Keep Technology Caged

AI Isn’t Your Academic Friend

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

At least in theory, students can now grab their essay or paper prompt from their educators, load that prompt into an AI (artificial intelligence) text generator, add a few specifications and— voila— their essay or writing project is finished to perfection! Now, some students might suppose, there’s plenty of time left in the day to do other things in their now cleverly cleared schedule. Is this a win?

The obvious answer to this question is no. Let’s explore why.

The simplest reason why having AI complete your assigned writing projects is NOT a win is that you are cheating when you do so. Having anyone else, even if that person’s “brains” are made of the digital input of hundreds of thousands of documents stolen from the internet, is cheating because you completed none of the work and none of the thinking needed to address the assignment. This is literally a no-brainer.

Why do your mean-old educators insist that you personally employ brain and hands to write when AI can oversee such time-wasters for you? Is technology not here to help us? There will come a day when AI has its place in your life that will be helpful rather than a hindrance. My prediction is that AI will have its moment in the sun for a while longer until thinking-humans begin to yearn for bespoke, hand-made, human originated music, art, video, and literature. AI will eventually find its spot in more helpful areas than creating more genuinely human activities and, of course, cute cat videos. For now, AI isn’t your academic friend.

While it goes without saying, I’ll say it anyway: those who never learn to read (because AI summarized your whole reading assignment in a single simple paragraph) nor write (because AI took only 60 seconds to finish your assigned task) are consigned to the sorts of lives led by people who are illiterate. Those that don’t read and write are no better than those who can’t. The implications for the future of humanity are, to say the least, bleak if most students hand off all major tasks of academic development to something that is not much more than a fast complex database filled with other people’s words and ideas. Even if something like the plot-line of the movie Terminator unfolds once Skynet takes over, nobody would notice. They’d be too busy generating weird cat videos or deepfake videos of your siblings.

What’s in store for those who insist on using unsanctioned AI in coursework? As quickly as AI is being promoted as a grand new way to improve education, human educators are developing ways to catch its use and stop it. AI has plenty of useful applications in the real world, but its use must be consigned strictly to learning enhancement not knowledge replacement.  

One might argue that nobody really needs to learn algebra or calculus (that’s what calculators do) or chemistry (the periodic chart is handy online) so why learn to read or write if AI will take care of these tasks for us? We are on a rapidly swirling whirlpool towards our own demise if we relegate our future to the menial chores of cleaning up after our more intelligent AI overlords.

For now, you should know this:

·        All your educators can check for your use of AI in written projects of all sizes. A bloated database of word soup will read that way because that is how most AI has been trained to write.

·        If your work “reads” as AI, we will offer diminishing benefits-of-the-doubt in our responses. Applying a grammar checker or a spelling checker doesn’t change your work to read as AI generated content. None of your educators are buying that excuse. There are, at least for now, very specific tells when work isn’t written by a human. If your work is scanned as digitally generated, you will be removed from classes for cheating.

·        If you have dabbled in using unsanctioned AI for your submitted coursework, stop now. When your honest peers have progressed in their studies by mastering assigned skills through use, you’ll be trapped at whatever level you achieved before you started turning to digitally enhanced “help” to finish your work for you.

Only time will tell if my distrust of AI diminishes or increases but, so far, I’m not encouraged by what I see coming at us down the road. We are all going to be targeted relentlessly with fast, cheap, easy ways to remove humans from needing to accomplish the basic tasks of thinking thoughts and recording them skillfully and responding to others thoughtfully and cleverly. When all of that is gone from us, what will there be?

The Winter Brain

Your Brain Needs Renovation

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

The modern world has provided even average people countless luxuries. We have light and climate control on command. We have entertainment at the push of a button. We have food available when we like with very little effort involved plus all the benefits of easy chilling, heating, and preparation or even delivery. Any kind of food is available year-round with little thought about what is in season and when it tastes best. Clothes are washed and dried at the press of a button. What we do in an average week would be unimaginable 75 or 100 years ago, but would our ancestors consider us more, or less, fortunate for all our innovation? Riddled with issues like anxiety and depression, I’d say we’ve missed out on a few things that used to be normal.

Before our days could be extended by turning on lights and our food ready the instant we are, we were governed by the seasons and natural changes that used to program our behavior throughout the year. Warmer months offered physical exertion and longer days to grow and prepare food that would need to last all year or firewood that would keep us well later in the season.  Colder months used to let us regain our physical balance while we had the chance to use our brains differently. Winter used to be the season for restoration.

