Creating a Positive Motivation to Learn

School systems love to motivate their students to succeed. Most schools do so by making students fear failure. While this could be a powerful motivator, it is also detrimental to their well-being. This doesn't mean we need to remove failure as an option, as failure is part of a positive learning experience. We need to include a new motivation: the love of learning, so that we can teach students to embrace their failures and move forward from them.

The way that schools are usually set up punishes failure, while hardly rewarding good behavior. Additionally, it often makes students feel badly if they didn't reach perfection, when perfection is unnecessary. By assigning grades other than "pass" or "fail," we make some students dwell on the fact that they didn't get everything right. Students are usually not given an opportunity to review something that they did fail, and try it again until they do learn it. There is also the fact that someone could fail on a few key points of the class, pass the rest, and wind up with a C in a class that they didn't really learn everything that they needed to. Discrepancies between different teachers' grading styles, such as the amount of partial credit given on partially correct answers can give a student an A in a class that would receive a D if taught by a different teacher. All of these make our current school system ineffective at assessing whether or not a student is actually learning.

If a student is failing, do we really want to tell him that he can't get another opportunity to learn the material? The pace that a traditional class is taught at really only benefits the average student. Students who are ahead of their peers are usually bored by continuous repetition of something that they already know, while the students who are behind are never given the opportunity to learn the material and will usually fall further behind. An ideal system would allow all three groups of students and everyone in between to learn the material at their own pace. If a student needs more or less than one week to learn a concept that would have been taught in that amount of time in a traditional classroom, he should be allowed to either move ahead or keep trying until he learns it.

Students who love the learning process will learn more than ones who don't. Being bored or frustrated does nothing to further a child's growth. A good way to keep children entertained, allow them to learn at their own pace, and allow them to embrace their mistakes as a learning experience is to turn learning into a game. We have great technology now, and we can use it to make learning more fun. A well-designed game can teach almost any concept we would like to teach a child, allow someone to repeat a level as necessary, or move onto the next level when it's clear that they are ready to move on. Children who are playing a game will be less likely to consider learning to be tedious, like they would in a classroom. With our technology, a game could easily be stored on a flash drive, SD card, or other storage device and distributed as desired. This can be a more efficient way to teach many concepts than a traditional classroom.

Another possibility is to create videos on a variety of topics. These videos don't have to be like average documentaries are to young children, but can include cartoon characters and language or jokes appropriate to keeping young children entertained by them. A video can also be stored on a flash drive, SD card, or other storage device and distributed as desired. If given to a child to take home, he can watch the video as many times as he wants until he learns the material.

In any case, a grade free system can provide a more positive learning experience whenever appropriate. When a child is allowed to develop at his own pace without fear of failure, and is entertained by the learning process, learning is usually more efficient and effective. Instead of being motivated by a fear of failure, a child can be motivated by a love of learning, and this will make teaching less of a chore.

Thank you DNA Gaming!

Thank you DNA Gaming of Worcester, MA for giving me 32 cans (worth $1.60) for my first cash-in trip. They also gave me another large bag of cans, which I will count and cash in on a later date.

Clean up your workplace!

Today is officially "Clean Up Your Workplace Day." Why, do you ask? If your workplace is like mine, and you don't own a business or work at home, you probably share a building with numerous people. Many of those people think that they have maids (especially if janitors are hired), and would leave their trash around to be picked up by someone else. This trash of course includes fast food wrappers, cans, plastic bottles, boxes from food, etc.

In an average work day, I can find at least five recyclable bottles or cans in the mess of trash just left in random places at my work. That equals 25 cans per week, assuming a 5 day work week, and 1300 cans per year, assuming 52 weeks per year.

If all these cans are recycled, it will keep approximately 40.7 pounds of aluminum out of the landfill and back into circulation. Since aluminum can be recycled indefinitely, it is useful to keep it out of the landfill. Uncrushed, 1300 cans would fill approximately 25 kitchen trash bags. Imagine throwing out 25 less bags of trash each year.

