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Daily Life, Tim

No Picture Tuesday

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Today I went straight from work to a meeting at church, and didn’t arrive home until 10 pm or so. It was a long day. After nabbing a fresh, hot Mesa Manna roll with butter, I went looking for my family members.

No one was on the ground floor. Apparently the Rapture occurred, but the rolls were still warm from the oven, so it must’ve been recently. This was a relief, since I had been meeting, just fifteen minutes prior, with our senior pastor and a bunch of the church leaders — it would be kind of embarrassing if Jesus called all the believers home, and none of the elders were taken. It would have been particularly embarrassing for our Pastor, who has been preaching on Revelation lately. I can just see him in the pulpit, next week:

“Well, I notice that our congregation is a bit smaller this week. I have some good news, and some bad news. First the good news: the prophecies about the Rapture were all true. Now the bad news … ”

Of course, since I was apparently also un-raptured, I was now facing seven years of tribulation — but at least I had a warm, buttered roll. But (as you may already have guessed) it was a false alarm — my family members were all uncharacteristically in bed or otherwise occupied upstairs. Thanks to Kathy’s recent phase of pretending she is a morning person, our household is much quieter in the late evenings.

“Did you blog?” I asked my wife, accusingly, when I tracked her to her lair.

“No,” she admitted, shamefaced. “By the time I remembered, I was already in bed. It was either blog or read my Bible … ”

Kathy often tries to hold the moral high ground in these little interchanges. I charitably refrained from asking her why she didn’t read her Bible in the morning, now that she is “such a morning person”. (I am often charitable that way, leaving unsaid those snippy little comments that lesser men would blurt out, or, even worse, mention in a blog.)

“So, did you at least upload any photos of our fascinating and meaningful life?” I wasn’t very hopeful, by this point. Kathy snuggled more deeply into bed, and shook her head.

No photos, therefore no fascinating and meaningful life. As we often say, “If it didn’t make it to the blog, it didn’t happen.”

Today did have a few interesting events, though. I had my annual review at work, in which it was discovered that I was ‘High Achieving’. This is, apparently, not quite as good as ‘Low Exceeding’, but considerably better than plain ‘ole ‘Achieving’. They used to have a numerical range, from 1 (“here’s a cardboard box, pack your stuff”) to 5 (“you walk on water and found a way to double the company’s annual profit”). Apparently the numerical rating scheme was too hard, and some of the managers were having trouble with the math, so they went to a three-tiered scale: “Not Achieving, Achieving, and Exceeding”.

Personally, I liked the old scale better. When you got a 4.2, you knew right where you stood. I guess after six years working for the same company, in the same team, I probably know where I stand. I was disappointed, though — I really would have liked to get some form of ‘Exceeding’ in my annual rating. Maybe next year.

Tim

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Daily Life, Rachel, Silliness

Lost Days of 2011 — When Time Lies Heavy

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Last April, Daniel played the part of a blind Prince in a spoof of Beauty and the Beast at our homeschool co-op. Rachel played a peasant girl in the same show, and as the date of the performance drew near, she began to be concerned about Daniel’s lack of facial hair.

Now, of course, we know that I (with my ‘lush beard’) am the true expert in the art of manly beard-wearing, but in those days, I was not yet revealed to the world in my full glory. So Rachel took refuge in her make-up skills, starting (as does any responsible artist) with a curly mustache on herself, just to try it out.

Apparently there wasn’t a lot going on that day, because first Sarah, and then David were swept up in the general dramatic make-over, that was originally intended only for Daniel.

Rachel, the maniacal make-up artist, strikes again.

Browsing through the photos on Kathy’s computer, I came across this picture, and it cried out for explanation. Half an hour later, hearing the story of how it came about, I’m still not sure I understand. But I knew it was a perfect candidate for the ‘Lost Days of 2011′ series. Some may think it should have stayed lost, but their opinion doesn’t count.

Let’s just be glad they didn’t find a hedge trimmer or a can of spray paint while time lay so heavily upon their hands.

Tim

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Events, Homeschooling, Joshua

Scholarship Jubilee

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Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart. Year after year, your failures as a teacher are mapped out in the ignorance of your children. Sometimes you want to just give up and hand the responsibility over to someone else — anyone else.

But sometimes you have a triumph. Today was such a day.

Yesterday, Union University called. “We’d like you to be home for our call, tomorrow at 3 pm,” they told Joshua.

Union University is a Christian College founded in 1823 in Jackson, Tennessee

This was less ominous than it sounds. Joshua had recently traveled to Tennessee for the Scholars Competition at Union, where 160 candidates competed for approximately thirty full-tuition scholarships. We spent an amusing half-hour speculating about the reason for the call.

Joshua dramatically re-enacts the call from Union.

“Maybe there’s another round of interviews — the guy who makes the final call on the scholarships didn’t get a chance to interview you, so they are going to grill you. Maybe now you can finally tell them how you would ‘rethink hospitals in America’?”