While we can’t go back to the days before electricity offered the luxuries we have today (nor would most of us want to), we can go out of our way to find a few ways to restore ourselves and our winter brains. Here are four things you can do in the winter months to help yourself regain equilibrium plus mental calm and health.

Sleep on a Consistent Schedule

When enjoying some days off in the winter months, have you ever spent several days in a row up late as you tried out the newest released game or “binge” watching some favorite show? Maybe you are finally going to get the chance to read that new release or perhaps you’d like to watch all 12+ hours of some movie series! Fun…right? Here’s a tip. If you have the chance for activities that make you happy, still stick to a consistent sleep schedule. Just swinging back and forth between late nights and even later mornings and then back again as your schedule dictates will increase feelings of unease. Your body and brain really appreciate regularity so, if anything, add more sleep to your schedule instead of less.

Even very poor families who struggled for resources looked forward to the part of the year when physical labor was diminished and, due to weather changes, people needed to attend to tasks inside. While you might “make hay while the sun shines” all summer long, you looked forward to relatively effortless winter hours when you could put on a pot of food to simmer and then enjoy a nice power-nap before dinner. Naps are now a rarity as our every minute is scheduled. That’s why the winter brain craves them. Find a good spot and snooze when you can.   

Mindless Tasks and Manual Chores

Winter is the right time to address mindless tasks. It used to be the best time to mend broken items, craft items (wood, knitting, sewing), or read a favorite book. Most of these chores were communal. Mimic such times today by picking mindless tasks and inviting a friend or family member to join in. Settle in to make, cook, craft, read, paint, play music, or whatever could be done while you caught up with the thoughts and jokes of those you love.  Want to learn a new instrument or clean your room? Maybe your chess skills need brushing up or your violin needs extra practice. Maybe you have a group of friends who want to hang out, get a bit festive with them and cook dinner together from scratch and laugh at or (better) love the results. Winter is the right time for mindless tasks and manual chores but there’s no need for dread. These can be quite pleasant plus they keep you inside off icy streets if you get them!

Most importantly, don’t resort to the easiest time wasters like movies, games, or scrolling online. If you don’t already limit your screen time (or if you resent those that try to do on your behalf), give it a try. If you’ve let yourself get too habituated on phone or tablet time, it will be a big struggle at first to give it up. Most of us are addicted and it isn’t pretty. Track how much time you spend on the blue screens for a regular day in your schedule before you dial it back. You’ll probably be shocked unless you and your family have had the good sense to never get hooked.

Almost a third of Americans are online or on a blue screen full time from the moment they wake up until the minute their tired hand drops their phones as they fall asleep at night.  The percentage of “constantly connected” is nearly half of our population if we only count people under age 50. Getting screen time down to something more manageable (something more like an hour instead of 16 hours) will be a major battle but, for the sake of your mental health, I strongly recommend it. Screens won’t go away without a fight so look for ways to walk away from technology by leaving phones, tablets, and televisions far away from your temptation zone. Start by sitting at a table for dinner with no television going. If you have other family members willing to cut back screens, stack any phones or devices in another room and then just talk. I guarantee you’ll start to feel better if you normally just stare at a screen while you chew.

Don’t Neglect Going Outside

If you live somewhere that gets cold or wet during the winter months, don’t use that as an excuse to hole up in your hidey-hole for several months. Your winter brain needs light (especially early morning and late afternoon) and fresh air. Besides, your dog needs a walk, your friend needs a visit, and your health needs you to move and breathe. If you are fortunate, you’ll even get to do something that is seasonally unique. When I was young, we didn’t have the money for anything too formal, but I lived near the Rocky Mountains. We’d find somebody willing to drive us and then we’d blow up some innertubes (those rubbery things that used to go in every car tire) and shoot down snowy mountains with reckless abandon. Sure, we’d have a few bruises and even a little sunburn as we’d crawl home soggy and cold after dark, but we’d sleep perfectly for a week afterwards.

Cook and Eat Well

I’m a big advocate of eating with the seasons. Winter is about restoring our bodies with soups, broths, root veggies, slow cooked winter greens, and anything else that is available this time of year. Most modern people have no idea what’s still growing this time of year or why we should often limit ourselves to such local things, but a little garden plot will soon help you learn.  Even as I type I think about my own patch of winter carrots, kale, sweet potatoes, and crunchy greens along with other foods I’ve grown or fostered. Our bodies appreciate the nourishing wealth of slowly cooked food in the winter months while it is cozy to run an oven for long periods or simmer something in a big pot. Find a good cookbook and learn how to make these tasty but humble winter items that are true to you (and your family’s) tastebuds and preferences.