If your state has a 5 cent deposit, you can make an extra $65 a year by picking up after someone else. An extra $65 payment to any loan will reduce the total interest paid by much more than that. Or, given to someone else, you can make a positive difference in their lives.

Picking up trash has another benefit. It's nicer to look at a neat and orderly work place. As long as it's not distracting you from your actual work, your boss would probably also appreciate it. Picking up trash from the ground and other random places and putting it into recycle bins and trash cans (only if it can't be recycled) will keep rats and bugs from being attracted to your work place. Everyone likes to work in a place that doesn't smell like rotting food.

Of course, if you are one of the people who leaves your trash around everywhere, you can make a difference by picking up after yourself. Your coworkers are not your mom, wife, or maids. People will like you more if you're the one helping fix the problem, instead of the one causing it.

Uniquely NOT

Everyone is unique. I'm sure you've heard that statement (or similar) before. Many teachers and school systems like to put huge emphasis on uniqueness for the sake of being unique, and not any kind of meaningful uniqueness. Think back on the names that you've learned in history, science, mathematics, or other subjects taught in school. No one knows the names of every person to ever walk this planet, yet we like to tell our children that they are unique.

I hate to break it to you guys, but chances are you're hardly unique. Over 99% of the world's people are the same. That's what it means to be ordinary. In order to be meaningfully unique (a.k.a, the less than 1% of the population whose names are actually remembered after they've passed), you actually have to do something with your life. People tend to be remembered if they've made a meaningful impact on society, for better or worse. On one hand, there are scientists, mathematicians, writers, artists, leaders, etc. who are remembered for making an important contribution to society in their lifetimes. On the other hand, people are remembered in a negative light for causing harm to others, impacting society in a negative way. In any case, these people are not unique for attending school, working for someone else, spending all their money to acquire more "stuff," and then dying and leaving their "stuff" to their families.

Academic achievements are hardly unique as well. Most states have hundreds of schools, and the United States as a whole has thousands. Someone might be first in their high school class, but unless they go on to contribute something meaningful, chances are they'd be forgotten just like the billions of ordinary people before them. Employers generally know this, and this is part of the reason why many jobs that used to accept people with only a high school diploma fifty years ago started requiring a bachelor's degree twenty years ago, and now require a master's degree.

A large concern that I have with our schools rests on the emphasis on uniqueness. If we're all so unique, why is it that we have a one-size-fits-all approach to education, even when presented with obvious (and unique) challenges to doing so with specific students? Most people do not learn in the same way, and people who certainly don't learn in a way typically considered acceptable in society are often ostracized for it, regardless of their actual intellectual capabilities. I certainly don't consider myself stupid, but my educators in college didn't consider me to have any kind of intellectual potential. They are probably right, in one way. Since I can't test well due to my learning disorders, I don't have any kind of potential there, therefore (according to them) I deserve to be treated like a freak of nature.

School does generally work to some extent for most people. By that, I mean that most people will either pass through the system the way that they're supposed to, or they'll be able to maneuver around it, bending it to suit their needs, and still come out with some kind of degree. It's certainly convenient that most people aren't exactly unique, or else the system would work for exactly one person. Considering that many schools emphasize that uniqueness is "great," it's unfortunate that they have no answer for people who are unique in a way that their system doesn't work for them. I guess uniqueness is only a good thing if it helps me be more suited to their system, not less.

It might sound nice to be unique, but should we really be striving to make our children desire uniqueness? Sounding nice is not a legitimate reason in and of itself to continue to do something. I'd prefer not to sugar coat things, and tell people that most of them are in fact exactly the same. But, most people are satisfied with thinking that they're unique while continuing to do the same thing that billions of other people are doing. It makes for more obedient sheep if we continue to tell them that they're special in their own little ways, than if we tell them that they're just another set of workers who can easily be replaced with other people capable of doing the same menial tasks. Society needs lots of non-unique people in order to function properly.