Actually, Joshua is still grappling with that interview question, so it is a good thing they didn’t call to get clarification. My beloved niece, Rebecca, won the Provost scholarship at Union two years ago. She ruined all my fun on Facebook. “They don’t do another round of interviewing,” she told us confidently.

I spent the intervening 24 hours teasing Joshua mercilessly about the call. “Gosh,” I would say. “Three p.m. seems a long time away. I can hardly stand it. How the hours seem to drag!”

I’d weave it casually into conversation: “Say, could you pass those potatoes? Don’t make me wait until 3 pm tomorrow for them!”

When they finally called about 3:20, we were all on pins and needles. We had prayed as a family about the call, but we were still very curious. Joshua had craftily taken the house phone into his room, and closed the door. But a few minutes later, he came down with a big grin on his face. Sure enough, he was awarded a full four-year tuition scholarship to Union. We are very thankful to God for His provision for Joshua — indeed, almost an embarrassment of provision.

It isn't every day you get a call worth $92,000.

First, Joshua received a half-tuition scholarship from Union. Next he was notified of a full-tuition Navy ROTC scholarship to Point Loma. Azusa Pacific followed with a $10,000/year offering. Then came an almost-half-tuition scholarship at Whitworth. The type 7 Air Force ROTC scholarship that came a few weeks later was a little less generous — $18,000 per year for the second, third and fourth years of college (for out-of-state schools). Then Wheaton followed with $3500/year. Now, to receive this full-tuition scholarship from Union, is like whipped cream and a cherry on top of a large ice cream sundae. It is very fun to see Joshua be so favored and blessed by God in this abundant fashion.

We always love an excuse to gather and celebrate with some sparkling cider.

As much as we clearly see the hand of God in all this, and do not seek to diminish His glory, Joshua’s faithfulness and diligence as a student have clearly placed him in a place where God can freely and generously bless him. We are very proud of the way Joshua has conducted himself as a student and as a man of God.

Hooray for Joshua!

Tim

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Homeschooling, Parenting Tips, Works for Me Wednesday

IXL Blues

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A few months ago, I was looking for a way to punish my children when they are slack in their schoolwork. I wanted something that would be measurable, tedious and difficult, without taking up any of my time.

Key Parenting Principle: When punishing your children, you should always take care that you don’t punish yourself along the way.

In my search for a corrective tool, I happened upon IXL, an online program providing a seemingly endless variety of math problems at elementary through middle school levels. At the time, the subscription cost was prohibitive, and so I mentally set it aside. It just wasn’t worth $12 a month to me to punish my children — after all, I can punish them for free, most of the time.

Some homeschoolers just cry out for punishment.

A few weeks ago, I became discouraged with my children’s math progress. One problem with homeschooling is that you don’t always know what you don’t know, or haven’t been taught. I noticed that several of my kids seem not to have a solid understanding of some foundational math skills, and it made me sad to see them struggle to learn, when I know it is because we haven’t prepared them properly.

And then it came to me from the mists of my memory: IXL is the answer! Suddenly, I realized that IXL would be the perfect solution to the problem — not as a punishment tool, but instead as a way to fill in the gaps and solidify their understanding of foundational math principles.

Doesn't the logo make you think cheerful thoughts?

As I often do with new, shiny ideas, I jumped on this with both feet. “Let’s sign up Rachel and Daniel,” I enthused to Kathy.

“Are you sure about this?” she hesitated. “They are pretty busy already with school … ”

“They can always make time for this — it will be fun for them! They’ll thank me when they take the SAT and get great math scores.”

Ancient Edgren Proverb: Waiting for your kids to thank you is a good way to build patience. I signed Rachel and Daniel up, and assigned them five sections each day, demanding they reach 100% ‘mastery’ on each skill.

Later, when I saw how much fun it was for Rachel and Daniel, I decided to sign David and Sarah up, too. Sadly, IXL ends after middle-school, and Joshua (the show-off) is taking Calculus. “Maybe they’ll come up with an IXL for Washington State History,” I told Kathy, hopefully. “We could give him a subscription for Easter, wouldn’t that be fun?”

<sarcasm>Assigning five sections of IXL per day was a wildly popular decision.</sarcasm>

Perhaps the coolest thing about IXL is the way they enforce ‘mastery’. In order to get to a 100% Smartscore™, you need to prove to the program that you really understand the skill. As you proceed, the questions get harder and harder, and if you miss one, you are given two or three more questions of the same kind, to make sure you weren’t just guessing. If you don’t make any mistakes, you can finish a section in about 30 problems — but for every one you miss, you can expect three more. In extreme cases, you might find yourself working as many as 143 (I speak hypothetically, of course) problems on the same skill.

Sarah and I dancing together, celebrating the beginning of the IXL age.

Another really excellent attribute of IXL is the way it enforces careful precision and accuracy. As with many homeschooled kids, my children are used to their teacher giving them all kinds of grace and mercy. If they can show that they understand the problem, they can often get away with small arithmetic errors without being penalized.

Not so with IXL — the computer doesn’t care if you cry — if you didn’t enter in the exact, correct answer (with the decimal in the right place, the proper sign, and in some cases, the correct units) then you get no credit for that question. Learning that sometimes there is no ‘give’ in the world is important, I think.

