Exploring Interdisciplinarity

 Its me again, Sparky. Sorry for the interruption, but I need to reach out. It’s the snow. I have been going stir crazy. Even with their cars buried under three feet of snow, humans have many ways to reach out. They have landline and wireless telephones. They have computers, and email, and Facebook and twitter, not to mention TV sets and DVD players  And so I lament.   The only way that I can communicate with the outside world is to perch on my couch, straining my eyes as I try to peer out  the window, which these days is covered with snowflakes cast by the wind.

Early in the morning, the day of the first snow, I pushed my nose against my ‘doggie door.’ Nothing moved. So I pushed with my head. But again it wouldn’t budge. So I waited patiently until my Master came downstairs and tried his hand at opening the backdoor leading out to the deck. He pushed and pushed, but it gave way only a few inches. I could hardly believe my eyes. The snow, which was flush with the door frame, rose up about three feet, if not more. From my lowly perspective, all I could see was the sky!

I suspect that this is what a bear experiences when he comes out of hibernation. Assessing the situation, he looks around, sees piles and piles of snow, and then returns inside. This is, of course, a reasonable strategy. But need I remind you, I am not a bear. Oh, I may be cuddly, and my fur is thick and silky black. But while a bear sleeps, I have work to do. For example, my job is to keep tabs on the local neighborhood, watching people go by, determining who is a friend or foe, and–of course–barking when I deem it appropriate. When on a walk, I also parole a much larger area, first checking the bushes and fire hydrants for pungent messages left by my friends and enemies, and then leaving my own mark to bound my territory. This signaling system can get quite complex, as my mistress would say. Of course, my favorite task is barking ferociously at the mailman until he drops his ‘loot,’ and I chase him away. Unfortunately, the postal service–not withstanding its motto: in all kinds of weather–failed us, as did the garbage men, during the Big Snow, or as President Obama said, “snowmaggedon.”.

Our social life only recommenced with the shoveling of snow. Having overcome their awe at the situation, all of the neighbors, and of course their dogs, converged in our street to shovel the snow, and clear a path for cars and pedestrians alike. I finally got to engage with my friends Carla and Roxy, who live across the street. With the streets passable, we could take our walks again. But it wasn’t quite the same.

Walking through a narrow passage way, with the snow on the side piled many feet high, I could smell the dogs across the street–especially my nemesis, the chocolate poodle named Bosco–but I could not see him much less growl at him. But the more fundamental problem was: ‘how to do my duty,’ The snow was like quick sand; when I climbed up on top of it, I sank down almost above my shoulders, and when my mistress came to my rescue, she fell in too.

Notwithstanding all of the communication technology in our house, I have come to think my Mistress also found our imposed enclosure somewhat stressful. In particular, I think that she is missing her classes. While she often tells me to “stay, sit, and come”, she rarely lectures me about intellectual matters. These days, however, as she walks with me through the snow, she tells me about the ‘social capital,’ that is being developed as neighbors join together to shovel. Noting the people who don’t shovel their walks, but who shovel out their cars, she references Langdon Winner’s account in the Whale and the Reactor of how the pedestrian and the auto driver perceive the world differently. As we slip and slide across the ice, she asks me what Langdon Winner might say about people who fail to shovel their sidewalks. And of course, as we meander in and out of the snowbanks, looking for a crossway, she talks about the importance of architecture and how the snow has restructured our interactions.

Yesterday, we saw the ground. Hope springs eternal, as they say.

On Technorati: A dog's life, Langdon Winner, social capital, the big snow, The Whale and the Reactor

Teaching my Network Economy Class last Thursday night, I got an insight into how I might help my grandson Ben, who–although testing off the charts in math–is finding reading a real challenge. That night, we were discussing different approaches to the study of ‘economics,’ and what they might imply for policy making. I made the comparison between the neoclassical–or Walrasian– view, which equates the economy with the market, and conceives of economics as the means of optimizing outputs in the face of scarcity, and Karl Polanyi’s substantive view, which regards the economy as the entire realm of activity in which humans seek to meet their material needs. Whereas the neoclassical definition presumes that there is only one best way to optimize, Polanyi’s broad based definition suggests that there are, so to speak, many ways to skin a cat.

Of course, I thought to myself, so too there are many ways to learn to read!

So too there are many ways to learn to read! 

Certainly, I am not new to reading issues. As my persistent poor spelling attests, I have always had a problem relating sounds to words. In fact, some say I write like I had a New Jersey accent. Fortunately for me, I went to grammar school in the forties, when sight reading was in vogue and Dick, Jane and Baby Sally were all the rage. Memorizing words by sight did not stifle my progress as many educators now claim. Whenever I encountered a word that I did not know, I took my father’s encouraging advice: “just substitute the world wheel barrel and move on,” he said.

It was not long before I advanced from Dick and Jane to the Nancy Drew series (much to my English teacher’s horror). By the age of 16, I was reading all the classics–Dickens, Austin, the Bronte sisters, etc. My biggest worry was not reading per se, but rather running out of books to read–a concern that continues to plague me, notwithstanding Amazon’s relentless suggestions. 

Years later I discovered that my son Stephen (now a business consultant and PhD) was having problems similar to mine. Particularly troublesome to him were words containing the sounds th and wh. On the other hand, for him, words like just and next were easy to read. Pondering this curiosity, I realized that instead of relating sounds to words, Stephen was relating shapes to words. Unfortunately, however, the times had changed. Influenced by Rudolf Flesch’s famous critique, Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955), schools had eliminated sight reading in their curricula in favor of a pure phonics approach. Fearing that, if reading became especially difficult, Stephen might loose his enthusiasm for books, and all the pleasures they proffered, I tripled my efforts to read to him. So, we read wonderful books–books such as Robert Lewis Stevenson’s, The Black Arrow, Treasure Island, and Kidnapped ; Dicken’s David Cooperfield, and Great Expectations; as well as Lloyd Alexander’s series The Prydian Chronicle. The rewards were immense: several years later, my son call me from the University of Virginia to announce that he was majoring in English.

A few weeks before Christmas I called my daughter-in-law, Haley, to find out what kinds of presents my grandchildren, Ben and Sophie, might like. She casually mentioned that my grandson was struggling with phonics. In particular, he was having difficulty sounding out words that contained the consonants th and wh. My heart sank! As soon as I hung up the phone, I drove to our neighborhood bookstore, Politics and Prose in search of some good books. There were many to be sure, but my most successful purchase turned out to be a kit for reading and writing hieroglyphics.

This kit was a great hit at Christmas. More importantly, my grandson Ben used it to write his first letter to me. I can’t wait to get a kit of my own, and keep up the correspondence.

Reading and economics–it seems–have something in common: in both cases, there are many ways to skin a cat. As importantly, one size does not fit all.

On Technorati: Books, Flesch, phonics, Polanyi, reading, reading difficulties, sight reading, Walras, Why Johnny Can't Read