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My dream of being a librarian

In my last two years of high school, I belonged to the library club.  This suited me fine.  I took my lunch to the back room, where we were usually several girls.  This small group, instead of a huge number of people in the school’s lunch room, suited me fine. In my senior year at high school, I got more responsibility for both running the library club and the library itself.

At the time, I decided I would like to become a librarian, which required a bachelor’s degree at university plus one specialized year.  So off to UBC to get my bachelor’s degree, eventually focusing on English and foreign languages (French, German and Italian).  In my fourth year at university, I was starting to get tired of going to school.  It was now my sixteenth year of school.  I had planned to take one more year to get my library degree, but then they changed the one year program to two years.  That I couldn’t take.  So I left UBC with a bachelor’s degree, but no library training.

Fast forward a lot of years.  I have moved to Norway and gotten two children.  I have become a teacher at a high school, but because my son has English as a mother language, and not a foreign language, he gets his mother as his English teacher.  We sit in the library at the elementary school.  Often he must just sit and work on lessons preferably without me hovering over him.  I start working with the books on the shelves, getting them in order, straightening them.  I don’t remember now how it happened, but after a bit I have been asked to look after the school library and it moves into a better, newly built room.  Now I not only am a teacher, but a “librarian” for a small elementary school library.

I have no special training, but the public library in our municipality trains me with their computer system and I start working in the main library part time.  In addition I look after the library in another elementary school, one day a week.  I am officially part of the library staff.

I find that I can take some of the library courses needed for library qualifications as part-time correspondence courses (yes, back in the days when everything was sent by post).  I started working on getting my qualifications, course by course.

Through the librarian at the high school I work with, I hear about a part-time library course for those who are already working in libraries.  I sign up and continue getting my qualifications.  I am enjoying working in several small libraries.  I pass my one-year course, but to get the next level of education I must take travel away from home for a year.  That I am not willing to do!

My dream of becoming a librarian, though it has come true, in a very small way, takes a turn at this point.  Having been a teacher for several years, I make more money being a teacher, than being a librarian.  My salary as a teacher is important for my family’s income, so I drop the idea of becoming a qualified librarian.  I continue working in two small elementary school libraries until my younger child finishes elementary school and then I quit that job.

A few years pass and the situation at my high school changes.  The school now has to buy the textbooks and lend them out to the students.  This is a reform that puts a lot of work on the librarian, and he is not willing to do the work.  My hearing disability is causing me to have problems with large classes, so the principal of my school suggests that as I have some library training and experience, I could take over the work with the textbooks and let the librarian continue with the other parts of the library work.  I agree.

The first few years are difficult.  Rebuilding the school takes away the library, which gets packed up into boxes.  The unused textbooks are put into a room in the cellar.  Though most of the work is at the beginning and end of the school year, there is some work to be done during the rest of the year.

Several years go by.  I get a system that sort of works.  Mostly I am down in the cellar in an environment that is not very good.  I think of it as working in a dungeon.  Eventually the library gets built, a lovely open, bright room and I get to work there too.  I have been given some other things to do, spending one day a week in the library and teaching only part time.

Then the librarian at the school retires and the job as librarian is advertised.  Shall I apply for it?  I think carefully through the issue and decide that I would rather be a teacher than a full-time librarian.  It has been fun to do library work part-time but I would not like to do it full-time.  Teaching is much more rewarding.

At home, we have amassed several thousand books over the years we have been in Norway.  Books in English for the children.  Textbooks for courses we have taken or given.  Fiction for relaxation.  Non-fiction to learn more about many subjects.  Chaos on the shelves.  So I buy a small computer program designed for home libraries, and the work starts at entering all the books we have in the system. This takes several years to complete, but it is nice to have a record on my computer of the books on our shelves.  To date we have 3 428 books in the program.

But times have changed. Most of our new reading material is digital, stored somewhere, and I am no longer in charge of the new acquisitions.  I have retired from the job as home librarian as well.

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Hello!

Welcome to my new blog site.  The old posts have been transferred here, so you can browse back over time as well.

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The Fun of Learning

Why should I learn new things at the age of 68?  Let me list the reasons:

  1. It’s fun.
  2. It’s challenging.
  3. It’s rewarding.
  4. It’s useful.

and then explain what I mean.

At the moment, my main learning opportunity is learning new languages.  For many years I have been brushing up my knowledge of French.  Growing up in an English-speaking part of Canada, French was an obligatory language everyone had to learn.  I enjoyed learning French, starting in Grade 8 and continued learning it all the way through high school.  I may not have been great at writing or speaking French, but I enjoyed the classes and got grades a bit above average.  I continued learning French in university, studying it for two more years.  At that point, I found I had reached my limits, partly because I was not particularly good at writing (not even in English), and so discontinued taking more French classes.

I never got to use French much as most of my traveling was done in English-speaking countries or, at least those who had to deal with tourists, spoke enough English for me to get by with English.

