July 04, 2011
. . . and I have a backlog of ideas for posts. For some of them, I need to find the items to photograph, and I haven't had time to organize the office (or the rest of the house) for the next phase of research and work.
Here are some of the reasons why. . . .
Starting up my freelance business again
During the final phases of preparation for publication of The Book (now being referred to on Ravelry as FFSB, for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook ), I had to turn down almost all other freelance work. Getting that part of my life started again has meant re-thinking the way I go about it, and getting more closely focused on the clients and projects where I have the most to offer.
The result of all this has been two new pieces of written material:
An introduction to editorial work in general, and to working with me in particular (should be helpful for anyone who's thinking about consulting an editor)
A questionnaire for potential editing clients , which has the intention of setting up a solid foundation for figuring out whether this writer, this editor, and this project are all simpatico (again, should be of value for folks working with me or with others)
Right now, those links lead to a public section of my Dropbox account. Soon I hope to have them on my personal website (see the next section of this post, about the thesis, for why they're not there yet). Although I've tested the documents thoroughly, I still consider them works-in-progress and welcome feedback.
In addition to the thinking and writing and information design involved in producing these pieces, I needed to learn how to make a fillable PDF. Then I upped the ante, because I wanted a form that could be used on both PCs and Macs (plus Linux, but the Linux folks can manage just about anything on their own). I also wanted the PDF to allow the user to print, to save a partially filled-out form, and to send the results to me, as needed.
Getting those functions into a PDF is not as straightforward as I thought it should be. Each involves a separate set of solutions. Having discovered this, I now understand why some PDFs that I've run into have not let me save my responses or print, as well as why the "print" and "submit" functions didn't work on my Mac, while the "clear form" command, with what appeared to be identical types of coding, did. Lynda.com got me through all of these problems except for the Mac issues, which I just needed to bash around and puzzle out. Several friends tested my drafts on other systems; I'm grateful.
There's never a dull moment in the world of technology. I'm also learning new software: DevonThink , MarsEdit , and I forget what else. My most recent completed post came from a digression on this topic. Several started-but-not-published posts keep getting shoved back due to my long list of tasks, chores, and responsibilities. And a few pleasant milestones that have been too important to miss.
My daughter's thesis defense
My daughter, who is my webmistress (her choice of title), is well on her way to having earned a master's degree. Just under two weeks ago, she defended her thesis.
There was lots of paperwork involved, framing and documenting a discussion with the three faculty members of her committee.
Two of the profs came from her program, the rhetoric and composition section of the English department, which encouraged her in looking at computer-game culture from the perspective of literacy and communication. Her outside reader is in the sociology department. She dug into her topic from multiple angles, including visual rhetoric (a comparatively undeveloped field), theory of composition, sociological theory, and autoethnography.
Her biggest challenge throughout the thesis process has been defining a topic that was small enough to be contained in about 25,000 to 30,000 words. The final subject: rhetoric of gender in Mass Effect 2 . (She did rationalize including brief coverage of a number of other games, to make certain points or establish the position of Mass Effect 2 within the universe of computer games and within her broad area of study. Some of the thoughts that didn't fit into the thesis were diverted into presentations she made at three national conferences this spring, and even more went into major projects for classes she was taking.)
Many of the committee members' questions were prefaced by words of this general sort: "Now, this angle would only really be relevant if you were doing a dissertation rather than a thesis, but let's talk about it anyway." One of the most interesting questions, toward the end, was: "What if there were no such thing as gender?" Everyone laughed, in part because the query wondered about the existence of such a basic idea and in part because it also elicited even deeper examination of the issues. Then we listened as my daughter considered, out loud, what that would mean.
I wish I had the whole event on tape, because I would like to listen to what she said again. In the not-too-distant future, she'll need to talk (or write) about the new ideas that arose, in addition to writing for other sets of audiences about what she put together for her thesis. The committee estimated that she has three distinct publishable academic papers within its pages. In addition, she intends to connect in the future with game designers, producers, and players. (Because of research constraints, she has not so far been able to engage in discussions within the gaming community.)
Here's the support team, minus the one who was behind the camera:
We were a motley crew, but a friendly one. (Knitting: swatch. Yarn: Swaledale wool, chunky.)
