tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135810842024-03-07T20:38:30.359-07:00Cherice's PiecesBombarded by a steady stream of data, demands, and decisions, she felt fragmented—uncertain of herself and even less certain of her place in the current universe. She wished that a pause button would induce a state of suspended animation, creating a conceptual place outside the fabric of space-time where she could recompose herself. In that space she would collect and consider pieces of herself. She would sift, sort, synthesize, reshape, and revise her thoughts, her life, and herself there.Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-72883908366493491312017-10-01T21:13:00.000-06:002017-10-01T21:13:02.451-06:00Assumptions<div>
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Assumptions are soooo dangerous.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-29372202214992187702017-05-07T23:32:00.002-06:002017-05-07T23:40:29.823-06:00Of Presence & AbsenceI have decided that the real value of a blog is that it makes it possible for a person to dissect themselves. A scientist interested in learning more about a particular organism might take tissue samples, mount them on a slide for examination, carefully preserve the samples, and then view them under a microscope. Similarly, a blog captures samples of an author's thoughts and feelings over time, immobilizes them, and preserves the samples for future exploration and analysis.<br />
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I find it interesting to observe what I once thought, how I articulated it, what it meant to me in the past, and what it now means to me in the present.. Even more intriguing is the awareness that my thoughts at any given moment are so deeply connected to the contexts in which I find myself embedded and to the people, places, and media I am "consuming." <br />
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Perhaps the "real" story is lodged somewhere in the layers between what is present and what is absent; between what makes one feel alive, and what one chooses not to feel; scattered across different audiences, distributed among different tools. Presence plus absence equals essence.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-1132189157927959562013-03-03T23:55:00.002-07:002013-03-03T23:55:43.501-07:00Constellations of Universes<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Geneva;">"In reality, every ego–so far from being a unity, is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. As a body everyone is single, as a soul never." (Hermann Hesse)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva;">This quote made me think about a letter that was attached to one of the trees on the hill outside the Pentagon after the bombings on Sept. 11th. It said something to the effect that the person who had died was filled with a million universes that the world would now never have the privilege of knowing or exploring. I wonder if the author of that letter had read Hermann Hesse?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva;">As I think about the things I am learning about quantum physics, I realize that Hesse was much more correct than he may have realized about this idea of multiple worlds, inheritances, and potentialities. His comments regarding the soul are also interesting to me because I have realized that it is only in relation to other people--in service--that we can discover who we really are, and that our souls yearn to connect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva;"><a href="http://web.ionsys.com/~remedy/Questers%27%20Journal.htm"><br /></a></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-13848946660740428982013-03-03T23:52:00.001-07:002013-03-03T23:52:49.627-07:00Success<div style="text-align: center;">
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So many people operate from this philosophy:<br />
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"Success sanctifies the means" (Gilder, 2008, p. 43).<br />
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Yet it begs the questions, "What constitutes success?" How we define it changes what qualifies for sanctification, no? And then there is the small problem of "the means." The connotations could take us into the realms of mathematics, or people of "small or meager means," or into "instruments, paths, processes, and tools," or into unkindness.</div>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />References</span></div>
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Gilder, Louisa. (2008). The age of entanglement: When quantum physics was reborn. NY: Alfred A. Knopf.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-81560618939236635712013-03-03T23:47:00.000-07:002013-03-03T23:47:06.789-07:00A String of Happiness<br />
A string of happiness<br />
Draped itself<br />
Around her life<br />
<br />
A row of 5 shiny days<br />
Glittered<br />
Like tiny blue moons<br />
<br />
Pulling on tides of probability.<br />
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- Cherice Montgomery<br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-83217155678498644912012-07-30T02:43:00.001-06:002012-07-30T02:45:43.022-06:00Random Reflections on CreativityI am in the middle of a book called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Creating-Brain-Neuroscience-Genius/dp/1932594078" target="_blank">The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius</a>. </i>It was suggested to me by a neuropsychologist whom I met recently through a colleague. Although I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book, a few ideas came to mind as I read it that I thought were interesting:<br />
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1) The ability to recognize and reconsider relationships is at the core of all creativity. (I am reminded of Hofstadter's (1995) comments about the critical role that <a href="http://www.bgrosjean.com/files/Metamagical_Themas.pdf" target="_blank">variations on a theme</a> play in creativity.)<br />
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2) Novel approaches to perception, observation, interpretation, and representation are essential components of creative production.<br />
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<i>Perception</i> - What falls within the scope of our awareness? What do we notice? I believe this to be heavily influenced by our openness to new experience, and by the depth and breadth of our prior knowledge and experience.<br />
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<i>Observation </i>- How deeply do we immerse ourselves in both our internal and external worlds? To which features of those worlds do we attend? How many layers do we consider? To what extent are we attuned to the relationships between those layers, or to the dynamic interactions between them? <br />
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<i>Interpretation</i> - On which resources do we draw as we seek to understand our experiences? Do we consider what we have observed from multiple perspectives using a wide variety of heuristics? Do we look at both individual and systemic factors? Do we consider sociocultural contexts? Are our interpretations non-linear, dynamic, flexible, and fluid enough to accommodate change?<br />
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<i>Representation</i> - How do we attempt to represent our experiences, our questions about them, and our conclusions? Do our representations acknowledge that they are necessarily incomplete?<br />
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3) Much research on creativity has highlighted the important role that unstructured down time plays in creativity. However, that may be because it facilitates <i><u>unstructured thought</u>. </i>Andreasen (2005) phrases the idea in this intriguing way:<i> </i>"I would hypothesize that during the creative process the brain begins by <i>disorganizing, </i>making links between shadowy forms of objects or symbols or words or remembered experiences that have not previously been linked" (p. 78). This might explain why children seem to "lose" their creativity as they progress through school. Perhaps the highly structured nature of schooling (and the type of thinking it reinforces and rewards) precludes engagement in the types of cognition responsible for creativity.<br />
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4) Creativity is linked to the development of linguistic proficiency. Language teachers and their students are quick to assume that a large vocabulary is a prerequisite condition for any sort of creative composition in another language. A quick look at the <a href="http://actflproficiencyguidelines2012.org/speaking#Superior" target="_blank">ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012</a> seems to support that. Yet consider the implications of this statement: "It is likely that one factor contributing to literary creativity is having a lexicon not only large in quantity of words but also rich in associated meanings for each word" (Andreasen, 2005, p. 67). How frequently do we explicitly engage students in developing associative networks of MEANING around the lists of vocabulary words we insist that they memorize? It is not uncommon in older textbooks to see words categorized by parts of speech (such as nouns, adjectives, etc.). At best, we may categorize the words topically (i.e., foods) with a few subcategories thrown in (fruits, vegetables, beverages). However, textbook drills seldom connect the words to meaningful contexts, much less engage students in exploring layers of meaning associated with the words. As a result, we severely limit students' ability to create with the language they are learning.<br />
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Andreasen, Nancy C. (2005). The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius. NY: Dana Press. ISBN 1-932594-07-8.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-85151138715890347462012-07-13T04:20:00.000-06:002012-07-13T05:32:36.633-06:00The DanceAnchored in the sand <br />
Of shared understanding, <br />
She scooped up a handful of notes,<br />
Letting them flow through her fingers;<br />
He patted them down with his feet<br />
In syncopated splashes of skill.<br />
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Comfortably connected,<br />
They waded deeper into the music<br />
Swaying and swirling<br />
To the rhythm of the waves<br />
Which ebbed and flowed around them.<br />
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As they danced, she slowly realized<br />
Just how far she had drifted<br />
From the glittering shores <br />
Of her best self—<br />
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A scintillating sandcastle<br />
Sparkling in the sunlight<br />
Of sudden insight.<br />
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She closed her eyes<br />
Before the next wave of doubt<br />
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Came crashing in.<br />
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Cherice Montgomery - July 13, 2012<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-78712054623455469602012-01-08T22:28:00.001-07:002012-01-08T22:28:53.984-07:00AlmostI almost wrote today . . .<br />
After a year away . . .<br />
Perhaps tomorrow . . .<br />
I'll have something more to say . . .<br />
But I guess I'm still not brave enough<br />
Today.<br />
<br />
Cherice Montgomery<br />
1/8/2011<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-5808376717691723742010-08-05T05:10:00.000-06:002010-08-05T05:10:38.655-06:00Playing at Poetry<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><div>Restless thoughts</div></span></span><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Tumble noisily </span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Through the halls o</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">f her mind,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Jostling one another </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">As they race </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Toward f</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">un a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">nd freedom</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Most shrug o</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">ut of the words</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Zipped around them</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">As they spill onto the playground,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">And, like unruly children, </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Resist lining up </span></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">In tidy rows of prose </span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">When the day ends.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Pushing and shoving,</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">They trickle back inside</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Leaving a stillness behind</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">In which unfulfilled possibilities</span></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Echo in the wind</span></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Like the</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"> squeak of empty swings.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Cherice Montgomery, August 5, 2010</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><br />
