At the beginning of every school year there seems to be a gust of news articles about education reform. While many of these focus on vouchers, taxes, or funding in general, extremely few seem to concentrate on the days and hours students put into education, and even fewer articles take on curricula. For that reason, much of the American public only sees reform in terms of dollars spent instead of reforms to curricula with respect to the development of the intellect and providing a formidable basis from which to base further study. My ideas for reforming school takes their shape in three parts: the why, what, and how.
Why
The most important question to begin discussions on education is, “Why do we need reform?” And, fortunately, the answer is relatively simple: contrary to what many Americans believe, the educational system in the United States is sub-par when ranked against many other countries. Despite having math and science scores that may rank above European countries such as Italy and Norway, the American system still ranks well below Asian countries, which is the fastest rising population (and therefore future employment market). And, disappointingly, we’ve known this problem for well over 10 years, and have yet to make significant ground.
Perhaps more alarming, with local bodies governing curricula, discrepancies between curricula and successes are enormous throughout the United States. And very few schools seem to take into account a recent study out of Harvard and the University of Virginia which found that a longer curricula in math, not science, leads to better outcomes in post-secondary science courses. That is a huge blow to American science curricula, which relies on a biology, chemistry, then physics approach instead of the opposite.
What
Now that we’ve singled-out some reasons for reform, we can continue on to what exactly needs to be reformed.
First, we need to concentrate on the school days and hours. Despite the fact that American children spend more hours per year in school than many of their foreign counterparts, the school year in America is actually shorter in days. While President Obama recently argued for longer school hours, I believe that’s actually counterproductive to a more focused curriculum. Perhaps if the lecture time was shortened and the study/work time lengthened, that would be more productive and conducive to the American work life of 8-5.
In addition, I am in favor of year-round education (YRE), the implementation of a school-year that goes year-round instead of being based on the agrarian calendar American schools generally use, with two or three summer months continuously off. While conducive to summer vacations and perhaps greater child care options, it allows too much time for students to forget the previous curricula, necessitating a rather lengthy review or reeducation at the beginning of the new school year. With the YRE model, students go to school for nine weeks (45 days), with three week (15 days) breaks between semesters. This, I believe, allows for a more focused curriculum and a greater chance of individual advancement while still allowing breaks that won’t allow the degradation of the students’ knowledge.
Taking into consideration the Harvard/University of Virginia study, I would also propose a relatively drastic-and-yet-focused reform to curricula: make science and social studies “specials” classes, much like music, art, and physical education, while focusing on three main curricula each day: math, literature, and composition. With a renewed emphasis on the basics, a reordered science curriculum of physics, chemistry, then biology is possible, leading to greater science outcomes in the students’ secondary and post-secondary education. (Starting with physics requires a rather encompassing knowledge of math, and thus I would argue that such a transition is not currently possible in most schools due to inadequate math curriculum and focus in later elementary grades.)
As an aside, I also tend to agree with the Asia Society, which argues that foreign language education in the United States should start early in the elementary grades and focus on Asian languages and, I would add, European languages such as French and German, which have had a greater impact than Spanish, which 70% of American students study.
How
The American system seems particularly resistant to change due to the lack of national standards, dependence on local decisions for curricula, and the dependence on the agrarian calendar. While some great changes and reforms have been made, most have come in the form of creating new schools, such as charters, independent schools, and expansions of public schools. While well established, older schools resist change, new schools are able to be shaped with the new curricula and models. That’s why I argue that implementing the reforms above would be dependent on creating a new school which is absent of tradition and outside of current, established authority.
While I would argue in favor of creating a new public education system which embraces change and national standards, and would slowly-but-surely annex existing public schools, it’s not likely such a plan would be embraced by the American public. Still, I can dream.
Imagine a giant island, twice the size of Texas, sitting practically in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but unable to be seen with the naked eye or by satellites. While it sounds like a futuristic C-list sci-fi movie, it’s actually completely true. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, comprised of trash such as plastic, metal, and cloth materials, was first theorized and studied in the 1980s (PDF) and has been since verified as reality in the North Pacific Gyre. Because trash in the ocean begins to degrade within one year, expelling dangerous chemicals such as bisphenol A, it’s especially important to begin cleaning up the hazardous waste as soon as possible.
A recent, well-publicized expedition called the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX) sought to study the breadth of the trash vortex and also consider the feasibility of a commercial clean-up. Supported by Project Kaisei, they found that despite most of the plastic parts being in bite-size bits, they also found more trash than they expected: perhaps more than 100 million tons of debris. That calls for not just a large-scale clean-up, but could also mean big money for the commercial salvage and recycle companies.