After the conversation, we observers waited in the hallway while the committee discussed whether my daughter had passed the thesis requirement.
Yes-with distinction!
Much more paperwork followed. As it turned out, even I received a request to sign something. It wasn't an official form. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook shows up in unexpected places.
We adjourned to a nearby coffee shop for chai and a celebration, plus all the questions and comments that the observers, who did not participate in the official proceedings, had jotted down while listening.
The rest of the degree process involves getting correctly signed papers to the appropriate offices in quick order, along with formatting and digitally submitting the thesis. My daughter is making a few changes for her own satisfaction, but none were required by her committee. They encouraged her to go on for a Ph.D. There are lots of hurdles between here and that possibility. An early question is where. It was hard enough finding a program that would let her do the work she wants to do at the master's level! The program she has been in doesn't have a doctoral-level component.
In the long (or short) run, she wants to consult to the game-development industry on how to significantly increase their market, and improve their game-play experiences, by not actively alienating huge potential market sectors, as they currently do. It's not clear to her that a Ph.D. would help her do that, although it might.
Simple cleaning and organizing
Following the publication of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook , I am woefully behind on housework and clutter-abatement. It's been hard to manage The Project within the available space, which means that while the files related to that one part of my life have stayed excruciatingly well sorted and filed, everything else has fallen into disarray. There's been no time. A project of that scope and size, undertaken within the relatively short time-frame of four years, requires the development of an obsessive approach that narrows the focus to a single, complex goal. Almost everything else goes into a mental cabinet labeled "after deadline."
"After deadline," what would really be appealing is a vacation, although sometimes that isn't an option. (But see the next two items.)
Over the weekend, I've been working on labeling fabric swatches for teaching, and rearranging some books, and making piles of accumulated stuff to go to the next charity pickup. (I can't do too much of this, much as I'd love to take a month just to clean and clear things out, because I do have more deadlines to keep track of.) I'd like to reclaim the living room, kitchen, office, and bedroom in the foreseeable future. I've made some progress in the living room and kitchen, but there's a way to go yet. The office and bedroom are getting worse, I hope temporarily, as the central areas get better.
Border collie rescue "reunion"
We took Ceilidh to her first "reunion" with a bunch of dogs adopted through Western Border Collie Rescue . If all the eligible dogs had come, there would have been more than seven hundred. As it was, there were only, oh, sixty or seventy. Or maybe a hundred and twenty. I can't count things that move that fast.
Lots of different activity areas.
We talked to some folks about treibball , a sport that is mentally challenging but low-impact. Ceilidh, at two, already has signs of some arthritis, so we're looking for high-brain-power, low-joint-strain things for her to learn. Ceilidh was a little distracted by all the other things in the vicinity.
So we decided to introduce ball-herding later and went to play around in the tennis-ball-and-frisbee area. Throwing balls for a field full of Border collies is a kick.
Siblings get to attend the gathering, so Tussah tagged along.
We met some dogs who were up for adoption at the same time as Ceilidh and were delighted to learn that they'd found their "right" homes, just as Ceilidh found hers. What a treat.
Here's my almost-daily vacation.
Most days, I mess around with it for ten to twenty minutes, usually just noodling with Uncle Rod's Ukulele Boot Camp . I have no purpose for playing the ukulele, other than not working for a short while.
Saturday morning, I spent about an hour and a half at the inaugural meeting of a local ukulele group. Interesting folks, from "never did music before" to several types of professional musicians with a remarkable lack of pretentiousness.
"The Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) honors outstanding books annually for their positive impact on the lives of gifted children. The Legacy Book Award is the only American book award focused on meeting the unique needs of gifted and talented children."
There are three categories: educator, parent/family, and scholar. News of the 2008 awards is not on the site as I write this, but here is information about previous years (and probably 2008 as soon as they update).
Hurray! This project took many years and a bunch of people to put together. Nice (fantastic) to see it being acknowledged.
September 04, 2008
While waiting to hear back from Adobe, I've been reading. My attention span is fairly short right now, so this was perfect to discover.
It's a picture book called Knitty Kitty , by David Elliott and Christopher Denise, just out.