</div></span></span></div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-80778959345261143392010-03-28T00:00:00.044-06:002021-06-20T23:57:32.991-06:00Exploring Giftedness<div style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>Context:</b> </span></div>
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<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Conversations with <a href="http://www.shulamit.info/giftedness_in_adults.htm" target="_blank">gifted adults</a> <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Discussions with friends about the problems of their highly sensitive children<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Personal interest in creativity, improvisation, innovation, and productivity <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Questions about the differences between <a href="http://www.iusd.org/wp/documents/brightchildorgiftedlearner.pdf" target="_blank">"bright" and "gifted"</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Questions from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/who-is-the-gifted-child_b_4119720.html" target="_blank">gifted students</a> about how to manage professional and social interactions<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Questions from student teachers and mentor teachers about <a href="http://www.nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx" target="_blank">how to motivate gifted students</a> (especially underachievers and “fast finishers”)</span></li>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Framing:</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The quotes that follow highlight some of the issues that impact people who are gifted, along with some of the tensions they encounter as they try to make sense of their lives within the social and cultural contexts in which they find themselves embedded.</span><br />
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<b><i>Talents ~ Time</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Although they try to cram 27 hours worth of living into a 24-hour day, there simply isn't enough time to develop all of the talents and interests that they may have" (</span><a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Webb, 2009, p. 9</a>).</div>
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<b><i>Intensity ~ Isolation ~ Intimacy</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gifted-Grownups-Blessings-Extraordinary-Potential/dp/B010EW8IIE/" target="_blank">Gifted adults</a> commonly have the experience of being 'out of sync' with others but not understanding why or how they are different. Jacobsen (2000) describes how people came to her in her clinical practice with a vague sense that they were different; others had told them repeatedly that they were 'too-too'--that is, too serious, too intense, too complex, too emotional, etc." (</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf" target="_blank">Webb, 2009, p. 19</a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"From the moment she arrived, it seemed that none of her co-workers was interested in making her acquaintance. Conversations never included her; in-jokes left her completely in the dark; people fell silent when she came near a table in the lunchroom or a fountain in the halls. At first--and still--she tried to believe that it was because she was young, she was frail, she did not make friends easily. But actually, right from the start, she knew it was because she was an ambitious woman with remarkable scores from the best school on the planet; because she was curious and wanted to learn and wanted to be excellent, which would threaten all of them, make them all look bad (Card, 1978/1987, p. 207).</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"But without a real friend, it was only a pretense, and I never could let my playmates know anything about me. I studied them and wrote stories about them and it was all of them, but it was only a tiny part of me” (Shiras, 1953, p. 29).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">". . . it is a Soul-devastating experience to sacrifice one's authenticity in order to belong" (Silverman, 1988). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“It’s wonderful to be able to talk to another person my own age and have them get everything I say, snap! Just like that! No matter what I talk about . . . . She doesn’t know exactly the same things I do, of course, but she understands everything” (Shiras, 1953, p. 56).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i>Complexity ~ Creativity ~ Contradictions ~ Constraints</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"For gifted children, nothing is as simple as it seems. They see clearly that the answer depends on the context--they see endless shades of grey" (<a href="http://giftedservices.com.au/children.html#Dabrowski" target="_blank">Gifted & Talented Services of Australia, 2007</a>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"Sensitivity . . . without a developmental outlet turns into irritability” (<a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/DTOPD.html" target="_blank">Mika, 2002</a>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“The external structure that they are steeped with becomes contradictory or meaningless when confronted with articulate, conscious individual experience” (<a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf" target="_blank">Webb, 2009, p. 11</a>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“They may also find themselves feeling angry because they feel powerless to make the changes that they see as needed” (<a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf" target="_blank">Webb, 2009, p. 16</a>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Depth ~ Defense Mechanisms ~ Dedication</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Control kept him from showing any emotion at all, though he longed to cry out with the agony that tore at him inside. My walls are deep, but can they hold this? he wondered . . .” (Card, 1978/1987, p. 180). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“‘Ansset, what is your song?’ He looked at her blankly. Waited. Apparently he did not understand. ‘Ansset, you keep singing our songs back to us. You keep taking what people feel and intensifying it and shattering us with it, but child, what song is yours?’ . . . . The object of Control was not to remove the singer from all human contact, but to keep that contact clear and clean. Instead of a channel, Ansset was using Control as an impenetrable, insurmountable wall. I will get over your walls, Ansset, she promised him silently. You will sing a song of yourself to me. But his blank, meaningless face said only, You will fail” (Card, 1978/1987, pp. 48-49).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“‘Oh you sound so sweet. I can see where Ansset learned it. A machine teaching a machine.’ ‘You misunderstand,’ said Esste. ‘It is pain teaching pain. What do you think the Control is for?’” (Card, 1978/1987, p. 42).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Development ~ Disintegration ~ <a href="http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-Database/entry/A10554" target="_blank">Depression</a><span id="goog_860097396"></span><span id="goog_860097397"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“One must first disintegrate before one can reintegrate at a higher level, . . . .” (Webb, 2009, p. 14).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“However, this new mental schema may be only partially successful; these individuals may find themselves aware of inconsistencies and pretenses within their new way of thinking, though they may try desperately to convince themselves otherwise. They experience, then, only the dissolving part of the process—without reintegration at a higher level—leaving them with negative disintegration and the accompanying conflicts and negative emotions. Worse, they are unable to return to their previous unthinking way of being (“the rung bell”)” (Webb, 2009, p. 12).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b> </b></div>
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<b>Experiences:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
The following video clips, webpages, essays, and books highlight some of the challenges and experiences associated with giftedness.</div>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Apple (posted by PeterGreen125). (2006, April 26). <a href="https://youtu.be/cpzvwkR1RYU" target="_blank">Think different</a><span id="goog_949104634"></span><span id="goog_949104635"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a>. <i>YouTube. </i>Retrieved from https://youtu.be/cpzvwkR1RYU </li>
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<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B7o7vCczhE" target="_blank">Matilda</a>. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B7o7vCczhE (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOplIzj6dOM">Also available in Spanish</a>)</li>
</ul>
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<li>Genius. (n.d.). <a href="http://www.cse.emory.edu/sciencenet/mismeasure/genius/research04.html" target="_blank">Estimated IQs of famous geniuses</a>. <i>Genius. </i>Retrieved from http://www.cse.emory.edu/sciencenet/mismeasure/genius/research04.html </li>
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<li>Onodera, Shun. (2008, April 4). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkQiI09zlPQ">Gifted</a>. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkQiI09zlPQ </li>
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<li>Orion Pictures Corporation. (1991). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2ky7M8RfNk">Little man tate 2</a>. <i>Little Man Tate. </i>Retrieved February 14, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2ky7M8RfNk</li>
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<li>Shiras, Wilmar. (1953). <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Children-Atom-Wilmar-H-Shiras/dp/B001VYX3LC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264399114&sr=1-5">Children of the Atom</a>. </i>Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc. </li>
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<li>Sony Pictures UK. (2010). <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3RM5hHfvFA">Cloudy with a chance of meatballs - Dock scene</a>. </i>Retrieved February 14, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3RM5hHfvFA</li>
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<li style="font-family: inherit;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Sony Pictures. (2010). </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://youtu.be/aXv4i3Hz2GQ" target="_blank">Cloudy with a chance of meatballs - Jello scene</a>. </i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Retrieved September 20, 2012, from </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">http://youtu.be/aXv4i3Hz2GQ</span></li>
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<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Tolan, Stephanie. (1996). <a href="http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm">Is it a cheetah?</a> Retrieved June 24, 2009, from http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm</li>
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<ul style="font-family: inherit;">
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Tolan, Stephanie S. (2000). </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Ark-Stephanie-S-Tolan/dp/0380733196" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Welcome to the Ark</span></a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">. HarperTeen.</span> </li>
