Fwd: Kindness, A Time of Gifts (Stephen Jay Gould)

[Drnanjo]

I wanted to share this with you all.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD
--- Begin Message ---

I thought Gould's comments very connected to the kindness topic.

Peace

Dan
--
>From Portside:

A Time of Gifts

By STEPHEN JAY GOULD
September 26, 2001


The patterns of human history mix decency and
depravity in equal measure. We often assume,
therefore, that such a fine balance of results must
emerge from societies made of decent and depraved
people in equal numbers. But we need to expose and
celebrate the fallacy of this conclusion so that, in
this moment of crisis, we may reaffirm an essential
truth too easily forgotten, and regain some crucial
comfort too readily forgone. Good and kind people
outnumber all others by thousands to one. The tragedy
of human history lies in the enormous potential for
destruction in rare acts of evil, not in the high
frequency of evil people. Complex systems can only be
built step by step, whereas destruction requires but
an instant. Thus, in what I like to call the Great
Asymmetry, every spectacular incident of evil will be
balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often
unnoted and invisible as the "ordinary" efforts of a
vast majority.

We have a duty, almost a holy responsibility, to
record and honor the victorious weight of these
innumerable little kindnesses, when an unprecedented
act of evil so threatens to distort our perception of
ordinary human behavior. I have stood at ground zero,
stunned by the twisted ruins of the largest human
structure ever destroyed in a catastrophic moment. (I
will discount the claims of a few biblical
literalists for the Tower of Babel.) And I have
contemplated a single day of carnage that our nation
has not suffered since battles that still evoke
passions and tears, nearly 150 years later: Antietam,
Gettysburg, Cold Harbor. The scene is insufferably
sad, but not at all depressing. Rather, ground zero
can only be described, in the lost meaning of a grand
old word, as "sublime," in the sense of awe inspired
by solemnity.

In human terms, ground zero is the focal point for a
vast web of bustling goodness, channeling uncountable
deeds of kindness from an entire planet — the acts
that must be recorded to reaffirm the overwhelming
weight of human decency. The rubble of ground zero
stands mute, while a beehive of human activity churns
within, and radiates outward, as everyone makes a
selfless contribution, big or tiny according to means
and skills, but each of equal worth. My wife and
stepdaughter established a depot on Spring Street to
collect and ferry needed items in short supply,
including face masks and shoe inserts, to the workers
at ground zero. Word spreads like a fire of goodness,
and people stream in, bringing gifts from a pocketful
of batteries to a $10,000 purchase of hard hats, made
on the spot at a local supply house and delivered
right to us.

I will cite but one tiny story, among so many, to add
to the count that will overwhelm the power of any
terrorist's act. And by such tales, multiplied many
millionfold, let those few depraved people finally
understand why their vision of inspired fear cannot
prevail over ordinary decency. As we left a local
restaurant to make a delivery to ground zero late one
evening, the cook gave us a shopping bag and said:
"Here's a dozen apple brown bettys, our best dessert,
still warm. Please give them to the rescue workers."
How lovely, I thought, but how meaningless, except as
an act of solidarity, connecting the cook to the
cleanup. Still, we promised that we would make the
distribution, and we put the bag of 12 apple brown
bettys atop several thousand face masks and shoe
pads.

Twelve apple brown bettys into the breach. Twelve
apple brown bettys for thousands of workers. And then
I learned something important that I should never
have forgotten — and the joke turned on me. Those 12
apple brown bettys went like literal hot cakes. These
trivial symbols in my initial judgment turned into
little drops of gold within a rainstorm of similar
offerings for the stomach and soul, from children's
postcards to cheers by the roadside. We gave the last
one to a firefighter, an older man in a young crowd,
sitting alone in utter exhaustion as he inserted one
of our shoe pads. And he said, with a twinkle and a
smile restored to his face: "Thank you. This is the
most lovely thing I've seen in four days — and still
warm!"

Stephen Jay Gould, a professor of zoology at Harvard,
is the author of "Questioning the Millennium."
---
portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a
news, discussion and debate service of the Committees
of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It
aims to provide varied material of interest to people
on the left.

Post: mail to '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subscribe   : mail to '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Unsubscribe : mail to '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
List owner  : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web address : 

Memory span in children (student question)

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters,

Except for expression the suspicion that the development of early childhood memory is not a linear progression of increased span, I could not give a good answer to this question. So before I make more of an jackass of myself than is usual, I thought I would seek some guidance on this student question:

>What is the memory span of say a 2yr old child? And how does it increase (amount/time) when the child gets older? For example if a infant's memory is an hour long and a 2 yr old is a week.
>
>thank you

And also thanks from me -

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Fwd: Student question about taste

[Drnanjo]

On behalf of Don McBurney...

Nancy M.
--- Begin Message ---


Nancy:
    The salty taste  will  linger for two
reasons.  First, it physically remains on the tongue for a while,
and second, all tastes take time to build up.  Sugar takes about 10
seconds.  So, between those two effects you would expect salty to
linger and sweet to take time.
    You can tell your student that he is getting never
published results!  But it fits with other work I have published on
the question.
    don
    Donald McBurney
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello,
This is a question from
a student. I have never been aware of the taste reaction that he is describing,
but was wondering about his impression that the salt receptors are stronger
than the others on the tongue. Is this true, or is he asking about something
that is totally idiosyncratic?
Although we are
finished with the senses. I had to ask this. Why is it when one puts salt
on their tongue and then sweet, the salty taste still lingers on your tongue
before the "sweetness". Also are the salt receptors "stronger" than the
others? because it take a while before a salty taste leaves thae mouth.
Thanks
for any help you can give to me.
Nancy
Melucci
LACCD

--- End Message ---

Student question about taste

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

This is a question from a student. I have never been aware of the taste reaction that he is describing, but was wondering about his impression that the salt receptors are stronger than the others on the tongue. Is this true, or is he asking about something that is totally idiosyncratic?

Although we are finished with the senses. I had to ask this. Why is it when one puts salt on their tongue and then sweet, the salty taste still lingers on your tongue before the "sweetness". Also are the salt receptors "stronger" than the others? because it take a while before a salty taste leaves thae mouth.  

Thanks for any help you can give to me.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: souping up Personality

[Drnanjo]

Joe et al.:

I like to challenge students with the notion that "there ain't no such thing." There is a temperament, perhaps, but by and large human behavior is highly context dependent, i.e., one behaves quite differently when in the role of authority figure than when in the role of follower etc.

I am not entirely convinced of this myself, although I do suspect it from time to time. But it's a great discussion starter.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Myoclonic jerks and the lymphatic system.

[Drnanjo]

Hello tipsfolk -

I received this question from a student in response to my lecture today about sleep, hypnogogia and that most common of all hallucinations, the myoclonic jerk - has anyone ever heard this explanation? Is it accurate?

>From student:

>Today in class you said that almost everyone has had the feeling of falling while in the first stage of sleep and then feel like their body jumps. In biology, a few years ago, the teacher said that this was a result of the lymphatic system. She said since the lymphatic system has no heart to pump its fluids around, this is what it does. Is this really true? And if it is, why doesn't our body "jump" when we are in an awake state, doesn't our lymphatic system operate then?
>

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Sleep questions

[Drnanjo]

Regarding sleeep and brain development, there is a well-established connection between 
REM sleep and CNS development, and not coincidentally, infant animals tend to get a 
whole lot of REM.

Recent exciting research suggests that although the amount of REM declines during the 
life cycle, REM remains important for consolidating certain kinds of learning (motor 
skills is one type I can recall) and Stage IV sleep is important for long-term 
consolidation of rote memory-type tasks.

Robert Stickgold is one of the researchers involved in this stuff, there are others.

Nancy Melucci
TUI

Re: plane tragedy

[Drnanjo]

I am beside myself. My whole family lives & works in NYC. No phone contact possible.

Nancy Melucci

Student Question

[Drnanjo]

Hello Colleagues:

I am cutting and pasting the following student question about a sleep 
disorder because I am clueless:

There is a disorder that somepoeple have (i've seen it on television a few 
months ago. As i remember it mainly affects people 18-25, and it is something 
where people have been knoen to be asleep for several months. They get 
restroom use and food by help usually it was the parents who take care of 
them, so in a severly drowsy state they get food given to them like babies, 
and wabbly they walk to the restroom. They showed a girl who had been in this 
state of sleep for 6 months or so, and even her brother got the same disorder 
a few years after her. It's something that comes ang goes, they can be fine 
and the next minute just literaly fall and be asleep. The girls parents had 
to withdraw her from college, and she lost her friends because they all moved 
on. They even showed some home video footage that the parents recorded and it 
looked the person is in a transe, they are asleep but can answer sometimes, 
it was a really weird thing to see. 

And i was wondering does this have anything to do with the "reticular 
activating system" in our brains, in class you have menssioned that if a 
person has that damaged they might not wake up. However the disorder that 
those poeple have, comes and goes. It be got 2 months of sleeping constantly, 
and then be absolutely fine for 2-3 years, then there can be a relapse  


Thanks for your help folks.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Them versus Us

[Drnanjo]

Hello:

It's that time of year when, posted in various faculty workrooms and on 
various listservs I am seeing that witty treatise on how "different" todays 
college students are from us - how students born in the 1980's don't remember 
Ronald Reagan, Bob Dylan, don't care about the Vietnam War, have grown up 
with the Internet etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseaum.