Winter, if done well, should nourish and restore our bodies and brains. We have much to do. Feed your winter brain well with all these healing habits.You'll find that everything--from mental acuity, academic excellence, and social acumen--will all improve with a bit of winter rest.

Learn as Much as You Can

You'll Have it to Use

By Dr. Susan Fisher with The Lukeion Project

There is a recurring trope circulating among the old and crusty about things they learned in school and never had to use in real life. Two of the popular topics are math like algebra and oddly enough learning to play the recorder. As is the way of social media, these tropes are met with a cadre of people who agree that they have never once in their adult lives used algebra or have played the recorder. Then there is the other side that will tirelessly list out the myriad ways in which they have used algebra and what their nascent recorder learning ultimately did for their music careers. The two sides then have a useless argument and ultimately everyone leaves until the next time the trope comes around. What always amazes me about these futile internet fights is that both sides seem to miss the bigger picture. And that is, whatever skill you learn, be it algebra, the recorder, or something else, you will use it because you’ll have it to use.

Huh?

Hear me out on this one. Say I decide to start learning Portuguese today, which honestly sounds like a fantastic idea because who wouldn’t want to learn Portuguese? Once I begin learning that language a whole host of things seen and unseen will open up for me. I’ll be rewiring my brain. I’ll become able to converse with people I would not necessarily have been able to converse with before. I will get a richer understanding of my own language and culture. I might start thinking about visiting Portugal or Brazil or Guinea-Bissau or Mozambique when I might not have considered it previously. Those are just a few of the obvious things. More subtle things will happen too. I will start noticing Portuguese-related things in the world that I missed before and that will open up a host of other interesting things. The list goes on and on. Most importantly, I will have a skill that I will be able to use. This is the important part because none of us knows where life will take us.

People who scoff at learning different things because they can’t see a practical application for them in their lives are working under the false assumption that they know exactly where their lives will take them. It’s a great idea to dream and plan for a specific life path but talk to anyone who has been around a few decades and they will tell you that things rarely go exactly how you plan them. In fact, often they go much better. You will live beyond your wildest dreams or imaginings and do things you never thought you would do.

Back when I was teaching Latin in private school, I had a student whom I adored but was self-admittedly the consummate goof-off. He did fine, but not great, despite having the ability to do so. The fact was that he just didn’t see Latin as having anything to do with his future plans. All my talk about rewiring your brain, beefing up your logic skills, how cool it is to learn about another culture and how that can give you real insight into your own, yada yada yada fell on completely deaf ears. Well, three years into college he emailed me and told me he was taking Greek because he had a calling and was heading into ministry. He said it was going okay but that he really wished he had taken Latin more seriously because it would have helped so much with learning Greek. I didn’t say, “I told you so,” even though I kind of wanted to, because he already knew it, plus that’s just mean. What I did say, though, was, “Isn’t it funny where life has taken you?” Not ha ha funny, but ironic. He knew what I meant, and he agreed. He had no idea just three years before that Latin of all things would be a skill he would need for furthering his life’s work. We just can’t see everything that is going to happen for us.

Returning then to the old and crusty people on the internet. How did they get so crusty? Surely people with more years of life experience should know that life rarely takes us where we think we’re going. Are they failing to see how the different things they learned over all their years allowed them to do the things they did? Are they missing the connections? Probably. After all, so many of the benefits of what we learn are unseen. What’s more disturbing, though, is the thought that their failure to learn things, because they saw them as inapplicable to their lives, actually kept their worlds small, their paths boring, and their opportunities few. In short, they didn’t use skills because they didn’t have them to use, and their lives have become an internet crust-fest about elementary school recorders.

Ultimately the choice is ours in what skills we learn and how well we learn them, and there certainly isn’t enough time to do everything. But it pays to keep in mind the fact that the skills we learn, whatever they may be, will be of use to us because we will have those skills to use. And no matter how dull, weird or inapplicable they may seem, they will bring us interesting and meaningful opportunities. To completely mangle a wonderful poem by Robert Frost, I personally am choosing the path less crusty: not scoffing at learning new things but embracing them and learning them well, even if I don’t see a direct application for them in my life. For I know it will make all the difference.