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<b> </b></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<b>Interpretations:</b></div>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Some studies indicate that the brains of gifted individuals may function more efficiently as a result of differences in structure and organization. For example, more dense gray matter in the prefrontal cortex and more white matter tracts may facilitate attentional control, critical thinking, decision-making, working memory, and other executive functions (<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francisco_Navas-Sanchez/publication/256612982_White_Matter_Microstructure_Correlates_of_Mathematical_Giftedness_and_Intelligence_Quotient/links/54575bae0cf2bccc490f802f.pdf" target="_blank">Navas-Sanchez, et al., 2014</a>; <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bn/2015/354186/" target="_blank">Nestor, et al., 2015</a>; Sousa, 2009; <a href="http://www.gro-gifted.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GRO-article-Phase-1-a-final-3_24_16.pdf" target="_blank">Tetreault, Haase, & Duncan, 2016</a>). A thicker corpus callosum (Barbara & Kerr, 2009) may enable a more efficient use of cognitive resources and more integrated cognitive processing across the two hemispheres of the brain (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289600000374" target="_blank">Jaušovec, 2000</a>; <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278262606000984" target="_blank">Jin, et al., 2006</a>), while thicker myelin sheaths around individual neurons and more synaptic connections may facilitate faster cognitive processing.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Some research suggests that people who have been classified as "gifted" may be especially sensitive to certain kinds of stimulation. These sensitivities have been classified into five major domains:</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<ul>
<li>Emotional (often displayed as deep emotional attachment, extremes, or intensity)</li>
</ul>
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<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><ul style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Imaginational (frequently expressed as a penchant for fantasy, imaginative play, inventiveness, and visual forms of cognition such as imagery or metaphor)</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><ul style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Intellectual (regularly exhibited as high levels of concentration, intense inquisitiveness, metacognition, and abstract thinking that focuses on analysis, synthesis, or theory-building)</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><ul style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Psychomotor (typically manifested as excess energy and enthusiasm, impulsivity, rapid speech, and physical expression of emotional tension through competitiveness, compulsiveness, nervous habits, or workaholism</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><ul style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Sensual (often visible in attention to aesthetics, the derivation of pleasure from sensory input, and overindulgence during periods of stress) (<a href="http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10161.aspx">Fielder, 1998</a>; <a href="http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10289/2807%20"></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank"></a></span> <a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf">Webb, 2009</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">)</span></li>
</ul>
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<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>These "heightened levels of awareness, energy, and emotional response" are a NORMAL part of the developmental trajectory for "gifted" individuals (<a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/Page10.html">Azpeitia & Rocamora, 1994</a>; <a href="http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm">Tolan, 1996</a>; <a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf">Webb, 2009</a>). However, the feedback that many gifted individuals receive while living life on a daily basis tends to send the message that much of what is at the core of who they are and what they care about is completely abnormal (<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank">Tolan, 1994</a></span>).</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">This message is reinforced by the fact that the development of "gifted" individuals often occurs asynchronously, with intellectual development typically preceding social and emotional development. Thus, these individuals are frequently "out of sync" with the rest of the world in general, and their same-age peers in particular. Although most gifted individuals are very aware of this fact, many blame this lack of synchronicity on personal deficiencies or idiosyncracies rather than recognizing that it is a very "normal" part of giftedness (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Gifted-Developing-Potential/dp/0132620669" target="_blank">Clark, 2002</a>; </span><a href="http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10161.aspx">Fielder, 1998</a>; <a href="http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10289/2807%20">King, 2009</a>; <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank">Tolan, 1994</a></span>; <a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf">Webb, 2009</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">).</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Educators also frequently fail to recognize the psychosocial tensions that such asynchronous development produces. Teachers typically focus on qualitative differences between the knowledge and skills of gifted individuals and those of their peers, failing to realize that they are physical manifestations of less visible phenomena, such as marked differences in the focus of their interest and attention, in their energy and concentration levels, in the rationales underlying their goals and motivations, in their thoughts and interpretations regarding the world, and in the way they represent their understandings (Shavinina, 2008; <a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank">Tolan, 1994</a>). Educators who do not recognize these qualitative differences between gifted individuals and the other students in their classes may adopt approaches to managing gifted students that require them to do more difficult work, in larger quantities, at a faster pace or of higher quality that that required of their peers. The needs and behaviors of gifted individuals are also frequently misinterpreted for similar reasons, and both teachers and employers may find such individuals difficult to engage, difficult to manage, and difficult to understand. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The personal challenges associated with the heightened sensitivities that many gifted individuals experience include managing intense emotional reactions to daily events, finding outlets for an overabundance of creativity and/or energy, inadequate intellectual or sensory stimulation, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">insufficient</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> emotional intimacy, intense perfectionism and self-criticism, and setting appropriate boundaries for self and others (<a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/Page10.html" target="_blank">Azpeitia & Rocamora, 1994</a>; <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Self-perception+of+gifts+and+talents+among+adults+in+a+longitudinal...-a0166696356">Perrone, et. al, 2007</a>; <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Bishop6/publication/282521290_Gifted_Adults/links/56e0522608aee77a15fe92df.pdf" target="_blank">Rinn & Bishop, 2015</a>; Streznewski, 1999; <a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank">Tolan, 1994</a>; <a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf" target="_blank">Webb, 2009</a>). <o:p></o:p></span> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Major life events or stresses frequently catalyze displays of hypersensitivities in most people, but such displays tend to occur more frequently, last longer, and manifest more intensely in gifted individuals. This often intensifies the aforementioned difficulties with interpersonal relationships among family, friends, teachers, and employers, and may even lead uninformed health care professionals to misdiagnose these individuals with attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, neuroses, or other psychological problems (<a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/Page10.html" target="_blank">Azpeitia & Rocamora, 1994</a>; <a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/DTOPD.html">Mika, 2002</a>; Streznewski, 1999; <a href="http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm" target="_blank">Tolan, 1996</a>). <o:p></o:p></span> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">A number of studies have noted a strong correlation between giftedness and perfectionism. Gifted individuals frequently set goals for themselves based on their intellectual capacity rather than on what may be developmentally appropriate or realistic given their chronological age. They may also evaluate their performance in comparison </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">with that of their associates (who often tend to be older or more accomplished than they are), irrespective of the criteria that would be considered realistic given their lack of </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">experience with the particular field they are exploring. They may also become so accustomed to success at an early age due to their well-developed cognitive skills that they question their own intelligence when confronted with failure--a phenomenon known as "the impostor syndrome" (</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Self-perception+of+gifts+and+talents+among+adults+in+a+longitudinal...-a0166696356">Perrone, et. al, 2007</a>).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> However, when the “positive energy” of perfectionistic tendencies is harnessed in productive ways, such tendencies can become great resources for personal development. Some research suggests that the ability of gifted individuals to accomplish this is tied to whether or not they adopt a resilient approach to failure (</span><a href="http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10289/2807">King, 2009</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">; </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Self-perception+of+gifts+and+talents+among+adults+in+a+longitudinal...-a0166696356">Perrone, et. al, 2007</a>;</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10289/2807"></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://nmgifted.org/GAC%20Resources/Perfectionism%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Giftedness-SILVERMAN.pdf">Silverman, 2007</a>). <o:p></o:p></span> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">The hypersensitivities that typically accompany giftedness are especially problematic for females, many of whom are keenly aware of the gap between who they are and what society expects them to be. The message that their "appearance and sociability" are the primary source of their value to society pervades historical traditions, permeates the media, and is perpetuated by textbooks in which well-known male "experts" blatantly characterize women as inferior. Gifted girls are socialized to believe that they are less capable than men, and many begin to lose confidence in both their abilities and in the validity of their perceptions as they reach puberty. Such perspectives are often further reinforced as high-achieving women interact with competitive men in male-dominated fields and workplaces. Gifted women also lack widely-recognized, high achieving female role models to counter that message, and those who are courageous enough to ignore the message face strong social sanctions when their interests and behaviors deviate from traditional roles and expectations for females (</span><a href="http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10289/2807">King, 2009</a>; <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Self-perception+of+gifts+and+talents+among+adults+in+a+longitudinal...-a0166696356">Perrone, et. al, 2007</a>; </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/Who%20Cares%20if%20I%27m%20Smart.pdf" target="_blank">Silverman, 2005</a>; <a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank">Tolan, 1994</a>). Thus, gifted females are often faced with a continual choice between intellectual fulfillment and social acceptance.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Finally, it should be noted that although the characteristics of giftedness persist throughout the lifespan, the lives of many gifted adults do not necessarily manifest those characteristics (in terms of career accomplishments, eminence, salary, or personal achievements) (<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Bishop6/publication/282521290_Gifted_Adults/links/56e0522608aee77a15fe92df.pdf" target="_blank">Rinn & Bishop, 2015</a>; Streznewski, 1999).