How To Science: Decision Making

So, you have to make the decisions about your children and school that are right for you in the community that you live in.  

I've had practice writing about our family's choices regarding bfing and co-sleeping and I've already been through the media-hyped Mommy wars and I have no intention of going back again.  Although, really, I found most people to be supportive (publicly) of other family's choices. 

So, we have decided to go for the Full Remote Academy Option at CMS. This is NOT homeschooling and it is NOT Plan C, which is where students are doing remote learning but can be called back to in-person learning at any point. Y'all: There is NO BEST WAY to do this. (Note: while that is an academic's report, it is NOT a peer-reviewed journal article and thus, it is NOT science.)

So how did I use science in making my decision?

I used science by applying two very strong scientific relationships that I've taught about for 25 years.  We know a great deal about what causes stress in humans.  While I study/teach this in relation to employees, it applies to "humans," too. (HA! A joke)  

Two of the biggest predictors of stress are ambiguity and lack of perceived control.  What the hell has this pandemic been besides "What the hell is happening?" and "Why the hell can I not stop it?"  

Indeed, considering that these are two normal responses to the pandemic, it is easier to understand some people's irrational response to wearing masks--irrational meaning NOT wearing the mask.  Wearing a mask means that some invisible particle can hurt me.  I can't see it and I can't control it. (Ambiguity and lack of perceived control) Even I find it weird to go shopping and see everyone wearing masks: it means everything is very different and dangerous and I can't do a damn thing about it.  

People who do not wear masks are refusing to accept the ambiguity of and their lack of control over the situation: 

• There is nothing to worry about: the death rate is only .1%  No ambiguity here.   The death rate is low!  I won't die!  I'm smart by using those numbers!! One-third of the world's population got the 1918 Spanish flu and 50,000,000 died.  Even with a low death rate of this pandemic and/ 1/3 infection rate, a 7,800,000,000 world population means 2,340,000 people dying before their time. Keep an eye on worldometer.  We are nowhere near 1/3 infection rate yet. And using the current deaths to infections means closer to 93,6000,000 deaths. (I think the current worldomter 4% death rate is way too high based on fewer detected infections) 
• Masks don't work, therefore I can exercise control by not wearing them. If you deny a problem, you have more control than everyone else in how you respond. 

I really get it. Wearing a mask means my current situation feels dangerous and I can't control it. Remove ambiguity and increased perceived control and you'll feel a heckuva lot better. But that doesn't change what is actually happening.  

So what CAN I actually change to reduce ambiguity and increase my perceived control?  What CAN I do to reduce my stress over the school year?

This hit me yesterday when discussing the school choices with a friend.  I honestly believe that CMS will be full remote learning all year long.  I honestly believe that.  Our county is doing a shitty job reducing the spread of the virus and it's only going to get worse once September and flu season starts.  

As a white cis-gendered woman, I fully expect the authorities to take care of me. I keep waiting for the CMS school system (and my university) to make the right choice.  But as my Twitter sister, Angela Blanchard says, No one is Coming.  You have to save yourself.  

And why should I trust them to do the right thing? Even if CMS does start the school year remotely, they could at any point, yank the kids back to FtF school due to political and not scientific reasons, and I could do nothing about it.  Ambiguity (will they?) and Lack of Perceived Control (I will be forced to send my children to school even if I don't think it's safe).  

So, I'm opting for the Fully Remote Academy.  It reduces the stress over worrying about something that I think is going to happen anyway.  Yes, there are lots of privileges to this choice, especially now that my children are old enough to stay home alone. No, I am not sure that the twins will still get the quality French education or my son will get the IB/AP courses he's signed up for.  

But you know what?  We don't hear a lot about the Great Brain Drain when the 1918 pandemic interrupted worldwide education. And there was a World War, too! (Well, WWI!  Ha! Pun!) What we talk about most is the number of deaths.  And I'd like to do my part to keep those deaths down.  

So, there.  That's what we've decided to do.  I hope this helps you in some way make your decision and make it so you feel good about it and it's less stressful.  Remember, this whole awful thing is only going to last a short period of time, relatively.  Breathe. As long as you and your loved ones stay alive, you've made the right decision for your family.

Back To Normal: Pandemic vs. Infants

I just finished a conversation with a colleague and I realized what all this reminds me of.

I remember when Conor was just born. The first 6 weeks of his life were hell.  He was moving from being a 70th percentile newborn to a 99th percentile infant and he was eating ALL THE TIME.  He was a nibbler, too, so he would eat for 45 minutes and then sleep/look around for 45 minutes.  For 24 hours in the day, I would have to start bfing every 1 1/2 hours.  

