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Taking Bold Steps in Teaching | Notetaking | Science Updates | TAPP 90

by Kevin Patton

Taking Bold Steps in Teaching | Notetaking | Science Updates

TAPP Radio Episode 90

Episode | Quick Take

Episode 90 of The A&P Professor podcast is a thematic smörgåsbord, full of tasty tidbits to share with students and colleagues. Host Kevin Patton talks about dealing with resistance when we try to take bold steps in teaching. Is note taking better with a paper or an electronic device? The effects of diluting blood plasma on aging (don’t try this at home).And the phenomenon of pandemic weight change.

  • 00:00 | Introduction
  • 01:06 | Notetaking: Paper or Digital?
  • 13:14 | Sponsored by AAA
  • 14:53 | Pandemic Twenty?
  • 19:27 | Sponsored by HAPI
  • 20:39 | Diluted Blood: Fountain of Youth?
  • 28:25 | Sponsored by HAPS
  • 29:37 | Taking Bold Steps in Teaching
  • 42:57 | Long-Term Learning Seminar
  • 44:20 | More Bold Steps
  • 50:46 | Staying Connected

Episode | Listen Now

Episode | Show Notes

 Of all frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called ‘the greatest evil in the world’. The friction which results from ignorance can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent. (Nikola Tesla)

Notetaking: Paper or Digital?

12 minutes

It’s the battle of paper notetaking vs. digital notetaking. Who’s the winner? Are are we ready to declare a winner?

  • The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking (journal article from Psychological Science) my-ap.us/39qbNCo
  • Don’t Ditch the Laptop Just Yet: Replication Finds No Immediate Advantage to Writing Notes by Hand (blog article from American Psychological Association) my-ap.us/39svN7h
  • Don’t Ditch the Laptop Just Yet: A Direct Replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) Study 1 Plus Mini Meta-Analyses Across Similar Studies (journal article from Psychological Science) my-ap.us/3fpmHff
  • Paper Notebooks vs. Mobile Devices: Brain Activation Differences During Memory Retrieval (journal article from Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience) my-ap.us/3u3YjEb
  • Stronger Brain Activity After Writing on Paper Than on Tablet or Smartphone (article at Neuroscience News) my-ap.us/3ftufxE

student writing in a notebook

Sponsored by AAA

1.5 minute

A searchable transcript for this episode, as well as the captioned audiogram of this episode, are sponsored by the American Association for Anatomy (AAA) at anatomy.org.

Searchable transcript

Captioned audiogram

Don’t forget—HAPS members get a deep discount on AAA membership!

AAA logo

Pandemic Twenty?

4.5 minutes

Originally conceived as the equivalent of the mythical “freshmen 15,” the “pandemic 15” may turn out to be the “pandemic twenty” or more. Or less. Listen and find out.

  • How Much Weight Did We Gain During Lockdowns? 2 Pounds a Month, Study Hints (article from New York Times) my-ap.us/3fqgX5a
  • Body Weight Changes During Pandemic-Related Shelter-in-Place in a Longitudinal Cohort Study (journal article from Journal of the American Medical Association) my-ap.us/3dg5L8y

woman with medical mask looking out window

Sponsored by HAPI Online Graduate Program

1 minute

The Master of Science in Human Anatomy & Physiology Instruction—the MS-HAPI—is a graduate program for A&P teachers, especially for those who already have a graduate/professional degree. A combination of science courses (enough to qualify you to teach at the college level) and courses in contemporary instructional practice, this program helps you be your best in both on-campus and remote teaching. Kevin Patton is a faculty member in this program. Check it out!

NYCC Human Anatomy and Physiology Instruction

Diluted Blood: Fountain of Youth?

7.5 minutes

New research suggests that diluting our blood plasma could reduce or reverse some effects of aging. Don’t try this at home!

  • Rejuvenation of three germ layers tissues by exchanging old blood plasma with saline-albumin (journal article) my-ap.us/31lDHeq
  • Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue and reverses aging (summary article of the recent research) my-ap.us/3cjkGiR
  • Rejuvenation of aged progenitor cells by exposure to a young systemic environment. (Journal article on the 2005 research) my-ap.us/3ckyUQu

camera phone showing a baby, but pointing to an elderly person

Sponsored by HAPS

1 minute

The Human Anatomy & Physiology Society (HAPS) is a sponsor of this podcast.  You can help appreciate their support by clicking the link below and checking out the many resources and benefits found there. Watch for virtual town hall meetings and upcoming regional meetings!

Anatomy & Physiology Society

Check out: My Experience in Striving for Equitable Education in A&P Curriculum: Why it Matters to my Students (HAPS blog post) my-ap.us/39q8R8B

HAPS logo

Taking Bold Steps in Teaching

13 minutes

Ever feel resistance from peers when suggesting a try of  new or different teaching or curriculum strategies? Yeah, me too.

woman leaning forward

Long-Term Learning Seminar

1.5 minute

Here’s a great refresher of some basic evidence-based strategies that you can use to take a bold step in teaching: Five Powerful Ways You Can Enhance Long-Term Learning in Your A&P Course

  • Topics include:
    • spaced retrieval practice
    • test debriefing
    • pre-testing
    • cumulative testing
    • initial exams
  • Don’t forget! You can earn a digital credential in professional development for this online seminar.

Long-Term Learning

More Bold Steps

6.5 minutes

The conversation continues with some practical advice. For example, how to bring your critics on board with your bold ideas!

Need help accessing resources locked behind a paywall?
Check out this advice from Episode 32 to get what you need!

Episode | Transcript

The A&P Professor podcast (TAPP radio) episodes are made for listening, not reading. This transcript is provided for your convenience, but hey, it’s just not possible to capture the emphasis and dramatic delivery of the audio version. Or the cool theme music.  Or laughs and snorts. And because it’s generated by a combo of machine and human transcription, it may not be exactly right. So I strongly recommend listening by clicking the audio player provided.

AAA logoThis searchable transcript is supported by the
American Association for Anatomy.
I'm a member—maybe you should be one, too!

Kevin Patton (00:00):
The inventor and futurist, Nikola Tesla, once wrote, “Of all frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance.” What Buddha called the greatest evil in the world. The friction which results from ignorance can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.

Aileen (00:34):
Welcome to The A&P Professor, a few minutes to focus on teaching human anatomy and physiology with a veteran educator and teaching mentor, your host, Kevin Patton.

Kevin Patton (00:47):
In this episode, I talk about taking bold steps in teaching. I ask, is digital note-taking better than paper? I talk about the pandemic 20 and diluted blood plasma’s effect on aging.

Notetaking: Paper or Digital?