Back to university days.  Because I had been thinking of becoming a librarian, it was recommended that one have more than just French as a foreign language.  So in my second year at UBC, I started learning German.  I found that learning the language was fine and even made some new friends in my German classes, girls my age with German-speaking parents.  The German course I remember best was one about the history of German culture, particularly about art, music and architecture.  The course was in English, but I learned a lot of history that I found interesting.  At the time, I was a lover of classical music and I was able to put my favorite composers into a cultural time period and learn more of what was actually going on at the time.  (History had always seemed to be a list of battles, wars, kings and queens to be memorized up to that time and absolutely not interesting.)

In my last year of university, I was needing one more course and decided that taking an introductory course in another language would be easy, give me good grades and be fun.  So I chose Italian and enjoyed learning more about both the language and the culture. A one-year course doesn’t teach a lot, but I did get the good grades I wanted.  Little did I know how all this language learning would pay off later.

The years flew by and I never used these three foreign languages much at all.  Until 1980, when my husband and I made the decision to move to Norway. Now all my efforts at learning new languages in the past gave me great benefits when I had to start learning a fourth foreign language.  On our arrival in Norway, I was enrolled in a full-time weaving course, so I bought an English-Norwegian dictionary and worked on translating the textbooks in the evening.  In the daytime there were other students to listen to and to talk to.  Slowly I mastered another language other than English, certainly to a much better degree than I had ever mastered French, German or Italian.

After about two years, I could converse in and read Norwegian without getting exhausted.  One is never finished learning a language as vocabulary is constantly changing, interests change and new areas of information arise.  I continued to study in Norway, eventually had children and got a teaching job.  My languages from university days lay idle in my brain, stored away in some deep dark recess.

Then my husband came across “Memrise” and I started relearning French vocabulary. It wasn’t very satisfactory as it was just a list of vocabulary to memorize and the words were not used in context.  Then we discovered “Duolingo” and I was hooked. Since the 1st of January 2015 I have been active most days.  Sometimes I do a little.  Sometimes I do a lot.  I still enjoy learning languages though the next step will be to use my knowledge more.

What makes it fun for me?

I enjoy learning new things.  I like to read books where I can learn about what is happening in the world, or what new research is about.  I like to watch television programs that try to teach me about something that I don’t know a lot about.  Most of the time it is just putting two and two together, seeing if the sum is still four, or does it now make three or five.  One learns new things by adding on to the knowledge one has already.  I don’t necessarily want to learn about everything in the world, but in fields such as psychology and economics I enjoy finding new ways of looking at the world and putting old ideas together in new ways.

Why is it challenging?

Anything that one has to work with over time can pose a challenge, especially when new ideas can be hard to understand.  I am currently working on learning three languages, French, Italian and Portuguese, which have very similar vocabulary and grammar.  The challenge is not only understanding what I read, but also keeping the three languages separate.  Part of the challenge of these three languages are the accents that are put on letters that I am used to in English.  The accents give information about how a word is pronounced, but it can be confusing when è in Italian means “is” and the equivalent word in Portuguese is é.

What makes it rewarding for me?

We all enjoy accomplishing something that is challenging. I like the routine of working on lessons everyday.  When I actually understand something that a few months ago I had problems with, then I feel like I am getting somewhere. Duolingo also builds into its program rewards such as how many days in a row I have worked on Duolingo (now 383 days in a row), earn extra rewards (called lingots) for accomplishing a series of lessons.

Why is it useful?

Learning new things creates new synapses in the brain.  The more of these synapses we have, the easier the brain can deal with debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

I have also found that by learning Italian, words in English have more meaning.  For example, in music we have scales, which comes from the Italian word “scala” meaning a ladder.  The scales in English are a ladder up the notes on the piano.

Though at the moment, I am not traveling a lot, it can be useful to know other languages on the Internet and when reading novels.  Just recently I read a book about a young family in Rome for a year.  When the author used Italian phrases, I could understand what the phrases meant.

I will continue learning all of my life. It is fun, challenging, rewarding and useful.

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Thinking and how our brains work

In 1968 I took an introductory psychology course and felt that I got an idea of what the subject was all about.  I went on and studied other things and didn’t follow the developments happening there. Then in the last ten years, I found the field of psychology again and have had more time to read about what the new research has been telling us, including how we make decisions and how our brains work.  I have enjoyed being able to read the authors listed below and have widened my understanding of how human beings work.

I am a retired teacher and first took pedagogy in the mid 1980s.  In 2014, I took a short pedagogy course, designed for teaching mathematics, mostly at elementary or junior high levels.  What I enjoyed most, was reading about everything that was new in pedagogy.  I found out that quite a bit of research had been done in the previous ten years, and things had been discovered that were unknown when I took pedagogy in the 1980s. So this encouraged me to read more about psychology.

