Happiness is a Clean Inbox

I have one email in my Inbox right now. Yep, just one. That feels pretty good.

That's not how it was a couple of hours ago. Yesterday and today, I was in a solid string of meetings and classes and did not have breaks to screen and process incoming email. By the time I started to seriously clear the file, there were three-plus screens of emails to process, which are quite a few after just two days. People seem to be tumbling over each other to post their thoughts. Screens and screens of emails make me almost physically uncomfortable. Panic sets in. Delay and procrastination freeze my fingers. I need to practice deep breathing exercises as I methodically answer, file or delete the emails.

My habit is to sort and store emails in a couple dozen folders in Outlook. Those folders house the archives of my colleagues and the organization of my thoughts. The Inbox, on the other hand, represents active business that either needs to be attended to or is waiting for a reply from others. It's better than sticky notes in a day-timer. What's a day-timer? That's another blog.

Early in my career, I remember that most mail was, what is now called, snail mail. Looking at mail, meant physically opening sealed envelopes to see what the postman brought. I have a really cool letter opener with a carved wooden handle from those days, though it's sitting in at the bottom of my desk drawer now. I now use it to break down cardboard boxes from Amazon. Your "Inbox" was an open box on the corner of your desk that was, well, a box. During busy days, the paper correspondence flipped off the top of the pile when someone passed too close to your desk. Tottering mountains of correspondence would fall and scatter across the floor. 

Email has eliminated almost all postal piles and has kept the office floor relatively free of paper. In fact, I don't recall the last time I received an outside letter at the office: interoffice mail with sign-up sheets for the golf league doesn't count. The metal, wooden, or wire cage in-box has been replaced by computer monitor, keyboard, and CPU. The electronics take up a lot more room.

Back in the day, getting to the bottom of the Inbox meant you were caught up. Nothing more would come until the next mail delivery at 10 a.m. You could go home content that you had done your paper-pushing best. Now, the good feeling lasts only a moment until you start receiving emails in reply to the emails that you replied to just moments ago.

At the moment, however, I have just one email in my Inbox. It won't last, but, for now, it feels pretty good. 

Finally Sleeping with the Windows Open

We've been able to sleep with the window open for the past couple of weeks. No snow, no sleet, no ice. No danger of waking up shivering in freezing temperatures and arguing about who should get up to shut the window. Just the song of birds in the morning and the rush of traffic outside.

This has been a too long winter that began sometime in November and didn't really break until two weeks ago: five and a half months of closed windows, of turning inward. At first, you don't notice it. When windows are first closed and latched, Thanksgiving and Christmas keep our attention on family and friends. We look past the browns and grays of dead things in the yard, and the subdued sun that barely clears the treetops of the horizon. 

January and February snows whitewash the sins of the past year and promise a new beginning to the next. The landscape sleeps quietly under a down of crystal that sparkles in the day and glows from moon light during long black winter nights. We try to work with the weather and keep busy with winter sports and the adventure of snow-days. But, that novelty wears thin by the end of February. March usually is the turning point from winter to spring, reducing snow banks to gray memories. But not this year. More snow, sleet and ice (unusual for the Northeast Wisconsin traveler), and low temperatures kept the windows shut 30 to 45 days longer than usual. Our 75-inches of snow is nowhere near a record, but the late and consistent buildup was unnerving.

Everyone seemed tired in April this year, exhausted by the daily battle with winter that overstayed its welcome. For both staff and students at the college, our main topic was the weather as we looked up at low blue-gray snow clouds, checked the weather app, and calculated another difficult commute. Wisconsinites are a tough bunch, but the relentlessness of winter had worn us down.

The last week in April, with temperatures finally in the 50s and 60s, our collective mood seemed to lighten. Windows opened and short-sleeves rather than parkas were the clothing of choice. Pickup basketball was played in the driveway again, skateboards kicked down the street, lawn furniture brushed off and polished up, and the smoke from grills wafted over the neighborhood. The NFL draft reminded us of summer training camp. Runners, training for the May marathon, worried less about black ice under the snow and more on their split times. I even heard the neighborhood 50-something rock band practicing with the garage door open once again.

The arrival of spring brings new energy to everyone. It's good to have the windows unlatched and open once again. It's good to have the outside world back in our lives.

Cracks in the GED crown

In a little over seven months, on Dec. 31, 2013, the primacy of the GED test series will be no more. The GED itself will not end, mind you, but will morph into a new test form given on computers, rather than by test packets and computer-graded answer sheets. This update is not unusual. The test series has been periodically revamped over the years: the last time in 2002.

What is unusual is the amount of discontent that has accompanied this change.