 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Robert Frost

 

Step Away from the Screen

The Demise of “Focus”

By Regan Barr with The Lukeion Project

Has this ever happened to you? You’re out to eat with friends or family, and someone whips out his phone and begins scrolling. Recently we visited a restaurant where we were seated next to a group of ten friends. By the time we left the restaurant, over half of them were staring at their electronic devices and not interacting with the group. We assumed they’d planned this outing as a “hey, let’s get together and catch up” time, but most of them weren’t really interested in catching up. They were instead being fed a constant stream of entertainment.

When was the last time you read a book cover-to-cover in under a week? …mastered a new skill, discipline, or body of knowledge? …got through an entire movie even though the first 10 minutes moved a bit slowly? If you’re like many people today, the answer might be “it’s been so long, I can’t remember.”

Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of articles on how high school and college students have never read a single book. They’ve appeared in The Atlantic, AP News, The College Fix, and The Hechinger Report (which focuses exclusively on education-related topics). We’ve noticed the same thing in our classes at The Lukeion Project. For some students, just reading the instructions for an assignment is too big a task! This is a sad commentary on our society. We no longer exercise our imagination, like we do when reading a book; we’re just fed a constant stream of visual content.

All of these are signs of a modern ailment: we’ve lost the ability to FOCUS.

How did we arrive at this point? One of the answers is that “social media” is NOT “social.” Often, it’s just the opposite. We watch people on a screen whom we’ve never met, while ignoring the friend or family member that is in the room with us. A recent poll from Gallup found that teens spend an average of nearly 5 hours a day on social media. An article posted on Exploding Topics found that the average American checks her mobile device 159 times a day. We’ve gone well past “connected”; we’re now officially “distracted.”

Bite-sized information is now the norm, so we never get to practice focusing. We read headlines instead of articles. Editors have learned they can influence people’s opinions simply by writing a good headline. This has spawned a whole industry of people who now actually READ the article looking for bias in the headline. Sometimes there is contradictory evidence in the article itself.

So how do we begin to rebuild focus?

1. Disconnect from the electronic world. You might be surprised at what your mind can do when you’re not connected to your TV or phone. Try having a real conversation. Ask your children if they learned anything that surprised them today. Have a game night with the family. Perhaps have a “reading hour” where your entire family agrees to read (a book printed on paper!) for at least an hour. And make sure everyone gets through their book.
2. Go outside and connect with nature. Take a hike. Go to the zoo. Go to a park. Buy some goats. Do some gardening. Take your dog for a walk. 
3. But most important: Practice focusing. Be fully engaged at your dinner table. Take up a creative hobby that requires your full attention, like woodworking or welding. See how long you can go without checking your phone.

The people who accomplish great things have learned to focus. The future belongs to those who can focus!

Looks Dangerous . . . You Go First

Roman Political Terms in Modern America

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

The Romans loved traditions, ceremonies, and rituals. We cannot be critical. We borrowed a lot of their pomp for our political circumstance. If you know a little Latin, you can easily demystify several important words that we find in American government. Now, good luck with demystifying the rest of it.

An inauguration was the Roman method of checking in with the gods before any elected official took office after votes were tallied. Serious-looking men in togas would stand in one spot and watch for bird behavior. The type of bird and direction or flight style helped Roman officials say “yea” or “nay” to the newly elected official. Inauguration comes from the Latin verb inauguro meaning “to take the auguries.”  The verb can also be used to indicate consecration or installation, a difference I suppose that was based on whether you enjoy the winning candidate…or not so much. The persons tasked with looking at birds following elections were called augurs which we might benignly refer to as a priest or less so, a soothsayer or seer.

Inauguration was a term applied so early in Roman politics that the ancient writer Livy included it in his description of Romulus and Remus. The twins decided to settle who would name their new city when they picked vultures to help them decide. Spoiler! The name is Rome not Reme. Romulus, it seems, was popular with vultures. Remus was also popular with vultures but wasn’t so popular with his brother who ended the discussion with a fist fight. Thus, birds (in this case a pack of vultures) and fisticuffs determined state policy.

If the birds agree with you (and your policies) you proclaim that it is all auspicious (from auspex, Latin for “bird watcher”). If your plan was deemed inauspicious, you made a fast contribution to the Roman Audubon Society found in the pockets of the pontifex maximus and called for a bird recount.

The precedent for having a president also started with the Romans. Praesidens was an all-purpose term for a leader and means literally “guy sitting out front.” The Romans would argue that the job description “guy in front” was way better than being a king or tyrant. I think that it is simply concise Latin for, “that looks dangerous...you go first” or maybe “they’ll come at you first if they grow angry with us.”