The book is shown above against a background of the swatches for one of the chapters of Ethnic Knitting Exploration , the book by Donna Druchunas that should come out in October (I still hope to make it by the end of October, despite the computer; I have not heard back from Adobe yet about why electronic fiends continue to randomly destroy parts of my
file; I am working on images . . . but I am also going to play hooky for a while later today because I worked all Labor Day weekend).
Returning the distracted brain to my currently preferred topic:
In the world of picture books, I especially like those where chunks of the story are told in the images, rather than the text. That's definitely the case here. The words to be read, initially by the child-accompanying adult and later by the young person independently, are few and onomatopoetic . Knitty Kitty, the protagonist, does knit as much as some of us and the verbal part of the story clicks along with her. There are just enough words to set up an auditory interaction between adult and child snuggled in bed, and they're also set up to support early reading on the small person's part.
Everything else goes on in the visual domain:
The kittens remind me of a less destructive version of Antone over at Nake-Id Knits . I would link to a photo of Antone, but he is hard to find right now because Nake-Id Knits has just changed hosting. I'm sure he'll appear again soon, probably with some newly knitted item between his teeth.
Every knitter who likes cats (what percentage would that be?) would be well advised to at least take a look at this book. Then suggest that the local library order a copy, so others can discover it. Then think of young people who might like to receive Knitty Kitty as a present for the upcoming (no, don't think about it) holidays.
The publisher's suggested age range is 4 to 8 years. The text runs along at the lower end of this span. I do like the idea of new readers learning independence on a book exactly like this (think: knit as one of the first words a kid recognizes in print!).
The images require a bit of visual sophistication to interpret, appropriate to the 4-to-8 crew: these aren't block colors or simplified figures. But I'd probably introduce this book to a small person any time after he or she got past the ripping-the-pages stage. The colors and style of the book will work for boys as well as girls.
Knitty Kitty is a perfect end-of-day story, one that sets the tone for good dreams and sweetens the night with kid/adult interaction, along with an easing nudge toward independent reading.
August 30, 2007
A UPS truck pulled up at the curb in front of the house early this morning and delivered an author's (in this case, editor's) copy of High IQ Kids ! This is an "advance" copy, although not an "advance reader's copy" or ARC, because it's the real book, freshly unpacked from the printer's shipment before the official publication date (which is, I think, September 1 although the publisher lists a ship date of August 31, or tomorrow). The books were about four days late from the printer, which seems to be a recurring theme right now. . . . Maybe all the printers are currently overloaded with fall titles. . . .
The volume's 416 pages contain 30 essays and technical papers on raising and educating high-IQ kids.
What's a "high IQ kid"?
Good question. If you want to get precise, which I don't and some of the people involved with this book may disagree with the following statement, it's a kid who tests above 145 on a standard instrument. HOWEVER:
IQ testing is imprecise (several articles in the book go into this in detail). Different sources set up different categories. There's a technical testing definition of IQ scores and giftedness (it's on pages 7 and, with slight variations, 60).
But pigeonholes are only useful in a few contexts, like research. The current arbitrary levels being used by the researchers we included in the book are mildly gifted, moderately gifted, highly gifted, exceptionally gifted , and profoundly gifted . These categories align with standard deviations above the norm.
A rule-of-thumb that I came across years ago that has been helpful to me in a practical sense suggested that kids in the mildly and moderately gifted ranges can do anything they want in life (i.e., they're smart enough to do whatever they choose) and can still cope well with the prevailing environments (e.g., school, home, and regular social interactions). Those at the other above-average levels (highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted) are "wired" differently in enough ways that they will not be able to cope comfortably with the prevailing environments. They don't think "better," they think differently , which means they just don't operate on the same wavelength . They don't care about the same topics of conversation and they may come up with questions and ideas that don't make sense to other people.
That's neither better nor worse. People with those levels of intelligence, though, are the ones for whom High IQ Kids offers guidance . . . along with anyone else who fits a similar enough profile that the information might help.
I have a personal theory that everyone comes into life with a package of strengths and weaknesses that's about equivalent to everyone else's. Intelligence, as we measure it in the industrialized Western world of the twenty-first century , is just one component of everyone's package. Because each of us has a unique combination of attributes, the trick is in figuring out how best to use the pluses without being tripped up by the minuses. Or, for parents and other responsible adults, in raising children to enjoy and develop their strengths and to compensate for, instead of being limited by, their weaknesses.