Kevin Patton (01:06):
Well, here’s an argument that’s been… Okay, I’m sorry, debate that’s been going on for quite some time. And that is the debate between whether it’s better for students, as far as their learning goes, to write out their notes in paper notebooks or to use a digital device such as a tablet or a laptop or something like even their phone maybe and take their notes that way.

Kevin Patton (01:34):
There’ve been several papers that have suggested that writing out your notes on a paper notebook or in a paper notebook with a pen or pencil work better for memory and for learning than using a digital device such as a tablet or a smartphone or a laptop or whatever. Even if it’s a tablet or a pad device that can be used with a stylist, so it’s kind of like writing on paper, there’ve been a bunch of studies that seem to prove that writing out the notes is way, way better, but there’s also been a bunch of studies and replications of those previous studies and meta-analysis of the various studies that say, “Nope, there’s no statistical difference.” So one is not truly better than the other.

Kevin Patton (02:27):
And of course, another issue with a lot of these studies is…

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what they’re actually measuring. They’re measuring often short-term memory. So they’ll have the participants take notes on some kind of presentation or whatever, and then let them wait an hour, maybe distract them with cookies, or I don’t know what they’re distract… Cookies would distract me donuts. Yes, they would distract me. And so, then they come back in an hour and then they take a quiz or test or whatever, and they measure how much learning was done and compare that. And I don’t think these were any different than I am in this regard. I don’t want my A&P students remembering things for an hour and then that’s it. But I guess that does get us somewhere. It does tell us something.

Kevin Patton (03:16):
And very recently, and again, there’s links in the show notes and episode page. Recently, there was a study that showed that students writing notes by hand in paper notebooks can record information 25% faster than when using a digital device, which to me seems counterintuitive and certainly counter to the prevailing thinking. And yeah, okay, I guess some people are slow typists and so-and-so. There’s that, but there’s also people who are slow writers. They found that, but that’s not really the purpose of that study. They just happened to find it and said, “Whoa, we didn’t expect that.” What they were really looking for was, well, they were using an MRI to look at brain activity during learning to see if there was a difference in that between writing notes on paper and using a digital device of some sort.

Kevin Patton (04:19):
And they actually had a couple of experimental groups there, some with regular computer type device and I think there were tablets or something and then the other was a smartphone. So they used the MRI when they were doing the testing to see, well, what kinds of things are going on in their brain when they’re trying to recall the information from whichever kind of note-taking they did, whichever group they were assigned to in the research. And they found out that when learners were recalling information after an hour had passed since note-taking, we want to compare apples to apples, right? And that’s the way most of these studies are done. When they looked at them after that hour had taken place and they were trying to answer their questions based on the notes that they had taken an hour before, the folks that had used a paper notebook had way more brain activity in way more places than did those that were using the digital devices of either group, the smartphones or the ones that were using the tablet devices.

Kevin Patton (05:27):
Now, the volunteers who used paper had more brain activity in the areas that you would expect. The areas associated with language, the areas associated with imaginary visualization, and of course in the hippocampus. And we know that the hippocampus is thought to be a very important region of the brain for memory and for navigation. And so when the researchers saw that, they thought, well, the activation of the hippocampus indicates that these paper methods, the analog methods versus those digital methods with the digital devices, those paper or analog methods, they probably contain a richer set of spatial details of things that can be recalled later and that the volunteers were recalling as these MRIs were recording brain activity. Maybe in their brains they were kind of navigating around a little bit in their imaginary notebook in which they had taken their notes.

Kevin Patton (06:39):
So I don’t know. Maybe this goes back to that memory palace technique that we heard about from Chase DiMarco at the beginning of last year in episode 64 when I was talking to Chase about how medical students often use a memory palace to memorize large amounts of information in a short period of time. And we recall that a memory palace is where you imagine a physical place, for example, your bedroom, and then you imagine different concepts you need to recall in different specific places within that bedroom.

Kevin Patton (07:16):
Now, with paper notes, you’re kind of making a physical memory palace on paper. You can often recall, I can often recall where ideas are written on a page like where on the page and how that relates to the position of other ideas that I have written out on the page. Is it halfway down? Is it all the way down? Is it up in the corner? And so on. But when you’re using software to take notes, it’s all kind of the same and it scrolls past and so on. And you can’t really visualize where in that scrolling long piece of a virtual paper that information is. So it’s less likely that you’re going to be subconsciously building a memory palace when you’re using the software, when you’re using a digital device.

Kevin Patton (08:11):
Now, I use digital notebooks as well as paper notebooks. And I find that the more often I use digital notebooks, the better I get at it. And a big part of that getting better at it is that I’m learning how to take some of those physical things about paper notes and replicate them in my digital notebook. I usually use Microsoft OneNote, and that lets me draw connecting lines and add different color highlights and different colors and styles and typeface of fonts and I can add images, I can even draw out little sketches. Not as easily as I can with my green pen on my little note cards or in my notebook, but I can do it and I’m getting better at that. So I’m probably going to be doing that more and more.

Kevin Patton (09:01):
When I first started using OneNote, I just typed things up just whatever the default type style was and so on. And then I started using different color fonts. And then I started using some big and small font. And then I started adding highlights. I was building up my repertoire. So I’m using all of these things together. And then I start using the draw feature and I start drawing things in, usually arrows one part of the page to the other. It’s getting more and more like my use of a notebook. As a matter of fact, I added in, I didn’t even know I could do this at first, but I added in a background so it actually looks like notebook paper. It has the little light blue lines with the red margin along the edge, left edge, and so on. So it even looks like a physical notebook. So it’s getting more and more that way.

Kevin Patton (09:51):
I use my digital notebook for these podcast segments. I’m right now looking at some highlights and other markups that guide me as I put my thoughts out there vocally. That’s where my notes are. I’ve done the research and I’ve jotted down my notes and now I’m looking at them as I explain this. And that’s how I do almost all of the segments is using my digital notebook. I can’t recall ever using a paper notebook for these podcasts segments, but you know what? After all that note-taking and from doing research in different journals, it’s not until I do this part, explaining it all verbally, out loud to you that it really sinks enough for me to remember it for the long-term.

Kevin Patton (10:46):
In other words, I can do a bunch of research, put together all I need to do one segment and then set it aside and when I come back to it, I have to refresh myself. I don’t remember it all that well. I remember some of it and it starts to click a little bit. But you know what? After I’ve done one of these segments and actually recoordinate, I can easily recall it for quite awhile afterwards. So maybe that’s like when we tell students to get in study groups and explain your notes to each other. It’s adding another kind of learning activity that adds even more kinds of brain activity to the mix, and therefore adds more kinds of memories about those ideas. And I’m thinking that makes retrieval easier. The more places and the more kinds of ways we represent that information in our brain and the connections made between them, that’s going to make retrieval easier and especially for the long-term.