I am hoping not to see that treatise on this list this year. For one thing, 
it's constructed mainly of stereotypes, for another thing, it serves no 
useful purpose except to increase our feeling that we are so very different 
from our students, like "they are from Mars and we are from Venus."  And it 
is (almost) purely a matter of perspective.

If a visitor from 6 centuries before or after our era were to violate the 
known physical laws of the universe and visit us, his or her comparison of 
those born in the 1950s and those born in the 1980s would reveal very little 
difference indeed. That person would pretty much see all those born in the 
late 20th C as similar except in the most trivial ways (i.e. type of rock 
music, minor changes in clothing.)

As the new school year begins, I hope we can think about our own time spent 
as students, and maybe use that knowledge to better understand and serve our 
students. After all, as Pogo said "They is Us."

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Associative Networks Resource

[Drnanjo]

Resource for teaching about cognition, from an inactive TIPS member:

To all interested, 

If you discuss associative networks (sometimes covered in cognition or 
memory), I found a fantastic resource/example: 

Go to www.visualthesaurus.com  

After arriving, you must wait a few seconds for the thesaurus to download.  
When you see the words indicating the download is complete, click on those 
very words to open a new window on the visual thesaurus.  Try clicking 
"auto-navigate" and then typing the word "process" into the word entry field 
located toward the bottom; then press .  What you see is very similar 
to an example of state-of-the-art AI that I was shown at UCSD in 1983. 

This is an indication of how far computer processing power has come and how 
available that power has become in the past two decades. That something as 
complex as the visual thesaurus is just one of many sights on the net simply 
amazes me.

Christian 
(Christian Hart, Sometime TIPS member)
    

Re: Help Needed: Reference?

[Drnanjo]

Here are a couple of web references that discuss this. It seems that it was 
Rosenthal's work too.

http://www.accel-team.com/pygmalion/prophecy_01.html

http://psych.wisc.edu/braun/281/Intelligence/LabellingEffects.htm

According to one of my textbooks, the rat study was also a Rosenthal and 
Jacobson production (1968)

Nancy Melucci
LACCD
Feeling distinctly maze dull this morning.

Course "ownership"

[Drnanjo]

Hello Colleagues:

I have been contemplating the situation at a particular school at which I 
teach, where certain courses are only taught by one designated individual. 
The situation is, I would like a shot at teaching one of these courses, live 
or online, and suspect that I will never get the opportunity because those 
courses are viewed more or less as the "territory" of certain full time 
faculty members.

My impression, which of course is highly biased (why I want your input) is 
that it is not an accident that this is the school at which innovation 
happens at the slowest rate, and where courses are most frequently cancelled 
due to low enrollment/lack of interest. I suspect that this policy gives 
those faculty members little incentive to examine how they go about 
presenting the material and assessing the quality of their pedagogy.

So, I was hoping others could share perhaps the positive aspects of these 
kind of course "ownership" and/or validate my perception of the negative.

Thanks for your input.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Advanced Psyc Stats

[Drnanjo]

Please share this information with the whole list, I would love to see it.

Thanks all.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

The recurrent appearance of UNOWHAT topic

[Drnanjo]

I have revised my opinion about this one in recent months. This is truly a 
matter of the adult right to not have one's privacy invaded and to conduct 
home life as one sees fit.

I now believe that spanking is a method well suited for maintaining high 
quality relationships...

but should be reserved only for use on occasion between consenting persons of 
age.

; )  : )

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Sharks and Mozart

[Drnanjo]

I suggest that you turn off the TV and go back to work.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: clipart sites

[Drnanjo]

http://www.animationlibrary.com

Nancy Melucci
"one of the peeps" on the TIPS list

Re: Sign Language

[Drnanjo]

My understanding is that language acquisition proceeds at the same pace 
regardless of the channel (i.e. signed versus spoken) and that children who 
learn both sign and spoken will acquire them at the same rate passing through 
the milestones for both at the same time. Laura Petito, a researcher at one 
of the Canadian universities (can't remember which), does work in this area, 
and there is a video module on it included in the Scientific American set 
that Worth Publishers provides.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Schools' Backing of Behavior Drugs Comes Under Fire

[Drnanjo]

This morning I was watching a 1995 Merrow Report installment that alledged 
that CHADD, a leading advocacy group for children with ADD, receives 20% of 
its funding from Ciba-Geigy, the pharmaceutical company that makes 
you-know-what drug.

I was wondering if that was an outdated or inaccurate estimate, but I am 
gathering that it was not. 

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Changing the stats syllabus

[Drnanjo]

Hello Out There,

I know that probably almost no one is there right now, but wanted to see if I 
could get some input anyway.

Having taught intro stats about a dozen times now, it has not escaped my 
notice that the students do fairly well on the first two tests (primarily 
descriptive statistics) but then the first test on inferential stats, usually 
featuring z and t tests, is a massacre.  Part of the problem seems to be that 
t tests are rather complicated, and very few texts give the formula for the 
test, instead taking the formula apart into standard error of the difference, 
etc. It is a confusing enterprise, IMHO.

I was thinking about changing the order of topics thusly:

THE OLD ORDER:

Measures of Central Tendency
Measures of Dispersion
Probability/Normal Curve
Confidence Intervals
Z tests
T tests
ANOVA
Chi Square
Regression and Correlation

To this:

NEW ORDER

Central Tendency
Variation
Probability/Normal Curve
Chi-Square
ANOVA
Confidence Intervals
Z-tests
T-tests
Regression and Correlation

My reasoning is that chi-square can be linked to probability via the goodness 
of fit test, and that chi-square is a conceptually easy test to learn.  It 
would allow the students to become comfortable with the hypothesis testing 
protocols without being overwhelmed.  

The downside is that we would be skipping to the right tailed distributions 
(chi-square and F) and have to return to those based on the normal 
distribution later on (z and t) perhaps not wonderful for student 
understanding and retention.

Anyway, I have rambled. I hope someone who teaches stats out there might 
share their thoughts. It is not 100% definite that I will teach stats in the 
fall, but I'd like to be ready to go with this plan if it comes to pass.

Happy Summer Days to all -

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: The secret to academic success: hours--and hours--of study

[Drnanjo]

Hello -

I have been speculating (having just completed another grueling stats class) 
that indeed, what makes most good students good is the time they put in to 
their vocation.  But in American culture we have elevated the mythical 
effects of "talent" as if it were unrelated to work and effort.  This is 
especially evident in a class like stats, where the math skills necessary are 
minimal (intermediate algebra at worst) and the failure rate is high. I am 
fairly convinced that this effect is the result of students telling 
themselves that they can't do it, and then following through by not putting 
in the required time.  Then they look at those getting Bs and As and say 
"they are just really good at math" without making the connection that being 
good at math, for the vast majority of people, is the result of hard work.

And the beat goes on...

MHO

Re: Deadly virus or Worm

[Drnanjo]

Louis,

Thanks for the warning.  I had the virus and had to go into safe mode to 
delete it.

I hope it didn't end up being passed on to anyone out there.

NJM

Re: Hello out there

[Drnanjo]

Thanks. That's a great suggestion. Hope to see everyone there and look 
forward to meeting people finally.

Nancy M.

Hello out there

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

It's been really quiet out there. But anyway, if anyone's reading, I was 
hoping to instigate a TIPS social hour or something along those lines at APA. 
Anyone interested please contact me. Maybe we can think of a place to meet 
near our hotels.

Happy midsummer to all.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Thanks so much

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

Just a quick note to thank everyone for the help with the questions that I 
posted on Monday.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Question #1

[Drnanjo]

Hello Friends:

I received this question from a student. I am admittedly a little foggy, but 
I was wondering if anyone had a relatively succinct answer to it - or if the 
student is basically just asking me to rehash the material on the cutaneous 
senses from the S & P chapter.  Here is the excerpt from the discussion board 
post:

"How do the receptors
measure the intensity of the senses.  For example, if
someone is being pinched, how does the receptor relay
pressure against the skin to the brain?"

Any help you can give would be appreciated.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Question #2

[Drnanjo]

Hello again:

This question is from me. I have seen demonstrations of those word lists that 
are organized around a central theme, but lack the most obvious word. They 
are read to a subject who then tries to recall them, usually giving the theme 
word as one of those read aloud, even though it wasn't.  I have tried to make 
up versions of these lists, but mine are never very good. Does anyone here 
have some better versions of this "false memory" task?"