I remember being so incredibly exhausted and realizing for that for the first time in my life, even though I was tired, I just couldn't "go to sleep." I had to wake up and feed my baby again.  It was awful.  And it felt permanent.  

BUT IT WASN'T. 

It was only 6 weeks out of my life.  We figured out how to safely co-sleep.  I finally got to sleep for four consecutive hours, thank you, Jesus.  He got out of that hellish growth spurt and ate at more reasonable hours. 

It was a very short time in his and our lives, but in the middle of it, I thought my life had changed forever and IT SUCKED.  (Well, he sucked.  Different story) But it is and was over.  

Then I realized, we are all going through the newborn stage of a pandemic together, well, I think the lockdown was the pandemic stage.  We are still in the "first 3 months of living with a newborn stage which means it still sucks but it's not as bad as it was. But there's a sleep regression coming up and we all know it's going to suck again."  How's that for a title of what's going on.

The good news is this: WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IS NOT FOREVER.  It's going to change.  It's going to get back to normal.  It may take away, as any caregiver of children younger than two will tell you.  But--as parents of children older than 4 1/2 years old will tell you--it WILL get back to normal.  In 10 years, this will be a distant memory of suffering but not actually suffering again.

I honestly believe that 1) the  Oxford vaccine looks very promising (but NOT PERFECT) and 2) once we get a safe, effective vaccine it will take about 6 months but we'll be back to normal.  But we're in the newborn parenting stage and IT SUCKS.  But it's not going to last forever.  

So let's do what we can to protect each other and ourselves knowing that eventually, we'll be back to normal, and eventually, this will be a memory our children tell their grandchildren.  

How To Science: Who Should We Trust as Experts?

So, I saved this as an idea to blog about in April. Who should we be able to trust as "experts" in whatever field we need information? Here is the conundrum I start with:

We should most trust the people who are experts in their field.  I am not an expert in teaching people who experts are. Ergo, I should not tell you who to trust as experts.

However, by saying that I am not an expert gives me a bit more credibility to tell you how to figure out how to trust someone's expertise than someone on Facebook or YouTube who says I KNOW WHO THE EXPERTS ARE! TRUST THEM AND NO ONE ELSE!!!

I do know some things about mentoring though.  I'm not an expert on mentoring, but I know people who are and I've written papers with them. So I approach telling you what I know about how to choose experts as a peer-mentor or perhaps even a step-ahead mentor (someone who is very much like you with a bit more knowledge/experience). 

So here we go.  Here is my checklist to determine if someone is trustworthy.

Credentials

First, have they moved up the ladder in their own field?  A professor is more of an expert than an undergraduate.  The head of an agency should have more knowledge and broader understanding than a front-line employee. There are exceptions to both of those examples, but generally, those criteria are a good starting point. My example for clarification: a nurse on YouTube at an Open Up Rally in Raleigh is NOT more of an expert than Dr. Fauci. 

Further, PhDs mean people specialize in particular aspects of their field.  I am an Organizational Psychologist.  I am not qualified to diagnose anyone on their mental health or illness even though I have a PhD in Psychology.  If someone starts to overreach their area of training, you should be highly suspicious.  Easy examples: Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, that woman in Plandemic. Experts will tell you when you've asked them for information outside of their expertise.  

Money and Power

Does someone have something to gain from their position? Big red flags are if they get money or power if you believe what they say.  There are several great examples and several ways to go deeper into this evaluation. The twins' pulmonologist violated both the credentials and the money this week when he moved from talking about the twins' susceptibility to COVID (they have "hypersecretious" asthma) to advocating that all kids should be in school and no businesses shut down so that we can develop herd immunity ASAP. "Old people are at the end of their lives anyway. People with underlying conditions are just going to die."  

Yeah, the Sweden model won't really work in individualistic America.  Also, we got into his private practice as new patients almost immediately. The twins haven't been then in more than 3 years so they are "new. Clearly, he is not overly busy and he is probably not making the same salary he has been used to. They need more patients.  Further, an MD in pulmonology NE (a PhD in public health or a PhD in Epidemiology). In layman's terms: Stay in your lane, dude.

So the money thing requires some explanation.  I hear LOTS of laypeople say you cannot trust a PhD who has been given grant money from a private or possibly public organization (like NIH or NSF). Here is why that is an erroneous argument.  If I get funding from NSF, let's say a $200,000 grant, MOST of that money goes to my institution (I think 46% or something like that? Some expert with more grants will let me know!).  I would get one month's salary in the summer for each year of the grant. For researchers who survive on "soft" money (i.e., grants), they would get more, but it never surpasses their annual salary (I believe) and most of the money (I believe) still goes to "overheard" and the institution. See how I'm using "I believe" to let you know what I KNOW and what I THINK so that you can evaluate my expertise? 