Kevin Patton (11:52):
In this recent study, they did find that the paper note takers also scored better than the digital note takers, especially on test items that required deeper and more solid cognition. I think that’s kind of intuitive. I think we would expect that. I think that for now, paper is winning the battle, but I suspect some clever folks are going to find ways to translate some of these advantages to the digital platform. Maybe we’re not quite ready to call the winner yet, and maybe I should hold back on my tendency to want to assign superior magical properties to this or to that particular learning strategy and maybe more fully embrace the idea that learning A&P is complex and involves a whole lot of different brain functions and connectivity and processing that no one strategy can do at all. And maybe there are many different combinations of strategies can get the job done equally well.

Sponsored by AAA

Kevin Patton (13:14):
A searchable transcript and a captioned audiogram of this episode are funded by AAA, the American Association for Anatomy at anatomy.org. I’m always suggesting you go to anatomy.org to check things out, but I don’t always give you a place to start your exploration. Sometimes I do though, and this is one of those times. I don’t know why I did this or how I got there. And I know I didn’t start out wanting to go there, but I somehow ended up on the AAA mission, vision, and values page. That’s not really a place I head straight for most websites. Okay, I don’t go there on any website. I admit it. Unless I’m on a mission, vision, values task force and I’m looking for things to copy for my committee’s homework assignment, yeah, then I might go there.

Kevin Patton (14:17):
But somehow I ended up on AAA’s mission, vision, and values page, and I’ll admit it, I’m glad I did because it really does capture a lot about what I like about being a AAA member. If you want to get a feel for AAA, then go there. Now, don’t ask me how to get there though. All I know is that I started at anatomy.org and just started poking around.

Pandemic Twenty?

Kevin Patton (14:53):
You’ve heard of that mythical Freshman 15, haven’t you? That’s the supposedly weight gain in pounds that college freshmen experience when they move away from their home environment and start living on campus. And it’s expected that they would gain weight of 15 pounds. And of course, that’s not true for every individual, but it is this sort of concept that we have. And so about a year ago when people started sheltering in place, we started talking about the pandemic 15 because we were experiencing a shift in lifestyle. And when that happens, all kinds of things in our body shift around, particularly in our metabolism. And that may affect how much fat or adipose tissue that we’re carrying around in our body.

Kevin Patton (15:44):
And so, as you might imagine, some people have been doing some studies and I think it’s a little early to say anything for sure even looking back over the past year because, well, we’re not done with the pandemic yet. So there’s that. And also these sorts of things involving weight and metabolism, we don’t even have that science all figured out what all the factors are. And there’s obviously a complex of interconnected factors that influence that, but yeah, some people have been taking a look. And there’s one study, there’s a link in the show notes and episode page where you can go in and look at some of that information, but there’s a study done recently in a group of adults that had these wireless Bluetooth enabled scales and they were already in the process of monitoring their weight.

Kevin Patton (16:37):
And so they took that information that was coming in from that other study and they looked at the adults that were sheltering in place, and they found that these adults gained more than half a pound every 10 days. So that works out to roughly about two pounds a month. So you multiply that out by how many months a person might be sheltering in place. So maybe that pandemic 15 is more like the pandemic 20 or pandemic 25. The pandemic is not over and there are people still sheltering in place, including myself. Yeah, that’s going to affect a lot of things in our body. And of course there’s a lot of individual variation within any group you look at, but that’s significant when you’re looking at a group like that.

Kevin Patton (17:28):
Now, this particular study was a small study. There were only 269 people that took part in it and they were already enrolled and participating in a different study. It was a cardiology study called the Health eHeart Study. And they volunteered for this. They volunteered to report their weight measurements using these wireless smart scales that were already collecting that data. The researchers gathered that data over a four month period and they got an average of almost 30 weight measurements from each participant, and that’s how they came up with those numbers. So one issue is that these were people who were already watching their weight in some way. So that’s going to skew the results. They were part of a health study, so they’re probably health-conscious individuals, or at least some of them were probably.

Kevin Patton (18:30):
Another thing is when you look at the demographics, you see that about three quarters of them were white and only three and a half percent identified as black or African-American. About 3% of them were Asian American. And the average age wasn’t the typical age for these weight studies and so on. The average age was 51. Well, yeah, in a cardiology study, that would make some sense, right? And there were split pretty evenly between men and women. So there was that. And they were not from all the states of the union, but they were scattered around the country and so on. So if you want to know more about it, go ahead and look at the links that I have for you in the show notes and episode page, but I think that was an interesting finding. Maybe some of us have noticed a shift in our body and others have not.

Sponsored by HAPI

Kevin Patton (19:27):
The free distribution of this podcast is sponsored by the Master of Science in Human Anatomy & Physiology Instruction, the HAPI degree. As a faculty member in this program, it’s my awesome privilege to work with a mix of those wanting to teach A&P at the college level, those who’ve recently started that journey, and those who have been on that road for quite some time. Every cohort is made up of such a mix of folks. And to be there with them as they listen to and support each other and they work through those classic and the new ideas about teaching and learning, well, it’s one of the most joyful things I do. And I have more than a few joyful things in my life. You’re thinking about becoming part of that, or maybe you know somebody who might want to be part of that. Well, check out this online graduate program at nycc.edu/hapi, that’s HAPI, or click the link in the show notes or episode page.

Diluted Blood: Fountain of Youth?

Kevin Patton (20:39):
I don’t know if you remember this news story back when it happened in 2005, but I remember it. Some researchers at the University of California had taken an old mouse and a young mouse and enjoined them together. So they were basically like conjoined twins sharing their blood supply in their organs. And they found that the older mouse reversed some of it’s aging effects. It sort of turned more youthful at least in terms of its biological parameters. And of course that caused a big splash in the news and our headlines all over and the idea was that perhaps there was something in young organism’s blood that can rejuvenate older organisms. And that’s certainly a potential possibility from the results of that kind of research.

Kevin Patton (21:35):
But they also realized that there could be another explanation, and that is that maybe there’s something in the blood of people as they age that builds up and builds up. Maybe a blood protein or something like that that builds up and has detrimental effects that cause some of the signs or symptoms of aging and reduce some of our functions in our body or make us more prone to certain diseases and disorders. And so that was the other option.

Kevin Patton (22:05):
So, more recently, that is within the last year, they published another study where they did something a little different. They went in and replaced half of the blood plasma of all the mice with a solution, not from a young mouse, but it was just a solution of mostly water with some ions in it. That is basically saline solution with some albumin in it. So it’s sort of like artificial plasma and they put that into the old mouse. So half of its blood plasma was what it had before and the other half of the blood in this aging mouse was now just filler, artificial filler. And so they were basically diluting the blood of the older mouse. And guess what? It showed that rejuvenating effect.