The first problem in picking up this trash is procedure. The Scripps team designed a net specifically meant to trawl the subsurface of the ocean for approximately 40,000 tons of trash without killing the marine life which has made the trash its home. While this plan has seemingly worked well for gauging the amount of trash, I don’t think it’s a particularly feasible approach for short- and long-term salvage. Instead, I would suggest an innovative retrofitting of ships mimicking a combine harvester.
The boat’s design would begin with the most important part: the front. With an almost open-ended design, much like that of the back-end of a whaling boat, the salvage boat would extend a hydraulic shovel-like extension underneath the surface of the water to collect the subsurface debris. Much like the combine harvester, this extension would lead to a rotating cylinder which moves the trash upwards and into the hull, where collection would take place. The water, meanwhile, would filter through the back of the extension, leaving much of the wildlife untouched.
Collection, as previously described, would take place in the hull of the boat. The trash would enter via the cylinder and travel through several conveyors and would shoot out the side of the boat through an unloader (much as a combine harvester unloads corn or wheat into a dump truck) into smaller boats, which would take the trash back to a central processing ship or offshore platform (much like floating oil platforms). The trash, after processing, would then be packaged and shipped back to shore for recycling.
Using this approach I believe a commercial enterprise would easily monopolize the salvaging of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, helping not only to clean up the environment but also make a rather large amount of money. With a current patch of over 100 million tons of trash and over 1,000 tons of trash being dumped into the ocean yearly, this type of enterprise has both short- and long-term value both environmentally and economically.
Building upon a previous post which defined the term “sport,” in a rather lengthy post some two months ago, I attempted to lay down the principles behind forming what I would call the perfect sport. In this extension, I came across something rather paradoxical, which I call the Participation Paradox: “. . . the [perfect] sport would have to require each participant to have an equal chance of participation in like-aspects, and yet, at the same time, be unable to be played by just one participant.” The reason this is paradoxical is because sports which have an equal chance of participation can easily be played without an opponent. For example, hockey is a sport in which its participants have like-participation (in stark contrast to baseball, where there are defined offensive and defensive parts of the game for participants), and, at the same time, you could easily play an entire game of hockey without an opponent, thus going against my principles for forming a perfect sport. While I left the previous post unanswered, I believe I’ve now come up with the perfect sport.
First, the process: while the five principles of sport are important in defining the sport, I went straight to the heart of the problem: the Participation Paradox. Finding a solution in which an opponent is not just necessary but required, and yet both participants have equal chances of participation was a hardy task. I first analyzed several current popular sports for inspiration:
- Baseball: participants have distinct offensive (batting) and defensive (pitching) roles, so that doesn’t help. But baseball does require an opponent (to pitch to you [which enables you to bat]) so that’s mildly helpful.
- Hockey: like many, if not all, sports with dynamic offensive-defensive transitions, the participants in hockey have like-participation (again, unlike baseball), but you can easily disqualify your opponent and still play an entire game, so that isn’t helpful at all.
- Soccer: I suggested soccer as the starting point for forming the perfect sport, as the only problem with soccer is the fact that, after a goal is scored, the team which scored the goal starts with possession of the ball, thus giving them an inherent advantage at that point of the game. Very helpful to conceptualize the perfect sport as an extension of soccer, but ultimately it proved fruitless.
- Rugby: rugby, like soccer, seemed like a great starting point. It begins in a huddle where teams have an equal chance of gaining possession of the ball. While there may be other problems with rugby, the huddle was the genesis for the perfect sport: huddleball.
Huddleball, a name seemingly free of any other sports right now, is what I have thus far deemed as the perfect sport. Appropriately named, the sport begins and wholly takes place in a huddle. It is played by two teams of three players each, and players are arranged in a hexagon, alternating individual players from each team, standing with legs approximately shoulder-length apart, foot-against-foot. A huddleball court would appear, obviously, has a hexagon, with each player forming the base of an equilateral triangle, with the point of the triangle leading to a ball the approximate size of a handball, in the following formation:
Now the important part: the rules by which huddleball is played:
- With the players lined up appropriately and the ball placed at the center of the hexagon, the players begin with their hands clasping their ankles. When a whistle is blown, one player from each team, decided beforehand or through secret signs or calls, reaches out for the ball, attempting to first possess the ball. In the fight for the ball, it may bounce well into the area of another player, who may take possession of the ball.
- Once the ball is possessed by a player, the objective of the game is to score a point by throwing the ball either directly or by bouncing it through an opponent’s legs. It too counts as a score should the ball deflect off of another player’s hands, legs, feet, or body and through an opponent’s legs.
