Khan Academy

One of the important parts of my tutoring is Mathematics. Currently I'm capable of teaching Maths up to Year 8. There are sections of the Stage 5 curriculum that I can teach as well, but I don't know all of it well enough to teach so I can't advertise myself as a K-10 Maths tutor.

I currently have some Year 8 students who I will lose at the end of the year unless I know the Stage 5 curriculum. So there's a financial and personal motivation to improve my Maths skills. They're all great kids who I love working with. 

Consequently I've decided to do work to improve my Maths, I've picked up a copy of the fine instruction book Understanding Maths Years 9 and 10. I use some of their books with the kids anyway because they're well laid out and place a lot of emphasis upon clear explanations with fully worked examples. You can pick up a copy from http://www.understandingmaths.com/. I'll be using this to assist me in updating my skills in some of these topics.

The big focus of my efforts has been at Khan Academy. This is another site I use with my students and it's a fantastic site. It's completely free and is intended to remain that way. It provides Mathematics instruction from primary school level to the end of high school. It's also providing instruction in a few other subjects with the long term goal being to offer  "A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere". It's not there yet, but it's a hell of a good site even so.

The site offers activities for you to complete about varying topics, to pass an activity you need to correctly answer 5 questions in a row. Instructional hints and explanatory videos are included to help you understand the topic. To master a topic you need to go through 4 levels, but you can complete Mastery challenges on subsequent days rather than completing another full activity. Additionally, you earn energy points for every activity and those energy points help you earn badges of achievement. You also earn badges for varying other things, such as quick, accurate work, persistence on a difficult topic, consistently working at the site on a daily basis, participating in forums, among numerous other things.

I like the motivational side of it and rather enjoy collecting points - I have 160 000 so far and hope to become a millionaire one day :) The hints work very well at explaining something if I don't get it. I find that the videos are of mixed quality, some of them explain the topic at hand very well, some of them simply haven't explained it fully enough, they've explained one part of the topic but not that part that I didn't understand!

I'm currently visiting the site and using it on a daily basis and I expect that to continue for a while as I'm having fun. It's all very well to have the long term goal of being a better qualified tutor but that isn't going to be enough to motivate me to do the necessary hours unless I'm enjoying the process of improving my skills. And I am.

Part of that is because it's a chance to put right what happened over a quarter of a century ago to my Maths performance in high school. At the end of Year 6 I was in the top 4 of my primary school in Maths, by Year 12 I finished about 55th out of 60 in 2 Unit Maths! And 26th out of 26 in Physics! OK, that was largely because I didn't do any work, apparently you need to work hard at new material in order to learn it - who'd have thunk it?

Nevertheless, pointing out that I wasn't working is the superficial answer - the real question is why wasn't I working? I was certainly suitably dedicated in all my humanities subjects and achieved results that reflected that. I've thought about this many times over the years, as I was a serious student, I may have been a bit lazy with the odd homework assignment, but doing well at school was important to me, being "smart" was the dominant part of my self-concept so it was  uncharacteristic for me to allow some critical subjects to go to pieces, it wasn't because I didn't value Maths in the way I didn't value Industrial Arts or some other subjects that weren't directly academic.

The problem was that I didn't know how to handle failure - I found some parts of high school Maths to be difficult and I didn't understand them, lacking anyone to explain them to me I decided giving up was better than admitting that I wasn't smart - 'smart' people should be able to get it right was my thinking. The idea that giving up on important subjects and failing them outright is the antithesis of smart never occurred to me :). I preferred to fail where I had a convenient excuse in that I didn't try as opposed to doing my best and still failing which was what I felt was happening.

That fear of failure leading to quitting something has turned up in other contexts subsequently so it's something I find I need to be watchful of when I'm trying to improve myself. But it hasn't been a problem so far because I have all these options to find out the information - beyond the resources offered by Khan Academy or my books, there's an ocean of additional resources a mere Google search away. So I feel very confident that if I can't work something out, that I'll be able to given some persistence.

Additionally, there's no pressure to pass exams and do a set amount of work every day, I'm doing it because I'm enjoying the learning. It makes little noises when I get a question right!  Yesterday I was looking at the topics that I will be studying once I finish my current Khan Academy mission and I'm looking forward to them. I never did get the hang of trigonometry at school and I only understood certain parts of calculus and I am excited about the prospect of finally being able to say that I can do it!