In the past, when the GED was a non-profit business that worked with education publishers to produce supplemental materials for students, the updates caused some discomfort, but was still THE substitute for a high school credential. It had been that way since 1942 when the test was created. Everyone -- colleges, employers, the military, friends and relatives -- recognized the GED standard.

The non-profit status of the credential changed when the GED Test Service was purchased by one of its former partner publishers, Pearson/VUE. At first, according to old hands in the business, the 2014 update seemed no more difficult than past years. The GED brand remained strong.

But cracks in the single national credential seem to be forming. I am not concerned here about what caused the problems or who's to blame. I have read plenty of opinions on that written by others far above my pay grade. What I am concerned about is the loss of a uniform standardized national high school credential. That, it seems to this basic education instructor, is tragic. Wisconsin, including the GED team at NWTC, is planning for the new 2014 GED test series from Pearson/VUE, but other states, it seems, are planning to split off with separate publishers, competencies, assessment methods, and credentials. 

However, if we dethrone the GED brand, the country not only loses an educational standard that has been around since 1942, but we also lose the clear pathway for success for hundreds of thousands of students. Will a test that is accepted in Wisconsin be accepted in Illinois, Missouri, or Texas? Will one test emphasize algebra over geometry, and another literacy over science? Will students have to complete multiple credentials to get the same benefit as they do from the one GED today? How much will that cost in test-taking and time? Will students dreams be the fodder in a gotcha game between competing publishers and states? Facing a fractured standard, will students even try? And if they don't try, what is the cost of that to the rest of us?

Right now a student can complete the GED series knowing that the credential will accepted across the country. What will happen after Jan. 1, 2014, when there are two, three, four, or more high school credential assessments? As I said, I don't really care about the arguments between the feuding interests. What I care about most are my students. I wish I could be convinced that others did as well.

Associate Dean: a thankless but necessary job

Associate Deans have to be one of the more thankless jobs in academia.

How do we find them? We pluck our best classroom instructors or stars from other areas of the college, give them an office with a shiny whiteboard, a public round of huzzahs, and then pigeonhole them into a black hole of institutional meetings, budget deadlines, questions from support staff, complaints from faculty, pressure from leadership, and, just to round things out, ask them to respond personably and in detail to a couple hundred emails a day.

Yet, we depend on this position. The college could not run without them. From the faculty point of view, the Associate Dean is where you go when you have student problems; when you are unsure if your curriculum matches your competencies; when you need sources for supplies; when you need a grant for a new initiative; or even a place to store the 20-foot, ultra-cool class project before the end of the semester open house. An effective Associate Dean can run interference through the IT department, curriculum development and student services, maintenance and human resources in addition to being an understanding ear to listen to you after a particularly bad day/ week/ semester.

Four year colleges realize the thanklessness of this tweener management position by taking it out of the dean structure, calling it Department Head, and rotating it among faculty, who dutifully accept the letterhead designation for a couple of years before they retreat back to their research, students, and predictable fall schedule. 

Technical college Associate Deans, on the other hand, knowingly leave the satisfaction of the classroom behind and take up pikes in the first line of leadership. Sometimes, future deans, vice-presidents, and even presidents are taken from its ranks. Most Associate Deans, however, stay at this level for the rest of their career supporting leadership and quietly influencing the direction of the college. I have seen some of the most successful initiatives at NWTC start as a dream of an Associate Dean. They know if they are willing to accept a low-wattage profile and work behind the scenes methodically and persistently, they can make the college a better place for students, staff, faculty, and the community.

They don't get the thanks for the job they do, but they should. Huzzah!

Red Lobster or Bloom's Taxonomy?

At 5:00 p.m. crowd at the Red Lobster was steady. We were led to a table right away, but those who came in even five minutes later were held at the chairs that lined both sides of the entry hall. Our waitress, Wendy, was polite through the usual introductory routine: short welcome, drink order, deliver drinks, and then the main order. She was assigned three or four tables around us with two to six people at each. The restaurant was already busy, but Wendy buzzed with grace and easy humor from tables to serving area to bar to kitchen and back to the tables.

It reminded me of the dance of successful teaching. I had not thought of it before, but there's a lot of similarity between teaching and food service. I am finishing up a two-year new teacher training program at the college, graduating from newbie instructor to not-so newbie instructor -- we still have a lot to learn. During these two years there has been a lot of discussion about student-centered learning, but surprisingly little about customer service, which is really the same thing. I wonder if a regular stint on Friday nights at the Red Lobster might have been more productive than Friday mornings reviewing Bloom's Taxonomy for the fourth time. What, I wondered, could my classmates and I have learned from Wendy and Red Lobster?

We would learn how to work as team members to provide a service and product to a diverse and rapidly changing clientele.

We would learn how to keep smiling when the customer wants the dish of butter replaced -- again and again. The customer is always right, and when they are not, they still are. Keep the melted butter hot.