I wanted them to quickly get up to speed, so I told them all to go down at least one grade-level from their current grade. “Do five sections a day,” I instructed them. “You must reach 100% mastery before you can go on to the next section.”

Since there are between 200 and 250 skills for each year level, I figured we could knock off a year’s worth of math in about ten weeks, leaving the summer for their current grade level. I was so excited that this automated tool would solve all our Math troubles.

A graph showing an individual student's progress over the course of a week.

A third feature of IXL really sells it to parents or teachers — the program readily produces reports that show each child’s progress. With minimal effort, I can see how long each child is taking to reach mastery on each skill, and how many skills they’ve finished each day. You can tell which children are skating through the skills with minimal effort, and which are struggling. In less than 30 seconds, I can monitor a whole day’s worth of progress.

It wasn’t more than a day or two into the new IXL program, before the push-back began. “I hate IXL,” one of my children complained. “IXL is ruining my life!”

As it turned out, five sections was a bit of an aggressive goal. While some sections might be finished in just a few minutes, others were taking more than an hour. Sarah, my nine-year-old, was spending an average of two and a half hours a day on IXL alone.

Daniel working on his French.

Tonight, we had a meeting of the mimes, in which I gave each person a chance to speak up about IXL.

Not our actual "Meeting of the Mimes".

I tried to explain my vision for the program, and how it was going to be a huge blessing in their lives, but much of my pep-talk fell on deaf (and in some cases, hostile) ears. Eventually, we came to a compromise: each school day, each of my kids will spend a minimum of 40 minutes working problems on IXL’s website, and will complete a minimum of one skill (no matter how long it takes). Also, I will pay a bonus of $100 cash (or $200 toward Worldview Academy or a short term missions trip) when they finish all 200+ skills of a grade level.

This seemed to cheer most of them up a bit. Maybe in a month or so I will publish a progress report, so you can see who is working the hardest toward Math Mastery.

Tim

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Musings, Tim

No Moh Skin Cancer

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As a student at The College of William and Mary, I took Geology 101. The course met at the dreary hour of 8 a.m., Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I was a freshman, and I didn’t know any better during course selection — somehow I thought eight a.m. was a reasonable time for a college class. My friend Eric and I joined about a hundred others in the class, but on cold, rainy Mondays, the number of students would sometimes drop below 50.

The nice thing about Geology was that I could really identify with a rock at that time of the morning. But I must admit, apart from a ‘C’ as a semester grade, I only brought one thing away from the class: Mohs’ scale of hardness.

Moe, from the Three Stooges, not particularly known for scientific advancement, whether geologic or otherwise.

As it turns out, some rocks are harder than others, and a guy named Friedrich Mohs (not to be confused with Moe, of Three Stooges fame) invented a scale to reflect this fact. For example, Talc (a chalklike mineral) is considered to be a 1 on the scale, while Diamond is a 10. The human fingernail is a lowly 2.5, while glass is somewhere between 6 and 7.

Geologist Friedrich Mohs, 1773-1839

I share this important geological ‘nugget’ of information (sorry, just some geologist humor, there) because I was recently diagnosed with skin cancer. After the biopsy results came back, they called me up to schedule me for Mohs surgery. You can, perhaps, imagine my alarm — I had just healed from the biopsy — I didn’t want any mo’ surgery! After the nurse spelled it for me, I began to wish I had worked for a better grade in Geology.

Fortunately, the interweb (or possibly the webernet) is a veritable wealth of information on squamous-cell carcinoma, and the iterative surgical procedure they call Mohs (after Frederick Mohs, no apparent relation to the 18th century geologist) is apparently the favored way of dealing with this particular type of skin cancer, with a 97% success rate.

Frederick Mohs, 1910-2002, surgeon and developer of Mohs micrographic surgery.

Squamous-cell skin cancer is fairly common, with about 700,000 cases diagnosed annually in the United States. It has a mortality rate of about a third of a percent, or a little more than three in a thousand.

(Parenthetically, one needs to be careful about research on the interweb. Until today, I was under the impression (based on another website) that the mortality rate was a little over 3%. While still a fairly small chance of death, this is ten times more likely than the other number I read, and it caused me no small amount of consternation, to think that I might actually die from this cancer.)

Anyway, today’s surgery was successful, and the doctor seems to think they got all the cancer, and that there is little chance of recurrence, given the size and depth of the malignancy. But I ended up with a pretty dramatic bandage and wound, which I plan to milk for all the sympathy I can.

You should see the other guy!

It is interesting to reflect on how the prospect of physical death has had a sobering effect on how I view my life. I kept wondering, “What if I’m one of those who die of this cancer? Am I ready to be done with this life? Have I been faithful to God, with the time that has been given me?”

As I mentioned recently in One Month to Live, I am inspired by the story of Hezekiah. Now that it seems to me that I will not be dying immediately from skin cancer, what am I going to do with whatever time I have remaining?

I’m definitely not going to invite the Babylonians over to look at all my treasures.

Tim

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