</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In summary, gifted individuals frequently experience the world in qualitatively different ways from their same-aged peers. Their extreme sensitivity to their environment, their capacity to handle conceptual complexity, and their resultant skill in a variety of domains enables them to absorb vast quantities of intellectual, emotional, and sensory input. As a result, they require adequate challenge and stimulation in order to avoid boredom and frustration. Additionally, the sensitivities of gifted individuals kindle a variety of interests, fuel a passionate commitment to pursuits they value, and spark intense reactions to life’s events. On the other hand, such sensitivities (in conjunction with the perfectionism that tends to be highly correlated with giftedness) position gifted individuals to be acutely aware of incongruity between their own beliefs and actions, as well as injustice in the world at large. When their vision for the future or themselves exceeds their existing ability to implement it, they may become discouraged or even clinically depressed. Furthermore, because few others are likely to share their passions and intensities, gifted individuals (especially females) may feel forced to sacrifice who they are in pursuit of emotional intimacy or social relationships.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<b> References/</b><b>Further Reading:</b></div>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Azpeitia, Lynne, & Mary Rocamora. (1994, November). <a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/Page10.html">Misdiagnosis of the gifted</a>. <i>Mensa Bulletin. </i>Retrieved January 24, 2010, from http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/Page10.html </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bainbridge, Carol. (2010). Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities or supersensitivities in gifted children. <i>About.com. </i>Retrieved January 24, 2010, from <a href="http://giftedkids.about.com/od/gifted101/a/overexcite.htm" target="_blank">http://giftedkids.about.com/od/gifted101/a/overexcite.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Barbara, A., & Kerr, B. A. (2009). <i>Encyclopedia of giftedness, creativity, and talent. </i>Sage Publications, Inc.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Bronson, Po. (2007, Feb. 11). <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/" rel="nofollow">How not to talk to your kids: The inverse power of praise</a>. <i>New York Magazine.</i> Retrieved March 17, 2010, from <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/" rel="nofollow">http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Clark, B. (2002). <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Gifted-Developing-Potential/dp/0132620669" target="_blank">Growing up gifted: Developing the potential of children at home and at school</a>. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Daniels, S. & Piechowski, M. M. (Eds.). (2009). <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Living-Intensity-Understanding-Sensitivity-Excitability/dp/0910707898/" target="_blank">Living with intensity: Understanding the sensitivity, excitability, and emotional development of gifted children, adolescents, and adults</a>. Great Potential Press, Inc.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Fiedler, Ellen. (1998, Spring). <a href="http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10161.aspx">Foundations for understanding the social-emotional needs of the highly gifted</a>, <i>The Hollingworth Center, 12</i>(1), 3-5. Retrieved November 25, 2009, from http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf </li></ul><ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><li>Jacobsen, Mary-Elaine. (1999). <i>The gifted adule: A revolutionary guide for liberating everyday genius</i>. The Random House Publishing Group.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Jaušovec, N. (2000). <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289600000374" target="_blank">Differences in cognitive processes between gifted, intelligent, creative, and average individuals while solving complex problems: An EEG study</a>. </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Intelligence, 28</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(3), 213-237. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289600000374</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Jin, S. H., Kwon, Y. J., Jeong, J. S., Kwon, S. W., & Shin, D. H. (2006). <a href="http://jin%2C%20s.%20h.%2C%20kwon%2C%20y.%20j.%2C%20jeong%2C%20j.%20s.%2C%20kwon%2C%20s.%20w.%2C%20%26%20shin%2C%20d.%20h.%20%282006%29.%20differences%20in%20brain%20information%20transmission%20between%20gifted%20and%20normal%20children%20during%20scientific%20hypothesis%20generation.%20brain%20and%20cognition%2C%2062%283%29%2C%20191-197./" target="_blank">Differences in brain information transmission between gifted and normal children during scientific hypothesis generation</a>. <i>Brain and Cognition, 62</i>(3), 191-197. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278262606000984</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>King, Lance G. (2009). The importance of failing well: An exploration of the relationship between resilience and academic achievement. The University of Waikato. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10289/2807</li></ul><ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><li>Kuipers, W. (2011). <i>Enjoying the gift of being uncommon: Extra intelligent, intense, and effective</i>. Voorburg, The Netherlands: Kuipers & Van Kempen.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Kuipers, W. (2007). <a href="http://www.xi2.nl/bronnen/Resources/How%20to%20charm%20gifted%20adults.pdf">How to charm gifted adults into admitting giftedness: Their own and somebody else's</a>. <i>Advanced Development Journal, 11, </i>1-25. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from <a href="http://www.xi2.nl/bronnen/Resources/How%20to%20charm%20gifted%20adults.pdf">http://www.xi2.nl/bronnen/Resources/How%20to%20charm%20gifted%20adults.pdf</a> </li>
</ul>
<div style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</div>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Maisel, E. (2013). <i>Why smart people hurt: A guide for the bright, the sensitive, and the creative</i>. Conari Press.</li></ul><ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><li>Mika, Elizabeth. (2002). Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from <a href="http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/DTOPD.html" target="_blank">http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/DTOPD.html</a></li></ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: -32px;">Navas-Sánchez, F. J., Alemán-Gómez, Y., Sánchez-Gonzalez, J., Guzmán, De-Villoria, J.A., Franco, C., Robles, O., ...Desco, M. (2014). </span><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/hbm.22355/full" style="text-indent: -32px;" target="_blank">White matter microstructure correlates of mathematical giftedness and intelligence quotient</a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: -32px;">. </span><i style="text-indent: -32px;">Human Brain </i><i style="text-indent: -32px;">Mapping</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: -32px;">, </span><i style="text-indent: -32px;">35</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: -32px;">(6), 2619–2631. Retrieved from </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="text-indent: -32px;">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/hbm.22355/full</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><div class="csl-entry">
Nestor, P.G., Nakamura, M., Niznikiewicz, M., Levitt, J.J., Newell, D.T., Shenton, M. E., & McCarley, R. W. (2015). <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bn/2015/354186/" target="_blank">Attentional control and intelligence: MRI orbital frontal gray matter and neuropsychological correlates</a>. <i>Behavioural Neurology</i>, <i>2015</i>, e354186. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/354186 </div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Perrone, Kristin M., Philip A. Perrone, Tracy M. Ksiazak, Stephen L. Wright, & Z. Vance Jackson. (2007). <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Self-perception+of+gifts+and+talents+among+adults+in+a+longitudinal...-a0166696356" target="_blank">Self-perception of gifts and talents among adults in a longitudinal study of academically talented high-school graduates</a>. <i>Roeper Review, 29</i>(4), 259-264. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Self-perception+of+gifts+and+talents+among+adults+in+a+longitudinal...-a0166696356</li></ul><ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><li>Prober, P. (2016). <i>Your rainforest mind: A guide to the well-being of gifted adults and youth. </i>Olympia, WA: GHF Press.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><div class="csl-entry">
Rinn, A.N., & Bishop, J. (2015). <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Bishop6/publication/282521290_Gifted_Adults/links/56e0522608aee77a15fe92df.pdf" target="_blank">Gifted adults: A systematic review and a</a><span style="text-indent: -2em;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Bishop6/publication/282521290_Gifted_Adults/links/56e0522608aee77a15fe92df.pdf" target="_blank">nalysis of the literature</a>. </span><i style="text-indent: -2em;">Gifted Child Quarterly</i><span style="text-indent: -2em;">, </span><i style="text-indent: -2em;">59</i><span style="text-indent: -2em;">(4), 213–235.</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Shavinina, Levinia V. (2008). A unique type of representation is the essence of giftedness: Towards a cognitive-developmental theory. <i>The International Handbook on Giftedness</i>. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer Science & Business Media.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li> Silverman, L. K. (1988). <i>Different worlds at the extremes</i>. Colorado: Gifted Development Center. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from <a href="http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jwosbor2/otherfiles/PSY304/Different%20Worlds.pdf" target="_blank">http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jwosbor2/otherfiles/PSY304/Different%20Worlds.pdf</a><o:p></o:p> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Silverman, L. K. (2007). Perfectionism: The crucible of giftedness. <i>Gifted Education International</i>, <i>23</i>(3), 233. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from <a href="http://nmgifted.org/GAC%20Resources/Perfectionism%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Giftedness-SILVERMAN.pdf" target="_blank">http://nmgifted.org/GAC%20Resources/Perfectionism%20The%20Crucible%20of%20Giftedness-SILVERMAN.pdf</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Silverman, L. K. (2005). <a href="http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/Who%20Cares%20if%20I%27m%20Smart.pdf" target="_blank">Who cares if i’m smart, am I thin enough?</a> The Hague, The Netherlands: European Council of International Schools & The Institute for the Study of Advanced Development. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from <a href="http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/Who%20Cares%20if%20I%27m%20Smart.pdf">http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/Who%20Cares%20if%20I%27m%20Smart.pdf</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Sousa, D. A. (Ed.). (2009). </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">How the gifted brain learns. </i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Corwin Press.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Streznewski, M.K. (1999). <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gifted-Grownups-Blessings-Extraordinary-Potential/dp/B010EW8IIE/" target="_blank">Gifted grown-ups: The mixed blessings of extraordinary potential</a>. John Wiley & Sons. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Tetreault, N., Haase, J., & Duncan, S. (2016). <a href="http://www.gro-gifted.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GRO-article-Phase-1-a-final-3_24_16.pdf" target="_blank">The gifted brain</a>. Retrieved from http://www.gro-gifted.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GRO-article-Phase-1-a-final-3_24_16.pdf</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Tolan, S. (1994). Discovering the gifted ex-child. <i>Roeper Review</i>, Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted Website, <i>17</i>(2), 134-38. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/amstelwijzer/Tolan_DiscoveringTheGiftedExChild.pdf</a> </li></ul><ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><li>Treffinger, Donald J. (2004). <i>Creativity and giftedness</i>. Corwin Press.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<li>Webb, James T. (2009). <a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowskis_theory_existential_depression_feb09.pdf" target="_blank">Dabrowski's theory and existential depression in gifted children and adults</a>. Paper presented August 7, 2008 at the 8th International Congress of the Institute for Positive Disintegration, Calgary, Alberta, Canada</li>