- Players without possession of the ball cannot enter into the space of another player. He or she may only guard his or her own space.
- Penalties can be given for entering into another player’s space, touching another player in an attempt to block or throw the ball, or unsportsmanlike conduct. The player which was offended immediately gets possession of the ball.
- Passing to an opponent is acceptable.
- Once a point is scored, the ball comes back to the center of the court in order to begin play by two individuals again.
- The first team to score 10 points is deemed the winner.
Simple rules, but it’s a game in which strategy can be complex, and yet participants of many different ages and skill levels can enjoy a match. So now let’s take huddleball and see if it adheres not only to the Five Principles of Sport, but also the additional principles which qualify it as a perfect sport.
1. It requires advanced physical competence.
You could certainly argue that it takes advanced physical competence to stand in the position for some time while requiring a great amount of arm strength in order to accurately and powerfully throw the ball through an opponents legs. It too would take great skill to throw the ball and perhaps spin it so that, on a bounce, it may change direction.
2. It requires advanced, unlimited strategy.
Certainly there are many strategies employed even in such a small playing field. For example, the game starts with the strategy of who is best suited to attempt possession of the ball. Upon possession, the player may then attempt to throw the ball through an opponent’s legs or attempt a pass to a teammate who may then try to deflect the ball into an opponent’s legs or catch it and gauge the best next step. Teams would have strategies of simply powerful throws, throws which may take curvy or tricky bounces, or deflection plays.
3. Each party must be in direct competition. Further, a score should be as a result of a negative effect or action on or from the opponent.
The parties are easily in direct competition, as the game requires the participants in order to play. Further, in order to score a point, the ball must travel through an opponent’s poorly guarded legs, thus a point is scored as a result of a negative effect or action on or from the opponent, as required.
4. Each party must have an equal chance of winning.
Because the game begins with a representative from each team battling for the ball, each team has an equal opportunity to win the game. There aren’t any instances, barring penalties (which are as a result of an opponent’s infraction), in which any player has an explicit, deemed advantage over an opponent.
5. The scoring must be adjudicated without bias.
This is easily attained because scoring is adjudicated easily and objectively: it is, simply, when the ball travels fully through the legs of an opponent. The scoring never relies on outside adjudication or awarding.
Since huddleball easily passes the test of the Five Principles of Sport, it’s now time to see if it goes further and can be deemed a perfect sport. There are four additional principles huddleball must satisfy.
The sport shouldn’t be able to be played and completed without an opponent.
Huddleball satisfies this requirement because an opponent must be present to be scored upon. Without the opponent, a score can never be made.
In regular game play, the participants should always have an equal opportunity of like-participation.
Every participant has like-participation in huddleball, and the offensive-defensive transition is dynamic. Likewise, this can be further explained by the justification for its satisfaction for the next principle:
The sport shouldn’t have any positions of power.
In huddleball, there aren’t any positions of power. There aren’t any positions which are as explicitly differentiated such as goaltenders in hockey or pitchers in baseball. Each player has like-participation in the game, and roles change dynamically throughout the game and due to complex strategies.
Motivated participation should be present for the entirety of the game.
With so few participants and the court size relatively small, motivated participation is ensured. Further, because the point of attention of all participants is on the player with the ball, there is little else to distract or immobilize opponents. Thus, it’s likely that motivated participation is evident throughout the entire game.
Through careful consideration and influence from other sports, I believe I have satisfied not only the Participant Paradox, but also every principle of sport, as well as the principles which, when satisfied, deem it a perfect sport. As far as I’m aware, no other sport satisfies all of the requirements. Now all that’s left is to actually play huddleball.
Game on?
A recent article about a newfound planet orbiting backwards reminded me of the going theory for the origin of the moon: giant impact hypothesis. While the theory for the planet’s backward orbit was similar to a competing moon origin theory — capture hypothesis — it sparked an interest: how did the moon form, and is the going theory adequate or even plausible? While I find it a compelling theory, I don’t think it’s the likeliest.
The most prominent theory for the origin of the moon is actually quite simple: a Mars-size planet collided with Earth, sending material into orbit, which then came together to form the moon. It’s a compelling theory, as we’ve been able to observe planets colliding and we’re able to see the aftermath. And we’re also currently attempting to find evidence of this same event happening to Earth. But I find several problems with this theory.
While there are other problems with this theory, including deficiencies in the composition of the moon (when compared to Earth’s materials) and the lack of evidence of a magma ocean (which is a known derivative of planet-planet collisions), the largest reason I believe this theory is insufficient is the lack of a giant hole or, more accurately, evidence of a side-swipe from another planet. Such a collision would leave a rather large dent in the Earth, which we obviously don’t have, and I’m not entirely sure there has been enough time for Earth to, using centrifugal force, reestablish its nearly-spherical shape given the devastation inherent to such a violent collision.