Kevin Patton (22:59):
So of the two most likely possibilities that there was some chemical or group of chemicals in young organism’s blood that causes older organisms when introduced to appear younger, that’s one possibility, they found out, well, that’s not it. What it is is that there must be something as we age that builds up. And that kind of goes along with some research I talked about in the previous episode, episode 89, where that protein called NfL can build up in people, and if it’s at a low level, then that may mean that a person will live longer. When you’re looking at a person of advanced age, if they have a high NfL level, maybe they’re not going to live so long. And if they have a low NfL level, maybe they might live really long.

Kevin Patton (23:56):
And so, yeah, this kind of goes hand in hand. So basically, what we’re looking at here is the possibility that by diluting the blood of older organisms, maybe even including humans, we can reduce some of the effects, probably not all the effects because aging is a very complex thing, but some of the effects of aging. In humans, we already do some therapies involving plasma. There’s something called therapeutic plasma exchange or plasmapheresis. And yeah, that’s a great word, plasmapheresis. I love that word. I love saying that word.

Kevin Patton (24:35):
And maybe it’s time for a quick Word Dissection, where I do what we all do in our A&P courses and break down a new term into its word parts to both understand it better, but also to remember it better and to get better at recognizing word parts of new terms that we encounter later. So let’s take a look at plasmapheresis. Well, the word part plasma in this case means plasma, blood plasma, the liquid part of blood, but plasma is a word part that literally means whey, W-H-E-Y, which is that watery stuff that can be separated from curds when we convert milk into cheese. So it’s the watery part. So yeah, that kind of makes sense why we would have named a blood plasma plasma because it resembles the whey that is formed during cheese-making.

Kevin Patton (25:27):
And then the apheresis part is, well, that’s a term that we use in therapy as well. It’s a therapeutic procedure in which blood from a donor has something removed from it and then whatever is left is returned back to the blood donor. And breaking apheresis down, the AP part of that is a variant of the word part apo, which means away from or could be interpreted as off of or apart from, and then the heresis part means to snatch. So apheresis means to snatch away or to snatch off of. So that kind of makes sense that we’re snatching something out of blood. And in that process of apheresis or plasmapheresis is apheresis in which plasma is removed from the body and some of the plasma is retained and then the formed elements and stuff go back into the donor’s body.

Kevin Patton (26:25):
So we already do that. That’s already an FDA approved treatment for a variety of autoimmune diseases. So this research team, they’re doing some finalization of some clinical trials to figure out if maybe a modified plasma exchange in humans could be used to reverse some of the effects of aging and maybe possibly be used as a therapy to treat some age-associated diseases such as immune dysregulation that can happen during aging, type 2 diabetes, nervous system degeneration, muscle wasting.

Kevin Patton (27:08):
So there’s all kinds of potential possibilities here and we’re really just kind of at the beginning of asking those questions, but I think it’s a pretty interesting bit of information and certainly one that I’m going to bring up when I’m talking to A&P students about why it’s important to know about plasma when we’re talking about aging, when we’re talking about new kinds of therapies that can be developed, and maybe talk about the fact that these researchers are kind of describing this as maybe it’s a kind of a molecular reset button that maybe is lowering some of the inflammatory factors that might build up in our blood as we age.

Kevin Patton (27:47):
And so if we’re diluting that, if we’re diluting and getting rid of some of these unusually high levels of immune regulators that might be associated with aging, then we are kind of turning blood back into young blood again. At least theoretically, that might be what’s going on or what could be going on in some future therapy. So that kind of fits into a discussion of the immune system too, doesn’t it? So, man, there’s just all kinds of ways we can fit this in and get students excited about some of the weird and wonderful things that happen in the world of science

Sponsored by HAPS

Kevin Patton (28:25):
Marketing support for this podcast is provided by HAPS, the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society, promoting excellence in the teaching of human anatomy and physiology for over 30 years. I just read a recent HAPS blog article by my friend, Larry Young, called My Experience in Striving for Equitable Education in A&P Curriculum: Why it Matters to my Students. In the article, Larry does a great job of helping us better understand why inclusion and equity are important for us A&P educators to pay attention to. And he gives some simple, easily implemented practical strategies that have worked for him and that we can adapt for our own courses. To find Larry’s blog post and lots of other great articles, go visit HAPS at theAPprofessor.org/haps, that’s H-A-P-S, and then click on the HAPS Blog under the communicate tab in the ribbon along the top.

Taking Bold Steps in Teaching

Kevin Patton (29:37):
Over the last few years of this podcast, over the last decade or so of the The A&P Professor Blog, and over the last several decades of my various other publications and workshops and conversations with you and others in the A&P teaching community, I’ve proposed, advocated, and sometimes even pummeled you with some weird or at least non-classical ideas about teaching A&P. Some of these have been things based on my formal training in secondary science teaching that had not yet trickled up to college teaching where we’ve only fairly recently begun to teach ourselves all kinds of practical teaching skills that most college teachers simply don’t get trained in because my own such training is not expected of us.

Kevin Patton (30:35):
But because they weren’t part of the mindset of many college faculty, these ideas were seen as paradigm shifts, as newfangled ideas that should probably be met with some healthy skepticism, or sometimes they were met with unhealthy skepticism if they were too different from someone’s existing ideas about teaching. A few of the things I’ve proposed have been either borrowed directly from other teachers or from the teaching communities of other disciplines or adapted or repurposed or turned upside down and inside out and twisted around. Some of them have even had some creative embellishments that came to me in a dream or, well, more likely while walking my dog or taking a shower. I used to get almost all my insights while cleaning out animal enclosures, but I traded in that shoveling of stuff for a career and academia years ago.

Kevin Patton (31:52):
Anyway, you can imagine from hearing about all of my offbeat ideas about teaching A&P that I’m what you could call an experimentalist when it comes to teaching. I’m never satisfied that I’m doing things the best way that they can be done. I’m always trying new things to see if they work better. I’m always listening to what others are doing. If it sounds weird but the teller of the story is enthusiastic about it, well, I usually listen a little closer because they’re probably onto something because that’s what’s generating their enthusiasm.

Kevin Patton (32:37):
Why else would they take the risk of telling folks about their offbeat teaching techniques? Yeah, they’re experimentalist teachers too, but I got to tell you, every offbeat thing I’ve heard or pieced together while walking the dog, I’ve resisted at first every one of them. Randomized, cumulative online tests, open tests, mastery teaching where a student has to pass one test to be able to get to the next test, clickers, badges, flipping flopping and all the rest I thought wouldn’t work. Not in my class, not with my students, not at my institution, but these ideas just kept nagging at me. They popped back into my head from time to time. And then I try to work on all the kinks in the back of my mind, then on paper. And then, well, I just dive in and take a risk. The longer I teach, the more I realize that there are worse things than trying something new and having to fix it on the fly, or maybe even throw it away if it doesn’t work out.