</ul>
<div style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<b>Other References</b></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Card, Orson Scott. (1978/1987). Songmaster. NY: Tom Doherty Associates.</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-19039929886419060932010-03-21T23:23:00.000-06:002010-03-21T23:23:26.887-06:00Dance Lessons<h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="UIIntentionalStory_Names" data-ft="{"type":"name"}"> </span><span class="UIStory_Message">Trust is quite the dancer-- </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="UIStory_Message">Slow, smooth, tiny steps. </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="UIStory_Message">Then suddenly, a spin, a dip . . . </span></h3><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="UIStory_Message">When you least expect!</span></h3><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-9002149258421331072010-02-01T14:56:00.000-07:002010-03-20T14:57:37.209-06:00Fireflies<div class="post-header"> </div><span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text">Soul is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIiBLM46ls8">full</a>. </span></span><br />
<span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text">Mind's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjbf-GrhBBo">ablaze</a>. </span></span><br />
<span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text">But body's </span></span><span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvfLOhUgoa8">tired</a>.</span></span><span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text"> </span></span><span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text"> </span></span><br />
<span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text">And so the page . . . </span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text">Stays </span></span><span id="profile_status"><span id="status_text"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO3gg2cVfxg">blank.</a> </span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-72119580184568941722010-01-17T23:59:00.001-07:002010-01-18T00:01:49.815-07:00A Patchwork of PerspectivesThreads of conversation-- <br />
Snippets of text--<br />
Carefully cut<br />
From the fabric<br />
Of her life<br />
And set aside<br />
In the cedar chest<br />
Of her heart<br />
Until the pieces<br />
Suddenly made sense<br />
Stitched together.<br />
Though a few stray doubts<br />
Still stuck out<br />
The shivering stopped<br />
And her worries<br />
Finally fell asleep.<br />
<br />
Cherice Montgomery, 1-17-10<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-28393827401864069072009-09-29T22:52:00.001-06:002009-09-29T23:08:42.912-06:00Of Identity, Invisible Audiences, Influence, & Investment<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Bradley, a student in <a href="http://eci831.wikispaces.com/">Alec Couros's eci831 class</a>, discussed the idea of "invisible audiences" in a <a href="http://bradleys-831.blogspot.com/2009/09/danah-boyds-presentation-was-fabulous-i.html">recent blog post</a>. His comments sparked a torrent of reflections which certainly won't fit in a single Tweet or even in the comments section of a blog, so I am posting them here instead.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Identity</b> – <i>Who are you?</i> A potentially complicated question often best answered in relation to some person, context, role, responsibility, issue, belief, or perspective. (So, for me, the easy way out of the question would be answers along the lines of: former high school Spanish teacher, professional developer, Assistant Professor of Spanish, supervisor of student teachers, etc.) A quick Google search and perusal of my digital footprints would reveal much more about my personal and professional beliefs and actions over the course of the last 15 to 20 years. <br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i></i><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Who am I?</i> In face-to-face relationships, people often rely on age, sex, occupation, title, and other such things to help them know how to behave--selecting comfortable patterns of interaction that fulfill expectations, provide protection, and help them decide how to respond to unanticipated complications in a conversation. Many of those cues are absent online—making it difficult for participants in a conversation to answer the question, “Who am I in relation to you, your expectations for this interaction, and the current topic of conversation?” Consequently, the interaction seems much more fraught with risk and its outcome much less predictable. <br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Invisible Audiences</b> - <i>Who am I in relation to you?</i> Invisible audiences present even greater challenges in that regard. (I am reminded of Peter Elbow’s reflections on both the positive and negative effects that an awareness can have on the impact of an author’s writing, as well as on the author’s ability to write.) Nonetheless, writing for a relatively invisible audience can also be incredibly liberating—especially for authors who have felt constrained by others’ expectations and/or who are experimenting with their own personal and professional identities. I think a lack of regular feedback may make some authors wonder if participating online is worth the investment.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Influence - </b><i>Who reads what I write anyway? </i>I also think that many bloggers significantly underestimate the scope of their own influence. Many times while in search of something else, I stumble across insightful blog posts written by people I do not know. Although I frequently read, ponder, and incorporate them into my life, most of the time, I do not comment on them. Nonetheless, my life has been greatly enriched by reading such blogs. I don’t think I am unique in that regard. With that in mind, I choose to “pay it forward,” sharing my own writing (i.e., thinking in process) publicly from time to time as well. <br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However, I think writing is a gift of self—one that provides privileged access to the mind, heart, and/or soul of another person. And, as is true of all gifts of the self, to give such a gift requires a certain measure of vulnerability. That vulnerability is part of what makes the gift so valuable. And THAT is a scary prospect when one considers the many issues you raised in your post.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I try to read generously, recognizing that most writing is thinking in process and therefore, probably incomplete. <br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I try to write with an awareness that my posts are likely to be read by a variety of unintended audiences. This gives me the chance to consider my opinions from multiple perspectives which, although they may not explicitly appear in my writing, certainly strengthen its quality.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I try to respond with an eye toward the person behind the words—remembering that it is likely that most of my online conversations are being “viewed” or “overheard” by invisible third parties who are interpreting not only the words, but also the relationship between me and the other person with whom I am conversing. <br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Investment - </b><i>What role do I play and how much am I willing to invest in doing so? </i>In other words, ultimately, I think conversing online is an act of faith in the sense that it requires people to believe that what they have to offer will, ultimately, matter in some way. It also demands that writers trust their audience(s) not to misinterpret, manipulate, or misuse what they may share. Unfortunately, as is true in most face-to-face relationships, sometimes that trust is abused. I think this is one of the reasons that issues of audience, purpose, context, and community seem to play such important roles in online writing. A strong community, in particular, can help us mitigate the risk of sharing our best selves with the world (by creating conditions that support that kind of sharing, by protecting those who do share, and by publicly censuring those who abuse the trust of individuals or the community as a whole). Paradoxically, the strength of such communities seems to come from the committed engagement, investment, and participation of each of its individual members.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Thanks, Bradley, for giving me so much to think about (and <a href="http://twitter.com/courosa">Alec Courosa</a> for pointing me to Bradley's post via your link on Twitter)!<br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-30426234698472567352009-08-27T23:02:00.030-06:002009-08-29T00:46:27.187-06:00From Imitation to Improvisation<span style="font-weight: bold;">Gotcha!</span> - When we encounter experiences, people, or things that touch us deeply in some way, it is natural to want to hold onto them. We try to "capture" the things that bring us pleasure or that resonate with who we are or who we hope to become and incorporate them into our lives somehow. For most of us, that means snapping a photo, purchasing a postcard, getting the recipe, buying the book, or "friending" the person.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Acquisition v. Integration </span> - However, acquisition is not necessarily the equivalent of integration. The photos and postcards get shoved in a pile of things we plan to scrapbook someday, the recipe gets buried on the kitchen counter, the book sits on a shelf--unread, and our interactions with people turn into "What's up with you?" and "We should really do lunch sometime." What conditions energize us to the action required to make those experiences a permanent part of ourselves--incorporating them into our way of thinking, behaving, and being?<br /><br />This video offers an interesting perspective on these issues:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8CtC_qbQ51U&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8CtC_qbQ51U&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />At this point, my mind flashes in a variety of different directions. In an attempt to take the same advice I have been giving to some of my graduate students lately, I am going to share the raw, undeveloped thoughts in a telegraphic manner and see where that takes me.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Concrete Examples:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Picasso</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> -</span><br /><ul><li>Classical training</li><li>Internalized rules of the discipline</li><li>Restless</li><li>Fought against constraints of the discipline</li><li>Integrated daily life, travel experiences, influences, and personal associations into his work (blue period, rose period, <span style="font-style: italic;">Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, </span>etc.)</li><li>"Copied"/reinterpreted master works</li><li>Associated with other "famous" artists</li><li>Continuous experimentation ("I have a horror of copying myself")</li><li>Cognitive flexibility</li><li>Vision<br /></li><li>Intense productivity</li><li>Epiphanies</li><li>Pushed the profession</li><li>Transformed the world.</li></ul><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Albert Einstein</span> - Similar story, similar associations with cutting-edge colleagues, different medium<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien</span> - Ditto<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mozart (and other musicians)</span> </span>- Ditto ("too many notes!")<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">New generation of web 2.0 businessmen, educators, & scholars </span>- Ditto, but association with cutting-edge colleagues is more prevalent<br /><br />All had to fight for their beliefs, justify their works because they broke the "rules" and threatened the status quo (among other things)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Additional examples</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>- Dalí, Goya, Rivera, Velásquez, or both Old and New Testament prophets - All addressed different problems, but fought similar battles<br /><br />The general masses are limited by what they can see - "it isn't possible, we don't do things that way, but traditionally . . . ., that wouldn't be the prudent course of action, there's no precedent for that" are common objections. Does writing to an audience of skeptics change the quality of one's work?