Monday, September 28, 2009
Homework
Kids generally agree that a lot of homework is bogus. I personally had a hard time getting motivated to do math homework, and I always felt that the number of problems assigned was really unnecessary. If I don't know how to multiply two-digit numbers within the first ten homework problems, doing another thirty isn't going to help me; and if I can show in the first ten that I know what I'm doing, then why should I have to do another thirty.
People don't usually think of doing homework as a life skill. Washing dishes, for example, is a chore with a pretty obvious practical application. What does homework teach? I think it teaches a person how to assign value to an otherwise valueless task, in order to reap a not-so-tangible, not-so-immediate reward.
I'm thinking of this because I've noticed that some of my clients have trouble doing the homework I give them. And in the context of my work, this really creates problems for people -- say, when someone forgets to bring in crucial documentation, or doesn't complete paperwork, or fails to make timely payments on their court-ordered obligations. These problems don't become tangible until the client is dodging a warrant or sitting in jail, wondering how this all went so suddenly wrong.
People don't usually think of doing homework as a life skill. Washing dishes, for example, is a chore with a pretty obvious practical application. What does homework teach? I think it teaches a person how to assign value to an otherwise valueless task, in order to reap a not-so-tangible, not-so-immediate reward.
I'm thinking of this because I've noticed that some of my clients have trouble doing the homework I give them. And in the context of my work, this really creates problems for people -- say, when someone forgets to bring in crucial documentation, or doesn't complete paperwork, or fails to make timely payments on their court-ordered obligations. These problems don't become tangible until the client is dodging a warrant or sitting in jail, wondering how this all went so suddenly wrong.
Monday, September 7, 2009
And anything you say can and will be used against you!
I had a conversation with my mother a few days ago about my new job, and how one of the difficult things about it that I wasn't really anticipating is that it's really hard to talk about work. For the most part, I can't say much to the friends who would really appreciate it; and of the friends I can talk to, they mostly don't get it. The difficulty of working in a very small practice is that I have fewer coworkers to safely commiserate with -- but at least I have a few!
So that's a roundabout way of saying, this is partly why I haven't been writing much the past however long. Most of my brain is taken up by things that I can't talk about, and I find myself struggling to find safe ground for writing that's also interesting. If I were cooking more, I could talk about food. If I were going out more, I could talk about hilarious misadventures. But mostly, I go to work, then go home and do the couch potato thing.
This weekend I went to a coworker's wedding, in a more rural small-towny area about 2 hours northeast. The drive was lovely, with autumn colors starting to pop out here and there, and the weather was just about perfect. The wedding itself was completely lovely -- all the hard work they put in really paid off. And the dessert bar (in lieu of one big traditional cake) was killer.
This morning, David and I went with some friends to La Brioche for breakfast. I have mixed feelings about that place. Mostly, it's excellent. But sometimes they do things more pretty than good. Like their tea service: when you order tea, you get an individual full-size antique-y teapot filled with hot water, a cup and saucer, and a single tea bag containing fair-trade organic tea. While this makes for a charming arrangement, (1) the water isn't hot enough if it's been sitting around in a teapot waiting to be brought to the table, (2) one tea bag isn't nearly enough for a 4-to-6 cup teapot, and (3) if I've already ordered my choice of tea, why don't they just prepare it for me? Why do I have to add the tea bag to the water? But it is a cute place, and the food is mostly excellent -- good enough that it's worth putting up with lousy tea.
So that's a roundabout way of saying, this is partly why I haven't been writing much the past however long. Most of my brain is taken up by things that I can't talk about, and I find myself struggling to find safe ground for writing that's also interesting. If I were cooking more, I could talk about food. If I were going out more, I could talk about hilarious misadventures. But mostly, I go to work, then go home and do the couch potato thing.
This weekend I went to a coworker's wedding, in a more rural small-towny area about 2 hours northeast. The drive was lovely, with autumn colors starting to pop out here and there, and the weather was just about perfect. The wedding itself was completely lovely -- all the hard work they put in really paid off. And the dessert bar (in lieu of one big traditional cake) was killer.
This morning, David and I went with some friends to La Brioche for breakfast. I have mixed feelings about that place. Mostly, it's excellent. But sometimes they do things more pretty than good. Like their tea service: when you order tea, you get an individual full-size antique-y teapot filled with hot water, a cup and saucer, and a single tea bag containing fair-trade organic tea. While this makes for a charming arrangement, (1) the water isn't hot enough if it's been sitting around in a teapot waiting to be brought to the table, (2) one tea bag isn't nearly enough for a 4-to-6 cup teapot, and (3) if I've already ordered my choice of tea, why don't they just prepare it for me? Why do I have to add the tea bag to the water? But it is a cute place, and the food is mostly excellent -- good enough that it's worth putting up with lousy tea.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