In the field of psychology, new methods of “seeing” how the brain works have been found.  A lot of research has been done and I’m finding it interesting to read about the results of this research.  I hope that new teachers will get the benefit of this new research, both in pedagogy and psychology, and be able to help children learn better.  I also hope that the research will continue, both in psychology and pedagogy as there is still a lot more that can be learned. One main reflection I have is that the more science finds out about how humans work, the more complex the systems become.

Here is a list of some of the books that I have read and, in my opinion, the key ideas in each book.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011 – Over many years, Kahnemann and Amos Tversky looked at how people made decisions.  They figured out that we think in two different ways.  We often use heuristics or habit to make quick decisions that require little thinking effort. We use this type of thinking when driving a car and to do things automatically. This way of thinking can often lead to errors, but it is still useful and saves us a lot of effort.  When learning new things, we think slowly, but this requires much more effort. For example, when learning to drive one has to think a lot about how to keep track of both what others are doing and what one is doing oneself with hands and feet.  In addition these two men realized that we most often will try to avoid a loss, rather than make a gain.  I recommend this book highly.

Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly:  Better Thinking, Better Decision, 2011 – Here is a list of the most common heuristics. Dobelli lists 99 of them and gives examples of how these biases mislead us. He also shows us how they are interrelated.  This book is quick to read and a good reminder of how we don’t always think correctly. He also tries to show us how to avoid getting caught in heuristic traps.

Gerd Gigerenzer, Risk Savvy:  How to Make Good Decisions, 2013 and Gut Feelings:  The Intelligence of the Unconscious, 2007 – I found this author very interesting to read.  Our gut feelings are how we use heuristics to make decisions more quickly, instead of reasoning through everything in detail. He also points out that checklists can be crucial in situations where it is easy to hop over a critical step. These two books will help you understand more about how we think, or don’t, and how to be better at making decisions.

Andrew Shtulman, Scienceblind:  Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World are So Often Wrong, 2017 – Shtulman has several examples of how people think wrongly about things that have been proven by science. We develop a view of the world as children and even well-educated people will have the wrong view of the world as adults. It can be very difficult for people to change the way they learned to see the world as children.  It also explains why it can be so hard to convince others of things one feels sure that science has proved. I found this book very interesting to read and made me think about my own views of the way the world works.

Carol S. Dweck, Mindset, How You Can Fulfil Your Potential, 2006 – I found this author difficult to read as she used the word “I” a bit too much.  However, her main idea is important.  The way we think about our abilities, whether they are set for life or whether we have the potential to grow, in other words, our mindset, influences how well we get on in life.  Having a growth mindset allows a person to learn new things and take on new challenges.

Cordelia Fine, A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives, 2005, David Eagleman, Incognito:  The Secret Lives of the Brain, 2011 and Dean Burnett, The Idiot Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head is Really Up To, 2016 – These three books show how the brain seems to work, independent of the person that is housing it.  It can be a bit disturbing to find out that you aren’t really in charge of what the brain does.  But I think it is important to realize what our brain is doing for us, both the things we expect it to do, such as keep our heart beating and our lungs breathing, and also making decisions on what we see from the impulses that come in through our eyes.

There are a lot more books available on these topics, but these are the ones that I have read recently and found worthwhile reading.  I think it is useful for us to be more aware of how we think, how we make our decisions and perhaps how we can use our knowledge to do better in our lives and help others.

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Living in a welfare state

Meik Wiking lives in Denmark, a country that is often rated with the happiest people.  In his book, The Little Book of Hygge, he tries to give examples of how the Danes keep themselves happy.  He mentions, but doesn’t go into, how living in a welfare state makes people happy.

“Interestingly, there is wide support for the welfare state.  The support stems from an awareness of the fact that the welfare model turns our collective wealth into well-being.  We are not paying taxes, we are investing in our society.  We are purchasing quality of life.  The key to understanding the high levels of well-being in Denmark is the welfare model’s ability to reduce risk, uncertainty and anxiety among its citizens and to prevent extreme unhappiness.” (Meik Wiking, The Little Book of Hygge, Penguin 2016, p. 13)

This small comment in a book made me pursue these thoughts. Over the years I have read many books and watched many talks that indicate that living in a more equal society is good for everyone.

Helen Pearson gave a talk at TED2017 where she discusses how to bring up children. “I came across a little secret that we have in Britain. It’s helped me become more confident about how I bring up my own children, and it’s revealed a lot about how we as a society can help all children.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_pearson_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_human_development/transcript)

What is the secret that she is talking about? Choose your parents very carefully; don’t be born into a poor or struggling family.  But of course, we don’t actually choose our parents, so what can be done about this? She goes on to discuss  how parental interaction with their children (listening to them, reading to them, doing things with them) influences whether the children do well when they are grown up.  But what about children who are unlucky and grow up in home that is not supportive?  Why should a child suffer because they weren’t able to choose the right parents?