Kevin Patton (34:04):
I have found that to be satisfied with myself as a teacher, I sometimes have to take bold steps to try new things to see if they work better or not. Some, not all, but some of the things that I’ve tried have worked unbelievably well for my students so much so that I excitedly explain them to whomever will listen, like you. But there’s the rub. Not many people listen. And of those, not many accept what I’m telling them, even when I have data, even when I point to experimental evidence that directly or indirectly supports what I’m telling them.

Kevin Patton (34:54):
And that’s discouraging. And that’s the reason I’m bringing this up because I think that if you’re listening to my podcast, you’re an experimentalist too. I think you’ve probably taken some bold steps in teaching and are looking for ideas from other experimental teachers taking bold steps of various kinds, and then molding them into a version that might work for you and for your students. And well, just try them out. And I think maybe sometimes you get discouraged too.

Kevin Patton (35:36):
So what I want to say to you right now is yep, that’s how it works. If you’re an early adopter, an innovative course designer, an experimentalist willing to try new things, you’re going to meet resistance. And if you didn’t, then it’s probably not really a newer, bold thing you’re doing. Maybe being discouraged by a lack of interest of others in the A&P teaching community is a sign that what you’re doing really is cutting edge. Cutting edges are sharp and potentially painful, right? That resistance we sometimes get from colleagues is like the sense of pain. It’s a gift. It tells us when we’re doing something potentially harmful. It gives us a warning to stop and think. And that’s good. If we just charge ahead with any new idea we dream up or hear about, it could be harmful to us and to our students.

Kevin Patton (36:49):
That wall of skepticism can prevent us from bad outcomes, right? It’s what we do with it at that point that matters. Do we let it completely defeat us? I don’t think that’s a great plan. Even though the stress of our lives sometimes lead us in that direction, it’s not really constructive strategy. If instead of simply giving up in the face of our own or other skepticism, we take time and effort to tease out all the criticisms and answer them in our own minds, we may find out that, well, it’s not a good idea after all. But then again, by analyzing the criticisms, we may find answers to those criticisms or we may find tweaks to our original ideas that take care of those criticisms, or we may realize that the possible negative outcomes maybe aren’t all that bad. That they’re manageable, or maybe not even all that negative.

Kevin Patton (38:09):
For example, when I’m throwing out one of my half-baked ideas to Cal Phoenix, I often hear them tell me that their students would complain too much. Heck, I tell myself that sometimes. My students are going to complain if I do this. But is that really an authentic negative? Is that a reason not to try something that’s potentially beneficial to learning? In our HAPI graduate program for A&P faculty, every one of our A&P content courses has a required written paper on a topic that relates to clinical applications to the basic science that we’re studying in that course. And our students complain, but we know it works for learning.

Kevin Patton (39:03):
One of the many bits of evidence that confirm that is that by the time they reach the end of our program, they’re telling us that they kind of regret the complaining because they now at the end of their program, see the value they gained from that experience. Maybe the desirable difficulty necessary for learning does generate some complaining. And maybe in that case, the complaining is okay even if it’s not very pleasant. Sometimes student complaints come from having to do something differently than expected. We all do that kind of complaining, don’t we? Every time we get a new college or university administrator, we get a new set of procedures that are fixing problems that probably don’t even exist and we complain. But even when the new procedures really are better, we still complain, right? Because it’s new and it’s different.

Kevin Patton (40:08):
Of course, student complaints aren’t to be ignored either because they sometimes do reveal things that are not going the right way. That the difficulty they’re experiencing is the undesirable kind of difficulty. But to dismiss some new strategy in our A&P courses simply because that may cause complaining to just give up on it without exploring the kind of complaining it may generate, that probably isn’t a good idea. So not all negatives about some bold step you’re contemplating are really all that negative, but thoughtfully exploring them before going forward is worth the trouble.

Kevin Patton (40:53):
Sometimes the pushback to our new ideas or newly discovered ideas of others comes from the same kinds of things that trigger student complaints. Maybe it’s just different from what our colleagues are used to, what we’ve all learned to think as, well, the right way to do things. And so they do what we all do and push back against it. As I just mentioned, I do that myself with these ideas. Then I work through them. And if it gets far enough along to tell others about it, or maybe I’ve even tried it in my courses and it’s worked and then I’m confident in the idea, but my colleagues haven’t had the chance yet to work through those criticisms.

Kevin Patton (41:48):
Sometimes those colleagues, they never come around. And worse, sometimes they try to block us from experimenting or from continuing with a strategy that our experimenting has proven to be effective for learning. Maybe these colleagues would even go so far as to dispute our strategy publicly to discourage others from going down the same or similar road or joining us in that experiment. I’m not talking about the kind of public debate that teases out the best possible outcome, I’m talking about that destructive, sometimes dismissive kind of criticism that tries to shut down honest debate. Why do our colleagues do that sometimes, go beyond that natural initial skepticism to a more harmful kind of blocking? Well, I have got an answer, and I’ll give you that answer after this quick brain break.

Long-Term Learning Seminar

Kevin Patton (42:57):
I recently finished my fourth decade of teaching anatomy and physiology. I can hardly believe it. And during that time, I have introduced things that were certainly new to me and new to a lot of my colleagues along the way. And some of them worked and some of them didn’t work. And the ones that worked, I took some of the best and distilled them into a list of five and put them into an online recorded seminar that you can get to at theAPprofessor.org/longterm because these are about enhancing longterm learning. As a matter of fact, the seminar is titled Five Powerful Ways You Can Enhance Long-Term Learning in Your Course. And just briefly, they include spaced retrieval practice, test debriefing, pretesting, cumulative testing, and initial exams. You want to know more about any one of those? Go to theAPprofessor.org/longterm and watch the seminar. And when you’re finished, make sure that you claim your credentials so you’ll have a badge that says you know about these techniques in enhancing long-term learning in your A&P course.

More Bold Steps

Kevin Patton (44:20):
I’ve been talking about bold ideas in teaching and why our colleagues sometimes resist or even block us when we share those bold ideas or attempt to try them out. And I mentioned that I have an answer to that why question. Why do they do that? I do have an answer, but you’re not going to like it. No, you’re not because my answer is I don’t know. I don’t know why they do that. But okay, this is something I’ve looked into and I do have answers that other folks have worked out. And I think there’s something to all of them, but also I think that there are so many complexities and so many different situations that, well, these answers are not entirely satisfactory, but let’s look at a couple of them.