So, if you are one of the millions of people who do the same things over and over, yet still consider yourself unique, I hope you are satisfied. If not, there are ways that anyone could make a meaningful impact on society, and therefore be more unique than the average person. If you want to be remembered for being good, do something good. Start by donating something that you don't need to people less fortunate than yourself instead of throwing it in the trash can. While people are hardly unique anyway, we are all not unique at all in the way that we all have the same basic needs. By helping someone who otherwise can't help themselves by donating something that you don't need anyway, you are helping society for the better. And that is something that's more worth celebrating than being unique for its own sake.

Welcome to Chelmsford, MA

Thank you to the New England Super Smash Bros. community for donating my first trip to the recycling centers of 50 cans and bottles (worth $2.50), and for filling my car up with more cans and bottles. The Hannaford in Chelmsford, MA (conveniently located down the road from the tournament) was closed when the tournament was over, so the rest of their donation will be counted on a later date.

For those of you interested in the competitive scene for Super Smash Bros. Melee or Brawl, please visit All Is Brawl or Smashboards.

*EDIT* Final count from this trip, 140 cans, worth $7. Thanks everyone! :)

Education, Waste, and How to Help

If you are like most Americans, you probably attended a school, are still in school, and/or considering going back to school. If you are like most Americans, you probably also drink soft drinks, bottled water, fruit juice, beer, or any other beverage normally stored and served in an aluminum can or plastic bottle. And, as a typical American, you're wondering what the point is. Well, read on.

I, like the majority of you reading this blog, am a typical American. My true identity is not important, you can call me Miss E (I'm NOT a Mr.). Like most Americans, I attended public schools for the first eighteen years of my life, paid for by our taxes. In every way, I seemed like one who would accomplish great things, at least according to the teachers I've had. I graduated in the top 10% of my class, and won awards for my top performance in mathematics. And, of course, everyone I had ever met by that point, from family to teachers, had pressured me into going to college.

When I was at college, much had changed. Like everyone else there, I was there to get a degree. I started off as an engineering major, because for most of my life, my family had told me that engineering is what they want me to do. You're good at math, and you like money. Sure, that's what *they* say, but was I really as good at math as everyone said up to that point?

Well, it didn't really matter if I was good or not, because I couldn't pass most tests at the college level. It wasn't a matter of not trying hard enough, like it is for most people who've got so drunk the night before at a frat party that they had forgotten who they are. I came to the test well rested and sober, passed it in, and got it back with a big fat red F across the top. It took until my second year of college before anyone else thought that there could be something wrong with me, and I was referred to get tested for learning disorders.

I was formally diagnosed with two learning disorders. One of them is similar to dyslexia. I confuse symbols that look too similar to me (such as + and X), and will end up writing them wrong on the paper. In high school and before, mistakes like that were outright ignored, or circled with a "-1" next to them. The same tests that I had earned a 93% on in high school got me nothing but a big fat F in college, because the answers were wrong. It also distracted me to write notes, because I couldn't write at anywhere near the speed I would have needed to. Unless I slow down my writing considerably and proofread my work, I'm constantly making errors where I skip letters or end words with the beginning letter of the next word. ("The dog" becomes "thd og") My other learning disorder is a memory disorder. I have a near photographic memory for purely visual things, such as locations of places and graphs of functions. But, I have limited recall on non-visual things, like practically everything that we had to memorize and regurgitate back out on tests. Unless a test were multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank (with a word bank), or similar formats where my choices are spelled out for me, there is a very low chance that I'd be able to come up with the correct answer.

Since engineering didn't work out for me, and practically everyone in my life had told me that I'd be a "loser" or a "nothing" if I didn't get a college degree, I kept changing majors to try to find something that I was capable of passing at a college level. I essentially wasted six years of my life, because nothing worked for me there. I was able to earn an associate's degree in liberal arts at a local community college, after transferring the credits that I was able to pass, and taking a few additional courses, which were luckily tested in a way that I was able to pass.