Thanks for your help in this matter.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

From Science News

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters:

This might be of interest to those who teach stats and are amazed by the 
difficult time that students have with math that is essentially high school 
level.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Math fears subtract from memory, learning

Bruce Bower
By about age 12, students who feel threatened by mathematics start to avoid 
math courses, do poorly in the few math classes they do take, and earn low 
scores on math-achievement tests. Some scientists have theorized that kids 
having little math aptitude in the first place justifiably dread grappling 
with numbers. That conclusion doesn't add up, at least for college students, 
according to a study in the June Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 
On the contrary, people's intrusive worries about math temporarily disrupt 
mental processes needed for doing arithmetic and drag down math competence, 
report Mark H. Ashcraft and Elizabeth P. Kirk, both psychologists at 
Cleveland (Ohio) State University. Math anxiety exerts this effect by making 
it difficult to hold new information in mind while simultaneously 
manipulating it, the researchers hold. Psychologists regard this capacity, 
known as working memory, as crucial for dealing with numbers. "Math anxiety 
soaks up working-memory resources and makes it harder to learn mathematics, 
probably beginning in middle school," Ashcraft says. He and Kirk ran three 
experiments, each with 50 to 60 college students. Experiments included 
roughly equal numbers of male and female students who cited low, moderate, or 
high levels of math anxiety on a questionnaire. In the first experiment, 
Ashcraft and Kirk found that students with a high level of math anxiety 
enrolled in fewer math courses, received lower math grades, and scored worse 
on working-memory tests involving numbers than their peers did. Math 
anxiety's disruptive effects on working memory appeared in the next 
experiment. In a series of trials, students first saw a set of letters to be 
remembered. They were then timed as they performed a mental addition problem. 
After solving it, volunteers tried to recall the letters they had seen. 
High-math-anxiety students scored poorly on both tasks but especially on the 
mental addition. Their performance hit bottom on problems that involved 
carrying numbers, such as 47 + 18. However, when permitted to use pencil and 
paper during trials, they did as well as students without math worries did, 
indicating an underlying math competence. The third experiment found that 
high math anxiety translates into poorer performance on an unconventional 
number-manipulation task that also taxed working memory. In some trials, for 
instance, students had to add 7 to each of four numbers that they briefly 
viewed, one at a time, and then verbally report the transformations in the 
proper order. Earlier studies have found that math anxiety temporarily boosts 
heart rate and other physical indicators of worry, notes psychologist David 
C. Geary of the University of Missouri in Columbia. Psychological therapies 
that reduce math worries improve math performance, he adds. "Ashcraft's study 
is the first solid evidence that math-anxious people have working-memory 
problems as they do math," Geary says. 

References:
Ashcraft, M.A., and E.P. Kirk. 2001. The relationships among working memory, 
math anxiety, and performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 
130(June):224. Further Readings:
Miyake, A. 2001. Individual differences in working memory: Introduction to 
the special section. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 
130(June):163.

 

Re: Powerpoint for Stats?

[Drnanjo]

I am using powerpoint slides at a trial prometheus website that I am using as 
an ancillary to my classroom course this summer.

I am not using them for live lecture, just for the edification of the 
students, most of whom have internet access.

If you'd like to see this anyway, contact me and I will send you the website 
address so you can login as a student and look at the presentations - there 
are about 5 or 6 of them there.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Suicide rates/availability heuristic

[Drnanjo]

This may be more like a spurious correlation. My understanding is that in 
general, divorced/widowed/unemployed middle aged and elderly men have the 
highest suicide rates.  Maybe dentists are somehow overrepresented...?

Another interesting misconception is that teens have the highest suicide rate 
of all age groups (they do not despite a slight increase recently.) It's a 
nice way to teach the "availability heuristic" by asking the students what 
teens are most likely to die of (the actual answer is accidents, which is the 
chief cause of death for Americans 1 - 40 years old.) Then show them some 
current mortality stats.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Good reference for birth order effects?

[Drnanjo]

Birth order effects are no longer regarded as having any meaningful long-term 
effects on personality. I don't have a specific reference, but the 
developmental psychology chapter in Kalat's intro textbook outlines the 
reason why such effects are limited - normally only witnessed in the family 
setting, for example.

Nancy Melucci
LACCD

Re: Psi Chi Review

[Drnanjo]

Dear Friends,

I found the review and got a hold of Stephen. Thanks so much for all of your 
concerned help. Have a great holiday weekend.

Nancy Melucci

Psi Chi Review

[Drnanjo]

To whom it may concern:

I am trying to reach Stephen Davis, who just moved from Kansas to Texas.  I 
am hoping that his email at Emporia still works.

If any TIPSTERs know of a direct way to find Stephen Davis, please pass this 
information along. Also, if you have any ideas about how I can find his new 
email or phone number, please let me know.

Stephen, I went to mail my review to you today and I cannot find it.  Can you 
possibly fax me another sheet and I will mail it tomorrow?  My FAX is 
707-313-4583.  

Sorry for the bother.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

How do they know?

[Drnanjo]

Hello colleagues:

A student asked me how psychologists know that babies have blurry vision and 
that dogs/cats only see black and white.

Can any of you describe how these conclusions are reached? Thanks for your 
time during this busy end of semester stretch.

Nancy Melucci
Soon to be ex of East Los Angeles College

deface of a tipster

[Drnanjo]

Friends,

You can see me here. I look very Italian. If you would like to give me a 
special "glamour treatment" you may so so:

http://members.home.com/cora/MonaLisa/monaie.html

I am off to WPA. Anyone else going?  Have a great weekend all.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: chalkboard anyone?

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

I always use my chalkboard along with video and overheads (at the very 
beginning of the semester.)

I detest the dry erase boards because the markers are an additional thing to 
remember every class, they are always being taken by other faculty or 
students ( I hear that they can be "huffed") and it is very easy to 
mistakenly write on them with permanent marker, which makes the 
administrative staff temporarily homicidal towards one.

Dry erase boards suck.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Harlow's folly

[Drnanjo]

Hello Friends,

This is something I have speculated about but never had the guts to share with anyone. 
It makes sense to me that if you have to do research to keep your job, you'll do 
research for that sake and not for the sake of gaining knowledge, and that the 
research produced will be mostly of dubious quality.

Does anyone know HOW the culture of university/college life was taken over by the idea 
that just doing teaching is not good enough? Where did this come from? Is it purely 
driven by the corporate funding that often accompanies research projects, or is is 
just an offshoot of some kind of inferiority complex, that teaching isn't like 
"working in the real world" and that dumb cliche - "Those who can, do, those who can't 
teach."?

Sincerely curious,

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Seeking advice on graduate training

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters,

Now that we have the stereotypical and offensive recommendation out of the 
way, I found this link while working on the Kalat IM - maybe there is someone 
here to contact about it?

http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/obesectr/NYORC/index.html

It's the New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's Hospital.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: bystander effect and cross-cultural research

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 4/25/2001 6:06:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



 -Go ahead and try to randomly select subjects in Tibet for
 Experimental and Control groups.

  -Informed consent,huh. They may think that you are working
  for the Chilean secret police or the CIA.



This is a complete non-sequitur, totally irrelevant, and frankly seems based 
on ludicrous melodramatic stereotyping

Just because the socio-political context makes research difficult, doesn't 
mean there is a problem with the research methodology.

This is more like an refusal to understand, rather than an inability. We are 
having our chops busted by this dude...

A word that I have a perfect right to use, by the way.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: bystander effect and cross-cultural research

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 4/24/2001 11:38:43 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


What is more real a confirmation bias or a scientific hypothesis?


Here is a question that asks us to compare apples to SUVs.

We see the real and very detrimental effects of our students' confirmation 
biases in their persistent beliefs in astrology, palm reading and the like. I 
do my best to encourage them NOT to trust their own observations, but after 
awhile I have to say, hey, it's their money.

And that is perpetuated by instructors who encourage them to think what ever 
they like as long as it appears that there own observations support it, and 
not to question to consider the possibility that their own observations are 
flawed and distorted by wishful thinking etc.

I am not sure what you mean by "how real is a scientific hypothesis is" but 
of course the quality of the scientific thinking is dictated by how willing 
we are to check our own biases.

But I get the feeling, Michael that you are telling your students that 
whatever they believe and they see and hear is just OK and must be the truth. 
So I don't know why I am even bothering to respond.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Summer reading recommendations

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters -

I've done these all as audiobooks:

The Mind's Sky - Timothy Ferris

The Best American Science Writing, 2000 - edited by James Glieck

Squandering Aimlessly - David Brancaccio

Zero - Charles Seife

Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser (you'll never eat at McDonald's again.)

Flu - Gina Kolata

The Hot Zone - Richard Preston


Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: sleep question

[Drnanjo]

Jim -

Sounds like they don't really understand the sleep cycle. If they've been 
asleep for more than four or five hours, they will NOT go back into deep 
sleep. The last four hours of the night for most people who are having a 
typical sleep alternates between Stage II and REM - both of these are 
relatively light sleep.

The snooze alarm is not an issue, and in the later part of the night, when 
sleep is either stage II or REM, it is NOT surprising that your student is 
awakened easily by noises.

I hope that clears up their misunderstandings of the process.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Congratulations

[Drnanjo]

Hello Tipsters:

I just wanted to congratulate Scott Lilienfeld.  When I got my May issue of 
Scientific American today, I saw that he is the lead author on an article 
about the Rorschach that was published!