We all have basic human needs that need to be satisfied, which include food, housing, clothing and social relationships. Most people in Europe and North America can no longer grow enough food to feed themselves and their family. This means that people must buy their food. The same goes for clothing and housing.

But where does the money come from?  Many people have jobs that give them enough income to cover their needs and a lot more.  But what about those who can’t work, for whatever reason?  I was just reading a book about raising children and  the author commented that children will do as well as they can and that they prefer to do well. I would also like to propose that people want to have a job and support themselves, if they can find a job that suits them.

Not everyone is born with the same advantages, as Helen Pearson tells us.  I know people who have been born with poor health and have had great problems holding down a full-time job, not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t have the stamina for a full-time job.  Some people are born handicapped, perhaps poor eye-sight, poor hearing or an inability to do intellectual work. People with manual jobs may get poor health early in life.  These are the people that a welfare state can help.

In economic terms, there have been studies done that show that if everyone gets a basic income, those who can work, will work.  This basic income can provide a buffer, so that it is easier to change jobs, take time off work to have children, to look after oneself and at least work part-time.  Some people need a helping hand over a longer period of time, others for only a short time.

What happens to the money that the state gives to those who receive pensions, basic income or temporary support?  People spend the money.  The money gets recycled into the national economic system.  Some of the money goes to buying goods such as food and clothing.  Some of the money will go to renting housing or buying one’s own place.  Much of the money gets recycled via various types of taxes so that some of the money ends up back in the government’s coffers.

What are the benefits of the welfare state?  The main benefit is that there is a safety net available for everyone.  If something goes wrong, you won’t starve to death.  If you lose your job, you can get unemployment income while you look for a new job.  If you get sick, your medical bills are paid.  If you have a child that has a disability and needs full-time care at home, you will get a basic income so that one parent can be at home with the child.  Education is free so that children from disadvantaged homes can also get an education that suits them, whether it is a trade education or an academic education. These are just a few examples.

In their book, The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, (Penguin 2010), Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett document that the costs of inequality in a country include poorer mental health, higher drug use, lower life expectancy, more obesity, teenage births, more violence and lower social mobility. Countries that are welfare states are more equal.  They even out these inequalities and everyone has a better life.  One only has to look at the news about shootings at schools in the USA to realize that the inequality there is hurting everyone.

I live in Norway, which like Denmark, is a welfare state.  I pay my taxes willingly, knowing that when I need to get help, help is there to be gotten.

 

 

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Digital environment

Most of us use smartphones and computers.  Many use e-book readers or digital tablets.  I have a smartphone for step-counting, taking pictures, checking my email and sending text messages.  I have en e-book reader that I use most days.  I also use a computer, probably several hours a day.

One of the things these digital devices do is influence how much time we spend in front of a screen.  Is this good for us, or have we gone too far in our lives and become addicts? For many, using smartphones and computers are part of their working life; for others, for example those using Facebook, Instagram or games, too much time is spent in front of a screen to the extent that they are not able to connect with people face to face. Now that I am retired, I no longer use a computer nearly as much during the daytime, but I am using it for other tasks than I did while working, such as writing this blog.

I enjoyed reading Alan Alter’s book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked (Penguin Press, New York, 2017) where he describes behavioral addiction, a deep attachment to an experience that is harmful and difficult to do without (page 22).  There are many things that are difficult to do without, such as breathing, but addiction comes from something that harms us. In his book, Alter gives many examples of people with addictions to gaming, to exercise, to use of Facebook or Instagram and how it has become harmful for them. Reading this book helped me become more aware of how the digital environment influences my use of time each day.

Alter says that addiction is largely produced by environment and circumstance.  These new addictions don’t involve the ingestion of a substance but they produce the same effects because they are compelling and well-designed (page 12). Technology is neither morally good nor bad.  It is how it is used that determines if it is used wisely or not.  Large corporations use many techniques to get us hooked, or addicted, so that they can make large sums of money.

According to Alter, behavioral addiction consists of six ingredients (page 15):

  • compelling goals that are just beyond reach
  • irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback
  • a sense of incremental progress and improvement
  • tasks that become slowly more difficult over time
  • unresolved tensions that demand resolution
  • strong social connections.

If you look at this list, there is nothing there that in itself is harmful for us.  It is how we learn, what teachers would like to orchestrate in the classroom.  But many computer games use these techniques to make their customers become involved in a fantasy world to the exclusion of the real world where we interact with people, have a job, have a life helping others, etc.

In his book, Alter looks at what behavioral addiction is and how it can happen in any of us.  He looks at the ingredients of this type of addiction and how manufacturers of apps and online games get us hooked.  In the third part of the book, he looks at how we can avoid getting addicted to these wonderful apps and games.  Alter comes with suggestions for changing our habits, designing the environment we live in and how some of these techniques can be used to create useful things that help us learn and live better.