The Romans considered most politicians to be old and set in their ways, so they named the major governing body in Rome the senate. Though the word sounds dignified or important to the modern ear, senatus is just Latin via the word senex for “pack of old guys.”  Congress, alas, simply means “a group of people.” The Romans really preferred to keep their politicians humble. It is their lack of Latin knowledge (among other things) that keeps our politicians from toning things down.

Our founding fathers were well versed in Classical languages. They were not ignorant. On the contrary, they were realists. With all the austerity that Latin can muster, they established that our nation would be governed by a pack of old guys, a group of people, and somebody sitting out front. Meanwhile in reality, a bunch of vultures and other bird brains are the ones calling all the shots. The more you know!

What about other weird governance terms? I love the adjective gubernatorial. We use it today in the U.S. to describe the election of the top State leader. The English word comes from the Latin term gubernator (or gubernatrix) meaning a helmsman or pilot of a ship. The verb guberno comes from a Greek word that means “steer a ship safely.” If you say the word carefully, you will notice that it did not take much to go from the word guberno to government and governor. Our governors are meant to steer the ship of state no matter what storms or icebergs come our way.

The next time a pack of vultures chooses your pilot, your assembly of old guys, or the guy out front, think fondly of Latin.

Study of Words

What is Linguistics?

By Dr. Kim Johnson of The Lukeion Project

Linguistics is defined as “The study of language.” It might seem as though human beings are experts in language. In every human culture across the globe, people communicate using spoken or signed language. There are around 7,000 languages of various types and relationships around the globe. Human beings typically speak and listen to language for their entire lives.

How do we think of concepts and then use our mouths to create sounds that are then translated into similar concepts in the hearer’s brain? How do the mechanics of language work? Why is the plural of mouse “mice,” but the plural of house isn’t “hice”?  Even when we make the plural the same way for two words, why do we pronounce the s in “dogs” differently than the s in “cats?” 

To study language we break it down into its component parts, mimicking how children learn to speak. We can talk about how to turn sounds into words, how to give words meanings, and how to turn words into sentences. In each of these areas, sometimes linguists focus on parts that are specific to one language and sometimes focus on universal traits of language.

How language sounds: Phonetics

The basic building blocks of language are the sounds we make using the tools of our mouth, tongue, throat and nose. Linguists have attempted to categorize all the sounds humans could possibly make according to what shape our mouth is, how the air is flowing, whether we are vibrating our nasal tract, and so on. Once we have these bits, called phonemes, we can study how sounds in one language vary across regions (accents) and how different languages use different sounds.

What makes a word:  Morphology

In The Lukeion Project’s word roots program, Witty Wordsmith, students join Wilbur as he examines words and their classical Latin and Greek roots. Word roots are one part of the area of morphology, the study of how we use words in a language.

There are more parts to words than just the roots, though. If I say, “I really flugged yesterday during class,” you would probably guess that “flug” is a verb. On the other hand, if I talked about flugition, you would know that flugition was a noun (and you would know how to pronounce it!) even though you wouldn’t have any idea what the word meant. The suffixes -ed and -ition are examples of morphemes, the smallest units of words that have meaning. The “s” that I added to cats and dogs is also an example of a morpheme. Studying how languages create words gives insight into how they work.

How language works: Syntax

In Barbarian Diagrammarian, students, along with the Barbarian Leland and his faithful Lemur, break down English sentences into their component parts and visually chart their relationships.

Syntax is how languages express relationships between words. Some parts of syntax are specific to a particular language but linguists also consider what is common to all languages. All sentences can be analyzed by breaking them apart into pieces which make sense together. For example, “The Lukeion instructor ate the delicious peach” can be broken down like this: “[  [[the] [[Lukeion] [instructor]]] [[ate] [[the] [[delicious] [peach]]]]”. To cut down on brackets, we can use trees or other ways to show the relationships between words.

In English, the constituents are typically right next to each other. In Latin the adjective “delicious” would belong to “peach” by virtue of its gender and case. Every language studied so far has two parts of a sentence: the subject and the predicate. Everything can be broken down into its constituent parts in different ways depending on the grammar.

And beyond!

In addition to these main building blocks, there are dozens of other areas that are parts of the subject area of linguistics. Linguists study the history and development of language such as how languages change and combine to make new languages. They also study how language is used in different societies and cultures. Psycholinguistics is the study of what is going on in people’s brains as they use language. Linguists study signed languages as well as spoken language. Any aspect of human interaction involves language, and therefore can be studied by linguists.

Why might you need linguistics?