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Abstraction:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">1) Categories of Performance: </span><br /><br /><ul><li>Novice</li><li>Experienced</li><li>Professional</li><li>Expert</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">2) Catalysts for Increasing Levels of Performance:</span><br /><br /><ul><li>Information</li><li>Experience</li><li>Access, time, resources, relationships, & problems</li><li>Abstraction</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">3) Common Types of Performance at Each Level:</span><br /><br /><ul><li>Imitation</li><li>Integration</li><li>Innovation (often in the form of recombination, typically preceded by reinterpretation?)</li><li>Improvisation (opposite of "functional fixedness" - requisite conditions do not seem to be the absence of problems but vision, cognitive flexibility, skill, and perseverance to overcome them) </li></ul>Do exercises like <a href="http://www.leighgraveswolf.com/?p=373">Quickfires</a> facilitate the development of improvisational skills?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >A Possible Taxonomy:</span><br /><br />When an innovator succeeds, others try to achieve similar results by copying (with varying degrees of success).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Imitators </span>- </span>Copy the appearance of the item, but the imitation lacks the quality, reliability, or substance of the original. (Knock-off watches, handbags, clothing, software, art prints, or books, for example.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Integrators </span></span>- Draw on the same elements (books about wizards or vampires, covers that look similar to the original success), some authors try to copy their own success and become formulaic writers in the process.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Innovators - </span></span>Understand the underlying principles and experiment with recombining them in ways that produce an entirely new, but equally successful product (artists, authors, designers, and scholars who can produce a variety of distinct, but equally good works which often span several genres)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Improvisors </span>- </span>Produce high quality, innovative works that are responsive to the environments in which they find themselves even when their access to time and resources is limited or constrained.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Concrete Application:</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Fashion</span><br /><br />Consider teenagers. Resonance--an emotional, intellectual, and visceral reaction /interaction between who they are (their current identity), who they hope to be (their aspirations), and what clothing styles communicate about those things--seems to motivate them to adopt particular styles.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Imitation</span> - Most simply pick a style that resonates and copy it--typically by buying those same items of clothing (or something as close as they can find that fits within their budgets). When the styles change, they have to start over.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Integration</span> - The fashion-savvy ones are able to analyze the underlying principles, to internalize what "works together" and what doesn't, and to mix and match things well enough that they are able to integrate the style into their lives. They aren't limited by particular items of clothing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Innovation</span> - A select few of those teens become the trend-setters--those who recognize new possibilities and experiment with them, but without fully abandoning the current styles. And then there are those who can improvise--the teens who can walk into a thrift store and walk out looking like they just stepped off of a fashion runway.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Improvisation</span> - The most skilled become the designers who destroy parts of the existing style, combine it with elements from other trends, and ultimately transform it. The ability to improvise seems to be one true measure of deep expertise, but what makes the shift from innovation to improvisation possible?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Transformation</span> </span>- Grenville Kleiser wrote: "Nothing touches the soul but leaves its impress, and thus, little by little, we are fashioned into the image of all we have seen and heard, known and meditated; and if we learn to live with all that is fairest and purest and best, the love of it all will, in the end, become our very life."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Personal Application - </span></span>But how do we know the degree to which the things that touch us are changing us, and how might we measure their impact? One way would be to look for traces of them among the physical artifacts that surround us. Did we bother trying to "capture" them (digitally, in a journal entry, or as a souvenir)? If so, did the "captured" experience make it into our living rooms, onto our walls, into our journals, or onto our playlists?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Self-examination: </span> </span>A closer examination might require us to ask questions like, "Has my participation in the experience or my interaction with the person shifted my perspective in any way? Do I use words or expressions frequently associated with the experience or used by the person when I speak? Have I adopted tools or materials from the person or experience into my daily work? Do I approach problems in the way s/he does? Do I think or act differently for having had the experience or for having known the person? These questions seem to apply equally well to professionalism, scholarship, friendship, or discipleship.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-61593267681868265422009-08-26T21:38:00.009-06:002009-08-26T22:42:28.146-06:00A Schizophrenic Scholar<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1cj6_6Suz-lkYwhDT3ZtS6PpPBe1Pp-jB08E7u3iYsAqz21YfGPBAC1j5qqmhQJ24Cmh8SRwJ73GidLPC5xNk-m52mv1fSYcMSl65T4gLADOuxNop-JSofYyv85ZAItMawJSI9w/s1600-h/AlienCarrotRev.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 172px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1cj6_6Suz-lkYwhDT3ZtS6PpPBe1Pp-jB08E7u3iYsAqz21YfGPBAC1j5qqmhQJ24Cmh8SRwJ73GidLPC5xNk-m52mv1fSYcMSl65T4gLADOuxNop-JSofYyv85ZAItMawJSI9w/s320/AlienCarrotRev.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374493743285028642" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Student: </span> How can I prepare to be successful in graduate school?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Me: </span> I gave the student a list of things to try, including: Write daily. A blog is a great way to systematically capture your thinking.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Student:</span> I started the blog, but I wouldn't recommend reading it yet as it doesn't seem too professional.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Me: </span> Do NOT (I repeat, DO NOT) worry about trying to make it look or sound professional. That is about the fastest way I know to give yourself writer's block (and to ruin most of the perfectly good thoughts you would be likely to have). Instead, think of it as an informal journal--a place where you jot down your ponderings, your musings, your half-formed thoughts about the things you are reading and experiencing. <snip> The rawness of the thoughts is part of what will make it powerful and valuable to you as a source of inspiration for your scholarly work in the future.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Meta-me:</span> I really ought to take my own advice.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Meta-me 2:</span> But my raw thoughts are often random! But aesthetics and design matter! But I'm just a teacher, not a scholar! But now that I have a Ph.D., people will expect more of me! But I'm a perfectionist!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Meta-me: </span>So THAT'S why you don't post more than about once a month!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Meta-me 2: </span>But it won't matter anyway!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Meta-me: </span>And what if it does? You'll never know as long as you leave the rest <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lFXy5bIiSA">Unwritten</a>.<br /><br />************************************************************************************<br /><br />I am SO irritated with SONY for disabling embedding of their videos!<br /></snip><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-22417773880468416062009-07-26T23:58:00.012-06:002009-07-27T00:30:36.128-06:00A Shadow Story<span style="font-style: italic;">Have you ever thought about the stories that are hidden? You know, the ones that whisper from deep within the shadows of the books that have already been written? What follows is one such story—two “chapters” long, and stitched together from three different texts. Each paragraph addresses one or more issues I’ve been considering over the last few months in relation to my own life, and offers a nugget of insight worth pondering.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span><br /></div><br />"Mysteries, she realized, had their own laws. No matter how marvelous they appeared to common folk, they still followed their own natural order. As a hound couldn't fly nor an apple tree blossom with roses, so those of the green had their own strictures that they must observe" (de Lindt, 1993, p. 88).<br /><br />“First, look at people and try to find the truth within them. You need to understand people, really understand them, if you’re going to be a hero . . . . Second, beware of things that shine and glitter and make promises, especially promises that play on your weaknesses . . . . Third, you have to have a strong imagination” (Bode, 2007, p. 43).<br /><br />"But knowing took the sight, to see beyond the world that is . . . and practical as housey-folk were, they believed only what they could hold and weigh . . ." (de Lindt, 1993, p. 92).<br /><br />" . . . a good thing, to be sure, but a place of limited joys" (Dunkle, 2008, p. 3).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">II</span><br /></div><br />"The witch wanted him to feel again, but feeling encompassed remembering, and remembering only hurt. What use was the gift of the green if all it brought was pain?" (de Lindt, 1993, p. 136).<br /><br />"We all carry the dark places inside us . . . ." "'I'm not . . .' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never held unkind thoughts? The stranger's observation was valid. No one was innocent of darkness" (de Lindt, 1993, p. 85).<br /><br />"She turned, not sure she could bear another of his sorrows. He might be able to forget them, but she could not. They were a part of her now. She took them willingly--for that was part of a poet's task--regretting only that in taking them, she did not lessen his burden" (de Lindt, 1993, p. 98).<br /><br />"So Angharad sang to him before she left, a song of the loneliness that wisdom can sometimes bring--when the student won't listen, when the form is bound to the earth by its roots and only the mind ranges free" (de Lindt, 1993, p. 54).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">References</span><br /></div><br />Bode, N.E. (2007). The slippery map. NY: HarperCollins Publishers.<br /><br />de Lindt, Charles. (1993). Into the green. NY: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.<br /><br />Dunkle, Clare. (2008). The sky inside. NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.<p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-6481598387203274072009-06-07T22:25:00.016-06:002009-06-07T23:40:53.345-06:00The Freedom to Fly<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span>I attended the <a href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ewwwial/">International Association of Language Learning Technology Conference (IALLT) </a>in Atlanta, Georgia last week. (For a synopsis of session content, <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23iallt09">view the tweets</a>.) The experience of spending time in Georgia provided me with a great deal of clarity about many paradoxes in my life, leaving a residue of overflowing gratitude for what is present in my life, in spite of unfulfilled desires. It is so easy to take life for granted and to misunderstand our place in it.