Way to go, dude.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA

Re: decline of "good morning"

[Drnanjo]

Hello all,

My understanding is that recent research is suggesting that morning is not 
the best time for most teens and young adults. It would be better in general 
if they could start and end their days later. So, it just may not feel "good" 
to them.

Yesterday while dragging my sick body to my evening class, I heard on a radio 
show where they are starting to also recommend that kids seriously consider 
taking a year off between high school and college. I think this is a great 
idea. Rather than making the automatic assumption that "college follows high 
school" it might give older adolescents and young adults some valuable 
experience outside school, and increase their understanding of why they are 
there when and if they choose to return.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

OOPS - media alert, attempt #2

[Drnanjo]

Well, that worked really well. Let's try that again in a different way...

Dear friends, family and colleagues:
I was just notified of a 3-part psychology series that will be shown starting 
next week (MONDAY NIGHT, APRIL 16, 9-11 PM) on the Discovery Channel that 
might be of interest to you (teachers might want to have a tape recorder set 
since much of the material can be used in the classrooms), and perhaps alert 
others to this event. I don’t think there are plans for reruns.

The program is called THE HUMAN ZOO, it was produced in London last year (by 
Granada Media and London Weekend Television). I served as chief scientific 
consultant and on-screen analyst in various portions of the three hour-long 
programs (first 2 programs will air 4/16, not sure of timing of the 3rd 
show). I think it represents some of what is best in Reality TV, when done 
responsibly and with respect for the intelligence of the audience. What the 
success of the current crop of reality TV in the U.S. and overseas tells us 
is that human behavior is fascinating to observe. I believe this is even more 
true when experts help the public give that behavior meaning and focus their 
observations, and this is what the Human Zoo series attempts to do.

The 3hour series summarizes a week that a diverse group of 12 stranger 
volunteers spent together in a remote lake district locale in England. We 
observe them engaging in a host of basic psychological processes, captured 
mostly by hidden cameras, and analyzed on-line by psychologists (me and a 
British social psychologist) for what the various behaviors of these 
individuals, and their groups, represents. For each of the key phenomena 
observed in this Reality TV documentary there is a cut away to real world 
demonstrations in mini experiments, interviews, and archival footage in 
personnel offices, shopping malls, trains, businesses, schools, sporting 
events, and with ordinary people in the streets. Some are designed as Candid 
Camera- like scenarios.

Among the topics illustrated are: first impressions, impression management 
and formation, deviance and rejection, conformity, compliance, group 
formation, group dynamics and power, non verbal behavior, bystander 
intervention, lie detection, social attraction, the power of physical 
appearance, and more. British psychological experts discuss each of the 
underlying processes revealed in these behavior modules. The behavioral 
changes of the dozen research participants forms the link between the three 
programs.

Hope you get a chance to view it and enjoy it.
Phil Zimbardo
Psychology Dept
Stanford University 

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Fwd: Media Alert, Psychology series, 4/16 9pm

[Drnanjo]

Friends,

Thought I would pass this along to you all:


Dear friends, family and colleagues:
I was just notified of a 3-part psychology series that will be shown
starting next week (MONDAY NIGHT, APRIL 16, 9-11 PM) on the Discovery
Channel that might be of interest to you (teachers might want to have a
tape recorder set since much of the material can be used in the
classrooms), and perhaps alert others to this event. I don’t think there
are plans for reruns.

The program is called THE HUMAN ZOO, it was produced in London last year
(by Granada Media and London Weekend Television). I served as chief
scientific consultant and on-screen analyst in various portions of the
three hour-long programs (first 2 programs will air 4/16, not sure of
timing of the 3rd
show). I think it represents some of what is best in Reality TV, when
done responsibly and with respect for the intelligence of the audience.
What the success of the current crop of reality TV in the U.S. and
overseas tells us is that human behavior is fascinating to observe. I
believe this is even more true when experts help the public give that
behavior meaning and focus their observations, and this is what the Human
Zoo series attempts to do.

The 3hour series summarizes a week that a diverse group of 12 stranger
volunteers spent together in a remote lake district locale in England. We
observe them engaging in a host of basic psychological processes,
captured mostly by hidden cameras, and analyzed on-line by psychologists
(me and a British social psychologist) for what the various behaviors of
these individuals, and their groups, represents. For each of the key
phenomena observed in this Reality TV documentary there is a cut away to
real world demonstrations in mini experiments, interviews, and archival
footage in personnel offices, shopping malls, trains, businesses,
schools, sporting events, and with ordinary people in the streets. Some
are designed as Candid Camera- like scenarios.

Among the topics illustrated are: first impressions, impression
management and formation, deviance and rejection, conformity, compliance,
group formation, group dynamics and power, non verbal behavior, bystander
intervention, lie detection, social attraction, the power of physical
appearance, and more. British psychological experts discuss each of the
underlying processes revealed in these behavior modules. The behavioral
changes of the dozen research participants forms the link between the
three programs.

Hope you get a chance to view it and enjoy it.
Phil Zimbardo
Psychology Dept
Stanford University 

Crime (along with teaching) doesn't pay

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

I know I should just stop now. I am definitely abusing you all - but it's 
spring break, and my students are checking in to my discussion boards and 
mailing list between sips of their margueritas on the beaches of Baja. 
Anyway, on behalf of a curious student -

Is there a difference between "criminal psychology"" and "forensic 
psychology"?

AND

Is there such a thing as "profiling" or it is just a pseudoscientific bit of 
hokum made up for the evil mass hypnosis machine?

Thanks for your patience with my multiple trips to the TIPS well.

Nancy "no rest for the weary" Melucci
On my alleged break

Re: Belief, Faith, and Spanking

[Drnanjo]

Louis wrote -


No one said both or all parties had to turn the other cheek.  If
everyone was turning the other cheek, there'd be no need for cheek
turning.  The real problem is that too many people on both sides haven't
figured out which other cheek to turn.

Ok, now - I guess I am one of those people - I am really, really confused 
given the various threads that have gone out this morning...

Which cheek, or set of cheeks are we talking about here?

; ) ; ) : )

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: morality and religion

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

David Myers wrote:

But across individuals, religiosity (as indexed by such things as
participation in faith communities or self-rated importance of religion)
correlates with intentional altruism.  While the correlations between faith
and
altruism/happiness/health seem pretty well established, the causal
explanations
of the correlations are open for debate and research.  And it remains to be
seen whether the proposed faith-based interventions will pay social dividends.

I am attaching an clip from an article I received on another list. The bold 
print is my own added emphasis.

To me, the kind of bigotry that is implied in the last sentences, if this 
research reflects what is true, does not speak to an altruism, unless we are 
only speaking of charity to people of our own kind


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans support the idea of President Bush's 
plan to fund faith-based charities but have reservations about government 
involvement in religion, according to a poll released on Tuesday. 

The poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew 
Forum on Religion and Public Life, found 75 percent of 2,041 people surveyed 
supported the concept of faith-based funding while 21 percent opposed it. 

However, most respondents were selective about who should receive the money 
and did not think non-Judeo-Christian religious groups, such as Muslims and 
Buddhists, or groups outside the mainstream, such as Scientologists, should 
get funds. 

News of the weird

[Drnanjo]

Friends,

Can anyone tell me if this posting at my blackboard from a student is more 
likely to be fact or urban legend?

lady who was found to have a worm in her brain, which was eating away at it. 
Supposedly, it was due to her eating a pork taco in Mexico (she's from 
Arizona). This was discovered on some medical scanning device. She underwent 
brain surgery while awake in order to remove the worm. I had never heard of 
such case like it, so I assume it is rare?>

Thanks. Also I was hoping if anyone had answers to my previous queries about 
1)teaching "Theory Based Research" 2)Stress and the Brain 3) heroic dolphins.

Thanks so much for all your help.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC (on break, from all 6 schools at once, for a change!) 

Heroic Dolphins

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

I have just shown the Sci American tape "Animal Einsteins" to my intro psych 
classes. It has Alex the Parrot, chimps using model rooms to find hidden 
objects, problem-solving ravens and a bunch more.  A student was asking me 
about the reports of dolphins saving the lives of drowning humans - does 
anyone have credible back up for these stories or are they closer to 
"folklore" in possible veracity?

Thanks for your help...

Nancy Melucci
ELAC 

Help, help,

[Drnanjo]

Dear Friends,

I am creating a graduate-level class online in "theory-based research." I am quite 
lost though because I cannot find any syllabi for such a course online, and the 
text-based and online materials on theory, conceptual models and other concepts I am 
supposed to teach about don't provide standard definitions for these terms (for 
example, what is the difference between a "conceptual model" and a "grand theory?" I 
am supposed to discuss these topics and I am not even sure how to distinguish between 
them.) I have already checked the OTPR website.

Anyway, if you know of any information in books, journals, or online about 
"theory-based research" specifically, or have a syllabus to share, I would appreciate 
your help in this matter. I have to have shell for this class ready on 5/20, so I am 
beginning to feel that time is running out. 

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Feeling slightly stupid,

Nancy Melucci
ELAC, et al.