I am MUCH more concerned about people who want you to believe what they have to say so that you will buy their book, watch their YouTube channel, attend their for-profit conference, come shop at their store, shop in general to increase their stock portfolio, or bring your sick kids to their office.  Those folks are not getting a small addition to their annual salary: YOU ARE THEIR ANNUAL SALARY. 

Further, just because someone gets a grant doesn't mean their data is suspect. IF IT GOES THROUGH PEER REVIEW, it is evaluated exactly like non-funded research and possibly even more skeptically because researchers are supposed to acknowledge every single grant that funded their research.  If it is NOT peer-reviewed, it's bullshit.  Blogs and books are not peer-reviewed.  No skeptical eyes have evaluated whether what they are saying is methodologically valid and theoretically reasonable. 

But don't the real mavericks in a field get suppressed, especially by all those folks who have privately funded grants?  Aren't the researchers/PhDs/laypeople who go against the mainstream and say X IS TRUE suppressed by all the other researchers who say X IS WRONG or even Y IS TRUE? 

No. Simply, no.  If a researcher can build a stream of peer-reviewed research (so more than one study that could be just a statistical fluke) that challenges our current beliefs and says "BY JOVE, X IS TRUE NOT Y!!" they would become very, very famous.  That's how the Academy works.  

So that's my peer and possibly step-ahead mentoring for how to determine if someone is an expert.  The key issues are Expertise and Money.   There are obviously some exceptions and that's why I'm not the expert on who is the expert. But for the most part, this is where you can start when you are trying to believe who to trust. 

I am hoping to write about using the philosophy of science, epistemology, and ontology to understand How To Science: Understanding Specific Studies in a future blog soon. 

And because all blogs should have a picture now so social media pays attention, here is an expert we should pay attention to.

The Difficulty of Social Distancing

My research focuses on entitativity: a person's cognitive assessment that they are in a group.  The classic example compares a "group" of people waiting for a bus stop compared to the same group of people at a cafe sharing coffee and conversations (pre-COVID, of course). The cafe is "groupier" than the bus stop.  

Way back in the day (like, seriously, the 1950s) when Don Campbell identified entitativity as a fundamental component of groups (i.e., you need to perceive you are in a group before you enact group processes or experience group outcomes), he focused on a couple of important antecedents to entitativity: similarity, interactivity, history, and "pregnance." Must like "entitativity" is an ostentatious name for a simple concept (how groupy a group is), pregnance is a BS word meaning that when you look at a group you can see its form/shape.  It's been called the boundary separating the group for the not-group, but I currently think pregnance in today's psychological concepts relates more to environmental psychology (especially my training in behavior settings and/or sociomaterialty). Think of the people sitting around a table at the cafe: you can see them forming a group much easier than the folks dispersed in an unidentifiable pattern around the bus stop.

What does this have to do with social distancing?  I believe a heckuva lot.  

Humans are born with a need for belonging, a psychological need to belong to a group that's as important as the biological need for eating. When people are together face-to-face, they want to form and be part of a group.  I simply do not believe that we can create "pregnance"--an easily identifiable grouping--from 6' feet apart.  I think that's why even when we believe strongly is social distancing, when we are interacting with people that we like, it is nearly impossible to stay 6' feet apart from them.  We want to be closer to form a boundary between our group and the not-group. 

I think it's easier to socially distance around others when you have your own "pod" of people you can be closer to, like going on a picnic with others and staying on the blanket with your family 6' from another family. 

But at work, when we are trying to belong to a group with our co-workers? At school, when we are trying to belong to our group of friends?  At any religious gathering, when we are trying to belong to our faith community? I believe it goes against our innate human development to stay 6' away from other people in these settings, and it links directly back to entitativity--our perception that our coworkers and friends are more like a cafe than a bus stop. 

This is obviously, a testable hypothesis. However, it is a hypothesis the IRB will not allow me to test until we are out of this pandemic. Although, if you have skills at drawing or drafting pictures of anything to scale, hit me up: I have an idea of how to test this.  

Until then, interacting FtF with meaningful others outside of our pod is going to be extremely difficult at 6' apart. 

Why is This Summer So Hard?

So I've been trying to figure out why this summer is so hard beyond the obvious fact that we're in the midst of a global pandemic and about 1/3 of Americans have politicized science and are unable to wear a mask because it means the "other side" wins instead of realizing that WE ALL WIN IF WE CAN STOP THIS FREAKING VIRUS AND GET ON WITH OUR LIVES BY WEARING A BLOODY MASK.

