Year: 2011

Categories
life

Best Car Accident Ever


photo credit: mfhiatt

Last month as I was leaving the South Davis Recreation Center I got bumped by a young driver as I was exiting the parking lot. Normally that is not the kind of thing I would write about but I wanted to thank the insurance company of that young driver for taking care of me so well.

I filed the claim with Travelers Insurance the morning of the accident and from that first phone call to the time the repairs were complete they totally took care of me.

They sent the check promptly and as soon as I made the arrangements for the actual repairs they had a rental car reserved for me within two hours. The last pleasant surprise came when I returned the rental car to Enterprise even the agent there was impressed that they had settled the bill before I even returned the car.

I only hope that my insurance company gives this kind of service when someone has a claim there.

Categories
culture State technology thoughts

GRAMA Answers – A First Pass

I really appreciated the 36 questions that came out of the first meeting of the GRAMA working group and wanted to offer one perspective on a first pass at answering those questions. I will say upfront that the answers provided here are subject to modification or revision based upon more detailed information. Consider this the legislative intent or deliberative process version of any final answers. Before answering the questions I wanted to make one related comment.

When I saw that Common Cause was running a full page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune today calling for the repeal of HB 477 I worried that they were positioning themselves to take some credit after it gets repealed tomorrow (and it will). As citizens we need to be careful in our consumption of information. We need to make sure that we are not fooled by the claims of any interest group. Common Cause appears to be using this situation to help them jump start the reopening of their Utah chapter. I don’t know whether that will be a good thing in the long run or not – I don’t know much about the group – but we should not confuse their core advocacy for open government with any significant work to get this repealed. It was the uproar by the citizens of Utah that brought about this legislative reversal, not the political astuteness of some interest group.

Now, on to the questions:

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Categories
Education politics State

The Straw Man of Teacher Pay


photo credit: 2create

I saw a post on Facebook, and later an email, with a title about how overpaid teachers are. The post went on to show mathematically that teachers are not overpaid by any reasonable measurement. Teachers and their unions would certainly appreciate the logic in their favor but the real value that I found in the post was not simply the numbers presented but the example that the post provides of using numbers to keep the debate uninformed. While it showed very convincingly that teachers are not overpaid (either literally or in relation to the service they provide) it masked the complexity of the issue by ignoring the crucial questions of how much we spend on education (it’s much more than teacher pay), whether we can afford the cost (whether or not the cost is a bargain), and what other alternatives we could explore to address the real issue (which is how we make sure that our children have a decent education available to them).

First let me list a few numbers (and their sources) that I would like to use in illustrating what was unsaid in the other post. I would like to thank Becky Edwards for helping me obtain the current numbers for the state of Utah that I am using. (Becky is currently the Representative for House District 20 in Utah and a member of the House Education Committee.)

  • The post compared teaching to babysitting and, using that assumption, concluded that parents should be perfectly happy to pay $20 per day for 6.5 hours of babysitting for each of their school aged children. Using that $20/day figure they calculated that teachers would be making over $100K per year. I don’t expect to use that $100K figure but wanted to include it here to briefly illustrate the conclusion of the original post.
  • The post also claimed that the average teacher salary was only $50K per year. I will be using that number because it seems reasonable and convenient but would like to state that I have made no attempt to independently verify its accuracy or its source.
  • The state of Utah currently spends $3.34 Billion on elementary education per year.
  • The state of Utah currently employs 32,473 elementary school teachers. (As far as I can tell that does not count administrators and other staff.)
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Categories
National politics State technology

Orrin Hatch’s Insurmountable Obstacle


photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Two years into his bid for re-election (yes, he has already been in obvious campaign mode for two years), in a recent tweet Orrin Hatch invited people to let him know if he was on the right track. My tweet length response was that he could not get on the right track unless he were to publicly admit to the errors in his past voting record. Upon further reflection I have a very non-tweet-length reply as I realized that, at least for me personally, that may not be enough.

Anyone who has been in office for 34 years will have votes in that time which should have been different. Anyone who has been alive for 34 years will have grown and changed within the last 34 years of their life. In other words, I would not expect a pristine record from anyone in Hatch’s position. I don’t consider seniority to be an insurmountable obstacle any more than I consider it sufficient reason to grant him another six years. To mitigate such a long tenure, I will only consider Hatch’s last two terms and pretend that his first 24 years in office were impeccable.