Instead, I believe it’s much more likely that the moon’s origins were due to something much smaller but still equally impressive: meteoroids. While much smaller than a typical asteroid, meteoroids can also be particularly devastating, as meteorites are often found on or near high-velocity impact craters.
In my theory, a particularly large meteor shower bombarded Earth, creating divots large enough to send rocks and dust into orbit, but small enough that they are able to be concealed by billions of years of a combination of centrifugal force, erosion, and volcanic activity. It may or may not have happened around the same time as an equally devastating asteroid hit Earth, sending up additional rocks and dust that contributed to forming the moon around its unusually small iron core, which, according to my theory, would have been supplied by the remnants of iron meteorites thrown into orbit after impact.
I believe this theory takes into consideration the lack of evidence on Earth for the Mars-sized object colliding with Earth, while still generating the amount of material necessary to create our moon. Perhaps more importantly, I believe this theory better proposes an explanation for why the moon’s composition is drastically different than Earth’s despite so much of the material that formed the moon coming from the Earth and the meteors.
A common question to established authors is: “What inspires you to write?” As someone who is constantly working on writing projects such as a book and multiple scripts, the answer in my case is, simply, happenstance. I find my ideas for stories anywhere from local entertainment attractions to other pieces of media and literature. But there are a few things I do to ensure those ideas never slip through my fingers and into the minds of others before I can write about them. Hopefully some of what I write here will influence you to write.
The first step to writing is coming up with an idea. And perhaps calling it “coming up with” is a bit of a misnomer: I believe the works we find most ingenious and famous are those which “happen to” the author or are influenced by other works, and aren’t “forced” or “required.” For example, when I have writer’s block, it’s my opinion that it’s better not to write at all. The only writing which happens during writer’s block is long-winded, vague, and tends to be inconsistent with the previous mindset of the work. It’s best to write only when you’re feeling inspired.
As I previously wrote, ideas I use to write my works tend to be inspired by things such as local events and locations, other pieces of media and literature (such as songs, books, and movies), and my interests. A great example of this is a psychological horror screenplay I’m writing that is somewhat influenced by a local entertainment attraction, SILO-X. I’ve never even visited the attraction, but the mere idea of the attraction inspired a complete screenplay. I’ve also been influenced by something as simple as The Grinch Who Stole Christmas! to come up with varying storylines, from another psychological horror to a thriller-turned-romance of sorts.
Oftentimes I also find inspiration in errors of others’ works. While a great fan of M. Night Shyamalan and, in particular, his works The Village, Sixth Sense, and Signs, I found The Happening to be perhaps one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen despite its great concept. That said, I’ve been working on an adaptation of sorts which fixes its problems with holes in the storyline, horrendous dialogue, and bad camera work/directing.
Once I find my inspiration, it’s important to write down, in detail, what exact your great concept is. If you don’t write it down, it’s likely to be lost. And if you only write down a one-line concept, it’s like you’ll forget exactly what the great idea is, which is what happened when I recently noted this vague storyline: “story about woman w depression makes crafts and is a cutter.” That’s not only vague, but is completely confusing, and doesn’t sound even remotely interesting. At one time I must have thought it compelling, but the inspiration was lost due to incomplete note taking. Now I can only hope that one day it returns.
I usually write down my ideas in my screenwriting program Celtx, which is a wonderful, free, open-source tool writers can use to plan and write their projects. In a pinch I can use my cell phone or, as I often do in the car, write my notes down on a small notepad. I also used to keep a very nice Moleskin pocket notebook, but it has since been replaced by the much more convenient cell phone. Whatever medium you use to write down your ideas, just make sure they’re complete. Include what inspired you, too, so that it can provide further influence.
Once you have your ideas, compile them in Celtx or another medium and use it as a sort of container for your project. I can go back into Celtx or my notebooks and write down more ideas. Don’t use Post-it Notes or small pieces of paper that are bound to be lost; try your best to keep the ideas together or at least readily available and able to be backed-up.
Hopefully this little post gives some insights into the method I use to get inspiration and turn them into works. It won’t make you an award-winning writer, but it will encourage and enable you to complete your projects with your original intent.
The latest report on speeding-related traffic accidents isn’t a good one for those with a lead foot: there was a “3.2 percent increase in deaths because of higher speed limits on all types of roads in the United States” between 1995 and 2005. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot until you look at the actual figure of fatalities in crashes due to excessive speeding, which is the cause of nearly 1/3 of all fatal accidents, in those years: 12,545. The important issues, really, are what goes into determining and enforcing speed limits, the underlying psychology of why people drive the way they do, and using those two factors determine a way to decrease accidents and fatalities.