If you are planning on learning more than one language, studying linguistics can help you make connections and highlight differences between languages. Knowing the history of how Latin morphed into Spanish, Italian and French can make learning those languages easier. Another joy of linguistics is learning about obscure or extinct languages and how their structure can be completely unfamiliar.

For those of you who are writers, linguistics can help you to create bold new languages for your stories. J. R. R. Tolkien is the premier example of a writer using language in his creation of a literary world. There are many other examples from Klingon (which is a language you can actually learn to speak) to even Parseltongue from the Harry Potter books.

These days, there is a great interest in trying to help computers understand and create language. It turns out that human beings bring a lot of complex background to understanding even simple sentences that cause computers a lot of trouble. To understand how to “teach” a computer to be better at understanding language, we must understand it better ourselves.

Of course, one of the best reasons to learn something is for the joy of learning something interesting and new. As I study linguistics to advise the Lukeion Linguistic Club, I am constantly amazed by the variety and complexity of the ways human beings communicate. My eyes are being opened to things that have always confused me but turn out to have rational explanations. Linguistics puzzles resemble mathematics puzzles in many ways. However, where competition math puzzles seem to rely on tricks and advanced knowledge, linguistics puzzles often rely on our human instinct as a speaker of a language.

What is the Lukeion Linguistics Club about?

Lukeion’s Linguistics Club serves a couple of purposes. First off, and importantly, it offers a space for students of Lukeion to get together in a less formal space and have some fun!  But that’s not all we do.

We talk some each week about various aspects of linguistics. So far, we have explored the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), some ambiguous sentences, and how to build meaning from words and suffixes. We plan on talking about constructed languages, language acquisition, and some of the history of English.

We also spend some time solving puzzles from the International Linguistics Olympiad. These are logical-language puzzles that highlight aspects of language like word order, declensions, affixes, and so on. Homeschool students can sign up to compete in these national and international linguistics competitions. The puzzles are fun for their own sake---they involve languages from across the globe and many interesting constructions.

If any of this strikes your fancy, all current Lukeion students are invited to join us for linguistics club. We meet on Fridays from 1-2 PM (Eastern time). Email me to join the mailing list, class web page, and address for our Adobe Connect meeting room.

 

 

 

HOPE

Reboxing Pandora

By Dr. Sue Fisher with The Lukeion Project

Have you ever seen an unboxing? These are videos in which people will open boxes to showcase and discuss products, removing them one by one. They are generally calm, measured productions, designed to let you examine and consider each item as it comes out.

Well, the first unboxing from the ancient world was not nearly so peaceful or controlled. The story of Pandora, found first in Hesiod, Works and Days 53-105, is one known to many. She was the first female, created by the gods, who let all the evils into the world. Having been given a jar from the gods (yes, the original was a jar not a box) and an unhealthy dose of curiosity to go along with it, she was expressly told not to open it. As one might expect, she didn’t last too long and soon she had pried the lid off and out flew all manner of evils into the world. The story serves as an explanation (etiology) for how hardship, devastation, and disease came into the world. But the most interesting part of the story is the end, where Pandora slams the lid back on and manages to keep hope inside.

Was it a good thing that hope was kept inside, not lost into the world? Or do we need hope out there flying around with the evils to combat them? Moreover, what was hope doing in a jar of evils in the first place?

The 5th c. B.C. Athenian playwright Aeschylus might have answered this question when he had his Prometheus, chained to a rock in the Caucasus mountains, list hope as the first thing he gave to humans, even before the fire he stole for them and for which he was paying the penalty. Prometheus’ conversation with the daughters of Ocean (chorus), who came to visit him, is very enlightening: 

Prometheus: I allowed mankind to stop foreseeing doom.
Chorus: What medicine did you find for that disease?
Prometheus: I planted in them hopes that would obscure it.
Chorus: That was a worthy gift you gave to mortals.

(Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 250-253)

Taken together, in these passages the ancient Greeks explain the plight of humankind but also offer a remedy. “What medicine did you find for that disease?” the chorus asks. The remedy is hope.

So how do you foster hope when the evils of the world are flying around? You can’t just stuff them back in the jar, after all. But you can fill a jar with all manner of good things. You make a good-things jar.