The information in the book will help anyone who is trying to parent, teach, counsel, or befriend a kid who sometimes seems "too smart," whether the child also has learning differences or not (many high-IQ kids do).
It will also help adults who are guiding children who don't seem "too smart"-who appear to be quite average or are putting out so little effort they seem below average-but are having unexplained and serious difficulties in standard classrooms (or in "standard" gifted-and-talented programs, if they've shown some of their potential).
I'm really pleased that Free Spirit Publishing is the press releasing this book. Not only is it independent, it's the publisher of several books that helped me out through all those years. They've got even more great stuff now.
High IQ Kids contains all the best information that I needed in one place while I was working on getting one of these kids raised to adulthood alive and with only average requirements for additional psychotherapy.
Giftedness is generally not an "okay" topic of conversation in our society. Several of the contributors to this book have asked to be identified by pseudonyms. It has not been easy for my daughter and me to go public on this topic, either. However, we agreed long ago that we'd do anything we could do to keep even one other kid or parent from going through what we had to handle. An overview of our school saga, titled "Red Zone," is on pages 246 to 259.
The same impetus that motivates my daughter and me-to help others-brought together the three editors of this book to do the looooooong, complicated work of gathering the pieces, editing them, eliminating some (the book could have been twice as long; trimming was the hardest part), and finding the right publisher.
Between us, we've parented four of these kids, and over the decades we've been in touch with many other parents and children in similar situations. They're everywhere: in all geographic, social, economic, racial, and other environments. And all of them are similarly challenged to just facilitate an appropriately happy (and appropriately unhappy) childhood and an effective education.
The book's full title is High IQ Kids: Collected Insights, Information, and Personal Stories from the Experts . Some of the essays in it were written by young adults about their experiences when they were younger. They're probably the truest experts.
March 31, 2007
I've been promising to talk about the book that's coming out this fall from Free Spirit Publishing . I've heard back from Free Spirit that it's okay to put the cover up here, so it's time. My understanding is that the book's scheduled to be released in September 2007.
The name of the book is High IQ Kids: Collected Insights, Information, and Stories from the Experts, and it's edited by Kiesa Kay, Deborah Robson (me), and Judy Fort Brenneman. It took a long time to put the book together. The publishing house that decided to take a chance on it, after many others had said they thought it would be a great book but not one they could publish, is the perfect publisher to be issuing it and the people there are wonderful to work with.
So here's the cover:
That boy looks like what all three editors (and many of the contributors) wish our kids had looked like in school. Our kids didn't. We put the book together so maybe other people's similar kids will look like that. We've asked the press if there might be a similar photo of a girl elsewhere on the outside of the book-maybe the spine, since so many books are displayed spine-out. Our own kids, whose experiences motivated the creation of this book, are 50/50 split between boys and girls.
A quick overview of how this book came together
I wish I knew where I'd picked up the concept that I'm about to mention, which has helped me a great deal over the past couple of decades, but I don't. I probably came across it thirteen or fourteen years ago, when I was scrambling to learn what I needed to know about high-IQ kids, because my parenting responsibilities suddenly required this type of information on an emergency basis. The idea stuck because it's served as a compass point ever since.
The concept is that there is an "optimal" IQ, say between 100 and 145, with which people function easily and well in contemporary society. The idea is that people with IQs between 115 and 144 are smart enough to do anything they want but aren't so smart that they have trouble fitting in.
I just had to look up the latter set of numbers in the manuscript of High IQ Kids. I don't know all that much about IQ stuff, although I probably know more than most people because I've had to learn.
Personally, I view IQ like height: some people have more, some less. Some people need to use step stools while others bump their heads on doorways unless they duck. IQ is an arbitrary measurement, just like height is. It has nothing to do with the spirit inside. Height might have something to do with which rides you're allowed on at an amusement park like Elitch Gardens , and IQ might have something to do with which activities you enjoy most, but neither of these even remotely describes the entirety of a person or a life.
The helpful idea that I came across, though, is that children with IQs of 145 and up don't just have an extra dose of the same thinking ability that their peers have. They think differently . They may have trouble understanding, and being understood by, their age-mates-and their teachers and their parents, and the psychologists who are often called in to help everyone get along. Like extremes of height, extremes of IQ make a profound difference in daily living until you learn how to navigate in your particular vessel .