There are various factors that are used to determine speed limits, but the general ones include:
- 85th percentile speed (PDF): this is defined as being the speed that 85% of motorists go on the road, separating them from the top 15%. This is a reactive system: it’s simply based on the theory that there is better compliance of speed limits if the majority of people are bound to go that particular speed. This procedure is usually found in determining speed limits on highways in the United States;
- Design speed (PDF): This determines the speed limit as per the safety of the road using factors such as curves, hills, bottlenecks, or other parts of the road. These generally aren’t changed unless the road itself changes, so this procedure is generally used for first-time highways (where the 85th percentile speed cannot yet be determined) and side/back roads;
- Crash records;
- Political or administrative judgment.
So given the 85th percentile rule and assuming that it has determined an appropriate and effective speed limit for those roads, what psychology underlies the other 15% who are chronic speeders? I have a 3-part ordered theory called the “Three Cs Theory” that I believe determines one’s mode of driving on any given road:
- Circumstance
- Conditioning
- Comfort
The first is circumstance. In circumstances such as an emergency, weather conditions, being late for an appointment, or being agitated or influenced by other drivers, one’s driving can certainly be impacted to be different than that of the general state in which they drive. That, above all, influences one’s driving.
Take away the circumstance, though, a person will then resort to driving how they are conditioned. For example, should a driver know that speed traps are often seen near a particular overpass, he or she will likely slow down or drive more safely than otherwise. The driver has been conditioned to know to slow down or else he or she may get a ticket.
Now that the two overt factors influencing a diver’s state have been explained, the third “c” represents every driver’s underlying, unadulterated psychology while driving: comfort. A driver who is comfortable driving 50 mph on a particular road will, when uninfluenced, probably go 50 mph. Likewise, a driver who is comfortable going 80 mph in the rain on a highway will probably, when uninfluenced, go 80 mph. That is where I believe the drivers in the 15% can be found.
This theory fits in reasonably well with the 85th percentile speed method as long as there aren’t any extraneous influences which affect the driving. The question, then, becomes if our current methodology is appropriate. Some factors that may help in determining the efficacy of a speed limit is the amount and severity of crashes, adherence to the speed limit by drivers, and the level of speeding tolerance by law enforcement.
While the 85th percentile speed method then appears appropriate since that is where most people are comfortable, what can be done to counter the increase in accidents and fatalities? I believe it’s reasonable, given the aforementioned factors, to place our focus and efforts in improving road planning and engineering in an attempt at finding an equilibrium of sorts between the 85th percentile speed and design speed. If we can engineer our roads to meet the design speed specifications that complement the 85th percentile speed comfort, and increase conditioning by law enforcement-derived deterrence in areas where infractions and accidents continue, I believe we will find a sharp decrease in accidents and fatalities on those roads.
With a massive health care bill (PDF) being pushed through the American legislature, the big question pops up again and again: who will pay for it? And that’s a fair question that has many complex answers. An often-raised solution by President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be to tax the rich, particularly those who are making over $280,000 (individuals) and $350,000 per year (couples). But in addition to several objections to this idea, I argue that this sort of taxation on a section of population is an undue burden.
Most often applied to cases of disability or abortion, “undue burden,” as defined by Justice John Paul Stevens (PDF) in the aforementioned abortion case, means “[a] burden may be ‘undue’ either because [it] is too severe or because it lacks a legitimate, rational justification.” In the case of taxation, I argue that “undue burden” can applied to taxes that are unjustifiably levied upon individuals who have little to do with the reason for the tax. In this example, I take the rich, who are often looked upon as the answer to our government’s fiscal needs.
In addition to many other great reasons we shouldn’t tax the rich for health care, I believe additionally taxing them to generate the funds for national health care would be an undue burden. The first reason I would argue this is because the rich have nothing to do with the state of our health care system, as they are able to afford the best health care, even at rates lower than those of people who earn less. Instead, the causes of the downfall of our health care system include “the 15 most expensive health conditions account for 44 percent of total health care expenses” (AHRQ) and prescription drugs and technology. If the rich are able to pay for their own health care, then why should they be taxed additionally in order to pay for others’ health care? This doesn’t offer any solutions; it merely puts a band-aid (no pun intended) on the problem, which leads to my second point.
I further argue that as long as additional taxes are concentrated on the rich, the economy will further collapse from the bottom-up. If the rich are taxed so much that they become the “new middle class,” they have less to invest in solidified and entrepreneurial businesses. With less investment and capital, businesses are able to produce less, and thereby the unemployment rate raises. This is the last thing we need in the current economy.