Melucci Sample Essay questions

[Drnanjo]

Hello again,

I am going to share with you (uninvited) a typical essay section for exam 1 
in intro psychology. I am proud of these questions - I think they are 
enjoyable and challenging for the student to answer and drive home the 
important points I am trying to me. If you think that they are not good, I 
would appreciate the reality check and your feedback.  If you like them, you 
may use them without giving me any credit. I will be happy to supply a 
scoring standard at your request, though I trust you can develop your own.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Worth 40 points.
Answer ONE (1) out of FIVE (6) options.
Answer parts A and B, please.

1. A. Create three good questions about the structure or functions of the 
human nervous system.
B. Answer one of your questions thoroughly.

2. A. Melucci says "You have to learn to see." What is she going on about?
B. Define "sensory interaction" and give one example of this process in 
humans.


3. A. Describe one case of brain damage or disease process from which we have 
learned about the amazing brain.
B. Identify and describe one of the new technologies that allow us to image 
the brain, and ask one question that you'd like to see answered by this 
question in the next decade.

4. A. Describe one research method that is used in the science of psychology, 
including its strengths and weaknesses.
B. Identify one question that you'd like to see answered using this research 
method - briefly describe a study that might be done using this research 
method.

5. A. Describe the anatomy and functioning of one (1) of the seven senses.
B.Define the term "Perceptual Set" (AKA "mental set") and explain why it is 
important to know about this aspect of human cognitive processing.

6.  "You only use 10% of your brain!"
" I am not very logical - I must be right brained and very creative too!"
"Men listen with only one side of their brains, and women use both, so 
there's proof that women are better listeners than men are!"

A.Imagine that your friend says one of these things to you. Now that you have 
learned about the brain, what would you say to your friend in response to the 
claim they are making?
B. Tell me one true fact that you would share with your friend about the 
anatomy and function of the amazing human brain.

(A couple of other favorites of mine:)

1. Your friend just read the results of a research study that concludes 
that babies wholisten to Mozart and Bach achieve higher grades in elementary 
and highschool.  She is stoked about this and is rushing out to buy $100.00 
worth of classical music CDs to play for her newborn.  What questions would 
youencourage your friend to ask before she makes such a large investment 
based onthese findings?

1. What questions would you want to ask a person who claims that he or 
she has ESP and other alleged “paranormal” powers?  What type of evidence 
would you like to back up these claims?

Re: Multiple choice vs. essay

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

I didn't pick up the sarcasm angle and did not intend to convey that one 
should be sarcastic. Perhaps I misinterpreted Beth's comment.  In said 
hypothetical situation, the student comes to office hours or emails or 
telephones and says "you gave me an F, why?"  And I would merely list the 
reasons why - you failed the final, you didn't turn in the research project, 
you did not come to class enough.

I think I misinterpreted. I thought Beth was indicating that she would 
somehow tiptoe around the facts.  In retrospect, that's pretty silly on my 
part, but since I am doing about 3 things at once this morning, I guess I 
wasn't reading carefully enough.

Sorry.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Multiple choice vs essay testing (clarification)

[Drnanjo]

Hello,

People have been reacting to my comments as if I were saying that essays are 
BETTER than MCs and I am most emphatically not saying that.

I am saying that I believe that I need to have them in my tests just as much 
as I need MCs.  I am trying to find the right blend of objective and essay 
work in my tests. I believe that essays are needed to  foster understanding 
of broad themes in the knowledge and encourage student planning and 
initiative, and give practice in writing which I believe should be included 
in courses in all disciplines at the college level.

I did not intend to create a debate about relative merit. I believe that both 
are useful and worthwhile.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Multiple choice vs. essay

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 3/29/2001 7:44:44 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Hello,


And it's almost always a challenge from a student to whom I'd like to say, 
"Duh, could be because you failed the final, didn't hand in your paper and 
only came to class half the time."  But I'm a disciple of Miss Manners, so 
I don't.)


Why not say it? If it is true, I do.  Fall Semester 2000 I had almost half of 
a class decide that the paper, shown as required on the syllabus, was 
optional.  So I gave a lot of low grades and failures. I had one student go 
to the ombudsman to complain about her grade. She decided to take the fourth 
exam (I only require three) instead of write the paper.  She misrepresented 
the issue and told them that I had given her that option. I had not and would 
never.  I said I would consider changing her grade if she wrote the required 
paper. I have received nothing from her.


Anybody else feel that multiple choice questions have a bigger safety harbor?

There is less room for complaining, but even an MC can be written poorly or 
unclearly.  At any rate, I am trying not to be intimidated and blackmailed 
out of teaching in the manner I think is best for all. I usually lose a few 
students at the beginning of each semester when they see the writing 
requirements of my classes. And I am coming to believe more and more that it 
is their loss, not mine.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Multiple choice vs essay testing

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 3/29/2001 6:27:04 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


But the larger issue is that assertions
require evidence (for example a randomized study showing that
students who write essay tests learn to write better than those
who don't).


If you had read a little further down, you would have seen that I am not just 
talking about learning to write, I am talking about actually understanding 
why the correct answers are correct.  I am sure that a fair number of 
students do well on MC tests because they have memorized without 
understanding, or by sheer luck.

No, I don't have any evidence except for my belief that making students 
explain what and how they comprehend the information may help them to learn 
better, except for this interesting variant of the T/F test that I used the 
other day.  I do resent having my efforts labelled as "vanity".  No I have 
not proved anything. I am doing the best I can at this time.  Maybe some day, 
when I have less driving and more time to consider, I can test it out 
sometime.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Multiple choice vs essay testing

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters,

I guess I am a little flummoxed now because I feel like I am battling an 
argument that basically states that "If Anastasi says it, it must be 
correct." I do not have the time to find experts to back up my opinion in 
this matter, so I will just state it again. If I am wrong, I am wrong. I 
guess I will be proven so in the great by and by.

I think college level tests should include essays not necessarily because it 
improves writing (although it should provide an opportunity for that too) but 
because it is an intellectual exercise that requires the student to plan out 
a strategy for addressing the issue and then do it. Our students are trained 
to be very, very passive intellectually, and as wonderful as Multiple Choice 
questions can be, they require mainly recognition memory that doesn't need a 
whole lot of active effort on their part.  I believe that I am encouraging 
them to take the kind of initiative that the work they are preparing to do 
(as future college graduates) will require of them for success.
 
Scantron testing too strikes me as placing a mechanical barrier in a 
relationship that needs a human, connected element.  I just can't bring 
myself to use them.  

I gave a true false quiz this week that required the students to choose the 
correct answer and then EXPLAIN why they did so. It was very enlightening and 
allowed me to see that some of them chose the right answer but still didn't 
grasp the concept. It allowed me to add a small review of the items where the 
problem was most pronounced. I am really glad that I did this.  

With all due respect to Dr. Anne, I will keep plugging away toward the goal 
of combining objective and essay material for the best possible effect.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Scantrons:buy your own

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters,

In a message dated 3/28/2001 1:10:02 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


Good multiple choice 
questions can require fairly high levels of thinking and reasoning. My 
concern about essays and such is reliability. I do not think that anyone 
can 
be objective in scoring an essay unless they confine themselves to scaning 
for certain key words, which makes them a form of multiple choice

I believe that that is true.  My chief objections to scantrons is that that 
they are impersonal and distancing, and that I cannot offer my students a 
chance to explain their answers. Sometimes students misunderstand the 
question, or I don't ask it as well as I might.

I prefer to offer a test that is approximately half MC and half essay. I feel 
strongly that a college education should include training in written 
expression including planning and executing essays and term papers on broad 
themes introduced in the course.  I grade everything by hand.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: A student is not an input

[Drnanjo]

Jeff,

A couple of observations that are probably tangential to your post:

It seems that we do run our classrooms in a capitalist and competition 
oriented fashion - as if there were only a limited number of As (like there 
is only so much money to go around.)  Students learn early that the classroom 
is about competition and not about gaining and appreciating knowledge.

I don't think it's a spurious correlation to note that the daughters of the 
upper middle class, who are being sent to competitive nursery schools, SAT 
classes when they are nine, and the like are also the most vulnerable to 
anorexia and bulimia.  Some numbers must be very high (SATs and IQs) and 
others must be low (weights).  This is our entry ticket into the elite class.

The dehumanization of the student and his/her relationship to education is 
one reason that I refuse (and will always refuse) to use Scantrons for tests. 
 It has gotten to the point where I perceive that students sit in Skinner 
boxes like so many rats waiting for the shock (the Scantron test).  Some run 
around frantically trying to prepare (studying) but others just sit and wait. 
 At any rate, the motivation is limited and questionable.  Scantrons minimize 
the writing component (which I feel is essential at the college level).  
Giving the student a test paper to write on, and explain answers, allows me 
to see to what extent the student has grasped the concept - not just 
memorized the answer. And also to see if perhaps I was not as clear as 
possible in how I ask the question.

I know that these comments probably only marginally related to the article, 
but I have been looking for an excuse


drnanjo
(Nancy Melucci)
ELAC

Student Question

[Drnanjo]

Tipsikins,

Here's one from a student that I could not answer and it made me want to cry.