Kevin Patton (45:16):
One answer is that average people and mediocre people want everybody to be average or mediocre. I don’t know. That’s pretty simplistic. It’s probably not even true, but maybe that notion leads us to the possibility that it’s about an imbalance of power. It’s clear that sometimes blocking or lack of support comes from the widespread biases encountered by many junior faculty, especially people of color, women, immigrants, those who identify as LGBTQ+, and, well, other marginalized groups. And some folks tell me that it’s often hard to accept that anyone close to us may have an out of the box idea. Maybe that saying that no one is a prophet in their own land has a grain of truth in it.

Kevin Patton (46:21):
And that leads me to a useful strategy. That is accept that pushback or dismissal of your ideas are not always rational and not necessarily personal. Maybe it’ll work to try to find ways to, I don’t know, work around the situation so that you can continue with your bold experiment. One of the most effective ways of doing that that I’ve found is to find your most ardent critic and find out what’s motivating them. Ask them about their criticism and use that to try to bring them onboard with or, I don’t know, at least get out of your way if they can’t believe in the experiment itself. I’ve always thought that a superpower that we educators have but rarely use to solve these kinds of problems is that we can teach. So maybe educating our critics may help reduce the friction. Teach them. We know how to teach. I think that will either help others see our ideas more accurately and maybe get onboard, or it will help us see the flaws in our ideas. And probably it’s going to do some of both.

Kevin Patton (47:59):
Another way to find support is to go outside our usual circle. Perhaps discussing our ideas in online affinity groups or at conferences or things like that. Or maybe in a blog. Yeah, write in a blog and see what kind of feedback you get. Ask for feedback. Or in a podcast. Yeah, that’s a good idea. As a matter of fact, if you’ve got an idea that’s working for you or one that you want to just kind of shop around and see what others have to say about it and maybe see if somebody else has tried that or a similar thing, well, let me know and you can come on this podcast and share it. Really, I want to know about that. And I think we’d all get a lot out of that.

Kevin Patton (48:45):
Perhaps most importantly, I want to take this opportunity to tell you this, you are not alone. I’m here to support you, and I found out there are many others in the A&P teaching community who will support you. Please, please, please, know that it’s expected to feel some lack of support from those around you. Probably those closest to you. Those in your own department will give you the least support. We’d all feel that way even when it’s not true. And keep in mind that those who do support you are often not going to be as vocal as those who do not support you, or at least you’re not going to hear those supporting voices as loudly. And keep in mind that it’s natural for others to start out with that same skepticism you had when you first encountered that new idea. Paradigm shifts and other kinds of change are hard. We naturally resist them at first no matter how wonderful they could potentially turn out to be.

Kevin Patton (49:57):
And finally, a word to those around or near faculty who are taking or about to take a bold step in teaching, especially those of us who are senior faculty with some cultural or institutional power. Why not take a moment to ask questions and express interest and be open and, well, maybe just listen? If we don’t believe in the bold experiment proposed by our colleagues, we can at least be supportive of them as professional peers and as humans, right?

Stay Connected

Kevin Patton (50:46):
If you don’t see my links to resources related to the topics in this episode in your podcast player, go to the show notes at the episode page at theAPprofessor.org/90. And while you’re there, you can claim your digital credential for listening to this episode. And you’re always encouraged to call in with your questions, comments, and bold ideas at the podcast hotline. That’s 1-833-LION-DEN, or 1-833-546-6336, or send a recording or written message to podcast@theAPprofessor.org.

Kevin Patton (51:29):
There’s an easy way to share this podcast with a peer and also earn yourself a bit of cash. Simply go to theAPprofessor.org/refer to get a personalized share link that will not only get your friend all set up in a podcast player of their choice, it’ll also get you on your way to earning a cash reward. Easy-peasy. And you’re invited to join my private A&P teaching community way off the social platforms at theAPprofessor.org/community. It’s a place where you can test some of your bold ideas, hear bold ideas from others, or just hang out in our virtual happy hour every Tuesday afternoon. I’ll see you down the road.

Aileen (52:23):
The A&P Professor is hosted by Dr. Kevin Patton, an award-winning professor and textbook author in human anatomy and physiology.

Kevin Patton (52:35):
This episode contains no parabens or phthalates, which is too bad because I love saying that word, phthalate.

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text:
swords and steel and subtle traces
of nothingness

[Sword making has always been part of Miya Ando’s family identity, mythology and history.
Her family went from making swords into the Buddhist priesthood.
Both have impacted and informed her path as an artist.]

Miya Ando: Steel Painting

I am very influenced by Zen practices such as the tea ceremony and concepts such as nothingness and MuShin – total absorption in a task, Mu (nothingness) and non-duality.

Mushin is the total absorption in  a single task – meditation, prayer, sanding metal.  I approach my studio practice as a practice of Mushin – a complete focus on the physical task of creating my works.  The intention is to go toward a state of non-duality and loss of ego.

According to the Buddhist concept of Sunyata, the impermanent nature of form means that nothing possesses essential, enduring identity. This is the nature of my work.

Miya Ando: Luminous - Transcendent

Luminous – Transcendent
steel, patina, pigment, automotive lacquer

Question: When you talk about going into a “state of non duality” do you mean becoming one with the work; loss of subject/object awareness during the process of making the work?  Or do you mean that you are using the art-making process as a means of meditation to attain a non-dual state on a permanent basis? As a form of transcendence of the egoic state?

Yes, I consider my studio practice to be a meditative one; a practice in the loss of the ego via absorption/focus in a task (in my case that would be the task of working with steel – the process of creating my works involves some extreme activities that involve working with fire, serious caustics, sharp tools, loud sanding, acid etching, heavy vapors that require a respirator – many of these activities call for total focus given the intensity of the activity and the very short working time, this I have found to be helpful in my practice of concentration and focus).  The state of non-duality is one wherein there is a loss of difference between the viewer and that which the viewer perceives.  I do see the practice of art as potentially transformative and [it] can be transcendent.

Miya Ando: Ghost Series

Ghost Series
print on aluminum

The Ghost Series is about non-duality, actually.  The difference is that there is a figurative element to the works.  The idea was that the surface of the work is reflective – perhaps there is another being reflected back – the work become a window, the work becomes a trace of something very subtle.  Perhaps the ghost is an iteration of a quality we all have universally within ourselves.  I am very interested in these very subtle traces of what could be nothingness.