Instead of a surtax on the rich or even taxing health benefits, as is proposed by many in legislature (but Obama is rightly adamantly against), I suggest that taxes first be increased on businesses that contribute to and exasperate the causes of the need for health care, including restaurant chains, energy and chemical producers, and other vice-related businesses. As many of our leading chronic diseases are preventable (such as much of heart disease, asthma, lung cancer, and strokes), I argue that we should then pay for the causes of such diseases with the corporations responsible for them. For example, I would first levy additional taxes on:
- Chain restaurants (franchises and owners of over 3 restaurants) and food producing businesses (and their consumers) that have menus/products which include transfat or excessive per-serving or per-item calories and fat.
- Tax cap and trade (emissions trading) and companies who partake in the trading, in addition to an inherent tax on being a company which necessitates the cap and trade policy.
- Further tax alcohol and tobacco-related products both on the corporate and individual level, as has been done previously to pay for health-related coverage.
- Roll-back tax-exemption for non-profit organizations.
Instead of taxing a portion of our population who has done nothing to warrant further taxation, we should put the responsibility of paying for detrimental health-related outcomes on the corporations which provide the products and the consumers who use the products. By taxing the rich for outcomes for which they have little responsibility, I believe it’s an undue burden to that segment of the population, regardless of their means and ability to pay for such an expenditure.
It happens when you least expect it: when you’re sitting at home or having a simple conversation with a friend, you get the feeling that you’ve been there and done that before. Deja vu, meaning “already seen” in French, is the phenomenon described previously, where you believe that what you’re experiencing right now has already taken place sometime in the past. Varying reports claim its frequency: some say 60%, others at least two-thirds, and some others even up to 97% of people have experienced this perception. But there’s no doubt that it’s common.
In addition to varying reports of its frequency, there are varying theories on how it works. Alternative or parapsychological explanations aside, there are as many as 30 current theoretical explanations into its origin. Current research into paramnesia (another word for deja vu) includes familiarity-based recognition, which is supported by academic psychologist Anne Cleary. In this theory, she asserts that deja vu is as a result of the current experience seeming familiar to us because of a past event that was similar but not exactly like the current event.
Similar to Cleary’s theory, Alan Brown, and Elizabeth Marsh, tends to concentrate on a recognition memory-based theory involving double perception. This theory takes much less time than Cleary’s: while Cleary’s involves past memories, double perception involves quick glances. Their theory explains that deja vu is simply when our first glance takes a superficial note of the experience, and we then immediately take in the experience with full awareness.
My theory on deja vu takes a similar feel to Cleary’s and Brown and Marsh’s theory, but also includes dual processing theory, which is what happens when “two cognitive processes are momentarily out of sync.” My theory is quite simple: when we experience a moment, the dual cognitive processes get registered in our brain in separate areas: first, the experience is registered in our short- or long-term memory before its ever processed in real-time. When our second cognitive process finally processes the event, the experience tends to feel familiar because it has already been “misplaced” in the memory before it could be processed.
My theory is different from Cleary’s theory because it only invokes familiarity with the event which is happening now only through the process of dual processing as opposed to an experience from the true past (say, an hour/day/week/month/year ago). It’s also different from Brown and Marsh’s theory in that I only include one perception of the experience instead of their two (the superficial and then full-awareness). My theory ties these two together by invoking dual processing, simply registering the experience as a memory before it can be processed in real-time by the cerebral cortex.
One way to validate my theory would be to copy the experiments of Cleary and Brown and Marsh’s, and take images of the participants’ memory creation processes during the experiments. If the memory is created before evidence of the processing of the experience and the participant recognizes a perception of deja vu, then it would be easy to see how dual processing is the culprit. This research could have a great effect on neuroscience, including rehabilitation of those in traumatic brain injuries, pedagogical processes, and understanding experience processing and memory retention.
As I noted in a previous entry, there’s very little even in academic philosophy of sport that defines exactly what the term “sport” means. Perhaps it’s because it’s such a basic question that begs many different arguments and opinions, or maybe it’s just because the definition is some sort of “given” that just happens to be completely ambiguous. Whatever the reason, I think determining what “sport” is helps us better develop a more perfect sport, and I made an attempt at accomplishing this definition in the aforementioned post. In this entry I argue for some additional principles that won’t further define “sport,” but rather help in the attempt to develop a more perfect sport.