The ultra competitive little know it all that I was in high school is still cut about having failed at Maths, it still burns that I couldn't stand the heat in that particular kitchen.There's a little bit of redemption going on every time I log on to Khan Academy.

I don't get that from Bejeweled Blitz.

8 days ago, I said that I would keep the blog in easy range on my desktop and write as often as I felt like, without putting pressure on myself. Well, this is the 1st post, I haven't really felt like writing much.

But I have been very focused upon certain goals during that week. I added Khan Academy to my desktop and I have been doing loads of work on it every day, I signed up for a chess tactics server, chesstempo and I've been doing numerous tactical exercises. So I most definitely have been spending my computer time in a purposeful manner, it's just that it appears that regular blog writing isn't going to be a big part of that purpose.

I haven't been forcing myself to complete chess puzzles or Maths exercises, I've been doing it because I enjoy them. I like the fact that there will be long term gains from doing them, but that's not the main reason I'm doing them, I'm getting enough pleasure out of doing them at the time to keep me interested.

I can't see myself turning this blog into a full blown blog with daily updates. That being the case, it would appear that the primary use for this blog will be a personal blog, a place for family updates and occasional rants and comments that are too long to fit into a Facebook update.

I'd been envisioning using Silken Musings for that, but my greater emotional attachment to the Went Report title means that this would be a better location to use. So it will be used for that.

I'd been thinking of adding a few posts and then doing the work of including some links and advertising the blog as part of my online presence. But I'm just going to add the links over the next few days and start letting people know about the blog. I hope that a few people will stop by and say hello, but I'm not entertaining any great notions of it becoming a genuinely popular blog, because I'm simply not interested in putting in the necessary effort for that to happen.

The next couple of posts will be about chess and Khan Academy as they're my current passions online and are worth mentioning.

Another writing spiel

I think I've had it wrong with my approach to my blogs, the idea in my head has been that I would put a lot of effort into each post and create many well structured and finely written posts. The paucity of previous posts demonstrates the failure of this strategy.

Similarly, apart from the odd journal post, I haven't done a lot of other writing off blog either, despite the enjoyment I get from writing. I'm not aiming to be a writing professional, I just want to write as a hobby, so I need to lower my expectations of each post.

Blog posts are generally ephemeral, read briefly, by a few people, and promptly forgotten. The key, then, is to write, to make posts, regular posts, so that an audience can be built.

What sort of audience would I like? Well, if I knew that 50 people were going to read an average blog post and that 100 might read an interesting one and 20 might read a boring one, I'd be perfectly happy with my audience size. That's not a large number and should be achievable, given some time and effort.

What should I write these posts about? Well, whatever I feel like is, I think, a perfectly valid answer. Not wanting to make money off the blog, not needing a large audience, means that I have the freedom to write as I please.

I expect that posts about politics, current affairs, sport, ecological and environmental issues, books,  education, schooling, tutoring are likely to be the dominant topics, with posts about other topics appearing as it suits me.

I think most posts should be drafted and posted quickly, in response to my motivation at the time, with some posts taking a greater effort.

There's 8 days left in the month, I'm going to try and keep dashing off quick posts for those 8 days, both here and on the family blog. If I find that I've posted regularly, then I will add some links, do some work on the look of the blogs and start actively seeking readers.

If it doesn't happen, then I'll just continue to post periodically, more as an online journal than anything intended to reach an audience.

After the commercial break

Well, I'm back. For today, anyway.

I wonder if I will ever make this blog a fully functioning blog where I write regularly and develop an audience.

Still, let that become clearer over time. The last 6 months have not been a complete waste despite the absence of writing on my blogs. Silken musings is now back in my hands after being lost and both blogs are on permanent renewal so shouldn't be lost again!

I've made steady progress with my tutoring and now have the beginnings of a functioning business, although there's a lot of work to do yet to make some money. Still at hobby business levels currently.
www.lindsaywent.com for interested parties :)

I recently decided that if I was going to play chess, then I need to play it seriously as I've just been getting little enjoyment from playing quick games poorly. So I've started playing longer chess again and have been enjoying it much more. I've started studying and am enjoying the complexity of the great game once more.

