawk, CH-53, or S-92 helicopters (even though the CH-53 won't be available until 2015).
Concepts as Labels
One of the funny things about concepts is that they can become labels when applied as shorthand for mental processing of very large groups. For example, "high school students." What comes to mind? What defines that concept for you? Let's go down a level--"jocks" or "nerds." Or, more insidiously, in my opinion: "learning disabled." How do you define each of these concepts as distinct from the others?
A New Variable: Time
"Ok, Ol' Crackpot Caractacus," you may be saying to yourself, "but what does this concept concept have to do with schemata, whatever they are?" And right you would be to ask, for there are multiple competing theories vying for your attention. The one I will give, however, is time. The difference between a concept and a schema is time, particularly experienced as implicit expectations. For example, the general education teacher who is told the new student in her class is a mainstreamed special education child will inevitably and automatically have certain expectations about that student that are based on their definition of the concept and their previous experience with students who are examples of that category. Now, many times we are successful in putting a pause on that immediate schema-activation. A teacher may remind herself that each student is an individual and should not be judged-by-label. But, not everyone does, and not every time. Then, that teacher's expectation that this student may be a behavior problem or have difficulty learning may actually be created by inadvertent behaviors on the teacher's part. Self-fulfilling prophecies as schema consequences.
Gender Schema Theory: A Case Study
Everyone knows, from a young age, that boys and girls are different. We "know" this because, from an early age, we develop concepts and schemas for physical sex differences and gendered personality and behavioral differences (in schema-land, perception equals reality). In other words, once a girl gets used to wearing pink, pink becomes part of her schema for "girl." She'll expect girly things to be pink, and when she sees something pink, she'll be more likely to think girl-thoughts.
Personality and behavior are complicated, though. Let's say our girl grows up and begins to form schemas for concepts like "dating" and "flirting." Oh my! Thank my lucky concepts that I still have a few years to go before that happens in earnest. Anywho, her schemata will most likely include expectations that dating and flirting happen between boys and girls. That the boy is the aggressor: does the asking, does some of the deciding (where to go, what to do), and the paying (unless this detail is negotiated, as I understand it, a modern and increasingly popular dating schema).
Now, let's say that our girl is at college, or just at her local drugstore, or a sporting event, or running in a park. Wherever. And, she suspects another girl may be flirting with her. Having long-wired schemata for not being the aggressor in such situations, this may or may not be perceived as threatening, but chances are, due in part to her schemata born from experiencing similar situations, it will be perceived as less threatening than when it happens to the neighbor's boy.
Boys are trained from birth that flirting, dating, and sex all happen between a boy and a girl. And that the boy does the asking, the pushing-the-limits, the testing-the-waters. Girls either say yes or no. So, boys never really have an occasion to develop a rich and nuanced schema-set for being the recipient of such goal-directed behavior. While the girl has a schema for how to play the "yes or no" situation, and probably many of them, the boy has none. The boy has to either create a schema for this new situation, or resist it. That resistance, all too many times, can be expressed as cruel humor. As denial. As violence. And, I believe, why we don't hear about girls visiting violence upon a perceived lesbian flirtation at the same rate as we do with boys.
This argument, as are all, is flawed. I have made certain assumptions about my hypothetical girls and boys. That they are straight. That they are White. That they have had average, if not suburban upbringings typical for what I consider "typical" to mean. These, also, are all schemata. Damn.
First Impressions
A lot of people are going on job interviews this season, and many would like to. Everyone is out to make a good first impression. Why? I submit, because of schema theory. That moment of entering the room, shaking hands, taking a seat (or waiting to be offered one), answering questions, being judged on attire and eye contact, all of these things combine to form a first impression. A first schema. If I am the interviewer, I am forming a schema for this candidate- you. Are you reliable? Did you arrive 5 to 10 minutes early? Are you professional? Were your shoes shined? Are you competent? Were there any typos on your resume?
When we first meet someone we are naturally and automatically soaking in information like a sponge- activating concepts, forming schemata of this new encounter. Then, forever-after, it will require much more information to change or alter that schema than it did to create it in the first place. This is the power of first impressions.