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Categories
life

Session notes on CDI

I thought I’d share the notes I took during an early therapy session where we started learning about Child-Directed Interaction.

Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

Helping the non-compliant child – (reference book)

(“parenting the strong-willed child” is the subtitle I believe)

Child-Directed interaction is similar to play therapy and is the first step of PCIT.

Things to do during CDI:

  • Behavioral description (sportscaster play-by-play, start with “you”, connect to present activity)
  • Reflection (reinforce and rephrase)
  • Labeled praise (praise specifics)
  • Imitate (do the things they do which are appropriate)

Avoid:

  • Commands (direct or indirect)
  • Questions (these take the initiative from the child – you are along for the ride)
  • Critical statements (this includes sarcasm)

Dealing with misbehavior during CDI:

  • Ignore anything that is not dangerous or destructive (don’t smile, frown, or react in other ways).
  • Stop your do’s.
  • Praise as soon as they act appropriately.
  • Stop the play for destructive or aggressive behavior.

Tips & Tricks:

  • Have specific toys that are for CDI
  • Have a specific place (like the kitchen table)
  • Have a regular time

Transfer to Parent-Directed Interaction (PDI) once 5 minutes of CDI produces 10 behavioral descriptions, 10 reflections, and 10 labeled praises and no more than a total of 3 questions, criticisms, and critical statements.

Look for the book 1-2-3 Magic

Categories
life

Child-Directed Interaction

There are two primary elements of Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). The  initial element is Child Directed Interaction (CDI). This interaction is intended to strengthen the fundamental relationship between parent and child. The parents have the opportunity to see their child in a situation where the child feels safe and in control where they can pay uninterrupted attention to their child and practice some skills of interaction that help the child to feel that they are valued and appreciated. This should set the stage for the second element called Parent Directed Interaction (PDI).

CDI is meant to be a fairly free time for the child to express themselves it is surprisingly structured. Our therapist has recommended that we get a box filled with toys and activities that can be used for this interaction time. The child is then allowed to choose which toy or activity during each session. Sessions are short enough that the child should only be playing with one type of toy or activity during a given session.

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Categories
Education life

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

When all attempts at progress either backfire or have no discernible effect its time to seek further insight and experience. Such has been the case for us recently as we have found it impossible with only the expertise of ourselves and our families to address the unacceptable behaviors that have been grinding upon the life of one of our children and by extension adding tension and discomfort in the lives of everyone else in the family. Our first visit with the therapist introduced a very hopeful path for us called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy. After the visit I started doing some research to find out what else I could learn about this therapy. What I found was that virtually all the information available was directed at a clinical audience – in other words it was all textbooks for therapists and those studying to become therapists. Besides that, I also learned as I talked with our therapist at the next visit about what I had found, that much of the information that is available is either inaccurate or simply out of date. She said that it seems that those with experience with PCIT have little interest in making information available to a lay audience because the information is most valuable when professional coaching is being given to the parents as they implement the principles of PCIT. While I have no expectation that parents without the help of a trained therapist would be able to get the full benefits of PCIT, I also believe that parents who are hearing about this and wondering if it really is useful for their situation, or perhaps parents like us before we met with our therapist who recognize a problem like ours but have no idea what might finally give them the breakthrough they need, should have more information available that is geared towards them which would provide an overview of the therapy. Because of that I have determined to take notes of our journey through PCIT and write publicly about this little adventure.

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Categories
culture life

Fixing the BCS Title Game


photo credit: avinashkunnath

It’s time to set the record straight on the difference between the best BCS football programs and the best non-BCS football programs in response to the ill-advised and self-serving comments of Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee. TCU did their part responding on the field by beating 11-1 Big Ten co-champion Wisconsin (from Mr. Gee’s own BCS conference) and people have noticed.

Mr. Gee’s claim was that the schedule in a non-BCS conference could not compare to the schedule in a BCS conference. The fact is that conference schedules account for only 2/3 of the season and that strong BCS programs rarely play a decent opponent outside of their conference. They’re too busy playing the “Little Sisters of the Poor”—either weak teams from weak conferences or teams that do not even play at the FBS level. (Of course there are some rivalry exceptions but they are a minority of non-conference contests among BCS programs.) Non-BCS programs spend most of their non-conference games playing the toughest teams that are willing to agree to play from BCS conferences.

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