Now, you're probably wondering, who paid for all of this? I had to take out loans to cover my six years of schooling, which were for $35,000. Plus interest over the six years I was attending school, that's almost $50,000. Because the careers available to me now are the same ones that were available to me on my eighteenth birthday, you can say that I've spent that money for nothing. I would be fine living on the income from my current job, but there is a problem. The creditors want their money back, plus interest, and because they're student loans, I can't just file for bankruptcy. Because of this, I'm forced to choose between being a burden on my family or taxpayers for the rest of my life (living under other people's roofs, in a shelter, or on welfare), getting the money in a practical, yet illegal and/or immoral way (stealing, drug dealing, prostitution), or getting the money in an impractical and utterly ridiculous way.

The whole irony of this situation is that if I didn't listen to my family, teachers, or any other older adults in my life, I'd have the same career choices that I do now, but wouldn't be in debt. Even if all went as planned, many people are without jobs because of the economic situation. Rather than pressuring young people to go to college when they can't pay for it, and there are no jobs for them when they get out, shouldn't we be trying to improve our educational system so that there are better choices even for those who only make it to high school? When we pressure young people to go to college when they can't legitimately pay for it, we set ourselves up to have to support a country full of people in debt. And when we are negligent of students' problems, whether they are learning disorders, problems at home, mental illnesses, or anything else, those students will slip through the cracks, make it to college, and have to answer no less than 700 times: Why are you here? You should have learned (insert concepts here) in high school! How did you even pass high school? Not again!

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I hate waste. Whether it's wasted time, like my years of school, or wasted resources, like most of what is thrown in the landfill, I've always hated the concept of waste. About ten years ago, I worked at my first job in a bakery. Every night shift ended with throwing away all the day old bread. At my home, a loaf of bread often sat on the table for a week and was still good, yet we still had to throw away bread that was only a day old. There are millions of starving people, even in my own country. With permission from my boss (under the condition that I can't tell anyone where I got it), I took all the loaves of bread that would have went into the dumpster and brought it to a homeless shelter.

Every day, millions of things are thrown away for no other reason than that they are no longer of use to someone. It's one thing if they are no longer of use to anyone, but a lot of these things include things that could be given away or sold to someone who needs and/or wants them, or recycled for their raw materials and made into something new. Then it hit me - the landfills are literally a gold mine of recyclable materials. Most metals, such as aluminum, copper, or steel, could be melted and reshaped countless times, restoring use to items such as cans, pipes, or metal sheeting which could no longer be used by the original owners. Rather than just taking up space and being a waste, new life is breathed into these materials.

Most of these things are better off not even reaching the landfills. Many things, such as old clothes, books, or collectibles, should just be given away or sold to a new owner. Old metal can be recycled into new metal items. Certain types of plastic could also be recycled.

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Because my creditors still want their money, and there's plenty of things that get thrown out every day that should be recycled, my goal is to raise $50,000 from recycling items that others can't use anymore and are willing to give to me.

In states that have a bottle deposit law, such as Connecticut and Massachusetts, it will take one million cans to reach my goal amount. In my home state of Rhode Island, it is more profitable to recycle scrap metal obtained here than our cans. (Obtaining 75 pounds of aluminum cans will take a lot longer than obtaining an old aluminum sink, for example)

If you would like to help:

1. If you are an educator or parent, or thinking of becoming one, the best thing you can do to help is to prevent this problem from happening to another child. Pay attention to your kids! This doesn't go just for learning disorders, but other issues such as depression, drug use, issues at home or at school, etc. When a problem is diagnosed as soon as possible, it could be treated before it turns into a big problem. In my case, if I had been diagnosed with my learning disorders sometime before adulthood, I wouldn't have racked up $50,000 in debt trying to go to school.

2. If you live in CT or MA, I want your cans! No, don't mail the cans directly to me, as that'd probably cost more in postage than they are worth. Instead, organize a can drive. If you are in school, encourage your teachers or clubs to start one, and when you get a significant amount of them, I could arrange to pick them up.

3. If you are a business owner in RI, and you come across junk metal that you just wished someone would take off your hands, please contact me. I can drive to your business and pick it up.

4. If you live too far (basically anywhere else), feel uncomfortable meeting me in person, or for any other reason, you would rather just give cash, I accept PayPal. In the spirit of this website, I ask that any money that you send to me be obtained by selling or recycling something that you don't need or want.