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJC5eTS_fWkLTOR8Vbueo8hLpgFW70Va_TLmuRfBnipGAKS78hGzuVSZbnwLr1jSPOaaIvQV42V5r4WG2AtGa7wFLNXmxF3Mqd5RZ9WrjwyCa-HyYFFeBrf9XQBLtrU-f0Uzpbbw/s1600-h/Park+City+041.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJC5eTS_fWkLTOR8Vbueo8hLpgFW70Va_TLmuRfBnipGAKS78hGzuVSZbnwLr1jSPOaaIvQV42V5r4WG2AtGa7wFLNXmxF3Mqd5RZ9WrjwyCa-HyYFFeBrf9XQBLtrU-f0Uzpbbw/s320/Park+City+041.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344813372957487730" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />When my life feels like this<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Entrance to <a href="http://www.gsu.edu/housing/University_Commons_Information.html">Georgia State University Dorms</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Q2Ww84HJkuroLnwRbeZNw4dbvigJ1XxLU81UrShZ2EivDZuaUOEyPA0-QdTW60s6BUdYNIQmKjml7B7ZHsO13cKknH2j-GkqTCLhqWvWbyJLBe5KVgZXHP_4FGnIMo7gzpeY3A/s1600-h/Park+City+002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Q2Ww84HJkuroLnwRbeZNw4dbvigJ1XxLU81UrShZ2EivDZuaUOEyPA0-QdTW60s6BUdYNIQmKjml7B7ZHsO13cKknH2j-GkqTCLhqWvWbyJLBe5KVgZXHP_4FGnIMo7gzpeY3A/s320/Park+City+002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344812344176463874" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And the point of each step<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.stonemountainpark.com/">Stone Mountain, Georgia</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtw2biT393u6GeSIVFhPFzXmYYk8N6DsXJCRmROeCTWjyYTK2UeN6_Iji9uYFcCYs2rwpGZtC1mHeUgydPJ7bS65cZGIjgQ7BcJds85hdPXGkpLnwLp8XNwJhmXzRndLE4Ar3Dug/s1600-h/Park+City+023.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtw2biT393u6GeSIVFhPFzXmYYk8N6DsXJCRmROeCTWjyYTK2UeN6_Iji9uYFcCYs2rwpGZtC1mHeUgydPJ7bS65cZGIjgQ7BcJds85hdPXGkpLnwLp8XNwJhmXzRndLE4Ar3Dug/s320/Park+City+023.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344817462383870738" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Is invisible to the eye<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cable Car Ride, Stone Mountain, Georgia<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPtSlRuMBwyj9nSxKRS5XsAfenDuw9VhdGf1FOMIS8ULcB0AGAg-eT0Y8Hk2SKtblruREaCwZkTWqSEYB72QL9X-eSgLSzBPQpgH9ZcM3b8XEPExTfmkzJQUuGjizHgxJXUYAS-g/s1600-h/Park+City+018.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPtSlRuMBwyj9nSxKRS5XsAfenDuw9VhdGf1FOMIS8ULcB0AGAg-eT0Y8Hk2SKtblruREaCwZkTWqSEYB72QL9X-eSgLSzBPQpgH9ZcM3b8XEPExTfmkzJQUuGjizHgxJXUYAS-g/s320/Park+City+018.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344817091269241154" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The joy in the journey is easily missed<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Kite Flyer Atop Stone Mountain, Georgia<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYBJbhDBE5iTkWUvfHyk5TthEEN4WApUGhwHid2UcH5O0SCcQqogqUTT84zY5BUK64ENI_sJZxOt5hahyphenhyphen8X2wa0m4g99Ov55YdOxNv2VUN0bmsN0-kSTDSnjRd8Jkd9zq9VkaQQ/s1600-h/Park+City+022.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYBJbhDBE5iTkWUvfHyk5TthEEN4WApUGhwHid2UcH5O0SCcQqogqUTT84zY5BUK64ENI_sJZxOt5hahyphenhyphen8X2wa0m4g99Ov55YdOxNv2VUN0bmsN0-kSTDSnjRd8Jkd9zq9VkaQQ/s320/Park+City+022.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344812783176548690" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />As I long for the freedom and strength to fly<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Bird near Stone Mountain, Georgia<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHRt286Ok6LUc0hrt-whsUbx4aIqKuK9HQwJ_joSgpg_vm5f3QiIlBReiGfOwJR7KFka6VsXhytPc9XueEYxvsCoYUkOmKL34uqWHhqSTS9ReH-31mhyJZAVRFMd3Hfh-9jGlXA/s1600-h/Park+City+020.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHRt286Ok6LUc0hrt-whsUbx4aIqKuK9HQwJ_joSgpg_vm5f3QiIlBReiGfOwJR7KFka6VsXhytPc9XueEYxvsCoYUkOmKL34uqWHhqSTS9ReH-31mhyJZAVRFMd3Hfh-9jGlXA/s320/Park+City+020.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344813032180887874" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So I ponder as I stop for a rest<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Stone Mountain, Georgia<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6yXou9TlR-g_Mn6-DCnY_lF7gKQ67GvTjoXoNTkFw-1Yln272huQRrgCxhRKeWYO7Yc-TDldgv9D2FRhCypQ5K2nOPwWo0oHkOvT9Zb1qkPbgdh2sBbhyphenhyphenKLylbhzxhyII_rz7xA/s1600-h/Park+City+028.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6yXou9TlR-g_Mn6-DCnY_lF7gKQ67GvTjoXoNTkFw-1Yln272huQRrgCxhRKeWYO7Yc-TDldgv9D2FRhCypQ5K2nOPwWo0oHkOvT9Zb1qkPbgdh2sBbhyphenhyphenKLylbhzxhyII_rz7xA/s320/Park+City+028.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344818809168854450" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Those who came before<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ngeorgia.com/ang/Stone_Mountain_Carving">Granite Carving, Stone Mountain, Georgia</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIUJyhJt-yqtmGhQn_qMPJ50-LQvVw8UoGg9Hk0csMtY-R8wE-PVG9EkQC-ZrFAPKxCSOXW855O07H2bfz81T3Yc6qWjuqXU-WF3TbFfZQL69OlpYjDoY5HCw3vua_B9mBwwvDWQ/s1600-h/Park+City+013.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIUJyhJt-yqtmGhQn_qMPJ50-LQvVw8UoGg9Hk0csMtY-R8wE-PVG9EkQC-ZrFAPKxCSOXW855O07H2bfz81T3Yc6qWjuqXU-WF3TbFfZQL69OlpYjDoY5HCw3vua_B9mBwwvDWQ/s320/Park+City+013.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344812571275426610" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And pray for the light to see how best<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Atlanta, Georgia From the Top of Stone Mountain<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJnQgJdzAZWLhyphenhyphenYtU4N6W1LXzAf8dBIEl3FKxI8BEa3Mq4MkAGbI8vBzhb4YkacBmb64M_civ4dz67otoEOI3WUWu4HZzmD4AtqxXMBT0nwtfo9k_TR5WakinnToTELG47au1RA/s1600-h/Park+City+007.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJnQgJdzAZWLhyphenhyphenYtU4N6W1LXzAf8dBIEl3FKxI8BEa3Mq4MkAGbI8vBzhb4YkacBmb64M_civ4dz67otoEOI3WUWu4HZzmD4AtqxXMBT0nwtfo9k_TR5WakinnToTELG47au1RA/s320/Park+City+007.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344818200295471538" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />To help those around me soar.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Birds float on the air currents at Stone Mountain<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-60496163255494961822009-04-19T23:05:00.006-06:002009-04-19T23:54:41.785-06:00The Diversification of Social InvestmentsDuring tax time, one can't help but think about finances. However, I find the topic a rather tedious one. It comes as no surprise, then, that I found my mind wandering away from the numbers and into other realms such as social capital--specifically, investments of a social nature. If you were asked to describe your cadre of friends and acquaintances in terms of an investment portfolio, what would you say?<br /><br />Have you invested your resources into a series of "pre-set mixes"--default groupings determined primarily as a matter of convenience, but somewhat aligned with your prevailing perspective on social investment? After all, it is easy to add the people who occupy the places in which you spend the most time (church members, colleagues from work, neighbors, etc.) to your portfolio of acquaintances. Then again, perhaps you make your social investments based on the degree to which you can comfortably and easily slip into a pre-defined role? The adult world isn't all that different from high school in this regard. There is always some person or organization looking for someone to be their all-star athlete, cheerleader, coach, clown, teacher, techie, etc.<br /><br />Perhaps you prefer to have a bit more control over your social portfolio, so although you avoid the pre-set mixes, you play it safe--investing in very stable, low-risk, but also low-yield friendships? On the other hand, maybe short-term, high-yield relationships constitute the majority of your social portfolio? This strategy can be risky, and requires constant vigilance and adjustment.<br /><br />I have also been thinking about the recent credit crisis, market crashes, and ensuing recessions. It seems to me that these events also offer lessons about social relationships. For example, one-sided friendships are not generally sustainable when crisis hits. One cannot live on social credit (i.e., indebtedness) in the long term any more than one can indefinitely live on financial credit. Putting all one's eggs in the same social basket carries its own set of risks and potential consequences. It not only makes us vulnerable when a crisis, emergency, or natural disaster shakes the social group, but also limits our access to information, new perspectives, and ultimately, to growth. And how is a person to recover who has been burned when a "company" in which they have invested everything fails and there is no bailout available to salvage the relationship? And on a larger scale, what about social recession? What happens when people stop participating in the social economy, when they are afraid to invest in the larger social economy, or when they withdraw their social resources from society?<br /><br />My own musings have led me to the conclusion that it may be time to diversify my social portfolio. This has some pretty interesting implications--in terms of how to identify potentially worthwhile investments, how much to risk, and the degree to which it is possible to protect against catastrophic loss.<br /><br />Thoughts?<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-17179498967754041132009-04-03T22:25:00.000-06:002009-04-19T23:56:41.315-06:00Graveside Games<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UESnEQKeSCoAyoylH6bhex3CoEOaREioEDJP3RwCagojSlMRAbCSnQmry1odjTZ0huGBZqFCbBAb6PbkN2P8mzJ6wbdPdYHJaoXACoO3080p5F4sSKv1EqzHyjDcFkXVNPV2DQ/s1600-h/TRescuesWorms.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UESnEQKeSCoAyoylH6bhex3CoEOaREioEDJP3RwCagojSlMRAbCSnQmry1odjTZ0huGBZqFCbBAb6PbkN2P8mzJ6wbdPdYHJaoXACoO3080p5F4sSKv1EqzHyjDcFkXVNPV2DQ/s320/TRescuesWorms.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326626241203474258" border="0" /></a><br />Death--seldom convenient,<br />Still, there's life yet to live<br />Knowing this<br />Children wandered away<br /><br />From the grief to the graves<br />Where they searched for and saved<br />49 drowning worms that day.<br /><br />Had Grandma been there<br />She would have agreed<br />The game that they played was worthwhile<br /><br />For she never liked tears<br />And throughout all her years<br />God's creations made her smile.<br /><br />Cherice Montgomery, 4-19-2009<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-41858912186971647462009-03-22T08:23:00.000-06:002009-03-22T22:28:45.767-06:00Cherice on "The Edge"<img style="visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bHQ9MTIzNzc4MjE5MTkzNyZwdD*xMjM3NzgyMjIxOTM3JnA9MjA2NDIxJmQ9YjQwODkyMCZuPWJsb2dnZXImZz*yJnQ9Jm89NDc2ZGY*NjZlNGM5NGQ3MjgzNDljMmM5ODkxYzRmYTM=.gif" width="0" border="0" height="0" /><object width="480" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=408920"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=408920" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="480" height="360"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-20727251549036520632009-02-22T22:59:00.005-07:002009-02-22T23:53:53.187-07:0025 Random Things<span style="font-style: italic;">Well, I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with my blog these days, so perhaps this will serve as penance (and will kill 2 birds with one stone--my blog and Facebook).</span><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">1) I have always loved my name, which comes from the song <i style="">My Cherie Amour.</i> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">2) I wanted an easy-bake oven when I was little . . . cooking a cake with a light bulb—so ingenious!<span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">3) I am amazed and grateful that my parents let me spend 2 weeks as an exchange student in Mexico even though I was only 12, had taken just one semester of Spanish, and couldn’t conjugate a verb yet.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">4) I can type (in English) almost as fast as most people talk.</p><p class="MsoNormal">5) I know from personal experience that it is possible to intend to go to Kansas City and end up in Nebraska instead.<span style=""> </span>I am hopelessly, perpetually lost—even (especially) in a parking lot.<br /><span style=""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">6) I enjoy thinking—especially on a meta-level (and yes, I suspect that has something to do with #5). </p><p class="MsoNormal">7) I have never been hospitalized, but hospitals fascinate me.<span style=""> </span>I used to want to be a nurse and even volunteered in the blood bank at the Red Cross for awhile, where I quickly determined I didn’t have the stomach to make medicine a career.