tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30860520.post115247217916096434..comments2023-09-20T01:37:42.849-07:00Comments on jonathan's edutalk: the hawthorne effectjonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12428776624768329928noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30860520.post-46067643168208343242010-03-19T22:21:41.040-07:002010-03-19T22:21:41.040-07:00i truthfully adore your posting type, very excitin...i truthfully adore your posting type, very exciting,<br />don't quit and also keep writing as it just good worth to look through it,<br />excited to looked over a whole lot more of your own stories, have a pleasant day :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30860520.post-1152933353177121342006-07-14T20:15:00.000-07:002006-07-14T20:15:00.000-07:00Hi Don,Good to hear your voice. Do you remember h...Hi Don,<BR/><BR/>Good to hear your voice. Do you remember how quiet the writing project community was when Smokey and Steve first published that 'scandalous' fact about their own extended summer writing program for teachers? Do you suppose they still pursue this 'radical' idea? For most of us, of course, we're extremely thankful when a full complement of 20 k-college teachers actually have the courage to overcome their anxieties and self-doubts and apply! We were just talking about this reluctance to apply this afternoon with four of the members of our leadership team, including one who had waited at least a decade before she worked up the courage to apply. The big factor here was not wanting her writing to be judged by others and found wanting. That's never been one of my problems, arrogant s.o.b. in such matters that I always seem to have been. I've always figured it's because I've never understood my best and most forceful and strong writing to come from me in any simple sense. As we've discussed, in my best writing I've always felt like I was channeling the voice I hear from some source outside myself. Or perhaps deep within myself. I think that's why I so often say, when certain readers find this or that aspect of my writing off-putting, "Well, fuck em; they were not the readers this piece was written for!" <BR/><BR/>This response, I find, is not widely shared by other participants in the ISI's I've co-directed over the years. It's especially not shared by the women who've attended these summer institutes. Any thoughts on why this might be so? Or have you had any female participants in your ISI's who've had a response to the readers of their writing like the one I've described above as typical of my own response?<BR/><BR/>And by the way, how are you doing?jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12428776624768329928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30860520.post-1152931614771661352006-07-14T19:46:00.000-07:002006-07-14T19:46:00.000-07:00It's interesting how most of us assume that carefu...It's interesting how most of us assume that careful selection (rather than the structure and substance of the institute) shapes its remarkable success year after year. I have often felt that colleges and universities could pay less attention to students' entrance qualifications if they had more faith in the experience being offered. Over 27 years, there have been, maybe, two people who really didn't thrive in the summer institutes in which I participated.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30860520.post-1152677968412609092006-07-11T21:19:00.000-07:002006-07-11T21:19:00.000-07:00I am convinced that just a pinch of positive encou...I am convinced that just a pinch of positive encouragment produces a huge effect in writers (even writers who are already well developed or even published, and perhaps especially so)the caveat is that the encouragement must be sincere and detailed to be effective. <BR/> On the other hand, negative reinforcement tends to do relativly little.black holehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07366633817665791528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30860520.post-1152490450375868682006-07-09T17:14:00.000-07:002006-07-09T17:14:00.000-07:00It's kind of reassuring to know that what we exper...It's kind of reassuring to know that what we experience over these summers together actually has a name. Reassuring in the sense that it's possible to recreate back in our "regular" lives outside of the project. I'm thinking about what this means in my own interactions with my colleagues--what a huge difference it makes to take a genuine interest in what their trying out in their classrooms. Again, I look to you as my example. The Hawthorne effect also explains very well why teachers from the summer institutes invariably finish the summer feeling more appreciated, more confident, more LISTENED TO than they did when they first come in; it's a testament to your finely honed skills of listening with genuine interest.miz phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05305748788003796648noreply@blogger.com