It’s so easy. Get a jar (or a box), and each week write down one good thing on a slip of paper or piece of index card and plop it in there. This can be anything. You heard a funny story – write that down and put it in there. You got a new puppy. That’s a super good thing. You saw a cool bird, or went mountain biking, or got to hold a newborn baby, or hung out with a friend. Perhaps you finally learned that concept or vocabulary word or measure of music that has been elusive up until now. It may be big, like you got your braces off or got the part you wanted in the play. Or it could be small, like you found a fantastic acorn. (I love a good acorn.) It doesn’t matter. If it’s good, it’s fair game. Put the date on it if you want; it’s kind of fun later when you go back and read them to see what date it was. But if you don’t want to, no matter – it’s YOUR good-things jar. If you want to do it every day, that’s great. But do it at least once a week, so they start to build up. 

As your jar starts to fill with good things, your heart will start to fill with gratitude and your hope will grow. And as your hope gets larger, the evils will diminish. This is the remedy. 

American poet Emily Dickinson knew the power of hope and described it like a bird that rests in the jars of our souls. Hope is the gentle but relentless and powerful force that asks nothing of us but holds up firm in any storm. No matter the evils, hope is still the remedy.

HOPE
Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the Gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I 've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Writing Projects

Creating Your Own “Final Checklist”

By Randee Baty with The Lukeion Project

For many of the papers that I have my college students submit, I first require them to go through a “Final Checklist” quiz that they must complete before submitting their papers.  Quick reminders of common problems in the form of a checklist can help every student, and you can create one to use with your papers based on common mistakes or issues that you know you are prone to.  Here are the types of questions that are useful to have on your own final checklist.

1.      Have I read the assignment sheet one list time before submitting?

2.      Have I cited any information that I took from a source with both an in-text citation and a Works Cited citation? (Remember that citation always requires both!)

3.      Is my introduction interesting rather than bland and generic? (If you start a paper with, “In this day and age” or “Since the beginning of time” it’s time to rethink your intro!)

4.      Is my thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph?

5.      Does the conclusion show that I supported my thesis statement?  (This is actually a bigger problem than you might think.  I’ve had students submit papers that never addressed their thesis statement.)

6.      Does each paragraph have one clear idea that it addresses?

7.      Have I double-checked my formatting?  (Professors care more about formatting than most students realize!)

8.      Have I removed all unnecessary words, including unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, intensifiers, and modifiers?  Have I removed the word “very” from the paper?

9.      Have I removed all slang or casual language? (Cliches and platitudes also need to go!)

10.  Does my paper have the correct point of view? (If the assignment sheet asked you to write in 3^rd person but you have some 1^st person writing, you’re asking for trouble.)

11.  Have I done a thorough proofread?  (As I fully understand, many students don’t like to read back through their work once they consider it done.  Read back through it anyway.  A few minutes spent reading now could prevent having silly points taken off the grade for a small proofreading error.)

12.  Do I have the professor’s name spelled correctly in the heading?  (Yes, professors’ names get misspelled all the time. It’s not a good look for the student.)

Your own checklist may have different questions depending on the particular issues that you get caught on by your professors.  Don’t get point deductions for things you could have easily fixed!  After spending all the time and effort to write a strong paper, give it the best possible chance for a great score with your final checklist.