Because the five principles of sport are so pertinent to this venture, it’s important that they’re reiterated. Taking them from my previous entry, I resubmit the following five principles of sport:
1. It requires advanced physical competence.
2. It requires advanced, unlimited strategy.
3. Each party must be in direct competition. Further, a score should be as a result of a negative effect or action on or from the opponent.
4. Each party must have an equal chance of winning.
5. The scoring must be adjudicated without bias.
I think it’s a rather basic litmus test to define true sports from activities. I believe most would agree on the majority of these points, with the most controversy coming from the fifth principle. Nevertheless, based on these principles I submit the following additional principles which allow us to gauge which sports are more perfect than others. (For simplicity’s sake, I define perfection in sports as completely fair competition between opponents who have equal chances of winning the game.)
The sport shouldn’t be able to be played and completed without an opponent.
Pretty similar to the third principle, it’s a bit confusing at first, but is actually a pretty simple concept: when analyzing how the sport is played, can one opponent simply disappear, and the game can still be played to completion? There are actually some rather prominent sports which do not follow this principle, including hockey and basketball. You can easily play an entire game in those sports without having an opponent. Other sports such as baseball, however, are dependent on the other team pitching to you in order to bat. Football would be dependent on the other team being able to kick the ball at the start of your offensive play.
I think this additional principle is particularly important because it strengthens the third principle, which is that the score must come from a directly negative action by or against the opponent. While this is true in usual game play, it diminishes the point of the principle, which is to mandate that competition between opponents is a necessary facet of sport. It’s much more perfect if the sport’s very nature is to rely on the participation of both opponents.
In regular game play, the participants should always have an equal opportunity of like-participation.
Seemingly contradictory to my last principle, I also find it best if each opponent has an equal opportunity of participation that is similar to each other, if not the exact same. This principle actually helps the two sports we previously disqualified as perfect sports: hockey and basketball. In each of these sports the game starts with an equal opportunity of gaining possession of the play, and from then-on-out the participation of each participant is equal and in similar roles. Likewise, this principle is also seemingly contradictory on the opposite point: it doesn’t help a game like baseball because one participant inherently takes an offensive position to begin the game, while its opponent takes the defensive position, making the participation explicitly dissimilar, and giving an opportunity of gaining the advantage first to one opponent over the other.
So how can the two principles be rectified? To reiterate, the sport would have to require each participant to have an equal chance of participation in like-aspects, and yet, at the same time, be unable to be played by just one participant. Are there any sports in which this happens? I don’t claim to be an expert in all sports, but I’m unaware of any that conforms to both principles. I can imagine a way in which this may happen, although I admit it seems to have some problems:
While the theoretical game would begin with each participant having an equal chance of gaining possession of the play, after a participant’s score the negatively-affected participant would then gain possession of the play. So imagine soccer, except that the game would begin by having a forward from each team battle for possession of the ball. This would require each participant to be present, but you could certainly make the case that the game could still be played by one participant to a tie, thus disqualifying it from the first additional principle. You could also make the case that by requiring the negatively-affected participant to gain possession of the play after the score, it disqualifies the sport from the second principle of mandating that each participant has equal participation. So perhaps this was nothing more than a failed attempt at rectifying these two principles. I’d welcome any input on real or theoretical sports which would satisfy these two principles, though!
While I spent a lot of time explaining and attempting to rectify the previous two additional principles, I still have some additional principles. The next one also echoes a previous entry:
The sport shouldn’t have any positions of power.
The entry I’m referencing with this point argued that some sports have positions where the duties or skills employed have an adverse effect on the game. While sports can and should have players in distinct roles, none of the positions should have so much power that they inherently have unparalleled control over the outcome of the game. Positions such as these include the goaltender in hockey, goalkeeper in soccer, pitcher in baseball, and the quarterback in football (albeit perhaps to a lesser extent, as I noted in the referenced entry). In my view of a perfect sport, every position in the sport should have distinct roles but an equal effect on the outcome of the game.
The last principle I would argue be present in order for a sport to be seen as perfect focuses on motivation and specifications of the sport’s field of play:
Motivated participation should be present for the entirety of the game.
At first this principle can be seen as a “given.” You would assume that each participant would always try to have a beneficial effect on the game, but in particular sports this isn’t always so. For example, it’s common in tennis to give up on an attempt to return a shot that is to the opposite side of the court, and would take a great effort to make an attempt that would have a very low chance of being successful. In basketball, once the shot is taken by the offensive player, defensive players can no longer impede the progress of the ball towards the hoop, and so give up and position themselves for a possible rebound. Football has similar moments when a running back or similar offensive player runs the ball down the side of a field on which there are no defensive players. And baseball has home runs, where the outfielder simply doesn’t have any opportunity of catching the ball for an out. In each of these cases, the sports have times at which all of the players can be unmotivated.