I've been steadily developing my Maths skills at www.khanacademy.org as I seek to become more proficient at Maths. K-10 proficiency is the current goal and I'll re-assess once it's achieved. Obviously the better my Maths, the more students I can get for tutoring. Year 12  proficiency at 3 unit level is the holy grail, but is also a lot of work.

So, the current priorities are promoting my business further and doing a good job for the students I currently have, chess, Maths, Kristy and Cassie.

And maybe, maybe, this blog too.

Peter Roebuck: 2 years gone: A Final Letter

Dear Peter, 

It is 2 years now and I still miss your voice. I click on the sports section in the smh and there’s still a part of me that expects to see your lively pieces. It took me a year to listen to my favourite broadcast of cricket on the ABC because I knew that I wouldn’t be hearing from you. As a writer, you were supreme in the field of cricket journalism. Your opinions were certainly open to question from time to time, but the way you wrote them was everything a reader could hope for.  

I loved that you were a literate cricket writer. I loved that you had so obviously studied history, I loved that you were an erudite man. Here was an intellectual who loved cricket, my uncle was the intellectual in our family, but he always scorned me for being so enamoured of sport. You were my bulwark against the idea that I was wasting my talents by following games like cricket.

Your comments and your articles helped me realise that cricket was a part of the world, and a part of the history of the modern world, and that the game reflected them both very well. One can study cricket and see many of the great themes of modern British, Commonwealth and Australian history writ large through it. May I take a moment to recommend Ramachandra Guha’s superb A Corner of a Foreign Field for any who doubt just how thoroughly cricket is entwined with history?

I admired your passion for the difficulties playing cricket at a high level presented for ordinary people in the West Indies and in Zimbabwe. You placed cricket in the world, rather than trying to separate the two.

After a day’s play, I would stay awake until the clock ticked over midnight, so I could log on to the smh.com.au and read your latest account of the great deeds and world changing events that had occurred the previous day between 11 and 6. For they were great deeds, there was always a feeling in your articles that the events of the previous day had mattered, they were a chapter in a much larger, more important story than just the runs that were scored or the wickets that were taken. Sometimes I felt that desire to fit those events into an expansive narrative caused you to get some additional exercise in jumping to conclusions, but that was all part of the fun. 

My biggest criticism of you was for your article demanding Ricky Ponting be sacked, which I felt was a huge overreaction as I detailed here. But it certainly demonstrated your influence as *everyone* picked up on that story. I think you realised it was an overreaction later on, as I don’t recall you ever being especially critical of Ponting subsequently. You were saying nice things about his batting after it had become clear to my Ponting biased eyes that the great man was past it!!

 

But, there was another side to you besides the great writer. The fact that you had gotten in trouble for caning an adult student of yours was well known and created quite a controversy. At the time I was terribly worried that the smh and ABC would distance themselves from the scandal in the most straightforward manner, by giving you a termination notice. It was, I felt at the time, a reflection upon the good sense of both organisations that you were encouraged to carry on. And years passed, and I continued to enjoy your writing, and the question that story raised, of had it happened again, wasn’t one that I paid much attention to.

However, ignoring something doesn't always mean it will go away, as soon as I heard of your suicide I suspected something similar was afoot, as did many others, Adam Shand later produced a detailed, thoughtful, balanced profile that made it very clear that the term predator was not an unreasonable label to apply to you without forgetting that you were human and the evil co-insists with the good.

Thank you,  Peter,  for the writings and commentary that I so loved. I'm sorry you didn't feel more comfortable with yourself as you may have been able to find what you needed from people who were genuinely able to give consent. Adults they may have been, but their poverty left them with little choice but to do what you wished, irrespective of whether they personally wished to engage in such activities. I hope that they find peace as they go forward in their lives and that when people remember you, that they speak of you as you were, not as you wished to be. 

Lindsay Went

Australian Test team

No huge surprises here, I can't say I'm thrilled with George Bailey being selected, I like the guy and respect his performance in the shorter forms of the game, but I don't think his performance in the longer forms, especially last season, justifies his selection. I'd have preferred Phil Hughes, who's been dropped far too often despite reasonable results in his Test career.

I think we could give England a game here and there, but an England series victory is certainly expected. It really sucks having a crap team!

Going forward as a writer

Writing fulfils me in ways that few things ever have. The artist in me is a writer or he is nothing, the creative impulse has only ever expressed itself in me through writing. Yet I write so little. 