Most discussions of IQ don't differentiate between the experiences of people at different points above a certain IQ level (whatever that is). From X on up (choose a number), all is assumed to be peachy.
Not necessarily.
Many high-IQ kids don't appear to be smarter than average because for many of them the extra IQ points come bundled with learning challenges: for example, an inability to remember math facts, or cerebral palsy severe enough to prevent speech, or Tourette syndrome, or ADHD (I'm skipping a digression here on ADHD and intelligence), or a combination of these and other factors.
About fourteen years ago, I found myself struggling to get my brain around all this stuff while in crisis. One of the resource people I discovered was Marlo Rice , a psychologist who specializes in high-IQ kids and also has helped advocate for individual students' needs in the schools. A few years later, because she knew I'd been engaged for a while in a self-directed crash course in parenting a high-IQ kid, Marlo gave my name and phone number to Kiesa Kay , who was dealing with similar issues for her children, who were younger than mine. In the middle of this, I also met, and began to work on freelance jobs with, Judy Fort Brenneman . On behalf of her son (mid-range in age between Kiesa's kids and my child), Judy was paddling her own canoe upstream on the gifted/learning-different river .
Kiesa, Judy, and I all came out of our experiences with a strong desire to help other parents avoid some of the pain, frustration, and expense that we and our children had encountered.
Kiesa's first project to put this into action was an anthology she edited on "twice-exceptional" kids (gifted and learning-different), called Uniquely Gifted . She asked me to contribute an essay.
Then Kiesa and Annette Sheely began assembling another anthology, this one on high-IQ kids (those above 145 IQ). Judy and I first got involved  as contributors to this work, and later as co-editors with Kiesa while Annette devoted more time to her counseling practice and her own incipient parenting.
We've been passing the responsibilities for this project back and forth for a number of years. Now we finally have a book that's on its way to being published . . . on its way to doing the work we want it to do.
It's the one book we wish we had been able to consult while we were doing our best to raise our kids. It contains personal stories that are funny, heartbreaking, and sometimes both, as well as academic papers that discuss researchers' studies and insights. It's as quirky and wide-ranging as the experience of being one of the adults in a high-IQ kid's life.
" Experts"
First the people at Free Spirit said, "This book willl need a different title," and we said, "Sure. That's fine. We aren't attached to the one on the manuscript, but it's the best we could come up with over the years."
They went into a huddle and then said they couldn't come up with anything better, either.
They did suggest a variation on the subtitle, which we had phrased as something like "for adults who care." They shifted this to "from the experts."
Because I'm a contributor to the volume, as well as an editor, I gather that I'm being included with the "experts."
I think of an expert as someone who knows a great deal of what there is to know about a topic . . . therefore, not me. I'm always aware of how much I don't know about any given subject.
So I've looked up the word expert . I seem to have greater expectations of someone to whom the word   is applied than the dictionary does.
The American Heritage Dictionary gives this definition for the noun form: "A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject." Here's what it says about the adjective form: "Having, involving, or demonstrating great skill, dexterity, or knowledge as the result of experience or training."
The meaning of great is open for debate, but on the subject of raising a high-IQ kid (and a couple of other topics), I do have some experience that seems to be helpful to others. I guess the word applies, although I still don't accept it comfortably.
However I'll accept easily that all of the contributors to this book are sharing their hard-earned knowledge, acquired as a result of experience, training, or both. I'm one of those contributors. And I'll accept that it's the right subtitle for this book.
Are we there yet?
High IQ Kids is a big book-about 550 manuscript pages, which will be fewer pages when it's typeset but there's no changing the fact that it's approximately 124,000 words, including the short extra list of books Judy and I put together on Wednesday night for the reference section, at the in-house editor's request.
I'll be so glad to see this as a real, useful book that's out in the world, available to help parents, teachers, counselors, and others involved with high-IQ kids' lives, so the kids themselves can figure out how to get through doorways without bruising themselves or others.
Although we've been through the acquisition-level editing, we've still got in-house copy editing, proofreading, and indexing to manage over the next couple of months before this book goes to the printer.