But no, it's not that.  

There are other reasons why summer is so hard this year, at least for academics.  People (I mean people who are not in Academia) think that professors have the summer off.  There's a perception that as soon as finals are graded in May until Freshmen move into their dorms in August that we are free to do whatever we want to do: travel, garden, eat bonbons.

The irony is that given that choice, the vast majority of us continue to work over the summer--for free.  So we are "free" in the summer (in that we aren't paid) but we turn ourselves into free labor.  This is when we work on articles, catch up on administrative duties (and fill out reams of reports), read articles, go to conferences, etc.  The difference is the pace is a little slower.  

Usually, I have about 4 weeks where the kids are in school and I'm not and I'm intensely writing.  Then the kids come home for summer break and I try to work for half the day and then take the afternoon off to do family things. Sometimes that works and sometimes I just work the whole day anyway. I usually take a week or two completely off in July to go to my favorite conference and do some traveling/vacationing with the family around that. 

One WOULD THINK that this year, we'd be about the same, or at least similar to the times in which my children are home in the summer--I work most mornings and take most afternoons off.  

However, that is in no way what has been happening.

I have been working most days from 7 am until 5 or 6.  I may take a little time off to help the kids do something around the house, but for the most part, I'm working most days all the time.  I don't have any energy to cook dinner.  I'm not doing the stuff I think is fun around the house (gardening, hobbies).  I'm just working all day for free.

Why?

Well, one reason is that we faculty are continuing to have regular meetings.  Usually, we can't meet so much during the summer because Dr. X is at Conference Z and Dr. Y has traveled to County Q.  But we're all sitting at home working for free, so what's another committee meeting? Another administrative discussion?  We don't say No because we can actually, physically say Yes. We're home.  We're near a computer. We haven't kicked our grad school habit of working all the time whenever anyone needs us (for free). We can agree to meet at a time during the summer when none of us would have ever considered meeting before.

And I'm tired. It's wearing on me. And for those of you outside academia who may not understand this: We don't get vacation days. Usually, when the University is closed for some holiday (e.g., "Spring Break"), that's when we are doing most of our work--writing and catching up with teaching/grading.  And, BTW, during this year's Spring Break, I was leading a class in Berlin just as the world was starting to shut down. So, really no break there. 

My husband gets Paid Time Off.  He takes "vacation" and unless there is a stark emergency at work, he is not in communication with folks from his job.  Professors do not get a vacation of this nature.  Yes, that means that some Friday afternoons, I can stop working at 2 or 3.  But it also means that I check my email "when I'm off work" because students or colleagues actually do need help at weird hours and I can help. Unless I'm traveling, I am usually very willing to meet with folks, work on my research, or help out my students. Except now.  I decided to take this week off.  And here I am talking about how I can't stop working. 

I imagine many folks working from home are going through something similar right now.  It's just the sameness, right?  It looks like what it's looked like since March.  And it looks like it's going to look like this until January 2021, at the least.  And if Americans don't start wearing their freaking masks we are never going to get out of this hell hole of everything looking exactly like it's been forever.  

I feel guilty taking this time off.  But my head is going to explode if I don't.  

So here's a picture of the back of the house with our newly painted fence because if I didn't do something that didn't involve writing/reviewing/editing a paper, I think I would just lie down and cry. Can you find the bunny?  It's our pet bunny, River Song.  

How are you doing?

So, this week has been bad.  

As an academic, there are certain rhythms to my life that I have taken for granted.  Our year starts in August.  That's our "shiny, new everything is going to be different and wonderful THIS year" time of the year. We don't officially say "Happy New Year" but that's what it feels like.

The actual New Year in January is pretty hellish.  It's the middle of the year for (North American) academics. There is no "shiny."  There is fatigue and drawing on our energy resources to start a new semester when all the evaluations, reports, student admissions, theses, dissertations, grants, and conference submissions all are due, at least for me.  

After Spring Break, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's not necessarily a train. ((You know how old I am and how young my grad students are?  I told that joke to them and they thought it was hysterical; the first time they'd ever heard it.  How clever I am!!))  :-/  

Anyhoo, May is hellish with all the defenses, finals, and ceremonies. But then we are done.  DONE!  I get about 5 to 6 weeks of working at home on my own while the kids are at school and I'm working on research.  Once they are home, my mother-professor (Mofessor) role conflict increases exponentially and I cannot work, exercise, and garden as well and I do during those 5 precious weeks.