What causes crying? (I am sure I will get my share of smart aleck answers 
from you all, so let'em rip.)

Also given that crying can be done willfully as well as spontaneously, is 
there any definitive way to tell the genuine crying from the put-on? Kind of 
like the "Duchenne Smile" that differentiates a real, spontaneous smile from 
a voluntary one?

I thank you much for your help. Best wishes for a pleasant spring break to 
all.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA

Re: Abnormal: status of Szasz?

[Drnanjo]

Hello Listmavens:

In a message dated 3/13/2001 8:23:48 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


With Szasz, I think it helps to expose students to
films of his work and other materials to fully cover his ideas in depth, it
does his work no justice to just present Szasz as the guy who wrote Myth of
Mental Illness, who doesn't believe in Mental Illness, etc. and move on, it
comes off as too simplistic, and its easy to present him as a crackpot.



I will disagree with this viewpoint. I do introduce Szasz's view in the 
abnormal psych module of intro psych, I do not present him as a "crackpot" 
because I tend to agree with him, not on all points, but many.  I believe 
that many students are capable of understanding the concept the society does 
to some extent define what "normal" is, that the tremendous increase in the 
diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is at least partly an artifact of the changes in the 
last century in how children are raised and schooled, and that the difference 
between the "heartless" con artist serving 10-20 who has the diagnosis of APD 
and the corporate lawyer for Firestone (or GM) who writes the memo saying 
"Our product is defective, but from a cost-profit standpoint, we might as 
well let a few accidents happen and pay the bodily injury liability claims 
instead of spend the money on a product recall that will cost far more to 
us." and who isn't in jail and doesn't have the diagnosis may be a difference 
of class and societal circumstance and nothing else.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA

Re: Abnormal Psychology

[Drnanjo]

Il grande Jeff Ricker wrote:


And the definitely nonhysterical but still infamous Dr. Nanjo wrote in
response to another post:

>I would speculate that Blanche in "Streetcar" is a pretty good
fictional
>representation of a person with histrionic personality disorder, and
perhaps
>a co-existing depression or bipolar illness.


As much as I would wish to deny it, I am still given to the occasional bout 
of hysteria.  But I am much less prone to that as a 42 year old then, let's 
say, as a 22 year old.

Ricker quoting Showwalter:

"hysteria has now become the wastebasket category of
literary criticism, into which any excitable heroine from Jane Eyre to
Blanche DuBois [yes...Blanche DuBois!] can be tossed..."

Now it had never occurred to me to classify Jane Eyre as a person with 
hysterical personality disorder.  I think we can try to discriminate between 
those who tend to classify women as hysterics as a matter of policy, and 
those of us who try to make accurate judgements about these matters.

BTW, I am 75% of the way to not believing in any of the personality 
disorders.  A la Szasz I am coming to suspect that these are assorted labels 
that we can use to give mental health diagnoses to folks who we experience 
just plain obnoxious (or untrustworthy, in the case of antisocial PD) in the 
social and interpersonal realm.

My best wishes to all for a great weekend.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Abnormal Psychology

[Drnanjo]

Hello all -

I would speculate that Blanche in "Streetcar" is a pretty good fictional 
representation of a person with histrionic personality disorder, and perhaps 
a co-existing depression or bipolar illness.

If I am off base about this, I invite feedback about competing 
interpretations.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Hemispheric lateralization in listening - men and women

[Drnanjo]

Hello friends,

Does anyone have a complete reference for the above study by Lurito & 
Phillips last year, the one where it was shown that in a sample of 20, women 
had both hemispheres active while listening, and men only had the one active?

Thanks for your help.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

APA in the city by the Bay

[Drnanjo]

Hello Tipsfriends,

I am happy to announce that J. Ricker, S. Lilienfeld, R. Weisskirch and I 
have a symposium accepted at APA this year.

I am hoping to meet some of you there! I look forward to that very much - 
contact me on or off list if you will be there.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA

Re: Sudafed and meth

[Drnanjo]

Rob & Tipsters,

I believe that sudafed contains pseudoephedrine, which is indeed an 
ingredient that methamphetimine cooks use.

How do you think I get between 5 schools every week and get all this work 
done? ; ) kidding, kidding, kidding!

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Tangent concerning views of education

[Drnanjo]

Tipsfolk,

Indirectly appropos of our discussion of student motivation and views of 
education, it occurs to me that on the rare occasions when I post a comment 
on public bulletin boards (AOL/MSN) and include my degree after my name, some 
portion of the posts in response will make insulting comments about doctors, 
women doctors, etc.

Obviously this is purely anecdotal and may not mean anything, but again, I 
wonder whether or students seem to lack motivation because in reality they 
are ambivalent about what it means to be highly educated, that there is a 
great deal of underlying hostility and resentment in the general public about 
folks who hold advanced degrees.

If this is too far off the mark, I apologize.  I hope everyone has a great 
weekend.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: question for all of you

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 3/1/2001 6:52:32 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


So a loving 
God desires all people to be saved but those who do not accept Christ are 
basically condemning themselves

Again, to me this loving God not only condemns millions of innocent people, 
but blames them for it using tricky language.

This doesn't fit with my idea of a loving God at all.  

But, I am probably going to be with all those people in limbo for eternity, 
or in Hell when I am dead (assuming that I am mistaken in my current state of 
agnosticism.)  Oh well.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Gallup/creationism

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/27/2001 7:24:28 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


two and a half million adolescents have taken public "virginity" pledges,
in which they promise to abstain from
>sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of virginity pledges on
the transition to first intercourse. On
>one hand, we show that adolescents who pledge, controlling for all of the
usual characteristics of adolescents
>and their social contexts that are associated with the transition to sex,
are much less likely than adolescents who
>do not pledge, to have intercourse. The delay effect is substantial and
almost impossible to erase. 


And I will reply in public, that numbers like 2,000,000 represent an 
extraordinary claim that is very hard to scientifically verify.  How many of 
these adolescents actually follow through?  

I would like to see some realistic numbers on this.  Otherwise this is just 
an unsubstantiated claim.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Please don't delete me - this is about TEACHING PSYCHOLOGY

[Drnanjo]

Hello gang,

Besides the work of Oliver Sacks, I was wondering if any of you could suggest 
some sources of case studies of brain damage that can be used in intro or 
physio to teach about brain anatomy and function.

Thanks for your kind help.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Bad email address

[Drnanjo]

My responses to that last flame to the list produced an undeliverable reply - 
which makes me very suspicious of the sender and his motives.

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

I am going to try not to respond anymore to this inflammatory material, but I 
thought you all would like to know about this.

Nancy Melucci

Re: question for all of you

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/27/2001 6:40:15 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

I am "one of those" religious fundamentalists who
believes that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant
word of God, that Christ was crucified and resurrected
for our sins, and that the only way for one to achieve
salvation is through faith in Christ.  I believe that
abortion is the killing of an unborn child, that
sexual activity was meant to stay within the confines
of a male-female marriage, and that people need to be
held responsible for their behaviors.  

And also

and that I am not
in the position to judge them 

Which pretty much speaks for itself

Seems like you want to belong to a different list.  You will not be able to 
cram your beliefs down our throats and evidently you will not be satisfied 
unless you can. This is an open discussion list, and many of us are not of 
your faith.  We are all worthy of respect though, whatever you may think.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: question for all of you

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/27/2001 6:40:15 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


such as the comment that believing in the
Bible is akin to "intellectual dishonesty" or
inferring that religious fundamentalists are all
close-minded.

I am "one of those" religious fundamentalists who
believes that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant
word of God, that Christ was crucified and resurrected
for our sins, and that the only way for one to achieve
salvation is through faith in Christ.  

As you have just alienated and condemned a very large proportion of human 
beings on the planet, who do not practice Christianity, I think you have 
pretty much proved our point.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: Gallup/creationism

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/26/2001 1:52:05 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


Why?  What about a faith-based program that has demonstrated efficacy in
>solving a particular social problem (promoting abstinence to decrease std's
>and unwanted pregnancies)?

Do you know of any?
Most have highly selected admissions, as well as excluding dropouts from

Faith-based abstinence-based programs such as these are notoriously 
ineffective - Hemet California is a notable example of a region that enforced 
such a program.  Subsequent to which, they have developed one of the highest 
teen pregnancy rates in the state.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: sensitity to students' worldviews

[Drnanjo]

JG wrote these things:

Different authors, yes, but different worldviews, I don't really see that at 
all.

That's a familiar argument, and it doesn't wash.

An example of what I mean would be slavery  - evidently fine and moral in the 
old testament, but not according to Jesus' teaching.  I don't buy your 
refutation.


Isn't that really more a matter of faith -- and proving/disproving the truth 
a 
matter of using faith?  If we cannot test the bible empirically, how can we 
declare true and false?



You are reading into what I am saying that I KNOW exactly which parts of true 
and which are false.  I know that some parts are for sure false (the account 
of creation taken literally) other parts I believe are highly suspect for 
many reasons having to do with the inexact nature of recording human history 
("history is written by the winners" and etc.) and some parts of it are 
probably accurate.  But it is a pretty sound speculation that some of what is 
recorded in the Bible did not happen, or happened but not the way it was told.