I found the book very interesting to read as I get worried when I read newspaper articles (online, of course) that mention that young children are not learning to hold a pencil or understand how to turn the pages in a magazine or book.  When it comes to children, the parents must take charge of the environment by not allowing the use of digital devices for the very young.  It is important that children learn to play on their own, learn how to have face-to-face interaction with people, both other children and adults.  As a retired teacher, I get concerned about how today’s teenagers are going to avoid these behavioral addictions.  As a retired person I want to avoid become an addict myself.

When it comes to adults, they must make decisions about their own environment.  Most of us can choose the activities we prefer in our free time, but are we able to make decisions that are beneficial to ourselves?

I want to divide my day into different types of activities, where I spend time on most of these activities every day.  Some of these activities allow me to sit; some require me to move around and use my body.

  • Learning new things, for example, either how to say things in other languages than English, or how the brain works.  I like to read books and  to learn foreign languages online.
    • I keep track of the books I have read on Goodreads.  So far this year I have read 19 books.
    • Duolingo keeps track of my progress in French, Italian and Portuguese, using many of the techniques of gaming that Alter mentions, but I think it is beneficial, not harmful for me.
  • Personal body needs, such as eating, hygiene and sleeping.  This would include keeping the environment I live in neat, tidy and clean. These are, of course, basic things that we all need to do, but it must be included in the list as quite a bit of time can go to these activities every day.
  • Physical activities, such as walking.  It depends on the season what the walking entails.  It can be cleaning snow off the driveway, walking around a shopping mall, or heading off into the woods for an hour or two. Once the snow has gone, I will be working in the garden, but it can also include working on house repairs.
  • Writing allows me to reflect on my own thoughts by putting them into words.  Some of the writing will be published as blogs, but not everything needs to be shared with others.  Writing is a way of processing thoughts and gives me a way to act on my thoughts. In order to make decisions, I need to be clear about the problem and the alternatives.
  • Craft projects, mostly knitting or sewing things, allows me to be creative, to make things that can be useful, either for myself or for others.
  • Social interaction is the hardest for me.  With a hearing disability that is getting worse, I have to choose my time with others carefully.  I am fortunate to live with a loving husband and so always have someone to talk to, or to discuss things with.  But I also need other friends whom I enjoy being with.  Being a quiet person, I prefer deep conversations to gossip.  I like being with people who will go for longer walks with me, outdoors. But I also like a lot of time to myself, pottering around the house and doing whatever inspires me at the moment.

Please notice that many of the activities I choose, reduce my need for a digital environment to a few hours a day (reading and writing), though I must admit to spending up to an hour a day on meaningless activities on my computer.  It is up to me to decide if this is too much and eventually how I can reduce this use of time.

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Emotional agility

When one’s mental health is unstable, one grabs at self-help books that one thinks might improve one’s situation.  My last grab was Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life, by Susan David, Avery, 2016.

I first found out about the book by watching a TedTalk (https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_david_the_gift_and_power_of_emotional_courage) given in 2017.  I liked the talk so much that I decided to read Susan David’s book.

I started reading the book then found that I really wanted to understand it better, so went back to the beginning and made hand-written notes.  I find that helps me understand the material better.  It also allows reflection on what I am reading so that I don’t race so fast through the book that I have forgotten everything by the end.  This blog is also helping me understand the material better and what the next step for myself should be. I hope the blog will also encourage you to read the whole book for yourself.  My summary does not give all the examples that makes the theory come to life.

I felt that one chapter a day was about right.  I needed to digest the ideas in one chapter, perhaps practice something in my own life, before going on to the next one.

Here are the names of the chapters with a short summary of the topic, taken from my notes, and often direct quotes from the book though I have not given the page references.

Chapter 1:  Rigidity to Agility – Emotions are the body’s immediate, physical responses to important signals from the outside world.  Emotions are our natural guidance system and should not be fought.  We need to become more aware of our emotions (including setting the right name to them), accept them and use them to grow.  Sometimes emotions dredge up old business, confusing our perception of what is happening in the moment with painful, past experiences. We need to become more agile while accepting our emotions.  Flexibility with thoughts and feelings will help us to respond optimally to everyday situations and is a key to well-being and success.

Emotional Agility Susan David 2016

Susan David lists four steps in emotional agility:

  1. showing up and facing your thoughts, emotions and behaviours willingly, with curiosity and kindness
  2. stepping out and detaching ourselves from our emotions and thoughts, and observing them to see them for what they are
  3. walking your why and focusing more on what your core values are or your most important goals
  4. moving on by making small changes one at a time and getting a balance between challenge and competence.

Chapter 2:  Hooked – The human mind is a meaning-making machine and it likes to create a cohesive narrative.  We all take liberties with the truth.  Our internal voice is a chatterbox and may be biased, confused, engaged in wilful self-justification or even deception.  Many of our responses to daily situations are reflexive, as if we are on autopilot, and we become hooked on rules of thumb (or heuristics) that are inappropriate.  People who are “hooked” into a particular way of thinking and behaving are not really paying attention to the world as it is.  Being emotionally agile means being sensitive to context and responding to the world as it is right now.