The Nourished Brain

Your Brain is Hungry & Thirsty

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

You need clean water, food, and plentiful nutrients to power your muscles, liver, blood, and body. When we have a highly active life, we get hungry because our body burns through our fuel quickly and requires proper nutrients to manage life’s challenges. Playing soccer for three hours will (hopefully) earn you a nice meal and a little sympathy for sore muscles. But when we sit with our books and flashcards, some might think we have not really “done” that much. We have been sedentary all day with our studies so no need for much nutritive support, right?
Our brains burn as much as 20-30% of the energy our body consumes each day. Our brains need some love, attention, good nutrition, plus a little sympathy. Being a student is a physical work out, not just a mental one, as if those two things are different. If you want a high-functioning brain doing what it must do during the active part of your education years, there are some basic healthy steps to take. Students should prepare their brains for learning just like athletes prepare the rest of their bodies.
I am not a doctor nor a nutritionist. Anything I say here is based on my decades of personal experience as mom, educator, avid brain-user, and researcher. Take what you like, leave the rest. I have a lot of suggestions if you know me but will limit this to easy starting points.
When I started graduate school, I worked far into the night translating long Latin passages. Funds were limited as was time. I ate poorly, I seldom got any sunlight, and I rarely exercised except when I walked to the department office every morning and back home each night. My first year was tough but I assumed all of this was par for the course. I was constantly tired and lacked the energy to do anything but stay up late grinding away at my work. I felt isolated and depressed because I did not spend much time doing anything but translating.
I had a bright idea at the start of my second year of graduate studies. I added exercise, drank more water, and started consuming more nutritious food. Voila! I needed less time to study because my brain had more to fuel it. I was also less fatigued during the rare hours I had off. I could add more social events because my brain became more efficient at accomplishing what I needed it to accomplish. All my scores and academic efforts improved so that my stress was reduced. Though I added activities to my schedule (gym time, farmer’s market, time outside, and better meal prep) I decreased my brain work time and my physical work time by adding more to my schedule. I decreased my food budget expenses while I bought superior food at the farmer’s market.
What does our brain really want for the best results?
Some might complain they do not have the time or money to eat better food. Every penny and minute counts! Start by getting a decent water filter (do your research because results really do differ) and change to water as your main drink throughout the day. Many who say they do not like the taste of water complain about it because their tap water tastes like a dirty swimming pool in most communities. That is just the start of the unwelcome news because the “stuff” that shows up in most municipal water supplies would keep you up at night. A good filter gets rid of many objectionable chemicals (and other nasty things) and improves the taste. I use one that takes out fluoride too, which I strongly recommend for brain and body health. Simply switching to water throughout the day gives your brain what it really needs while your family saves money spent on sodas, juices, powders, energy drinks, etc. Want some flavor in that water? Add a squeeze of citrus or a slice of cucumber. In only a couple of months, whatever money you spent on a good filter will be returned to you by making the switch from pricey things that come in bottles to decent filtered water.
While you are saving money, cut out junk food. Easy! Unfortunately, many people are so accustomed to junk food that they cannot imagine cutting it out of their diet. So ingrained are our habits that we cannot imagine leaving behind family traditions like breakfast cereals, chips, boxed granola, packaged mac-n-cheese. Over two decades ago, our family gave up every bit of it. If it came in a box, we stopped buying it. It took about a week to learn new habits but eliminating all of it at once is better than suggesting that only a couple of people in the family should just “cut back.”  If it is in the house, family members will eat it. Starting your day with sugar (breakfast cereal or pastry, for example) is poor brain care plus it will make you powerfully hungry all day.
If you think transitioning away from factory food is hard, wait until everyone can think clearly, concentrate for longer periods, and get along more agreeably with siblings! Such a huge bonus for deleting these pricey toxic things from one’s daily diet. Avoiding fast food restaurants, it is obvious, has the same positive effect and saves even more money for better food purchases and better brain power.
Now that you have cut junk out, add good things in. The rule about foods that serve your body and brain well is simple: Know what every ingredient is and what it does. Processed sugars, gluten, dyes, and glyphosate (which is sprayed on things we might assume are healthy) are horrendous for the brain. Become an expert label reader or just avoid prefabricated food as much as possible. Farmers’ markets are excellent if you cannot grow your own food because you get the cheapest, freshest, healthiest supplies while supporting your local food chain.
If you visit my kitchen, you will find that it is full of one type of thing: raw ingredients that I assemble for meals. “Who has time for that!” you might wonder. I cook dinner every night from scratch though I run a business (50-hour work week), run a homestead, and educated my family at home. There are bountiful supplies of things that can help you cook while you work or quickly prepare other things from scratch in only a few minutes.
The learning curve is a little steep and will initially take a bit longer than opening your door for nightly delivery. C'est la vie. You will find it is worthwhile plus everyone in the house can get involved by learning essential skills in food prep. Dinners usually take around 20 minutes for preparation before it goes in an oven, Crock-pot, or Instant pot. My garden, the Amish market, or a local farmer’s market guides my daily choices. A full spice cabinet makes it more flavorful. I preserve my garden excess as our only form of “fast” food. Some use even less time per day by doing weekly meal preps, but I like to spend my Saturdays differently.
Finally, the nourished brain (and body) needs air, exercise, and sunshine. Every semester I take a poll in my classes about favorite physical activities. Every year, the number of students who say they prefer to stay inside goes up. Everything from feeling blue to having the flu improves with daily sunshine and movement. Get in a pleasant half-hour or so of midday sun maybe as you enjoy your lunch! The dog sure needs a walk. The flowerbed needs weeding. Start riding a unicycle or skateboard! Maybe just do ANYTHING outside. Every inch of our body craves air, exercise, and sunshine. At least for now, all of that is free.
Your brain is hungry and thirsty. It craves authentic nutrients, rest, sunlight, and clean water. It craves a good dinner at the table with those you love. Give your nourished brain some TLC and sympathy. Your grades will thank you and your mood will too.