 I want to write children’s books, to be a children’s author. Partly because I think I’ve got still got a fair connection to the boy I was, partly because I feel far more comfortable around kids than I do around adults, which is not to say that kids can’t unnerve me now, just as they did then.

Maybe it’s because many of my favourite moments in teaching have come from reading stories to kids – how much better would it be if I was reading them some of my own?!

 I’m not too old to be a successful writer. And success in writing, for me, is not such a huge thing – being read, finding an audience, would be a success. I don’t need to be a Mem Fox or a Paul Jennings or a John Marsden. Finding an audience for my work would be great and committing myself to that work!

I want to be a creative person, I want to be a writer, to let myself be expressed through my keyboard, to spend quite a bit of that time which remains to me making connections, connections that may stretch beyond my own brief journey. 

There is just one obstacle blocking my path to being a successful writer.

Me.

I have been lazy while writing takes effort, writing takes work, it takes sitting down at the keyboard and coming to it with real focus and intensity. It requires a decision to spend far less time playing games and far more time creating.

I know full well that I possess the capacity to write things that will attract and hold an audience. I know because I’ve done it before and because I have read enough to understand the rhythm of language. My understanding of that rhythm is good enough to trust, given a willingness to work hard at it.

Another truth: I am slowly building a scenario where the time will continue to be there to write, a successful tutoring business is developing and it’s not going to take that many hours compared to some other jobs. Additionally, it’s not impossible that some of my creative writing could earn money. Not lots of it, sure, but a few dollars here and there is a useful hobby.

The reason I haven’t written more is that I am afraid to do the work, afraid to open myself up and COMMIT to that relationship, to write with my whole heart, to let writing be the driving passion of my life other than my wife and family. 25 years ago, when I wrote those essays in my diary, I realised that writing had its hooks in me.

Ever since, I have played the coward, too scared to get out there and play, too afraid to do the work to make it happen.I haven’t truly engaged with my writing. Consequently, I have written nothing of consequence and allowed others, possibly no better than I, to connect with their audiences while I dreamed of having an audience.I didn't dream of finding an audience because finding an audience implies that you might do some work to find it!

Audiences don’t come to you through dreams, you have to build them, you have to commit to who you are and admit who you are. The only way to be a writer is to write. Every day that I live there is time available – turn the glass teat from something to suck into something to fill, be the breast, not the nipple.

Writers write, Lindsay Edmond, and for too long now, you have played at writing, afraid to commit yourself to it. WHY? It’s not like you’re committing yourself to anything else, you’re not going to be a politician, you’re not going to be a teacher and your tutoring business is very much a means to an end. A means you believe in, yes, but a means nevertheless.

Currently, when the time comes, all I have to say that I was here and was of some benefit to this world, is Kristy and Cassie. Not a worthless legacy, granted, but less than it might have been. 

If I reach my father’s age, will I be pleased I was a Bejeweled Blitz champion, will I gain great satisfaction from the hours spent on ICC after all my friends left?  Will I rejoice in how often I blasted the computer on Warcraft III as a human player? The obvious answer may be no, yet I give a different answer every time I play those time wasters.

 

I opened my blog post topics folder and there’s a good 50 potential posts listed there and this piece here is one that also belongs there – I’ve kept these types of pieces for my private journal, but the blog is the right place for many of them.

My blog doesn’t need to be focussed on a particular theme, if I write with consistency and passion then regular themes will develop over time and attract an audience. There are clearly some themes in that list of blog topics.

 Going forward, then, I must commit myself, I have the ideas for my blog, so I must seek to write something for it every day, not post every day, but write every day.

Ideas for writing more generally will come, I need to start writing down those ideas and then attempt to bring them to fruition, I recognise that the overwhelming majority of my initial attempts to write fiction will be shit, but out of  that manure will come compost for future writing crops.

I propose to post a minimum of 3 blog posts a week for the rest of the year, equalling a total of 21 blog posts by December 31.

My specific goal for longer term writing is to create a list of ideas to write about and to have made a start on some of them by the end of January.

The needs of my business actually will take some time up over that period but the time will be there, should I but choose to use it!

Either I choose to be a writer, or I choose to keep doing what I have done best, which is bullshitting myself and everyone else.  

You can’t write well with a strait jacketed soul.