And if what you are saying it is true, you are supporting my point. I should 
not have to "respect" the Bible in the context of teaching a science class.  
It is not an appropriate subject, and the student's "worldview" based upon it 
is not an issue I need to address.


Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Lithium + Cannabis

[Drnanjo]

Tipsfriends,

A student was asking if there were any specific side effects or other 
problems that develop if a person who is taking lithium also smokes pot?

I did try this in a couple of search engines and got a lot of vague and 
conflicting information.

Thanks for any help or focus you can give to me.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: "popular" psychology courses

[Drnanjo]

Lifespan and Child Developmental draw interest from many allied disciplines, 
and from others who have concerns about parenting or their own growth and 
development.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Gallup/creationism

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/23/2001 9:54:20 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


And now that Bush seems to ascertain that Faith based programs do a
better job in alleviating addictions and other social ills than all
psychology programs combined,I would say that teaching


I would like to see Bush's evidence. Otherwise this is a way-weak appeal to 
authority.  

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Student question

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/23/2001 9:34:42 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



 JiM: check with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
  I have had police officers in my classes.
  They also confirm that they are usually kept
  very busy on full moon nights.
  Hope this helps.


They were "kept busy" on full moon nights because they only counted incidents 
on "full moon" nights.  Otherwise they ignored the number of incidents.

Michael, you are too credulous.  This is a clear example of confirmation 
bias.  The full moon madness belief is pure hokum.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: sensitity to students' worldviews

[Drnanjo]

Listmates,

No anger, just reason.

One of thes problem with trying to use the Bible to formulate a coherent 
worldview is that the Bible may in fact not be a "coherent" document but a 
pastiche of differing worldviews. It was written over many centuries and 
speaks to an age or ages and culture(s) that faced very different problems 
than ours does.  For an example of this problem check out this website:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/exe_bibl.htm

It doesn't for example present a uniform view on capital punishment.

I used to try to be respectful of student's adherence to the Bible by 
speaking to its utility as a history of people and compendium of ethics, but 
I am not even convinced that it works for that purpose.  It is a book with 
true and false things written in it, but many times students and other folks 
want to treat it as the unimpeachable truth.  I cannot support this. It is 
not a matter of respect, it is a matter of intellectual honesty.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: Student question

[Drnanjo]

I understand that the police are trained to scrutinize the eyemovents
of suspects suspects and the directiion of gaze is one index used.

Michael Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida


Based on what the other folks on the list have been saying, I guess Michael 
has just provided us with more evidence that use of techniques by the police 
in no way validates them as effective or scientific.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Techno Aid for poster presentation

[Drnanjo]

Dear Listmates,

I was sketching out some preliminary ideas for one of my posters for WPA.  
The presentation concerns my web-based option for a term project in Intro 
Psychology, and it relies heavily on my privately-owned and operated 
Blackboard site.

I am techno-knowledgeable, but not overly so.  I was thinking that it might 
be really neat and effective to set my laptop computer up near the poster 
with some sample pages from the site that folks could look at.  I doubt that 
I can hook the modem up in the middle of the poster floor, but was trying to 
remember if "caching" some pages of my website would allow me to accomplish 
the same thing without necessarily being connected to the web.  Am I correct? 
 Do you know how I would go about setting this up?  I would like some 
instructions for how to do this, if it is possible, and would appreciate your 
help.  

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Student question

[Drnanjo]

Tipsters -

Does someone know the answer to this question:

"Is it true that when someone is asked a question and they look up and to the 
left, that they are accessing the visual cortex of their brain indicating 
that they are telling the truth, and that if they look up and to the right 
that they are accessing the creative side of their brain otherwise indicating 
that they are lying?"

Thanks for your help


Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Pride in education (random neural firings in response)

[Drnanjo]

Jeff et al:

Someone (I think Mark Twain) said that Americans are as a group somewhat 
anti-intellectual.

We glorify most those who manage to succeed without a higher education - the 
myth of the "self made person."  People who drop out early from education and 
make it on their own.  Often those people were indeed mythical - they had 
other resources.

Education itself was, about 100 years ago, more closely associated with 
privilege than with talent (who went to the Ivies at that time?  Rich kids.)

And of course, getting a real education means giving up a lot of childish, 
fantastical and wish-fulfilling notions about how life works.  Antithetical 
to our TV/consumerist/waste your life watching "Survivor" culture.

Sorry for the telegraphic script, but I've got my 90 minute commute to SMC 
waiting.  Thanks.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Exploiting the list - biopsychology

[Drnanjo]

Hello listmates,

One of the 9000 irons I have in the fire at this time is that I am the 
designated preparer of the next Instructor Manual for the Kalat Intro Psych 
text 6th Ed.  I have not crowed about it to the list because I am currently 
living in mortal fear of not making my 5/1 deadline on this project.  But I 
need your help now, and want to be upfront about what it is I am seeking.

I need to beef up the number of available classroom exercises.  For chapter 
3, biopsych, I am bereft of ideas.  Normally I show some case study videos 
and teach the related materials from those.  Although this usually very 
cogent stuff, I would like to offer my colleagues who receive the manual more 
variety.

So, if any of you have good classroom exercises or discussion activities for 
biopsych and sense and perception, and would like them included, I would love 
to hear from you.  I will certainly include individuals by name in the 
credits along with the TIPS list as a whole.

I look forward to hearing from you on and off list, and wish you all a 
pleasant week.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: re Michael Kane's note on GI

[Drnanjo]

Hello -

What I was trying to convey is NOT that, a year or two before it dawns on the 
students and the teachers that the SAT is looming large, a concerted effort 
is made to thoroughly rehearse test taking skills that are relevant to taking 
the test. (This is like panicking when one realizes that an major assignment 
is due in one day and has not been though about at all.)

Rather what I was suggesting is that much, much earlier in our children's 
education, every school could make a better effort at teaching them to be 
active thinkers and reasoners.  These things would if taught properly have 
more staying power than the large volume of facts that we try to cram into 
students' heads instead and also be more useful in the long run.

But unfortunately our schools/teachers, and therefore our students, take a 
rather passive role in all this.  When I have to repeatedly explain to 
college students that writing a research paper is an appropriate assignment 
for a lower division course, I have to start wondering what is happening to 
our conception of education.  It seems to me that anything requiring planning 
and forethought takes a backseat to memorization and regurgitation.  These 
students are kind of like the rats in the learned helplessness experiments.  
They view their role as standing around and waiting for the shocks (a series 
of scantron-based tests) and don't perceive themselves as needing to take 
charge of their own learning at all.

OK, well that's enough ranting for this AM.  Hope you all have a grand 
weekend.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: re Michael Kane's note on GI

[Drnanjo]

In a message dated 2/8/2001 6:57:55 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


If students keep getting worse and we have to lower our standards 
even to maintain the current grade averages, how do we explain the 
worldwide 
increase in IQ scores and the decrease in SAT scores? 

Is one possible reason for the decrease in SAT scores the fact that more 
students are taking it?  That's what I think I heard.

I am also of the opinion that schools don't cultivate the reasoning skills 
that are tested on the SAT, but that is based on my own observation and not 
on scientific data of any kind.

Nancy Melucci
East LA College

Re: sched of reinforcement

[Drnanjo]

Hello:

Those card that they give you at coffee, donut, bagel shops (buy ten, get 
eleventh free) are a great example of fixed ratio.  So is piecework.

It is very hard to tell the difference between a rat on a VR schedule and a 
person standing in front of a slot machine.  

Good luck.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

WPA

[Drnanjo]

Hello -

Anyone on the list going to Western Psych? I had a couple of posters 
accepted. Contact me if you think you might be going.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College

Re: Harris debate

[Drnanjo]

Hello again -

It was written:

"First, there really isn't a 0 influence model, as I understand Harris.  She 
is arguing that environmental influences are very contexutal.  Thus parents 
DO have influence.  They influence how children behave with their parents.  
But when children leave home, the outside environment becomes a more 
important influence in how children behave OUTSIDE the home.  Since, in our 
culture, we spend most of our (adult)lives outside the homes of our 
upbringing, these outside infuences (mostly peers in Harris' model, but not 
limited to peers) are the most important environmental factors influencing 
our adult characteristics."


Wouldn't this kind of thing generalize though to how we behave with authority figures 
(bosses and higher status non-peer types?) Not all of our interactions outside the 
home are with peers - even when we grow up (or are supposed to grow up.)  Or am I 
missing something?

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Harris debate

[Drnanjo]

Stephen and all:

Dr. Stephen Black writes:

Two qualifiers: the finding that there is virtually no influence
of family environment on personality and social attitudes is
often extented to IQ, but I think this is incorrect.  The data do
show that family environment contributes to IQ.  For example
Bouchard's (1990) figures show that the correlation for MZ twins
together for IQ is 0.88, which drops to 0.69 for twins apart

This is pretty much supporting my point. I never specified which parts would be 
influenced and which would not, I just speculated that parents have some influence, 
and so do peers. I think Harris and Anti-Harris forces are oversimplifying a complex 
issue for self-serving, political and other reasons.