Except this Saturday.  I finished grading my students' (excellent) final papers.  I submitted the grades. I took a deep breath. And I realized: nothing changes.  The kids are home.  Dave is still working a wonky schedule so there is 7 day-a-week senior management coverage at his CCRC. We are not going anywhere.  We are only leaving the house to exercise. I feel like I'm driving through Kansas and the landscape is flat and the highway is neverending.  It's fine. But it is also isolating and desolate.  

It's the sameness.  

It's the ambiguity about how long this sameness is going to last.  It's the fear that if we don't have this sameness Bridget or Christopher could get the 'Rona and, with their atypical responses to paraflu, end up in very bad places.  I know that most people know about Bridget but click on Christopher's links to see what I now understand was the beginning of both of their weird lung problems. 

It's not knowing what is going to happen with the University or the Public School system in the Fall. It's knowing that it's going to come back in the fall and seeing that New Zealand is already running low on flu vaccines and they are often the leading indicator of the flu season for North America. 

It's walking around the neighborhood and doing the 6' shuffle with everyone else and being grateful I don't live around a bunch of whackadoos and also knowing THIS IS NOT NORMAL.  

Most days are good. But there are always a few hours where I feel my entire being freak out a little bit.  Maybe sometimes more than a little. 

Here is a picture of me engaging in what is truly the best thing about my week: watching Columbo on the Hallmark Mystery Channel at 7 am on a Sunday morning.  I do not understand why, but when Monday starts, I long to go back to this on a Sunday morning.

So how are you doing?  

So You Want to Garden?

Are you doing more work in your backyard?  We are.  And ironically, this is the year I said I was tired of doing so much work in the backyard. But when it became clear that we are not going anywhere this summer and, well, I have this huge backyard with two 20x24 raised garden beds, well, dang it, we're back to gardening.  

So I'd consider myself a moderate gardener.  I am past the beginning stage, but I am definitely NOT an expert gardener.  So, at best, I serve as a step-ahead mentor to folks just starting out.  But you know I love to share assvice, so here we go!

First, follow our local farmers from Renfrow Hardware on Instagram. I have learned so much from them already including how to stop frost damage and how to pickle radishes!!  Lots of great info about gardening and gardening supplies from them.  

Second, unless your back- or sideyard has no trees, finding a sunny spot is tricky. I know the sun rises in the east, but where it actually rises in relation to your yard changes a great deal over the year.  On the advice of Laurel Holtzapple, Landscape Architect for groundworks studio, we have a "fedge," a landscaped wall of edible plants in the back garden.  Crazily enough: because of where the sun rises it gets absolute full sun in the summer and about 2 months of full shade in the winter (December and January) because the sun's rise changes so drastically that it stays behind the fence between our yard and the neighbors.  

This is a picture of the back garden which gets the most sun in the yard, except that the blueberries by the fence are in full shade during December and January because the sun's rising position is so different then. And if you look closely, you'll see the chairs we put in the garden to drape tarps off to protect from the frost on Saturday night.

Also, trees reach for the sun. And some of our larger trees have started shading parts of one of our gardens because that is where the sun is.  This was our first garden plot when the trees were younger and didn't shade it so much. 

So! What is sunny in March may not be sunny in July when the sun has moved spots and the trees have all their leaves.  Honestly, sometimes I go stand in my yard multiple times a day and look around for where the sun is, was, and won't be in a few hours time.  The reason I say this is that I frequently see new gardeners start raised beds in spots that "look pretty" in their yard and are sunny in the winter but I can tell full well are not to thrive in the summer. (Ahem, our own first-hand experience, TBH) You need full sun--at least 6 hours--for most vegetable plants! That's harder than you think in an urban garden.  That said, you can trick lettuce into growing in the middle of the summer under some shady spots. So you can make it work!!

Third, weeds suck.  Don't use roundup.  Use your hands to pull them up.  Also, if you have a paper shredder, shred newspapers, old bills (no plastic), and scrap paper for mulch around your plants to keep weeds down and water in. 

Finally, watering sucks.  I hate watering.  We have a rain barrel that we use early on, but come July when we are begging for some rain you actually have to go out and water your plants.  That said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE soaker hoses.  We bought ours off amazon similar to this one.  They only water the spots you want.  I only need to use them once a week for about 30 minutes and it's the easiest thing I've ever done.  Buy you soaker hoses now!!

Do you want to know other things?  I have some tricks on Leeks and dill, including saving seeds for the next year.  I can talk about the importance of "suckering"/pruning/training your tomatoes.  I can talk about keeping bunnies out of your garden or at least keeping them from eating EVERYTHING so that you can have some.