Let's say our candidate arrives late. Doesn't have a 2nd copy of his resume. Stumbles on his answers. Do we give him a 2nd chance? If we do, it is safe to say it will take more information to change our schema of this person, to alter our expectations of his future performance, than it did to create them in the first place. Because, when we first met him we didn't have very much information to go on, so whatever our brain notices is used to trigger memories of all the other relevant concepts and schemata from all the other interviews and work histories we have experienced. Once that is set, any new information has to compete with it. This is why a person late on the first day to a new job will always and forever be known as the "late guy," even if he is early or on time every day for the rest of his life. And, someone who is late on the third day will never be labeled for it. Until it happens again, or a third time. Schema.
Teaching and Learning
Often, parents are wary of having their children placed in special education programs because of that labeling schema discussed a few paragraphs ago. How does one know, how does a parent make the decision to change the legal status of a child in order to access differently organized educational resources? The easy answer for me is to access schemata. How many other people does that parent know who have been through something similar? Who have they interviewed at the school? Teachers in the program? Other parents? Their labeled children? Administration? Independent research? All of these are opportunities to build schemata to guide that decision.
More important than all of these, however, is the schema built in the child's mind about her own value. Her worth. Her intelligence, and potential in the world an in her own life. If the message is sent that this is a permanent state of affairs, that she is now LD as well as brunette and freckled, that can be a deeply problematic thing. However, if the schema that is built is one that reinforces her self-perception as a growing, learning, fully functioning and rich-with-potential person, then such a placement can be not perceived as a good thing, but experienced as one as well.
Of course, so much of that depends on the quality of the program, the flexibility of placement (unfortunately, most public school students placed don't experience the freedom to place back out until after graduation, when the point is moot), other students in the program and their attitudes towards learning, administrative support, etc...
It's Complicated
And, I've just presented an artificially simplistic thumbnail sketch of it as an introduction. Please forgive that intentional short-shrifting of the subject. But, it does hlep eixpailn why you can raed eevn tihs scnteene. When you begin reading, you piece together each word (at least in phonics) as a combination of individual letters: C-L-O-C-K. Once you have a schema for that word, and for grammar and semantics in general, now you can really fly through the phone book! Coclk, colck, cclok, clcok: they all look like clock because now you have a schema, an expectation based on a concept, for what letter combinations that start with c and end with k with the letters l, o, and c between them mean. They all mean clock. Unless you have a homonym, in which case the same homonym rules apply as would normally.
So, while this brief introduction wasn't something I technically learned this week, my schema for Tuesday morning diaries may just have to expand (and that's called "assimilation") a little bit to include such instances of things we learned before this week. Especially if they are relevant to getting more and better Democrats elected (which I think this theory certainly does- if applied in a political context) and if they result from a request by a registered BPI student and recognized Krew-member. You know who you are. I hope you found something, anything, in this mess that may help even just a little bit. If not, I'm keeping your tuition anyway. :-)
TWLTW
- Just a day after KVoimakas' 2-wheeled journey to the UP last week, this article in the NYT caught my eye.
- Baseball has a liberal bias, too. The New York Yankees have won 20 World Series under Democratic Presidents, and 7 with Republicans.
- My father may have had a very mild stroke. But it appears as though there was no significant negative outcome. If anything, let it serve as a reminder to us both to eat more vegetables, more fruits, and less red meat and bbq potato chips!
- Sesame Street changed its opening and closing credit sequences and featured Michelle Obama for its opening episode of season #40.
- And was promptly called out by Stephen Colbert who coined the phrase "Glen Beak." (Had difficulty embedding the Colbert video directly, this is at least a link to more details on the funny.)
- If you know the law you can get away with calling a crooked traffic court judge's corrupt bluff and have your window tinting tickets evaporated into thin air. At least in New York. He was a slimeball, and that felt good.
- And, don't look now, but it appears that Bonohas also been attending BPI faculty extracurricular events...take a peek, 3rd paragraph from the bottom of the article, in italics...
- Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass (he directed the Bourne movies) have teamed up again to create a film called "Green Zone" that looks absolutely worth checking out.
What have you learned this week?