Source: Non-Duality Magazine – edited from an interview with Miya Ando

Images © copyright Miya Ando

Update – from huffingtonpost.com:

Surface & Depth… an Interview with Miya Ando

artisans’ gallery

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PROFILES IN DISHONOR: The True Legacy of the Confederate Flag

The South fought for the constitutional right to treat their property as they saw fit

The South fought for the constitutional right to treat its property as it saw fit – From Pinterest: Citation unknown

The True Legacy of the Confederate Battle Flag

So many times in the past I have argued that in order to find the reason for the occurrence of an event is to look for the root cause. This applies as well to many folks, especially in the South, who claim that the Civil War was not about enslaving human beings, but about State’s rights. So, let’s look at the root cause of South Carolina’s secession, and ultimately starting the Civil War:

Section 2 of Article IV of the Constitution of the United States stated:

Section 2 – Privileges of Citizens of each State. Fugitives from Justice to be delivered up. Persons held to service having escaped, to be delivered up.

  1. The Citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of Citizens in the several states.
  2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.
  3. No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.(This clause superseded December 6, 1865 by Amendment XIII)

A current argument:

1. Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States guaranteed that a “person held to service or labour” would be returned to their owners from any State where they were apprehended.

2. The non slaveholding states of the North violated Article IV, Section 2 when they, and the new liberal president, Abraham Lincoln,  decided to refuse to return runaway slaves.

Conclusion ∴ The Northern States, breached the Constitution’s guaranteed State right to have their lawful property (slaves) returned–a States’ rights issue.

South Carolina’s articles of Secession

(Slave ghosts added by author)

Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union (from The Avalon Project)

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

Slave with Iron Bit. Citation unknownAnd now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to

herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.

In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, “that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.”

      Slave with Iron Bit. Citation unknown

They further solemnly declared that whenever any “form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies “are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments– Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article “that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”

Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave (1796) by William Blake.  Citation: Wikimedia/Public domain

Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave (1796) by William Blake.
Citation: Wikimedia/Public domain

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: “ARTICLE 1— His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.”

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were– separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.

Burning a Slave, 1741 From, Original citation: unknown.

Burning a Slave, 1741
From, Original citation: unknown.

By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860

The real history of the Confederate flag

So, yes. It was about States’ rights–the right to enslave and brutalize human beings for dominance and financial gain. While it is true that the non-slaveholding States were in violation of the Constitution, that violation was caused by the North’s refusal to be a party to the institution of slavery and inhuman brutality–the root cause.

As for the “Heritage not Hate” argument for displaying the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia on public property to honor those who fought for States’ rights, either these supporters are completely ignorant about the real cause of the Civil War, or they know it and don’t care. Both conditions are usually a result of poor parental nurturing in humanity and indifference that has been perpetuated from one generation to another.

All that people of reason and empathy can do is to state their disgust in as civil a manner as possible, demand the removal of all confederate symbols from publically owned property, demand that their politicians institute laws and policies that designed to bring true social justice to the U.S., and ask supporters of the flag to try to see it from the eyes of a poverty ridden, historically repressed population that was subjugated and brutalized beneath it. Perhaps some will listen.

4 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. inspiredbythedivine1
    Jun 25, 2015 @ 14:13:36

    Outstanding post.

    • Max T. Furr
      Jul 04, 2015 @ 09:46:09

      Thank you sir. I finally got it done after many interruptions here at home as well as over 3000 backed up emails. I’ll be spending the next few days trying to catch up and read posts from my friends. :C 😀

  2. BroadBlogs
    Jul 24, 2015 @ 17:22:32

    The only reason the South cared about states rights was because they wanted the right to hold slaves, right?

  3. Max T. Furr
    Jul 29, 2015 @ 14:15:12

    The Constitution gave them the right to hold and keep slaves. It also was law that any State to which a “fugitive” slave ran was suppose to return the slave to his owner. Free northern states decided to ignore that law to no consequence because Lincoln refused to enforce it. Thus, the government was in breach of its own Constitution.

    The issue of State’s rights then, was nothing more that the right to own and keep slaves–therefore, the root cause of the war was slavery, despite what today’s conservatives say.

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They don’t complain.

They want the ball.

They don’t talk.

They let their game speak.

They fail.

They work,

And work,

And work.

It’s not the refs fault.

They have a drive to win.

They find weaknesses,

And turn them into strengths.

They are criticized.

They are admired.

They are ridiculed.

They are celebrated.

And they continue,

To work,

And work,

And work.

Greatness has no complicated disguise.

It looks like work.

It is work.

There’s only one question…

“Do you have the stomach for it?”

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The Big Epic

Connect with Nature - One Adventure at a Time

I Refuse to be a “Cancer Survivor”

There are several titles given to people who are fighting cancer: “Cancer Survivor,” “Cancer Warrior,” “Cancer Thriver.” It’s fine with me if others choose to identify with any of these groups. However, I refuse to accept or use any of these names. They don’t fit with my experience of living with chronic cancer.

“Cancer Survivor”

woman with IV walking down hospital hall; Cancer survivor

Prior to the mid-1980s, anyone dealing with cancer was called a “cancer patient” or a “cancer victim.” In 1985, Dr. Mullan introduced the term “cancer survivor” to be used from diagnosis to end of life. He felt it was more encouraging and that this new title would better empower patients. Whether they had a poor prognosis or a good one, they were all dealing with cancer.

Don’t get me wrong! I definitely want to live for many, many years after being diagnosed with cancer 2+ years ago. I dislike this phrase because it sounds like I’ve been the victim of some terrible trauma. In my imagination, when I hear “cancer survivor,” it means others have been destroyed but I’m still standing, with ragged clothes, bandages everywhere, and a far-away gaze that is fixated on the horrors I’ve been through. This vision does not fit with my experience so far. I’ve had two surgeries (recovery wasn’t fun but it also wasn’t traumatic) and am currently taking a targeted medication that causes very few side effects. This is certainly a difficult path to walk emotionally, but I don’t feel like a “cancer survivor.”

“Cancer Warrior”

woman with bandaged arms wearing mask, cancer warrior

At first glance, this might be a good description for me. When facing challenges, I tend to stand strong and fight through to the other side of the obstacles. With chronic cancer, every few years I can expect another round of battle. The problem with this label is that the cancer world is changing its focus since the 1970s when President Nixon declared a “war on cancer.” My oncologist often reminds me that our goal is to figure out how I can live in balance with this cancer. (I will explain this more fully in a future blog post.) We want to slow tumor growth and calm its aggressiveness. I am on a (hopefully) long journey. I am not just a soldier in a one-and-done war. I am not a “cancer warrior.”

“Cancer Thriver”

woman in hospital gown with oxygen tubing in nose, cancer survivor

Nope, I am also not a “cancer thriver.” I suspect this less-used title is an attempt to show the changing outlook toward treating cancer. It does have a positive vibe to it—thriving, not fighting—but it feels too Susie-Sunshine-Always-Happy. A constant refrain of “be happy,” “be positive” “claim your victory” gets very tiresome. Most of us who deal with any chronic disease face frequent challenges. Sometimes life is difficult. We keep walking but aren’t necessarily skipping or dancing along the path all the time. As an optimistic realist, I am not a “cancer survivor” but I am also not a “cancer thriver.”