<span style=""> </span>Still don’t, but I do enjoy helping other people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">8) I like to camp (in a tent), fish, and waterski (slalom), but I don’t like dirt.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">9) I tend to be somewhat reserved, very task-oriented, and rather perfectionistic, so people often express surprise when they discover that I can be extremely playful and witty.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">10) I have always had an affinity for the aesthetic and enjoy creative pursuits, but I am rather clumsy when it comes to translating what is in my head into something that others can understand.<span style=""> </span>One of the reasons I love technology so much is that it makes it possible for me to be more “myself”—by extending my reach and compensating for my lack of artistic skill.<span style=""> </span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">11) I care deeply, so things hurt deeply. </p><p class="MsoNormal">12) I put myself through college by working as a live-in housekeeper for an incredible woman.<span style=""> </span>My family jokes that it was a private finishing school, with lessons in domesticity, deportment, and social graces.<span style=""> I'm not sure how "finished" I was when I left, but I definitely learned a lot.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">13) I love talking about ideas—to be deeply immersed in a scintillating conversation for a long period of time with someone who can make quantum leaps from concept to concept is one of my greatest pleasures in life (although unfortunately a rather rare one). </p> <p class="MsoNormal">14) I worked as a customer service/security dispatcher for a mall--it is scary when you call 911 and the phone rings 9 times and no one answers!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">15) I really want to begin every reference section in my academic papers with the following epigraph from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems:<span style=""> </span>“How dreary to be somebody, how public like a frog, to tell your name the livelong day to an admiring bog.”<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">16) Some of my high school friends’ parents used to worry that I had an eating disorder because I have always been very thin, but I have just been blessed with a very high metabolism (a fact I never fully appreciated until I hit graduate school and gained 20 pounds).</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">17) I love to read and sometimes feel like I’m “Johnny #5”—on a constant quest for input.<span style=""> </span>I am generally full of questions, much to the chagrin of my friends.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">18) I absolutely LOVE to sing—especially where harmony is involved--<span style=""></span>but dropped out of choir in high school because I disliked the teacher. <span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">19) My </span>favorite time of the day is when the world shuts down, funneling my concentration into a single, focused beam. <span style=""></span><span style=""></span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">20) <span style=""></span>I loved my debate and drama classes in high school because they gave me permission to be myself.</p><p class="MsoNormal">21) Presently, one of the great ironies of my life is that I love to write, but academic writing currently makes me physically ill.</p><p class="MsoNormal">22) Spiritual things have always been important to me, but are also an ongoing source of great personal struggle.<span style=""> </span>My understanding of such things has come at a very high price. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">23) Teaching is truly one of my greatest passions and my deepest joys.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">24) The mentors who have been most influential in my life taught me simply by being themselves.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">25) The things I like best about myself are also the things that most other people don’t understand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-34219061350241058042009-02-22T00:26:00.005-07:002009-02-22T22:24:20.832-07:00The Understatement of the Year<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Wnpec4i8-uN46Fe6v9UUAO9KKcharjsU35YBs_rTLQ3Vewei8XL4m4weaASJ2OVc50WZksNpRTvZ_44k15vfSfckR4RvRaIqhHIwu3ay0dhDUJIRtpZRUdYkUZGilamySSJMpw/s1600-h/KeyboardCutout.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Wnpec4i8-uN46Fe6v9UUAO9KKcharjsU35YBs_rTLQ3Vewei8XL4m4weaASJ2OVc50WZksNpRTvZ_44k15vfSfckR4RvRaIqhHIwu3ay0dhDUJIRtpZRUdYkUZGilamySSJMpw/s320/KeyboardCutout.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305859238072460370" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"Students who are living and learning with technologies that generate dynamic forms of content may find the current formalism and structure of scholarship and research to be static and “dead” as a way of collecting, analyzing and sharing results" (Johnson, Levine, & Smith, 2009).</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">References</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Johnson, L., Levine, A., & Smith, R. (2009). <a href="http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2009-Horizon-Report.pdf">The 2009 Horizon Report</a>. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved February 22, 2009, from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2009-Horizon-Report.pdf<br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-52852584980504149012009-01-31T22:33:00.000-07:002009-02-01T23:14:58.559-07:00Random Ruminations<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1e9A1CaFeadyE0BfkZ12V7t7pnZVLrzEyNvpaW9QdEXxiQ3zpAK4WjyCjSipFbTQq669zcJaFEvoTBH4OuSlo9TT3eEPnUf5AYoU-LsGucMdWv-cuslvnphEPdm0XnoNJTF9SJg/s1600-h/GraffitiWriter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1e9A1CaFeadyE0BfkZ12V7t7pnZVLrzEyNvpaW9QdEXxiQ3zpAK4WjyCjSipFbTQq669zcJaFEvoTBH4OuSlo9TT3eEPnUf5AYoU-LsGucMdWv-cuslvnphEPdm0XnoNJTF9SJg/s320/GraffitiWriter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298079111561090194" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"Her restlessness was not easily appeased. . . . Everywhere she turned there was a blinding sameness. She could no longer distinguish one moment of her life from another, and the events of each day were forgotten as soon as they had passed" (Graham, 2001, p. 99).</span><br /><br />In transition? Clearly. But transition to what? While waiting, I've polished off a number of books, but so far, the nuggets I've encountered in them haven't coalesced into a particularly coherent set of understandings. However, it occurs to me that many may prefer the raw data without the commentary anyhow. Sometimes it is safer that way too. ;-) So, think of what follows as random graffiti that various authors have spray-painted on the walls of my mind. As is the case with graffiti from time to time, at least some of these quotes have artistic qualities that extend beyond the functional purposes they were intended to serve within the context of the books in which they appeared.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"All educational growth is loss ... teachers in higher education are pressured to construe their work in oppositional rather than relational terms, pitting teacher against student, separating knowledge and identity, and describing the world in black and white terms" (Stengel, 1998).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">"Living matter and clarity are opposites--they run away from one another" (Gilder, 2008, p. 100).</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"John had always been drawn to the invisible: more specifically, the invisible connections between things. As a child he had puzzled over the phenomena ordinary men take for granted in modern life: the connection between a flick of a switch and the sudden appearance of light, or sound, or image. He tore things apart--looking for the connections. But his interest went beyond the engineer's obsession with mechanical cause and effect, with deconstructing and reconstructing physical reality: he searched for things that would leave him awestruck, things residing in mystery and obscurity. Invisible connections" (Graham, 2001, p. 106).</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"Co-existence is not the same as communication or connection" (Montgomery, 2009).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"When two particles interact with each other, they exchange energy and/or momentum" (K.C. Cole in Graham, 2001, p. 98).</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"It is a gift, you know, to see and to be moved" (Graham, 2001, p. 14).</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"Schrodinger nodded . . . 'And matter is like light,' he said, 'and it diffracts'" (Gilder, 2008, p. 89).</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"Everything . . . starts with a fall" (Guedj, 2000, p. 17).</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"I'm in a constant state of beta...perpetually reinventing myself..." (Adam Schokora)</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">References</span><br /></div><br />Fleischman, Paul. (2001). Seek. Chicago: Cricket Books.<br /><br />Gilder, Louisa. (2008). The age of entanglement: When quantum physics was reborn. NY: Alfred A. Knopf.<br /><br />Graham, Janice. (2001). Sarah's window. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons.<br /><br />Guedj, Denis. (2000). The parrot's theorem. NY: Thomas Dunne Books.<br /><br />Montgomery, Cherice. (2009, January 11). A random thought.<br /><br />Schokora, Adam. (2008). 56minus1::<br /><br />Stengel, Barbara S. (1998, Sept. 10). Review of Burbules, Nicholas C. and Hansen, David T. (Eds.). (1997). Teaching and its Predicaments. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. EdRev. Retrieved February 1, 2009, from http://edrev.asu.edu/reviews/rev37.htm<<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13581084.post-37571154332762653532009-01-04T20:23:00.000-07:002009-01-04T22:23:08.421-07:00Practices Makes . . . Daffodils?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdpnBpF1mMB-927wB75rRKQks4T_5Iy3tf2UiGDOtJoBThekdJqFbeWBQAo6YLD-qXI0s8gfwKGAmdUwoa71EG9XZMpiIAhYGOeZ-WqT3BMhZnQjH4ginT2mU-GqDF6fmpRo_3GQ/s1600-h/Creativity.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdpnBpF1mMB-927wB75rRKQks4T_5Iy3tf2UiGDOtJoBThekdJqFbeWBQAo6YLD-qXI0s8gfwKGAmdUwoa71EG9XZMpiIAhYGOeZ-WqT3BMhZnQjH4ginT2mU-GqDF6fmpRo_3GQ/s320/Creativity.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287671694932242242" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"On this Sunday afternoon I keep playing the notes anyway, running through every piece. Because that's important too, to have each note of each score burned into my mind and my fingers. The physical part of the performance needs to feel as natural as pouring water from a pitcher. </span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Still, with just two days to go, I should be feeling actual music. It should feel real. The composer's ideas ought to be burning the paint off my practice room walls. The emotions should be vaporizing the muscles and the violin and the fingers and the bow, until there's nothing left but pure thought. Because that's what a true performance is, and nothing less will do" (Clements, 2006, p. 100).<br /><br /></span><span>As I prepare my mind for the new semester on this Sunday evening, the fact that I have not yet finished the revisions on my dissertation weighs heavily upon me. It seems that after having written 10 chapters (586 pages), "I should be feeling actual music. It should feel real." My ideas ought to be burning SOMETHING up! However, instead of "pure thought" I currently have a muddy, slushy mess that isn't that much different from the winter roads outside. And, just as snow loses its appeal after one has been entrapped by it for several months, I have a terrible case of cabin fever with respect to these ideas. I am SO ready for Spring in every sense of the word! I can only hope that as it draws nearer, the frozen extremities of my mind will also begin to thaw, nurturing mental crocuses and daffodils that will assure me that this wretched winter will not last forever.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">References</span><br /><br />Clements, Andrew. (2006). <span style="font-style: italic;">Things hoped for.</span> NY: Philomel Books.<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherice's Pieces * 2013 * http://chericespieces.blogspot.com/atom.xml</div>Chericehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11374407072185351026noreply@blogger.com5