Chapter 3:  Trying to Unhook – Positive emotions drive us to success, help us make better decisions, reduce the risk of disease and allow us to live longer. Negative emotions encourage slower, more systematic cognitive processing, such as forming arguments, improving memory, encouraging perseverance, making up more polite and attentive, encouraging generosity, and making us less prone to confirmation bias. Note that what are considered “negative” emotions can actually have a positive effect on us.

The author divides people into three groups, bottlers, brooders and those who are emotionally agile.  Bottlers push emotions to the side and get on with things, but ignoring emotions doesn’t get at the root of whatever is causing them.  The suppressed emotions inevitably surface in unintended ways.  Brooders stew in their own misery, endlessly stirring the pot around and can’t let go of the emotion.  They are inhabiting a moment that is not now and constantly looking back in time, often blaming themself.  Neither of these types helps a person to become emotionally agile.

Chapter 4: Showing Up – Movement towards a better life begins with showing up, facing up to our demons, making peace with them, and finding an honest and open way to live with them.  We can’t change ourselves or our circumstances until we accept what exists right now. We need to use words to define and understand our experiences and the emotions surrounding them. Compassion for ourselves gives us the freedom to redefine ourselves, as well as the all-important freedom to fail. When you are emotionally agile, you don’t waste energy wrestling with your impulses.  You simply make choices that are connected to what you value.

Chapter 5: Stepping Out – Writing helps process experiences. It helps you step out from inertia and into meaningful action.  There is a need to create distance between the thinker and the thought, between the feeler and the feeling.  We must separate ourselves from our experiences and see them from a different perspective. The author brings into her work the concept of mindfulness which is a way of helping us focus, allowing us to notice uncomfortable feelings and thoughts and getting us more comfortable with our inner essence.  It is important to let go of past experiences, expectations, or perhaps a relationship.  Forgiving oneself and others can also be part of the process.

Chapter 6:  Walking Your Why – Identifying and acting on the values that are truly your own is the next step. It is living by the beliefs and behaviours that you hold dear and that give you a sense of meaning and satisfaction. Taking time for the long view leads to actions that benefit the long term and you will more likely be comfortable with who you are. These personal values must be freely chosen and are not goals, but allow you to get closer to the way you want to live your life. They are beliefs that give you freedom from social comparisons and are something that you use. Spending time reflecting on what matters to me, what I want my life to be about and what new things I want to pursue, can help me make choices that move me towards my values and act like the person I really want to be.

Chapter 7:  Moving On:  The Tiny Tweaks Principle – Tweaking the little things allows us to align our behaviour more closely with what really matters.  Small changes over time can dramatically enhance our ability to thrive. Here Susan David brings in the concept of mindset, whether we think our abilities are fixed, or whether we think of ourselves as growing, learning individuals.  People who have a growth mindset and who see themselves as agents in their own lives are more open to new experiences, are more willing to take risks, are more persistent and more resilient in rebounding from failure. We can also tweak our motivation by doing what we “want to”, not what we “have to”. We can tweak our habits by taking consciously chosen behaviour and turning it into a habit, so that it can persist over time with almost no further effort.

Chapter 8: Moving On: The See-Saw Principle – When we get too good at something, it leads to complacency.  When complacent we use auto-pilot mode so that rigid behaviours are reinforced and we become disengaged from what is happening. Everything becomes routine and there is no challenge, joy or discovery.  On the other hand, if we face a task that is too difficult for us, we get stressed and that prevents our ability to be creative. The see-saw principle means that we must maintain a balance between over-competence and over-challenge.  We want to incrementally advance ourselves beyond the level of our competence and comfort, but in small tweaks.  We constantly need to expand what we do, the skills we acquire, the topics we talk about and the avenues we explore.  We need to expand how well we do what we do, the quality of our listening and the level of our engagement with the world.

Chapter 9:  Emotional Agility at Work – In this chapter, the author gives several examples of people who are not functioning well in their jobs and tries to show how using emotional agility would have made a difference. The previous chapters were about how to make changes, and this chapter shows how to use these principles on the job.

Chapter 10:  Raising Emotionally Agile Children – We often underestimate a child’s ability to learn and grow from experiences and mistakes. Helping children acknowledge the emotion, examine the why and focus on the process will give them life-long skills.  Here are some good tips for those who have children.

Chapter 11:  Conclusion:  Becoming Real – This chapter is really just a short summary of the rest of the book and restates that emotional agility allows us to be our authentic selves, for everyone, everyday.

I liked the author’s style of writing, with relevant examples of people who have made mistakes and how they need to be worked on.  The reader must make up their own mind what their personal values will be, but the author gives us some guidelines on how to work with our own personal values to make our lives more in tune with our values.