We would learn how to deftly pick up crayons tossed down by younger guests while still balancing three water glasses on a serving tray. Safety, service, and a smile at the same time.

We would learn how to keep orders separate, how to tally a bill, and how to try to up-sell products. Sales is as much a part of teaching as are assessments.

And, we would learn how to send guests on their way, how to quickly reset the table and how to greet the new incoming customers as if they were our first of the night, while at the same time, performing a physically demanding job that requires balance, strength, coordination, knowledge, and stamina.

By the time my wife and I left the Red Lobster, we had a doggy bag (or is it a lobsty bag?) of goodies for the next day, and admiration for our server who, at the end of the meal, seemed more like a long-time friend than a minimum wage worker surviving on tips. Wendy enhanced our experience, which, after all, was nothing more special than a quick Friday night meal at a franchise restaurant. We were one table among dozens she would work during the night, but she turned the ordinary experience into the extra-ordinary. That is the mark of a true service professional, food service or post-secondary education. I think Wendy should be giving lessons in customer service to new trainees at corporate, not bussing tables at a local eatery. I'm sure if she was given the chance she would do it with a smile and gracefully refill the water glasses at the same time.

You may be number 1001

Sometime this weekend, this blog, West by Northwest, will pass the 1,000 view mark. Will that be followed by Publisher's Clearinghouse prizes, neon animal balloons, phone calls from Spielberg seeking to buy the rights? I won't hold my breath. Even though the mark is a nice round number, it's probably less than Justin Bieber's doorman would pull before breakfast if he ever published a blog.

Yet, I am pleased by the mark. It has been a personal achievement to keep a semi-regular writing schedule over the past 15 months. At first, I wasn't sure how I would come up with ideas on what was supposed to be sort of related to my first years as a full-time faculty member at NWTC. Forty published posts later, ideas haven't been a problem. I add ideas to a smartphone note pad and am about a dozen blogs behind where I could be. What to write has never been a problem. When to write and how to write is another story.

I know my writing tends to be a little too formal, not nearly as fluid as some writers I admire. "Open up, expose yourself, be daring," advised my UW-O writing professor who thought my writing sounded like the narrative of a routine school board meeting. I'm not sure my style has changed much other than I no longer worry about style ever since I passed that class. I've never been comfortable exposing myself in writing and don't expect to start now. That would seem artificial to me and, somehow, dishonest. I try very hard not to be dishonest in my writing.

What has been important is that I am working at the keyboard on an almost weekly basis on subjects that interest me at the moment. I think it was western novelist, Louis L'Amour, who said, "The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." The art of writing requires the discipline of craft first. Inspiration is a luxury that working journalists don't have time for, and I guess I still see myself as a working journalist more than any other kind of writer. I use this blog like a reporter's notebook to explore a world that is endlessly interesting. If I am able to tell a good story or make an interesting point which makes the events seem a little more clear to my readers, I am happy with the result. I hope they are too.

Why are we math illiterate and proud of it?

The math instructor was a little hot: "Why are people so proud that they don't know math?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, always a little hesitant talking with math instructors about math instruction. I need to teach math to GED and Program Prep students, but am very aware that it is not my strong suit.

So, while I do understand the math-phobic, I also thought that the math instructor had a good point. She pointed out by contrast if people cannot read (another basic skill I teach), they don't brag about it to family and friends. Most of the time, they hide their illiteracy, embarrassed. But math illiteracy doesn't have the same societal shame. If people cannot tell a linear equation from a quart of machine oil, they brag about it to friends and family, "Look at me everyone: I'm a math idiot, and, I don't care." That braggadocio not only underplays the importance of math in society (try to think of an activity that doesn't use math), but, more worrisome, also sends a destructive excuse to children: "Don't worry about your math classes. It doesn't matter. My daddy told me so."

Yet it does matter. A great deal. When a student walks into the Basic Ed Open Lab, what subject do we have to remediate more often than any other? Not surprisingly, it is math. Without the basics in whole numbers (ie., multiplication tables), other work in decimals, fractions, ratios and percentages are beyond student's ability, much less work in intermediate algebra, geometry, trigonometry, measurement formulas, data statistics, accounting, and calculus. And, without a base in high school-level math, technical college course work in business, medicine, trades, and even police science is unrealistic. The much publicized and sought after STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curriculum begins, continues, and ends, with math.

Yet, the math instructor said that she often hears parents wallow in their ignorance. They tell her with a laugh that they are so math-illiterate that they can't help their middle school student with math problems. "This is unacceptable," the math instructor said, shaking her head. How can you be a functioning person and find yourself stymied by "2x + 2 = 8"? 

I have to agree with her. This pride in math illiteracy doesn't add up: FYI x=3.