I would argue that a perfect sport would require motivation by at least one player, if not all players, all the time. In hockey, for example, even on a breakaway the defensive goaltender continues his or her motivation. Some sports could solve this problem by simply decreasing the specifications of the field of play. With less room for the participants to move, it encourages them to continue their motivation regardless of their disadvantage at that part of the game.
If a sport does or could satisfy all of these principles, I believe it would be well on its way to being a perfect sport: equal, direct competition for all participants, equal opportunity for each participant to win the game, and unambiguous scoring. While two of the principles seem to be indirectly contradictory, I have little doubt that a sport could be developed to satisfy all of these principles. Just determining what kind of sport that would be is the problem.
While the American healthcare system has many flaws due to finances, it’s also undergoing an epidemic that’s hitting the entire world: a shortage of primary care physicians. With more medical students going into specialties, the primary care field has a shortage on par if not worse than the nursing shortage, and it threatens to derail President Obama’s national healthcare plan, among other healthcare initiatives and reforms. The American College of Physicians isn’t any more optimistic given its article, “The Impending Collapse of Primary Care Medicine and Its Implications for the State of the Nation’s Health Care.”
Although foreign doctors have picked up some of the absences, studies still expect a decrease in the number of medical students becoming generalists, and thus a 35,000-44,000 doctor shortage for adult care. It already impacts every state, and articles have been written about the dwindling primary care physician availability in Massachusetts, California, Maine, Alabama, Washington, and Wisconsin, among many others. Cities with large, reputable healthcare organizations aren’t excluded: even Boston has a problem finding primary care physicians. And you know it’s bad when it hits well-supported issues, such as the availability of mammograms.
There are several theories for solutions to the shortage, with the vast majority of them focusing on increasing the number of primary care physicians. These theories include:
- An article about Texas claims it cured its doctor shortage through tort reform. It argues that by decreasing the malpractice liability and the amount a patient can win from a suit, the doctor saves money on their insurance, and the patient then sees decreased costs. This isn’t an argument I support whatsoever. While I’m well aware of the insurance costs and liability to physicians and other healthcare practitioners, I truly believe the savings to the individual person or family would be very little. This also doesn’t particularly encourage medical students to consider primary care, considering primary care is still the least profitable field for physicians.
- We could also increase enrollment in medical schools, but I agree with the consensus that it would just further encourage medical students to pursue specialties. That obviously doesn’t solve the problem.
- I disagree with this doctor who says the easy solution is to increase medicare reimbursement by 20%. Throwing money at the problem won’t help, and creates a slippery slope whereby increases in the reimbursement may be necessary as the number of primary care physicians continue to dwindle.
- Another less talked about option would be to increase the National Health Service Corps, which, according to their Web site, “helps Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in the U.S. get the medical, dental and mental health providers they need to meet their desperate need for health care.” But there are still liability and organizational issues with the corps.
I suggest, along with some others, that our healthcare system should be reevaluated and roles appropriated. Instead of attempting to encourage more medical students, with their $140,000+ in medical school debt, to pursue the least profitable field, it would make much more sense to increase the number of nurse practitioners (PDF) with the eventual goal of replacing all primary care medicine with nurse practitioners.
Nurse practitioners, a relatively young profession at just about 50 years old, has shown to be less expensive (for both the individual and economy), have less liability, and about the same efficacy as a primary care physician. According to the Mayo Clinic (via the American Nurses Association), “approximately 60 to 80 percent of primary and preventive care can be performed by nurse practitioners.” So why can’t it become 100%, allowing for cheaper healthcare, and allowing physicians, with all their schooling and debts, to pursue specialty fields upon being referred by the NP? It simply doesn’t make sense to invest, as a society and individual, so much in primary care physicians and all their schooling and debts to take a role which can be filled by equally effective nurse practitioners.
The main problem with this plan is the availability of nurse practitioners, but with less debts incurred by these students and less time of program competition, it’s easily more practical and affordable to increase the number of nurse practitioners with government and organizational incentives such as debt relief and bonuses. This also strengthens and makes our specialty care fields more competitive by allowing more physicians to pursue those fields.
While I have little doubt that this would be, in essence, a paradigm shift to the medical community, I think it’s one we’re going to find more practical as a long-term solution as the world’s population grows. There are only so many positions available in a medical school, and only so many people who can complete the entire program. We should allow nurse practitioners to assume the primary care role to increase availability and decrease cost of the medical services we encounter most often so long as the standard of medical care isn’t decreased. And current NPs have shown they’re up to the task in both education and training.