What would I say to students? (Someone else raised this issue.) I would say the same 
thing I have said regarding nature versus nurture in IQ.  It is clear that genetics 
play a role (twin studies).  It is also clear that environment plays a role (from 
conception...the best genes in the world won't save you if your mom augments her 
prenatal regimen with daily doses of alcohol.) There is probably no formula for nature 
versus nurture, in every individual the two forces contribute differently. All we can 
really predict is that each will contribute, but to what extent they each do...well, 
given our current level of knowledge, it's virtually a "crapshoot."

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Re: Cheesy debate - speculations

[Drnanjo]

Hello again -

In a message dated 2/1/2001 1:27:33 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
writes:


This is exactly where Harris says that parents have the strongest effect on
the development of their children. As I understand her, she is arguing that
parenting style and other "in home interactions" have little effect on
development that is not distinguishable from genetic effects. To borrow an
idea from Scarr and McCartney who borrowed the idea from Plomin, the unique
characteristics of the child elicit the parental behaviors that we see as
making the child unique. 


Parents' lifestyles often reflect their own peer-oriented behavior.  When I 
turn on the TV these days I have to laugh/barf at the constant pitching to 
affluent baby boomers material goods that will proclaim their status and 
accomplishment to their cohort. Most of these commericials using the music 
that was once supposed to be rebellious and rejecting of establishment values.

Lately I've been speculating that in fact individuality is a kind of myth. 
Our desires, values, and the "voices in our heads" are placed there by a 
larger cultural ethos that we are at once embedded in and influencing.  We 
engaged in this discussion as if the children being raised are "space aliens" 
who will be trained by a wholly different species of being, the "peers" when 
in fact this peer group, just a generation younger (a nanosecond in the 
history of humanity), will eventually turn in to the same kind of people that 
the parents are.  

We tend to think in terms of the distinctions, exaggerating them and failing 
to see how much everything is also connected.

Nancy Melucci, Ph.D.
East Los Angeles College

Re: Cheesy debate

[Drnanjo]

Hello friends,

I am wondering why a more middle-of-the-road view on this question is not being 
studied (or is it, and I am just clueless?)

That is, it makes little sense to say, however convincingly, that parents have 
virtually NO influence on how their children turn out, and makes equally little sense 
to say that the peer group, the importance of which ascends rapidly starting probably 
at around the 5-7 shift, has no impact either.  Both these views strike me as narrow, 
self-serving and naive. There is probably a complex set of interacting factors at work 
in shaping each child.

Who one's parents are (genetically, in their social status/financial resources, their 
values, the neighborhood they settle the family in, the schools they send the kids to, 
etc.) almost certainly affects the type of friends, clique, or crowd a child chooses.  
The level of parental involvement in the child's life, even through adolescence, is 
key also.  

Harris and her foes sometimes seem to present a false dichotomy too - parents versus 
peers. Many children also find other adults, in the extended family, in the school and 
community, who help to shape them - mentors, coaches, and the like.

Eventually most of us end up struggling most of our lives between identifying 
ourselves in relationship to our parents, our peers, our culture, and as a separate 
autonomous individual.

I have no scientific way to back this up, of course.  It is just my considered 
opinion.  After awhile, it began to seem to me that the whole Harris versus parents 
thing is just far too reductionist in failing to consider all the myriad variables 
that can come into play.

My .01 -

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
 Monterey Park, CA

Re: Intro Midterm and Final Exams

[Drnanjo]

Deborah:

When I give an inclass test, it is usually a combination of multiple choice 
and essays.  I normally allow one sheet of "cheat notes."  Students may 
explain their answers on the test paper (an idea I stole from a fellow 
tipster.) I always give tests back to the students to keep, because I believe 
they should have their tests back.  So I rewrite the tests every semester, 
usually keeping and rewording 1/3-1/2 of the items, and making up or using 
the other items from the test banks I have.  The essays stay the same from 
semester to semester.  I figure if they are looking at old tests, seeing the 
essays and thinking about them, that's a learning process.

If I give take home exams, they are fill in the blank and essays.  This 
semester I have experimented with using T/F items on pop quizzes only.  My 
quizzes are open book.

Hope this helps.

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA

Re: Two topics: Childbirth & Split brain

[Drnanjo]

Hello -

In a message dated 1/29/2001 7:42:36 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


The 4th stage had to to with rest and recovery and the 
shrinking of the cervix.  I was wondering if this additional stage is 
becomming more commonly accepted or might be idiosyncratic to certain texts 
or fields?


I think (I am not an expert) that the expulsion of the placenta is also an 
important part of this 4th stage.  If the placenta is not expelled, pretty 
serious consequences can occur. Not so much of an issue nowadays, probably 
crucial when these things were done without the assistance of certified 
midwives and OB Gyns.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

General expression of gratitude

[Drnanjo]

Friends,

I have received so much helpful information from so many of you on numerous 
topics this week.

It is becoming cumbersome to issue individual thanks, so I hope you all won't 
feel slighted by a general expression of my appreciation for all the 
information, support and guidance generated by the members of this list.

Enjoy the weekend!

Nancy Melucci
East Los Angeles College
Monterey Park, CA

Re: Need to vent

[Drnanjo]

Hey Miguel & everyone,

I need to thank you all for putting up for my week of whining.

Anyway, it looks like we are going to work it out. The Academic Affairs 
office in administration remains open until 10PM every night (kind of 
surprising, really.)  I can check my TV unit out of the library at 8PM and 
return it to Academic Affairs at 9:50PM. They will do me the favor of 
returning the unit to the library when it opens in the morning.

Miguel, you may be right about the business issues. As I understand it, 
because of the nature of the PACE program, there is some "resentment" of 
which I probably was an unwitting victim.  The students earn an AA degree in 
5 semesters and they spend fewer hours in the classroom than other students 
do, using 16 hours of videotapes in each course to supplement the lectures.

Anyway, thanks for your support.

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Student question

[Drnanjo]

Hello -

This is a cut and paste from my discussion board:

When a person is born blind, does someone (a seeing person) have to teach 
them how to smile, or is it something that people automatically do, seeing or 
not? Or do blind people not smile? 

It seems that it would be a learned response. As a baby, your mom and dad 
smile at you, and you learn to smile back. But if you can't see them smiling 
at you, how would you learn?

It's a great question - does anyone have an idea about it?

Nancy Melucci
ELAC

Need to vent

[Drnanjo]

Friends, 

I thank you all for your help with the grade appeal question. It's my week to 
abuse your kindness. I am not sure you all can help me with this, but it's 
worth a shot, right?

In my new temp f/t position in the PACE evening college program at East LA 
College I teach 6-8PM  M and T nights and 8-10PM Weds (3 different sections.) 
 Getting a TV/VCR is not a problem M and T but Wednesday the library closes 
at 9PM so I can't keep the TV until the end of class - it must be returned.

I asked my supervisor what could be done, and he said that the psych 
department (PACE is separate from psych at ELAC) could arrange for a 
colleague who teaches 7-10PM on Weds to help me by unlocking the video closet 
for me so I can get and put back the machine.

I was not nuts about this idea - it seemed like a big inconvenience for the 
colleague, but I was assured that it would not be a problem. I requested a 
campus phone number for the colleague so I could check with her before I 
showed up looking for help, and I was told that since she's a long-term 
substitute that she didn't have one and not to worry about it - it was taken 
care of.  

I showed up this evening to teach, 10 minutes before my class, peeked my head 
in her door and asked to speak with her. She looked put out and when I asked 
for help, the answer I got was something like "Yes, I know that's what you 
were told, but I am not going to be able to help you with this."  She was 
pretty rude and hostile.

Again, it's not that so much she is declining (although if I were her, I 
would have helped me out this evening to be colleagial, and then made it 
clear that I would not do so in the future,) because I hated the proposed 
arrangement too, but the fact that I was told this would be arranged, and 
that she seemed aware, led me to imagine that she had told her supervisors 
yes, and had intended to tell me no all along, maybe hoping I would just "go 
away."

At most other schools for whom I work, I have a key and can access equipment 
at will. The schools that do not give adjuncts keys have a tech center that 
is open until 10.  I am not considered a "real" full timer so I don't get a 
key at ELAC.  I have been offered the option of keeping the TV past the 
library closing, having the police come and lock it up somewhere, and 
returning to campus in the morning (a 25 mile drive) to put it back.  I have 
contemplated buying my own small TV with VCR internal (I can afford it) or 
offering the administration some type of collateral $300.00-$500.00 in 
exchange for a key, to cover my negligence or sudden metamorphosis into an 
VCR pilfering felon.

My video segments are very important to my lectures. I know that teachers in 
other parts of the world do a good job with no technology, but I am feeling 
that my request for a TV for my whole class is reasonable so I can't 
understand why they won't accommodate.  I am also angry/disappointed with the 
conduct of my colleague.

Any ideas from similar experience? Or should I resign myself to this 
stoically?

Nancy Melucci
ELAC