Boken som jeg beskriver her er forholdvis ny og jeg kan ikke se at den er oversatt til norsk.  Jeg anbefaler boken.  Litt om innholdet.

Forfatteren er psykolog og har arbeidet med følelser.  Følelser er kroppens reaksjon til viktige signaler fra omverdenen.  Følelser er vårt naturlig styresystem og skal ikke motarbeides.  Vi må bli bedre klar over våre følelser, blant annet å sette riktig navn på dem, godta dem og bruke dem til å vokse som menneske.  Noen ganger vil følelser bringe til overflaten gamle ting som forvirrer våre oppfattelse av det som skjer nå.  Vi må bli smidiger og godta våre følelser.  Fleksibilitet med tanker og følelser vil hjelpe oss til å reagere optimalt til hverdags situasjoner og er nøkkelen til trivsel og suksess.

Det er fire trinn til emosjonelle smidighet:

  1. En må dukke opp og møte tanker, følelser og atferd, villig og med nysgjerrighet og vennlighet.
  2. En må løsrive seg selv fra disse tanker og følelser, og se på dem som hva de er
  3. En må fokuser på sine egne kjerneverdier og la dem styrer hva du gjør
  4. En må gå videre ved å lage små endringer og få til en balanse mellom utfordinger og kompetanse.

For de som vil ha den korte versjonen av boken, kan du se denne TedTalk gitt i 2017: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_david_the_gift_and_power_of_emotional_courage

 

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Variegated sock yarn

When I buy sock yarn in the store, there are many varieties.  My last purchase was of some variegated sock yarn, bought in red, green and blue hues.  So I was interested in seeing how the socks turned out.

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In the past when I have bought variegated yarn, it would usually just  change in color scattered through the socks, with no particular pattern.  Here are some examples of typical sock yarn in Norway.

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A few years ago I bought a pattern and the correct yarn in Canada.  It was fun to see how the pattern in the girl’s dress came out, as I knit. I did not have to change colors at all, and the pattern came out as I knit the variegated yarn.  I don’t have a picture of the dress itself which was given away, but here’s the picture in the pattern book.

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As I knit these last two pairs of socks, lo and behold, stripes came out as I knit, making very interesting socks.  I enjoyed the knitting so much, easy to knit, but varying pattern as I went, that I bought more yarn.  I will continue knitting socks like these for a while.

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Raising Human Beings

by Ross W. Greene, Scribner, New York, 2016

9781476723761

Whether you are a parent and have a child you are raising or just looking for a way to work with other adults, the ideas in this book will give you a technique for promoting collaboration to find a solution to a problem.

“The most crucial task of your child’s development is to figure out who she is — her skills, preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals and direction — get comfortable with it, and then pursue and live a life that is congruent with it.” (p. 161)

A parent’s job is to help a child grow and develop.  We teach our children based on our own set of values, but what do we do when the child has problems with our expectations, or for that matter his/her own expectations of what she/he should be able to do?  This is where a parent needs to step in and help the child.

Two of the basic principles, according to Greene, are that “kids do well if they can” and that “doing well is preferable”.  So if a child (or perhaps a friend or colleague) is not doing well, don’t blame it on laziness or lack of motivation, but dig deeper to find out which skills are missing for the person to be able to get the job done.

The method that Greene recommends has three steps to helping children grow through managing difficulties:

  1. Showing empathy for the person or child you want to help by listening to what their concerns are and their point of view on the problem
  2. The adult also has to express their concerns and point of view as these must be considered too.
  3. Then the child and the adult need to work together to come up with realistic and mutually satisfactory solutions.  This is collaboration.

The author has a lot of good examples, both of good and poor dialogues between adults and children of various ages.

I wish I had had this book when my children were younger. Too often as a parent or a teacher I came up with a “solution” to a “problem” that quite often didn’t work at all.  We have to be better at working with the person who has the problem, or the incompatibility to expectations, to find solutions that will work for both parties.

Boka som er omtalt her er ikke oversatt til norsk, men om du kan lese engelsk og du har med oppdragelse av barn, enten som forelder eller lærer, er boka anbefalt.  Litt om hva boken handler om.

Det er viktig at når et barn ikke klarer en oppgave, enten hjemme eller på skolen, at  voksnen lytter til hva barnas oppfatning av problemet er.  Veldig ofte vil barna kunne komme med innspill om hva det trenger for å komme seg videre.  Den voksen må også fremme sine bekymringer og sammen skal de finne en måte å gå videre.  Om problemet ikke løses med en gang, kan det være behov for flere samtaler og forsøk med å løse problemet.

En forelders arbeid er å hjelpe et barn vokse og utvikle seg.  Vi underviser våre barn basert på våre egne holdninger og verdier. Men hva skal vi gjøre når et barn har problemer med våre forventninger, eller sine egne forventninger om hva has/hun burde klare?  Her er hvor Greene har en metode for en voksen å hjelpe et barn (eller en annen voksen).