Other Titles for Cancer Patients

couple in snowy woods

I’ve tried to come up with other names for those like me who are dealing with chronic cancer. Cancer winner, cancer conqueror, cancer victim, cancer hero, cancer fighter—all of these phrases fall flat for me, for reasons similar to what I’ve expressed above. Quite honestly, most of the time when I’m talking about myself, I am more likely to acknowledge homeschooling our large family or being a Nature Therapy Guide or being an artist or a writer. Cancer is only one facet of my very full life. However, for times when I want to acknowledge the health adventure I’m currently going through, my hubby helped me find the perfect phrase for ME!

I am a Cancer Navigator!

Thanks for taking time to read this nerdy post! I love choosing just the right word to describe something. And I enjoy learning about the origins of words and phrases. Now that I am an active cancer patient yet again, I decided to add a “health adventures” tab to my website. You can follow my current cancer journey in a couple of ways:

  • click HERE to see frequent mini updates plus links to the pages below.
  • click HERE to see a compilation of all of the mini updates archived in one place: and
  • click HERE to see photos and read blog stories about the ups and downs of this stressful journey plus posts from past health challenges.
  • Feel free to poke around the site and check out other Big Epic Adventures I have documented in the past—backpacking and other outdoor fun, becoming a certified Nature and Forest Guide, trip reports, and other daily activities.

If you hate to miss the latest reports from my Cancer Journey, you can bookmark this site or you can scroll to the bottom of any page and sign up to receive an email notification whenever I make a new post.

(THANK YOU for following with me on this cancer journey! I appreciate every comment, encouragement, prayer, good wishes, and other types of support. I can’t imagine doing this alone…)

  1. Julie Stausmire

    March 24, 2021 at 4:15 pm

    I was just about to suggest Cancer Explorer when you settled on Cancer Navigator – similar thoughts about traveling the path wherever it takes you.

  2. Julie Stausmire

    March 24, 2021 at 4:24 pm

    Actually your whole last paragraph gave many options “when I’m talking about myself, I am …teaching… or being a Nature Therapy Guide or being an artist or a writer. Cancer is only one facet of my very full life. However, for times when I want to acknowledge the health adventure …” You know how colleges have “resident” professors with specialty areas who hang out with them for a year or so? You could be a Resident Cancer Artist, or Cancer Blogger or Cancer Adventurer or Cancer Therapy Tour Guide or instead of a tree hugger you are an IV pole hugger – this could go on and on with all your past life escapades!

  3. Julie Stausmire

    March 24, 2021 at 4:25 pm

    OK, why does my name have a crabby looking old lady as the icon? Nothing I picked out!

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Time Under Tension

As the weeks go by with no indication that we will be returning to normalcy anytime soon, I find myself struggling to maintain the balance of tension in life that allows me to be productive without slipping into anxiety. One day I will be enjoying the sunshine and the progress of nature – sweeping up the last golden blossoms of the now green forsythia, listening to the soulful coo of the mourning dove punctuated by the cheerful chatter of robins – so much so that I find it difficult to muster the discipline to sit at my makeshift desk and answer email. The next day I am pursuing publishers with a frenzy as if all opportunity will be lost if not acted upon immediately.

This seesawing of anxiety is reminiscent of the many months post treatment when I lived with fear of recurrence and ongoing uncertainty. Some days I was able to relax in the conviction that my cancer was gone, dispatched forever, becoming ancient history. But other days, triggered by scheduling a follow-up test or an unrecognized abdominal twinge or an approaching cancerversary, I was equally sure the tumor was back, the disease was spreading, and I would never be healthy again.

A Stitch in Time

I recently picked up crocheting again, something my grandmother had taught me to do many years ago, and found my stitches to be as uneven as my mood. Some were so taut I could barely pull the hook through. Others were loose and sloppy, the kind Nana would have told me to pull out and do again. And while knitting and crocheting, like other types of repetitive activity, are supposed to be meditative and calming, I grew frustrated with my inability to establish any sort of regularity in my stiches, reminded again of the highs and lows of my cancer emotions.

Luckily, Nana gifted me with many legacies. In addition to teaching me how to crochet and the fundamentals of Italian cooking, she taught me strength, resiliency, determination and the satisfaction that comes from helping others, something she first experienced at age seven when she translated for a doctor who couldn’t communicate with an Italian patient whose life he credited her with saving.

Nana was always calm. During our crochet lessons she never showed her impatience as I struggled to master the movement, to control the tension of the yarn, to generate even rows of stitches. She sat across from me for hours, holding my hands in hers and repeating the motions until I had the muscle memory to do it myself. She taught me how to wrap the yarn around my fingers and let it slide through with just the right friction to facilitate steady and consistent progress. And she was there with a reassuring hug when I was ready to quit, giving me the comfort I needed to persist despite my doubts of ever succeeding.

Greater Good

Now, as I remind myself of Nana’s calm voice, and her skillful techniques for maintaining even tension on the yarn, I find my crochet stitches have evened-out and my work resembles its target. But more importantly, I find I can apply her lessons in yarn management to life. Establishing the right balance is tricky. Too much tension and life is unnecessarily hard. Not enough tension and things get a little sloppy. When things get too sloppy, rip out the stitches and do it again. And if it’s still not right, put the work down for the day and come back to it later.

Knowing when to say enough, to put down the work and quit for the day seems as important for my sanity as it is for the work product. Living with uncertainty makes it hard to know if I have done enough — enough exercise and healthy eating to keep the cancer away, enough work to consider it a productive day, enough stitches to feel confident I will reach my goal. The normal bounds and expectations are gone, and new ones left for me to set.

I’m thankful that the pandemic creates the wiggle room in life to redo the sloppy days as I continue to practice maintaining the proper tension. Setting daily, achievable goals gives me a sense of progress and accomplishment, a regularity to my days that like the even stitches of my crochet work, slowly build towards a finished product. But the tensions of life under pandemic conditions, so reminiscent of the emotional volatility of living with cancer, require a gentleness and an ability to forgive oneself that, like Nana’s loving hug, make it possible to try again another day.

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Other than knowing when it took place and what the overall outcome was, I must admit I had very little previous knowledge of the Russo-Polish War of 1920. Reading through a few introductory texts did, however, confirm one thing that I had suspected was very much the case with this conflict – that it was an incredibly complex, one might even say wild, mix of military and political events flashing into focus, then to some extent disappearing, only to be replaced by further variations of the same.

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