To hovedprinsipper som Greene fremmer:

  1. barn vil gjøre det bra, om de kan
  2. å gjøre ting bra er å foretrekke

Han er opptatt av at barn ofte behandles feil, med løsninger til problemer fra en voksen som ikke ser på problemet fra barnas synsvinkel.  Han har mange eksempler på familier og samtaler, både gode og dårlige. Å si at et barn er lat, eller umotivert, hjelper ikke barna kommer seg videre. Greenes metode har tre trinn for å hjelpe et barn utvikle seg gjennom å håndeter vanskeligheter:

  1. Den voksen må vise empati for barnet med å lytte til hva barnets synspunktet er.
  2. Den voksen må også si hva den er bekymret for.  Begge sider av saken må tas hensyn til.
  3. Da må den voksen og barnet arbeide sammen for å komme med en endring som er både realistisk og gjensidig tilfredsstillende.  Dette er samarbeid.

Jeg ønsker at jeg hadde hatt denne boka når mine barn var yngre.  Alt for ofte som en forelder eller en lærer kom jeg på en “løsning” til et “problem” som ikke fungerte.  Vi må være flinkere til å arbeide med den som har et problem slik at løsning fungere for begge parter.

 

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Ayyam-i-Há 174

What is Ayyam-i-Há?  Well, in the Bahá’í calendar, the solar year is divided into 19 months of 19 days.  The year starts on the spring equinox in Teheran, Iran.  This means that the year can start on either the 20th or the 21st of March in the European calendar.

If you are good at math, you will immediately have calculated that 19 times 19 is only 361 days and the solar year has 365 1/4 days.  What do we do with the extra four or five days?  It is a time of hospitality and gift giving, a time to be with loved ones, both within the family and close friends.  Ayyam-i-Há comes just before the last month of the Bahá’í year, ‘Alá’ or Loftiness, which is the month of fasting.

What does the 174 stand for?  That is the Bahá’í year we are currently in.

This year we won’t be doing a lot of entertaining.  The children have grown up and live far away.  We are getting older and not up to the same amount of entertaining.

I also think it is important to use the time to reflect on one’s personal values.  Having spent several hours every day for the last three days shoveling snow, I have had plenty of time to think while doing manual labor out in the fresh air.  The result of today’s thinking is a renewed resolve to try to put some of my thoughts into this blog so that I can share them with others.  I have read about research that says that people with mental issues are helped considerably when writing for 20 minutes a day.  Not everything has to be read by others.  Some thoughts we keep to ourselves and perhaps throw them away once they have been written.  Other thoughts we want to share with others so they can understand what our values are or our standpoint is.

For those of you who read this, I would like to extend my love and greetings to you.  Enjoy the five days of Ayyam-i-Há, even if you aren’t a Bahá’í.  My resolve is to write more that can be shared with others.

Ice on the cliff, Mosvik, 3 January 2016

Hva er Ayyam-i-Há? Bahá’í Troen har egen kalender, der året er delt i 19 måneder på 19 dager.  Året begynner ved vårjevndag i Teheran, Iran.  Det betyr at året kan begynne på enten den 20. eller 21. mars i den europeiske kalender.

Hvis du er flink med matte, har du allerede oppdaget at 19 ganger 19 er bare 361 dager og jorden tar 365 1/4 dager å gå rundt solen.  Hva skal vi gjøre med disse ekstra fire eller fem dager?  Det er tid til hygge og gi gaver, tid til å være sammen med de vi elsker, både familien og nære venner.  Ayyam-i-Há kommer like før den siste bahá’í måned som er fastemåneden.

Hva står 174 for?  Det er det bahá’í året vi er i nå.

Iår skal vi ikke gjøre så veldig mye.  Barna har vokst opp og bor langt unna.  Vi har begynte å føle årene vi bære med oss og har ikke det samme energi nivå for mye festing.

Også tenker jeg at det er viktig å bruke tid til å reflektere på sine egne personlige verdier.  De siste tre dager har jeg brukte flere timer hver dag for å måke snø og mens jeg gjøre manuelt arbeid ute i frisk luften, tenker jeg på mye.  Resultatet av dagens refleksjon er å være flinkere til å dele mine refleksjoner i denne bloggen.  Jeg har lest om forskning som har funnet at å skrive i 20 minutter hver dag hjelper de som har problemer med mental helse.  Det er ikke alt som skrives som skal deles med andre.  Noen tanker holder vi for oss selv, kanskje sletter vi dem når de har blitt nedskrevet.  Andre tanker vil vi dele med andre slik at de forstår hva er våre verdier og hva er vårt standpunkt.

For de som leser dette, vil jeg gjerne sende dere min kjærlighet og hilsninger.  Ha glede av disse fem dager av Ayyam-i-Há, selv om du ikke er bahá’í.